The Russian/American pianist Vassily Primakov has begun a series of recordings for Bridge that have been highly received by the international press. Writing of his recent Beethoven CD (BRIDGE 9251), the International Record Review stated that "Primakov's Beethoven offers thoughtful performances from a young musician who is more than a virtuoso." Primakov's concerts have frequently occasioned rave reviews, the New York Times writing of Primakov's "bold, expressive phrasing and dramatic commitment that brought the audience to its feet." Bridge's latest Primakov CD includes music that is close to the heart of the 29-year old pianist--two of Tchaikovsky's major statements for piano, The Seasons, Op. 37-bis, and the Grand Sonata in G Major, Op. 37. The Seasons, which could be called "The Months" is a series of 12 short character pieces, written for a monthly Russian journal, and published during 1876. The Grand Sonata, a work of symphonic scope, was composed in the Spring of 1878, and is widely regarded as Tchaikovsky's most important utterance for piano. Vassily Primakov's recordings for Bridge include a recently released disc of the Chopin Piano Concertos (BRIDGE 9278).

The Stuyvesant Quartet was founded in 1938 by violinist Sylvan Shulman and cellist Alan Shulman, and made its first recording for Victor that year. In 1939, the Quartet began recording for Columbia Records. This CD includes studio recordings of works by Malipiero (recorded in 1950), and Debussy and Ravel (recorded between 1951-53), released for the first time on compact disc. Also featured on this CD is a live broadcast performance of the Stuyvesantís performance of Alan Shulmanís Rendezvous featuring clarinet great Benny Goodman. In 1946, Benny Goodman asked the Quartet to join him playing a movement of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet on his weekly radio program. Alan Shulman suggested instead that Goodman commission him to write a short original work for clarinet and string quartet. Goodman agreed, and Shulman composed Rendezvous with Benny, which was premiered over WEAF in August 1946. The Stuyvesant made their final recordings in 1953 for the groupís own label ñ Philharmonia Records. This CD restores to the catalog key recordings by one of mid-20th century Americaís finest chamber ensembles.

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Jeremy McCoyís new album, Dialogues with Double Bass presents a wide-ranging look at the double bass repertoire. The album highlights two particular themes. The primary notion is highlighting the bass as an equal voice in instrumental duos that are diverse and interesting conversations. A second theme is found in the vocal quality of much of the music. Like Bottesini, one of historyís most famous bass players, who earned his living playing in an opera orchestra, Jeremy McCoy is a seasoned member of New York Cityís Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (the orchestraís assistant principal bassist). The influence of great singing can be heard in McCoyís playing, in the way he shapes a phrase and in the varied tonal colors of his sound. McCoyís wide experience as a soloist, chamber player and orchestral musician, and the expressive range of his instrument, finds him right at home in this engaging collection of eloquent dialogues with the double bass.

Soprano Georgine Resick's Visions Intérieures, is a survey of the development of the song cycle. Ms. Resick sings in German, Polish, French, Swedish, and Italian, in this two-CD tour-de-force which presents a superb selection of works and composers rarely heard today. The great flowering of the song cycle occurred in early nineteenth century Germany, with its greatest representations being the well-known cycles by Schubert and Schumann. These cycles inspired numerous imitations, many of which, while not attaining the depth and breadth of their models, are charming and integrated works. On Disc One, entitled The Early German Song Cycle, Ms. Resick is accompanied by Andrew Willis, performing cycles of Weber and Kreutzer on a copy of a Louis Dulcken fortepiano (Munich 1815-20). The duo then performs cycles of Cornelius, Thalberg, and Jensen on an original 1841 Bösendorfer. On Disc Two, entitled The Wanderer: The Song Cycle in Migration, Ms. Resick is joined by Warren Jones, performing late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century cycles on a Steinway D. In an interesting cultural crossover, The Wanderer presents songs by a Russian composer of French-Lithuanian descent setting Polish poems; a German-influenced Polish composer setting German poetry; a French influenced Italian, and French composers setting translations of texts from Persia and Denmark.Georgine Resick is an internationally recognized soprano in both the operatic and concert fields. Renowned for her Mozart and Strauss interpretations, she has sung a wide variety of leading roles with the Vienna State Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Paris Opera, Houston Grand Opera, and numerous others.

Includes work(s) by Mario Davidovsky. Ensemble: Speculum Musicae.

Complete Crumb Edition, Volume 8 George Crumb: Makrokosmos, Volumes I and II, for Amplified Piano (1972-73); Robert Shannon, piano; Otherworldly Resonances (2002), for Two Amplified Pianos (premiere recording), Quattro Mani

The latest volume in BRIDGE'S award-winning survey of George Crumb complete works presents a new recording of a major Crumb cycle and the premiere of a new composition for two pianos. Makrokosmos I and II have come to be regarded as landmark compositions in the piano repertoire, requiring the pianist to display a virtuoso's control of both the keyboard and the inside of the piano. In addition, the performer is asked to whistle, speak, and sing, while simultaneously playing some of the most dramatic and fantasy-filled piano music of the late twentieth century. Robert Shannon, a leading exponent of Crumb's music, gives the 67 minute cycle of 24 "zodiac" pieces a spectacular reading. The duo piano team, Quattro Mani, has also had a long association with Crumb's music, and can be heard playing Crumb's music on BRIDGE 9105, a disc that received ‘Best of Year' honors from Fanfare, and highest ratings from France's Repertoire, and the USA's ClassicsToday.com. In 2002, Crumb composed "Otherworldy Resonances", a 10 minute quasi-passacaglia for Quattro Mani. Based on a hypnotic four-note motif, this 10 minute composition marks Crumb's return to writing piano music after a hiatus of nearly 15 years. Both of these recordings, as with the rest of this series, were supervised by the composer.

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Fanfare magazine
Bridge’s essential Crumb series takes on one of the monuments in the composer’s canon with this release. The Makrokosmos I and II (1972–73) are two sets of 12 piano pieces each (based on the Zodiac), and are perhaps the definitive catalog of Crumb’s re-imagining of the instrument. All the trademark innovations of “extended techniques” are here, from rattling paper threaded through the strings, to interior pizzicatos, to glissando harmonics, to—well, the list just goes on and on. Every movement has surprises; each is a unique, mysterious landscape. There are also highly theatrical gestures, which involve the performer vocalizing with chants, whistles, shouts, whispers, and musically mimetic sounds. I’ll admit that while I believe Crumb is one of the most important American composers of the second half of the 20th century and the creator of some of the most beautiful and imaginative music of our time, these pieces remain somewhat problematic for me. At times, the desire to expand the expressive palette goes so far over the top as to verge on kitsch. This goes especially for the vocalizing, which can sound a little like the soundtrack of those live-action haunted houses that spring up on Halloween. Also, the music is so episodic that it can be hard to feel a formal motivation that is more than the astrological program.

That off my chest, I’ll say that for most of the time I can still sit back and enjoy Crumb’s fertile inventiveness, his desire to stretch boundaries and communicate directly, and the sheer sonic expansiveness of the whole set. One does have a sense of constant surprise and delight that an entire orchestra of colors is extracted from this single instrument. There’s also a genuine tenderness amidst the Grand Guignol moments, a nostalgia for the passage of past beauties (such as when a wisp of Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu suddenly emerges and submerges from the depths) that is strangely allied to that of another composer, Valentin Silvestrov. One more point to mention is that the second set seems much more focused and organic than the first. It seems to move faster, even though it is only four minutes shorter in this rendition.

Otherworldly Resonances (2002) is yet another of the wonderful pieces emerging from Crumb’s recent prolificity. His style hasn’t changed much at all—the techniques, the gestures, the melodic and harmonic formulas all remain similar to what they were two to three decades ago—but somehow the music has found a new calm and balance, and has become a little more abstract without losing any luster or poetry. Crumb, one of the most genuinely modest of great artists, would probably be the first to admit he’s not found something new after his great discoveries of the 1960s and 1970s. But that really doesn’t matter, because these new works are strong, individual, and memorable. In them, the composer seems able to accept who he is, and to share his gifts generously. This two-piano work is a compact epilogue to the grand cycles of Makrokosmos III (“Music for a Summer Evening”) and “Celestial Mechanics” (Makrokosmos IV), but extremely effective for its deliberately narrowed focus. A simple four-note ostinato is passed between the keyboards and surrounded with a constantly mutating garland of events—flashes of lightning, lullabies, delicate ornaments. The result is genuinely hypnotic. It should be simplistic, but instead it touches on something more profound.

All the performances are outstanding, but I must give special notice to Robert Shannon, who plays the Makrokosmos with a level of passion and authority that’s breathtaking. His precision and confidence in the inside-the-keyboard techniques makes this fiendishly difficult material sound quite natural, and will help future players codify the music’s performance practice and redefine virtuosity (and I say this with all respect and admiration for the pioneering premiere recordings of the works by their dedicatees, David Burge and Robert Miller; Shannon simply represents the next step of a new generation). His dazzling passagework in the fast sections reminds us how exciting fast Crumb can be, and that the composer is not all laid-back, glacial vistas.

In the end, an important release of enduring music. Where it bumps up against my aesthetic is probably more my issue than the music’s—it is a landmark of the literature, and I suspect it will be around for quite a while after I’m gone.

Robert Carl, FANFARE

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BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE: 'BBC Music Choice' (September 2008) for Garrick Ohlsson: Beethoven Sonatas, Vol. 5 (BRIDGE 9250). This disc includes three of Beethoven's most popular sonatas- 'Pathetique, Op. 13; 'Moonlight', Op. 27, No. 2; and 'Waldstein', Op. 53

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Put on this 1954 all-Paganini recital from the Library of Congress and you'll be awestruck at the sheer musicality, proportion, and taste behind Zino Francescatti's staggering technical command of his violin. His intense vibrato never veers off the correct intonational mark, and even the fleetest scales, runs, and roulades are purposefully articulated, never sketchy. Then there's his amazing palette of bow strokes and slides, effortless double-stops, skips, and arpeggios. In the D major concerto's third movement, for example, as you listen to the double-stop harmonics you sense that Francescatti knew exactly how they would sound before he played them. Although the violinist follows the now-antiquated practice of adding piano accompaniments to both the concerto and the selection of Caprices, Artur Balsam's full-bodied, bedrock support proves much more than mere accompanying. In short, Paganini's music seldom has been so lovingly and intelligently served, and the archival recording boasts ample bloom and presence for its time and place. An absolute must for violin fans.--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor: Karl Krueger.

The David Amram Quartet plays: Pull My Daisy; Lover Man; Take the “A” Train; Saint Thomas; Summertime;Gracias, Amigos; Tennessee Waltz; Red River Valley; Blue Monk

When Jack Kerouac and David Amram did the first-ever jazz/poetry reading in New York City in 1957, the excitement of that collaboration led to the documentary film Pull My Daisy. These live performances from the late 80s feature guitarist Vic Juris, bassist Victor Venegas, drummer Akiro Tana and saxophonist Paquitode Rivera. Led by composer/performer David Amram.

The only reservation that attaches to this excellent complete survey of Ernesto Halffter's piano music lies in a certain sameness that naturally colors a disc containing nearly 80 minutes of mostly short piano works. Halffter's musical influences are clear: Falla, Ravel, and in the two single-movement sonatas, Scarlatti. You can hear Falla's influence most clearly in the two delightful dances from the ballet Sonatina (the complete work has been recorded by ASV). Ravel (of Miroirs fame) makes an appearance in the haunting triptych entitled Crepúsculos, particularly the first ("The Castle's Old Clock"). Like Falla, Halffter also composed a set of Hommages, in this case paying gentle tribute to the memories of Turina, Mompou, and his own brother Rodolfo. Elsewhere, as in the spiky Marche joyeuse, or the poignant Lament for Ricardo Viñes, a more personal idiom emerges, demonstrating that the derivative quality of much of the music stems quite reasonably from its intentional references to the music and musicians that the composer loved most.


Adam Kent has made a careful study of these works, and he plays them with the confidence that comes with familiarity. He's especially good at creating a solid rhythmic foundation with his left hand while allowing the right the necessary freedom to gracefully phrase Halffter's winsome melodies. This quality pays handsome dividends not just in the numerous dance-inspired pieces such as Preludio y danza, Dos piezas cubanas, and L'espagnolade, but in the thicker-textured sonatas as well. Bridge gives Kent warm and clear recorded sound, perhaps a shade lacking in sparkle in the piano's upper octaves, though this seems to be more a quality of the instrument itself. Like so many Spanish composers, Halffter composed comparatively little, but always with a high standard of craftsmanship. You may not want to play this entire disc at a sitting, but wherever and whenever you dip into it, you're likely to find a gem, and happily Kent's performances are as consistently polished as the music itself.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Milton Babbitt remains a controversial figure on today's musical scene, with his ideas more frequently discussed than his music is actually listened to. This recording contains the premiere recordings of five Babbitt works that span a quarter of a century. The CD opens with a performance of Babbitt's exquisite Quatrains, sung by the brilliant young American soprano, Tony Arnold. Set to a text by a Babbitt favorite - John Hollander - Quatrains is a work of great delicacy and subtlety. Manifold Music shows Babbitt adapting his language to the organ in a most original manner. Exploiting the instrument's potential for colorful registration, Babbitt's demanding score is a spectacular workout for the hands and feet of organ virtuoso, Gregory D'Agostino. My Ends Are My Beginnings has, since its composition in 1978, been regarded by many as one of the most difficult to play works for a solo woodwind instrument. The work's dedicatee, Allen Blustine (long-time clarinetist for Speculum Musicae), gives a heroic reading of this 17 minute solo. Soli e Duettini is one of three works with this title. This work, for two guitars, is played by dedicatees William Anderson and Oren Fader. (This premiere recording was previously issued on Bridge 9042). The final work is Babbitt's just completed Swan Song No. 1. It is a remarkable composition for the unusual combination of flute, oboe, mandolin, guitar, violin and cello. CD annotator Matthias Kriesberg writes: "The experience of hearing Milton Babbitt, who for so long played off the boundaries of musical dimensions against one another, now rein in the extremes so dramatically as to focus the ear on the centered drama of calm voices interacting, is certainly extraordinary. But should we really be surprised? After all, there is a long, rich history of composers who, having definitively proven their ability to wrest music in an entirely new direction, turned their attention inward, ever inward, to contemplate that place, in the words of W.B. Yeats, "where all the ladders start."

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SPIRITUAL RESISTANCE—MUSIC FROM THERESIENSTADT • Wolfgang Holzmair (bar); 1 Russell Ryan (pn) • BRIDGE 9280 (75:08)


ULLMANN Der Mensch und sein Tag. Der müde Soldat. 3 Songs, op. 37. 1 K. BERMAN 6 Reminiscences. HAAS 4 Songs after Words of Chinese Poetry. 1 KLEIN 3 Songs. 1 Lullaby. Z. SCHUL What Never Was. 1 KRÁSA 5 Songs, op. 4. 1 I. WEBER I Wander through Theresienstadt 1


The music of the composers who were imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt (Terezín in Czech)—Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein, Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, and several others—tends to be programmed together in concerts and recordings. Since each composer produced music under uniquely horrible shared circumstances, it seems fair to link the pieces composed at Theresienstadt together, but on the other hand, it is worth getting to know their individual styles separately. In any case, it is almost impossible to listen to any of their songs without interpreting the choice of texts, if not the music, for clues as to the composers’ suffering.


Overall, there are few overt references to the Holocaust. Most of the texts are poetic or philosophical, and the music is most likely what these composers would have written in any circumstance. It was the act itself of composing that represented their remarkable self-assertion. The title of this recital by baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and pianist Russell Ryan, “Spritual Resistance,” refers to this and consists mostly of songs composed in Theresienstadt.   


The program opens with Pavel Haas’s Four Songs after Words of Chinese Poetry , set to Czech texts with a recurring theme of yearning for home. His fellow composers at Terezín successfully urged Haas, who was severely depressed, to try to compose, and these songs comprise the few results. Somewhat like his teacher, Janá?ek, Haas liked to use compact motives made up of very close intervals. The piano part in particular often moves in a repetitive, crab-like fashion that communicates a feeling of being trapped. The four songs form a true cycle, and are given a strong and understanding performance by Holzmair and Ryan. Holzmair’s Czech is good, and he darkens his light baritone to suit the range and mood of the music. Haas’s songs were premiered at Terezín by Karel Berman, an inmate who survived and became a leading singer at Prague’s National Theater after the war. If there is such a thing as a definitive performance, Berman’s recording of the Four Songs , released in 1993 on Channel Classics, qualifies. He not only survived the war but his bass baritone voice proved to be exceptionally durable, still rich and resonant decades after his first performance of Haas’s songs.


Berman turned to composition only twice, and it might have been interesting if Holzmair had included his song cycle Rosebuds on this disc. His other composition, for solo piano, was published in 1993 with the complicated title: Suite “Reminiscences” 1938–45. It is a kind of musical diary that originally consisted of three musical impressions of Terezín. After the war, Berman added five other movements to create a fuller portrait of his life’s events. (The late Joža Karas, author of Music in Terezín , once told me that it was at his suggestion that Berman added these movements.)The suite moves in an emotional arc from its folk-like, lyrical opening movements (“Youth” and “Home”) toward greater dissonance and discord in the movements concerning Terezín and Berman’s near death. Pieces like “Auschwitz—Corpse Factory” and “Typhus at the Kauffering Concentration Camp” are the only music on the disc that makes direct reference to the Holocaust, but they are like faint pencil sketches that only hint at the horrors. The final movement, “New Life,” contains a polka and quotes earlier lyrical material. Pianist Russell Ryan performs movements from the suite interspersed between groups of songs, but he omits two of the suite’s movements, the first, “Youth,” and the seventh, “Alone, Alone,” its happiest and most despairing sections respectively. Christopher Hailey’s otherwise thorough liner notes fail to mention these omissions. Programming these pieces as a series of interludes between songs may work well in concert, but here it lessens the impact of Berman’s suite, as does Ryan’s understated playing, which has too little flexibility in some of the lyrical passages and provides too little drama in the disturbing ones.


Hans Krása is best known as the composer of the children’s opera Brundibar . His sophisticated Five Songs , op. 4, composed before his imprisonment, have imaginative melodic lines and nimble word-setting, especially in the final song, set to a text by the clever German poet Christian Morgenstern, and is engagingly sung by Holzmair. Viktor Ullmann’s Der Mensch und sein Tag is a cycle of 12 songs set to aphoristic German texts by Hans Günther Adler, a Terezín inmate who survived and preserved Ullmann’s manuscripts in England. The poetry is contemplative, and Ullmann excelled at composing lyrical melodies in a free, atonal style. Holzmair is at his very best in introspective material and he sings them with great sensitivity. The Three Songs , op. 37, by Ullmann were revised at Terezín, and employ marching music in a sardonic Mahlerian manner. Gideon Klein’s Three Songs , op. 1 (in Czech), were composed in 1940 prior to his imprisonment, and they were already the work of a skilled composer. Klein (1919–1945) was a child prodigy and considered the composer from the Terezín group most likely to have had a major career, had he lived. The songs inhabit the same harmonic, expressive world as the music of Alban Berg. Along with Ullmann’s Der müde Soldat , they represent the disc’s most adventurous music. Klein’s moving version of a Hebrew lullaby sets a simple folk song against troubled, complex harmony. The little-known Zikmund Schul is represented by one touching German song. Ilse Weber was a children’s author, not a composer, and Holzmair recites her poem Ich Wandre Durch Theresienstadt.


All of these songs are composed with considerable craft and inspiration and they repay repeated listening. Much of the material has almost never been recorded before, making this an extremely valuable release. At this stage of his career, Holzmair is a consummate Lieder singer with impeccable phrasing and German diction. He reminds me of Ernst Haefliger or Gerard Souzay, master singers who compensated for somewhat unlovely vocal quality at times with good breath control, fine legato, and overall musical intelligence.


Incidentally, Holzmair and Russell Ryan can be heard along with the exciting mezzo-soprano Hermine Haselböck on another recent Bridge release of songs by Schreker, and Haselböck is also featured on an excellent new Bridge CD of songs by Zemlinsky. Thanks to this fine American label for their commitment to making all of this obscure (and beautiful) German Lieder available in first-rate performances and excellent sound.


FANFARE: Paul Orgel

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