Classical Music

Musicians savour each other’s company in inspiring music: happy birthday!

When Trevor Pinnock first recorded the Brandenburgs with the English Concert for DG Archiv in 1982, period performances of these works were relatively rare; today they abound, and it has become harder to make a mark in music that does not readily admit a wide range of interpretations. Not that Pinnock need worry about that at this point in his career. This new recording, made with an ensemble hand-picked for the job, is a 60th-birthday present to himself, and is just what such a project should be: talented musicians relishing each other’s company in music of truly inspiring greatness.

Unsurprisingly, it reflects the increased playing standards of 25 years of period-instrument growth. Only Pinnock himself remains from that first line-up, and while the players then were a high-class team (Simon Standage, Lisa Beznosiuk and Michael Laird among them), the players of the European Brandenburg Ensemble include some of the finest of today’s Baroque chamber players, and there is a relaxed expertise about their performances which seems to allow them to communicate directly and without technical or ideological hindrance. A hint of over-exuberant thickness in the texture of Concerto No 1 is perhaps a reflection of this, but elsewhere it is good to hear playing from the likes of violinist Kati Debretzeni, flautist Katy Bircher and the excellent David Blackadder on trumpet that is bold and confident without straying into coarseness. The clarity achieved in Nos 4, 5 and 6 also has a more natural air than the “studio?y” balance of the Archiv set, no doubt helped by the decision to use a violone at pitch rather than the more usual octave below. The pensive violin improvisation which links the two movements of No 3 is surely a miscalculation, feeling like more of a hold-up than it need be; more lastingly refreshing to my ears were the subtle relaxations of tension in the first movement of No 6, these days so often given the hard-drive treatment.

This is not a Brandenburg set that sets out to score points, and all that is needed from us is to sit back and enjoy its relaxed, celebratory spirit.

-- Lindsay Kemp, Gramophone [3/2008]

MOZART Piano Sonatas: in c, K 457; in C, K 545; in B?, K 333. Rondos: in F, K 494; in D, K 485; in a, K 511 • Marcia Hadjimarkos (fp) • AVIE 2138 (76:29)


The best compass, it seems to me, for successful traversal of Mozart’s piano music is constant reference to and evocation of his operatic style. If some gesture cannot conceivably be accomplished by the voice, accompanied by a late 18th-century pit orchestra, chances are it is an anachronism and has no place within Mozart’s keyboard textures. Listening to Avie’s remarkable new release of three sonatas and three rondos by Mozart, played superbly by Marcia Hadjimarkos, the imagination repeatedly roams to the operatic stage where, of the generations after Monteverdi and prior to Verdi and Wagner, the Austrian master reigns supreme.


A native of Oregon, Hadjimarkos earned degrees at the University of Iowa before pursuing her studies at the Paris Conservatoire with Jos van Immerseel; she has specialized in performing on the fortepiano and clavichord since the 1980s. One of the more appealing aspects of Hadjimarkos’s interpretations is her exploitation of the richly varied registers of her instrument (in this case a replica of a 1793 Sebastian Lengerer fortepiano by Christopher Clarke). Mozart himself was keen to mine this expressive potential on the pianos of his day; this tendency constitutes a veritable hallmark of his style that unfortunately is all but lost on modern pianos. Hadjimarkos never neglects expressive nuance in melodic inflections and her varied strategies of attack and release result in a realm of beautifully realized legato and detached effects. The lavishly applied variants—to the repeat of the exposition of the C-Major Sonata and indeed to each thematic repetition in the D-Major Rondo, to cite but two examples—seem both appropriate and inevitable. Nor does Hadjimarkos shy from engaging the una corda mechanism of her fortepiano: witness its highly effective use for long stretches in the F-Major Rondo and in the Andante of the C-Major Sonata.


As a player, Hadjimarkos remains rooted “in the moment,” lending her performances a refreshing emotional immediacy. Inevitably, one comes across the curious interpretive choice. At the beginning of the development in the first movement of the C-Minor Sonata, for instance, Hadjimarkos lifts the dampers in the ascending triad, the central thematic material of the entire movement, which she plays (appropriately) secco elsewhere in the exposition and recapitulation.


The recording was made in Chenôves, France, in August 2004. The parish church there has a sweet, flattering acoustic for the Clarke fortepiano. The engineers have done a marvelous job and the sound is dimensional and clear. Brian Robins wrote the engaging booklet notes, to which Christopher Clarke contributed information on his fortepiano.


This is living, breathing Mozart interpretation of a very high order, simultaneously innocent of “received wisdom” or “tradition” (which, as Artur Schnabel was fond of saying, is nothing but a collection of bad habits) and constantly informed by obvious immersion in the music of earlier masters, including C. P. E. Bach and Haydn. Those who still prefer their Mozart on the modern concert grand will no doubt continue to enjoy the performances of Schnabel (Music & Arts Programs of America 1193) and what perhaps remains the all-around best complete recording of the sonatas, that of Lili Kraus (Sony 88808). But those with an ear for the manifold beauties of the instrument that Mozart knew and loved—the late 18th-century Viennese action piano—are not likely to find more imaginatively realized, full-blooded, or loving readings than these presented by Marcia Hadjimarkos. Very highly recommended.


FANFARE: Patrick Rucker

Classical Music

Classical Music

An outstanding collection, vividly characterised and full of energy, of fine - but not over-familiar - music.

It is, of course, a fallacy - though refinements of it are still encountered quite frequently - to propose that full justice can only be done to certain kinds of music, or to certain composers, when the music is performed by what one might call ‘native’ musicians – that Tchaikovsky is always best at the hands of Russian orchestras and conductors, that Elgar and Vaughan Williams require British forces. So much of a fallacy, indeed, that one might reasonably argue the opposite case: ‘foreign’ performers can bring to music new perspectives and insights gained from experiences and knowledge which are, to some extent, outside the composer’s own tradition, and thus avoid any danger of parochialism. Just as many of the best Shakespearean productions of recent years have been the work of companies and directors from outside Britain.

Yet it is true that ‘native’ forces can sometimes provide valuable, even revelatory, reminders of things that the international interpretation of a composer may have forgotten, or been in danger of forgetting. Certainly in recent years, Italian musicians – such as Rinaldo Alessandrini, Fabio Biondi and Giuliano Carmignola – and ensembles – such as Concerto Italiano, Europa Galante, Sonatori de la Gioisa Marca and the Venice Baroque Orchestra – have brought to the performance of Vivaldi’s music a rejuvenating fire and energy, a style of performance rich in eloquent inflections and nervous, scintillating rhythms, a manner full, in short, of Mediterranean vivacity, Vivaldi played with much of the energy and vivaciousness that characterise Italian conversation and street-life, but never at the cost of technical assurance and sophistication. Some non-Italian performances of the violin concertos can sound rather lack-lustre in the context of such as Biondi and Carmignola. But that is not the case, I am pleased, to report, in the work of Adrian Chandler and La Serenissima on this disc, the second volume of their three volume survey of the North Italian violin concerto (see review of volume one).

Chandler brings to his performances both imagination and scholarship; he has recently been the recipient of a three year fellowship from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to study the development of the violin concerto in Northern Italy in the years between 1690 and 1740. He and La Serenissima play with the kind of energy, verve and colour we have heard from the Italian ensembles mentioned earlier, and with a similar degree of apt inventiveness. In short, this British group matches up to the standards the Italian Vivaldians have set in recent years, in performances which are richly communicative and committed. The music is individualised without distortion, played very much from within, clearly the work of musicians utterly at home with Vivaldi but who never allow that familiarity to lapse into mere routine - the curse of much inferior playing of Vivaldi.

In RV 370 the ‘virtuoso’ element of the CD’s subtitle (Virtuoso Impresario) is certainly well in evidence; Adrian Chandler’s booklet note aptly points out that a copy of this concerto survives in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek in Dresden, in the hand of the violin virtuoso Johann Georg Pisendel. Chandler negotiates the concerto’s demands with considerable élan, and his own cadenza, unsurprisingly, is thoroughly Vivaldian in spirit. The energy levels are perhaps not sustained quite so absolutely in RV 561, though by all but the very highest standards this, too, is a fine performance. No reservations whatsoever about either RV 134 or RV 254; in each case the central slow movement is played with loving attention to both line and colour and the closing allegros are little masterpieces of subtle rhythmic interplay, the accents by turns predictable and unpredictable, the sense of vocal-operatic phrasing attractive without ever being exaggerated. RV 243 is a slight oddity, the violinist being instructed to play without the E string (senza cantin) and to tune up his bottom string a whole tone in the finale, so as to provide a pedal note in a long passage of bariolage writing. Again the slow movement is lovely, played with winning eloquence and sensitivity.

Much of Vivaldi’s writing for the solo violin in these concertos has affinities with his writing for the opera, and it is fitting that these performances of a selection from the concertos should be interleaved with operatic arias. There is much to choose from amongst Vivaldi’s operatic compositions: so much so that the three arias from La costanza trionfante degl’amori e de gl’odii here receive their first ever recordings; in these and the two arias from La fida ninfa the soprano soloist is the admirable Mhairi Lawson. She is heard to especial advantage in ‘Dolce fiamma’ from La fida ninfa, her voice full of melting tenderness, the strings of La Serenissima supporting her exquisitely, and in ‘Alma oppressa’ from the same opera, full of stunning coloratura, a demonstration piece which spectacularly demonstrates the abilities of both composer and performer(s).

-- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by various composers.

Classical Music

Philippe Graffin’s enterprise and ingenuity have been borne out in the world-premiere recording of the Violin Concerto by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (AV 0044), a disc of commissions and premieres by Lithuanian composer Vytautus Barkauskus (AV 2073), and the first recording of the original manuscript versions of Elgar’s Violin Concerto and Chausson’s Poème (AV 2091). He proves himself an equally eminent Mozartian on his latest Avie release, a two-disc set marking his second collaboration on Avie with the leading Japanese violist Nobuko Imai.

In the sprightly Sinfonia Concertante, two delightful Duos, the Third Concerto plus an Adagio and a Rondo, the multi-tasking Graffin takes on the roles of soloist, chamber musician, director, and composer of his own cadenzas. He is backed by the versatile Brabant Philharmonic Orchestra of Eindhoven, The Netherlands. The stylish packaging features another typical twist by the resourceful Graffin, who commissioned leading journalist and novelist Jessica Duchen to write a short story for the booklet, which also includes Avie’s trademark comprehensive documentation in three languages.

REVIEWS:

His playing combines Grumiaux’s elegance, Oistrakh’s warmth, Francescatti’s piquancy, and Stern’s élan. With nuances so plentiful and rhythms so zesty, even proponents of period performance shouldn’t cavil. The Third Concerto opens with an orchestral thematic statement that almost bounces off the disc; and it’s propelled by deeply dimensional recorded sound that allows the bass to resonate fully. Never in this movement, or in the others for that matter, does either soloist or orchestra indulge in self-conscious mannerism, even in Graffin’s reworking of Eugène Ysaÿe’s romantic cadenza, which Graffin makes fit into the work’s general aesthetic (Graffin himself wrote the cadenzas to the other movements and for both the Adagio and the Rondo). In fact, the finale clips along at a tempo that avoids any excessive seriousness; and Graffin’s ornaments add to the momentum. The Adagio benefits in the same way from Graffin’s refined approach, as does the Rondo, in which his passagework sparkles even more brightly than that in the Third Concerto’s finale.

Graffin and the orchestra imbue the opening passages of the Sinfonia concertante with pregnant excitement and expectation; and Graffin and Imai’s entrance doesn’t disappoint that expectation; the later tuttis renew the forward motion, if that were necessary after the brilliant solos. So this familiar courtesan has been transformed into a vigorous acrobat in the first and third movements, and into a poet in the second. Celebrity duos who have played Mozart’s duets for violin and viola sometimes include a part-time violist (Pinchas Zukerman and David Oistrakh, for example). But these later works benefit from Imai’s focused yet fully viola-like approach to her instrument, especially perhaps in the darker opening of the second in the set. Graffin doesn’t shy away from portamentos—which Imai doesn’t always duplicate when she answers his statements—but any stylistic differences hardly compromise the partnership that renders these performances so appealing.

[With] lifelike, reverberant recorded sound to complement the robust orchestral playing and the intimate dialogues of the duos, Avie has served up one of the tangier offerings—if not the tangiest of all—of the last several years. Urgently recommended, especially to those to whom Mozart may have grown too familiar (if that’s conceivable) during this period.

-- Fanfare

Classical Music

Classical Music

Includes work(s) for piano by Luciano Berio. Soloist: Andrea Lucchesini.

HANDEL (tr. Gibley) Sonatas: in G, HWV 365; in a, HWV 367a; in C, HWV 369; in d, HWV 362; in F, HWV 377; in d , HWV 360 • The Brook Street Band • AVIE 2118 (55:58)


Handel wrote cello sonatas? Surprisingly, he seems to have written none. Nevertheless, composers and musicians of the Baroque era freely transcribed music as the desire or need arose, and so it is not an outrageous idea to make cello sonatas out of six of Handel’s sonatas for recorder and basso continuo. In the present case, this has been done by harpsichordist Carolyn Gibley, who is half of The Brook Street Band. (The other half is cellist Tatty Theo.) Gibley has transposed the sonatas into keys more suited for the cello. Sensibly, she has chosen to accompany the cello with harpsichord alone (Handel also suggested bass violin), presumably because the cello and the bass violin would make a poor match—and also because there are only two musicians in The Brook Street Band, I imagine!


Although I love the sound of the recorder, I was not displeased to hear these sonatas played on the cello. This is some of Handel’s most intimate and salubrious music, and while there is a good variety of tempos, moods, and textures, the music works consistently to unknot whatever tangles the workday has introduced into the soul. This is true whether it is played on the recorder or on the cello. Obviously the two instruments affect listeners in different and personal ways, but there’s nothing about Gibley’s transcriptions that falsifies Handel’s originals, at least as far as my ears are concerned.


Theo plays a Baroque cello dating from circa 1741 (probably 10–20 years after Handel composed these sonatas), and Gibley plays a 1990 Alan Gotto harpsichord based on an instrument built by Mietke circa 1710. The instruments blend together nicely. Theo’s cello has a lean, attractive sound, with more muscle and sinew than modern instruments. Even when Theo’s playing is at its most energetic, her cello sings. As the sole continuo player, Gibley is very much an equal partner, and she fills out Handel’s harmonies with imagination and period-style grace. Together, Theo and Gibley make a joyous noise, even if the joy is of the more mellow variety.


The engineering is wonderful, and Theo’s booklet note helpfully clarifies some of the confusion related to the provenance of the original sonatas. I can’t imagine anyone disliking this CD, unless they are opposed, in principle, to its underlying concept.


FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

Classical Music

Includes sonata(s) for violin and piano by Ottorino Respighi. Soloists: Frank Almond, William Wolfram.