Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Includes aria(s) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Ensemble: Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Sebastian Weigle. Soloists: Miah Persson, Yevgeny Sudbin.

Revelatory. The music of Samuil Evgenievitch Feinberg is hypnotic in the extreme, most obviously close to Scriabin in mystical mode. All credit to BIS (who already are doing sterling work for the composer Nikos Skalkottas) for releasing this magnificent disc, with superbly detailed annotations by Christophe Sirodeau, one of the two pianists featured on the disc, and a composer himself. Both Sirodeau and Samaltanos contributed to the Skalkottas/Feinberg concerts held in Paris in 1999.

Intriguing, also, to have two such fine pianists’ reactions to the same composer’s music. Rather than dwell on any immediate differences, it seems truer to the spirit of the disc to point out both artists’ obvious dedication to and love of this music, two facets that result in this disc being the special release it is. It is certainly on my short-list as one of my ‘Discs of the Year’.

The shifting colours of the First Sonata are a fair indication of this composer’s sound-world. Shifting colours here both in the sense of Samaltanos’s keyboard touch, which is magnificent in its scope, but also in the harmonic language the composer uses. There is a lingering intensity about this statement, as the harmonies move from Scriabinesque to Bergian. The violent end of this short (6’50) Sonata comes as a surprise.

Although contemporaneous with the first Sonata, the Second (both date from the year of Scriabin’s death) exhibits a wide frame of reference. The booklet notes point us towards Medtner and early Szymanowski. Similarly in one movement, it comes across as a single flow of consciousness. The pianist here, Christophe Sirodeau, realises the fairly unrelenting intensity while demonstrating an approach generally softer than that of Samaltanos - more identifiably Gallic, perhaps?

The Third Sonata, although it was composed in 1916, had to wait until 1974 for publication! The Marcia funebre and the fugato were reused in his Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 20. Much larger in size (three times as long as the First Sonata), it speaks of extremities of utterance that, technically, pose no problem to Sirodeau. Quasi-consonant harmonic arrival points act as markers or as the notes would have it, ‘life-buoys’. The prelude is dark, and harmonically advanced in the manner of late Liszt, while the similarly dark chordings of the Marcia Funebre make this experience hard work for both pianist and listener. The third movement, curiously and confusingly, is also called ‘Sonata’. The reference point that kept on cropping up was Steven Osborne’s excellent Hyperion disc of Kapustin (CDA67159).

Feinberg dedicated his Fourth Sonata to Miaskovsky. The impulsive, thrusting nature of the music is again reminiscent of Scriabin, almost, at his most elusive. Samaltanos returns, using a gentle touch now. In his booklet notes, Sirodeau refers to Bulgakov’s magnificent novel The Master and Margarita, with its unlikely parade of horror/comic ‘happenings’, as a point of reference. It is easy to see what he is getting at although Feinberg comes without the laughs. Feinberg’s harmonic logic ensures a stream of free-flow washes from first to last. For some reason, on each playing of the disc it was at this point that I mentally remarked on the excellence of the recording. Perhaps this one is just that bit superior to the rest? The recording date for Sonatas 1-5 is merely given as ‘Spring 2002’.

Samaltanos is the featured pianist in the Fifth Sonata of around 1920-21. At first it reminded me of Scriabin’s Fourth Piano Sonata, where harmonic drug-hazed meanderings meet elusive prestissimi. However Feinberg inhabits a world of his own - the figure of Ravel simultaneously hovers over the opening. The Allegro main section is relatively violent, featuring determined arpeggios. It is magnificent, because of the surety of Feinberg’s compositional hand; always, you are aware that the guiding voice is that of a Master.

The Sixth Sonata is probably the finest work in the present set. It takes in a world of references - the bell-like tolling of the opening seems to recall Debussy’s ‘Cathédrale engloutie’ (Préludes I); but Janáček and Schoenberg both vie for attention, all sitting alongside a perceptive use of the B-A-C-H motif. Some of the reiterated block chords (around 6’) even sound like gestures from early Stockhausen electronic music! The performance (Sirodeau) is miraculous. It is here that virtuosity reaches its peak.

The structure of the Sixth Sonata is determined by its ideas - there is no recap as such, just a sense of continual evolution. As Sirodeau writes, ‘the composer seems to find himself on the tip of an apocalyptic sword ... and the listener remains imprisoned by the spirit of confusion and even of irreparable tragedy that dominates this work.’

Often dark and violent, but also containing passages of Messiaen-like luminosity, this is a tour de force, a piece that simply refuses to let the listener go. The very close is typical in its thought-provoking way, leaving the listener hanging in the air. Ee are left waiting for the next Sonata - Volume 2 of this series is a June 2004 release, BIS CD-1414.

Incidentally, Sirodeau’s biography of Feinberg (actually the first two pages of his booklet notes) are available for viewing on the Web at www.skfe.com/biog_en_feinberg_sirodeau.html .

The present issue is not really one to listen to straight through, not if you’re really listening - it would simply be too tiring. Enjoy the Sonatas one at a time, and enjoy the voyage of discovery.

-- Colin Clarke, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

BACH Cantatas Nos. 1001; 142; No. 1973; No. 197a4 • Masaaki Suzuki, cond; Bach Collegium Japan; 1-3Hana Blažiková (sop); 1,3,4Damien Guillon (ct); 1,2Gerd Türk (ten); 1-4Peter Kooij (bs) • BIS 2021 (SACD: 75:40 Text and Translation)

As his momentous series nears its conclusion, Masaaki Suzuki turns his attention to three late cantatas, all presumably composed in the mid-1730s, all richly scored. Cantata No. 100’s two horns (and timpani), flute, and oboe d’amore suggest a festive occasion, but actually which one is not known. Cantata No. 197, with three trumpets, two oboes, and an obbligato bassoon, was composed for a wedding, although, again, the principals are unknown. Given the lavish score—10 numbers divided into two parts—it’s fairly safely assumed that they were persons of rank. Little did they suspect that by simply affixing their names to the score they could have achieved immortality—of a sort! Cantata No. 14 was composed for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany in 1735. Its scoring includes one trumpet, a horn, and two oboes. Bach wrote No. 14 to fill a gap in his chorale cantata cycle of 1724–25; there was no fourth Sunday after Epiphany in 1725. It opens with a contrapuntally complex motet-style chorus, a harbinger, perhaps of The Art of Fugue, which must have been percolating in Bach’s mind at the time. BWV 100 has the distinction of being one of four Leipzig cantatas (along with 97, 117, and 192) in which all movements are based on the chorale melody. It’s also one of the few cantatas without recitatives. Ever the tinkerer, Bach drew upon an existing Christmas cantata for some of BWV 197. Only three movements and a part of a fourth of the earlier cantata have survived. In crafting a viable, performable fragment, the musicologist Diethard Hellmann has returned the favor, in a way, basing his reconstruction of its incomplete alto aria on Bach’s second thoughts.

The reconstructed aria, accompanied by a pair of flutes, is tenderly realized by Damien Guillon. Hana Blažíková is brilliant in her aria with trumpet in Cantata No. 14. Gerd Türk and Peter Kooij are their usual dependable selves. The chorus and orchestra—all Japanese except for the solo quartet and the two hornists/trumpeters—are predictably excellent as well. Masaaki’s direction is masterful, as always. It’s another triumph for Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan.

FANFARE: George Chien

SCHULHOFF Suite dansante en Jazz. Piano Sonata No. 1. 5 Etudes de Jazz. Second Suite for Piano. 11 Inventions. Hot Music: 10 Syncopated Etudes • Kathryn Stott (pn) • BIS 1249 (79:40)

In the record companies’ zeal to unearth music by Jewish composers who were hounded by the Nazis, Erwin (or Ervin) Schulhoff was one of those revived, and in many ways he was one of the most interesting musically. A fervent admirer of the “hot dance music” of the late 1910s and 1920s, Schulhoff would, by his own admission, dance his pants off in nightclubs, intoxicated by the rhythms, until he entered a trance-like state of being. That he was able to transmit these feelings to his compositions and produce something of lasting value is even more astonishing when you consider that, to Schulhoff, hot ragtime and novelty tunes were what he perceived as jazz.

Thus, in this remarkable collection, nearly every set of numbers has a tango, a slow tune (titled either “Chanson” or “Slow”), and either a toccata or a gigue (or both). You can perceive the kind of influences that informed Schulhoff’s music from the dedications of his Five Etudes de Jazz (1926): the “Charleston” is dedicated to novelty pianist Zez Confrey, the “Blues” to Paul Whiteman (a bandleader who never played a real blues in his life), the “Chanson” to Robert Stolz (the operetta composer), the “Tango” for Eduard Künnecke (another operetta composer), and the “Toccata sur le shimmy ‘Kitten on the Keys’ de Zez Confrey” to Alfred Baresel (founder of the German jazz movement in the 1920s, and the first German to write seriously about the music), but look at the piece Schulhoff chose to transform. For anyone who has heard it, Zez Confrey’s Kitten on the Keys is a lively and imaginative piece, but a ragtime piano work, not jazz. But if you know the Confrey original, you’ll be absolutely stunned by the set of variations that Schulhoff created out of it, and therein lay his genius. His sense of jazz may have been a bit naïve, but his compositional style was anything but. On the contrary, his rigorous musical mind made something fascinating, worthy, and noble of the sometimes quite common materials he filtered through his mind.

And pianist Stott is with Schulhoff every step of the way. Obviously a labor of love for her, she tears into this music with an enthusiasm and verve that is simply astounding, finding exactly the right nuances and moods for each set of pieces. Whether or not you like jazz- or ragtime-influenced classical music, you’ll find Stott’s playing here remarkable in every sense. I would have preferred a little less reverb around the piano, but other than that, this disc is perfect.

Thus, if you’ve ever wondered if Nikolai Kapustin had a forebear, wonder no longer. Pick this disc up and marvel at the musical imagination of Erwin Schulhoff.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Classical Music

A weighty symphony, swaying Viennese waltzes and fiery Hungarian dances make up the colourful programme when Thomas Dausgaard and his Swedish Chamber Orchestra engage with Johannes Brahms in Opening Doors, the team's acclaimed series of Romantic orchestral composers. Johannes Brahms was only twenty years old when Robert Schumann hailed him as one whose genius gave rise to the greatest symphonic hopes. It is therefore striking that he didn't complete his First Symphony until more than twenty years later, in 1876 - even though the earliest sketches for it date back to 1855. Brahms - who once said that he constantly heard the 'giant' Beethoven 'marching behind him' - had such a deep respect for what his great predecessor had achieved with the genre that he for a long time doubted that he would ever be able to write a symphony of his own - by the time he did, it must have been gratifying to him that it was hailed as 'Beethoven's Tenth'. While working on the symphony, Brahms composed his Op.52, the cycle Liebeslieder-Walzer 'for piano four-hands (and song ad libitum)'. He kept the forces as flexible as possible: the waltzes were performable with or without voices; if used, the vocal parts could be sung either by soloists or by a choir. Even so, he was soon asked for another version, for choir and orchestra. Brahms initially rejected this idea, but finally agreed to make a partial orchestration: selecting eight of the Op.52 waltzes, he supplemented them with an early version of one of the not yet published Neue Liebeslieder-Walzer, Op.65. Around the same time, he was asked to orchestrate another collection of dances composed for piano four-hands: his first set of Hungarian Dances, which had quickly become a great hit. It took him four years to comply with this wish, and even then he only accepted to orchestrate three of the dances, leaving the field open for various other arrangers (including Dvorák) to satisfy the demand for more.

Johann Sebastian Bach: A Choral Year with Bach - Cantata Excerpts Bach Collegium JapanMasaaki Suzuki, Conductor A Choral Year with Bach - Cantata ExcerptsExcerpts from Nun komm der Heiden Heiland; Unser Mund sei voll Lachens; Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied; Sie werden aus Saba allekommen; Alles nur nach Gottes Willen; Mit Fried und Freud; Kommt, ihr Tochter; Christ lag in Todesbanden; Erschallet, ihr Lieder;Die Elenden sollen essen; Erforsche mich, Gott; Herr, deine Augen sehen; Jesu der du meine Seele; Liebster Gott, wann werde ich sterben; Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott; etc.

Armas Järnefelt (1869-1958) was a member of a family which made a profound mark on Finnish culture. One of his brothers was a painter, and another an author - and their sister Aino married Sibelius. For Armas, whose chosen field was music, the close proximity of Sibelius must have been quite overpowering - in old age he himself spoke of the stifling influence of Sibelius's unique genius. Maybe this is one reason why Järnefelt's most ambitious compositions were written in relatively close succession in the 1890s, just around the time when Sibelius had his first great break-through, and also why he soon changed direction and became a conductor first and foremost. Completed in the spring of 1893, Järnefelt's Serenade was composed in Paris, and the French influence - especially that of his teacher Massenet - can be clearly heard. Its six movements encompass a wide variety of moods, with many instrumental solos adding touches of colour, for instance in the emotionally charged Adagio for violin and strings. Two year's later, in the Symphonic Fantasy, composed after a momentous visit to Bayreuth, the influences are rather Wagnerian, and especially obvious in the central slow section with its clear reminiscences of Parsifal. The programme closes with Berceuse for violin and orchestra, which in 1904 marked the end of Järnefelt's most active period as a composer for orchestra. The piece is a beautifully atmospheric miniature which has found a place in concerts of lighter music all over the world. Conducting his compatriot's music - as well as performing the violin solos - is Jaakko Kuusisto, well-known to a wider audience for his recordings as a violinist of music by Sibelius, Rautavaara and Kalevi Aho. He stands in front of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, whose performances of the music of Sibelius have earned them world-wide recognition.

M. WEINBERG Cello Sonatas: No. 1 in C; No. 2 in g. Solo Cello Sonata No. 1 in C • Alexander Chaushian (vc); Yevgeny Sudbin (pn) • BIS 1648 (55:45)


After a decade’s hiatus—the British label Olympia embarked on a project back in the 1990s to record anew and/or remaster from earlier Melodiya LPs much of the composer’s output—there seems to be a resurgence of interest in the music of Polish-born Mieczys?aw Weinberg, (aka Moisey Samuilovich Vaynberg) 1919–1996. That this interest now extends to a mainstream label such as BIS is encouraging, for Weinberg is considered by many to be the most important Soviet era composer to follow in the musical footsteps of Shostakovich. Though Weinberg never formally studied with him, the elder Shostakovich befriended the young man, encouraged him to move to Moscow in 1943 after the Jewish Weinberg had lost almost his entire family in the Holocaust, and interceded on his behalf when Weinberg was arrested and detained as part of Stalin’s anti-Semitic dragnets.


Despite the friendship that bonded the two men, Weinberg’s music nods respectfully at Shostakovich’s, but does not unconditionally embrace it. His catalog of works is extensive—22 symphonies, 17 string quartets, large quantities of chamber works for various combinations of instruments, solo piano pieces, and seven operas. With due gratitude to Olympia for its efforts on Weinberg’s behalf, the label’s titles seem to have disappeared from the current listings; thus, this major composer’s works are ripe for new recordings. Chandos, for one, appears to have heeded the call with new recordings of the symphonies.


Even though the connections are at times tenuous, I can say that if you appreciate Shostakovich you will respond positively to Weinberg. Not all assessments of Weinberg’s music though, have been positive. Cellist Alexander Ivashkin, for whom Schnittke wrote a number of works, has been most critical, arguing that composers such as Weinberg damaged not only their own reputations, but also that of Shostakovich himself, stating that “these works only served to kill off Shostakovich’s music, to cover it over with a scab of numerous and bad copies.”


I disagree. Clearly, the life experiences of both composers led them to dark and devastating places in their music, and often to programmatic content of mindless violence and the terrible human suffering it produced. But where Shostakovich mocks and satirizes the ugliness and deformities by painting them with a twisted, defaced mask of cheap, tawdry face-rouge, Weinberg seems to have less of a taste for the sarcastic and the sardonic. Lyudmilla Nikitina in Grove finds influences in Weinberg’s music of Bartók, Myaskovsky, Prokofiev, and even Mahler, and emphasizes the “neo-classical, rationalist clarity and proportion of his works.” Then too, ethnic influences of Jewish, Polish, Armenian, Moldavian, and klezmer music are also part of the picture.


The recording of Cello Sonata No. 1 appears to be, at this time, the only one available of this work. Happily, it’s a superb one. [The other two can be found separately on Hanssler and Albany.] Cellist Alexander Chaushian distinguishes himself in all three, but really shines in the technically daunting solo sonata, a work that manages to satisfy and reward as both a virtuosic display piece and a profoundly moving piece of music. Pianist Yevgeny Sudbin has been making a splash of late with his recent recordings of Scriabin, Medtner, and Tchaikovsky. It’s easy to hear why from his playing here. He has fingers of steel guided by the caressing touch of an angel.


An outstanding release and a must-add to your collection. Incidentally, due to the number of disparate transliterations and spellings of Weinberg’s name, you will find him listed at arkivmusic.com as Moisey Samuil Vaynberg. It would be helpful if record producers and annotators came up with a consensus spelling.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

The four cantatas of Volume 20, for Pentecost and Exaudi (the Sunday between Ascension and Pentecost) in 1724, presented here in reverse order, mark the end of Bach’s first year in Leipzig. Pentecost, like Christmas and Easter, was a three-day celebration with services sung at various locations. To meet the challenge, Bach adapted music from Cöthen for Monday (BWV 173) and Tuesday (BWV 184). The Sunday cantata (BWV 59) was apparently written for Leipzig, but in 1723, before Bach was officially installed as cantor. The surviving score has only four movements––a duet for soprano and bass, a soprano recitative, a four-part chorale setting, and a bass aria, leading to speculation that it may not be complete. For his performance, Suzuki has attached a chorale, with music from Cantata 6 and an unused verse of the text. Both the Monday and Tuesday cantatas call for pairs of flutes; both uncharacteristically end, but do not start, with brief choruses. The one newly composed cantata (BWV 44) also dispenses with the first-movement chorus. Instead, there is a duet for tenor and bass that opens with an extended instrumental trio for two oboes and continuo. The chorus appears in the second movement and sings the concluding chorale.

Some general notes: after Maestro Suzuki himself, the closest thing to a constant in the series remains Peter Kooij’s steady bass. The leading soprano is now Yukari Nonoshita, whose clear, near white tone is entirely appropriate for Bach’s music. Tenors come and go; note that four different tenors, all satisfactory, appear on these four discs. Suzuki continues to alternate between male or female altos depending on the specific task at hand. The soloists participate in the chorus but do not sing alone. Western names have become quite rare in the list of performers, with Japanese musicians handling most parts, vocal and instrumental, with their by-now-accustomed excellence. The notes remain exemplary, but Klaus Hofmann now shares that task with Suzuki, whose function is generally to explain his decisions regarding problems with the performing editions. As always, BIS’s recordings are first-rate... Of course, I’m going to urge interested listeners to acquire [this disc]. Bach and Suzuki are still one of the best tandems going.

-- George Chien, FANFARE

VALEN Symphony No. 1. Violin Concerto. Sonetto di Michelangelo. Cantico di ringraziamento. Pastorale • Christian Eggen, cond; Elise Båtnes (vn); Stavanger SO • BIS 1522 (58:06)


One of the great pleasures of collecting recordings is the occasional discovery of an exciting, previously unknown, work. Well, here are five of them, by a composer that has been neglected for far too long. Norwegian composer Fartein Valen (1887–1952) may be, as one biography has it, “one of the few Norwegian composers with an international reputation,” but that doesn’t seem to be saying much. He was a modernist in a country much taken with its nationalist musical tradition and not particularly receptive to Valen’s innovations. His own apparent indifference to recognition and his withdrawal to the isolation of a rural farm for much of his creative life only added to his obscurity. One can hope this release, the first in a promised series of recordings of orchestral works from BIS will help to rectify this situation.


Valen studied with Max Bruch in Berlin and stayed to absorb the many other influences of that important musical capital in the second decade of the 20th century. He fell under the spell of Bach, Bruckner, and Brahms, but was also captivated by the progressives of that era, especially Arnold Schoenberg. When Schoenberg introduced his first works using serial techniques in the early 1920s, Valen was already home in Norway, developing his own type of serialism. It became the basis for all of his compositions written from 1925 on. Unlike Schoenberg, who developed a whole new theoretical system of music using tone rows of all 12 chromatic pitches, Valen worked intuitively and far less strictly. His point of departure was Bach’s rich polyphony, from which he developed comparably rich tone row-like chromatic melodies. Valen applied this technique of “dissonant counterpoint,” as he called it, in a variety of classic forms during the remainder of his career. The result is not the sometimes hard-edged dissonances of Schoenberg’s thornier scores. Rather, while there are no keys in Valen’s music, there is always a sense of vague tonality. The lines are incredibly long, but one never gets lost. There is a feeling of wandering, which is undoubtedly the desired effect. This is music of ambiguity and melancholy—a beautiful uncertainty which Valen packages in clear, familiar structures. It sounds vaguely like Berg, another important influence, but the overall effect is different.


Valen’s Symphony No. 1, op. 30 (1939), is, of course, classical in form. After a beginning of dark foreboding, the opening Allegro movement is tense and energetic, with moments of exaltation. El Greco’s painting Christ on the Mount of Olives is the inspiration for the second, Adagio, movement. The building of the line is ecstatic and the anguish palpable. The third movement provides contrast in the form of a playful scherzo and clouded trio before we are plunged back into the tensions of the rondo-form finale. It is an exhilarating journey.


The Violin Concerto, op. 37 (1940), is Valen’s most-played work and the one that finally brought him some recognition at its premiere in 1948. It was written as a memorial to his godson, Arne Valen, who had died of tuberculosis several years earlier. In it he expresses his profound sense of loss and his deep Christian faith, the latter especially in his use of the Bach chorale Jesu meine Zuversicht in the concluding section of the work. It bears a superficial similarity to the Berg Violin Concerto, of which Valen was aware, though he had not actually heard it. The work is intensely beautiful and deeply, often tenderly, moving.


The other works on the disc— Pastorale , op. 11 (1930), a meditation on his beloved rose garden, Sonetto di Michelangelo , op. 17/1 (1932), in which he contemplates the religious longing and pain in the great Italian artist’s poetry, and Cantico di ringraziamento , op. 17/2 (1932), in which Valen expresses Psalm-like thanksgiving in a beautifully constructed fugue—are equally rewarding experiences.


The Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, the excellent resident orchestra of Valen’s birthplace, has made a mission, on CD at least, of rescuing Norwegian composers from undeserved obscurity. Valen joins Geirr Tveitt and Harald Sæverud in their debt. Christian Eggen, who edited the often-faulty published scores to restore Valen’s intentions, is well known in Scandinavia for his performances of contemporary music. He conducts with admirable strength and sensitivity. Elise Båtnes, one of the foremost violinists of Norway, plays the difficult, soaring lines of the Concerto with silvery tone and great concentration. The recorded sound is very fine and the documentation excellent. This is not music of loud affirmation and major-key celebration. Look elsewhere for that. This is music of great emotional depth and asks a fair amount of the listener. It rewards in kind. Highly recommended with that caveat.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames