CHOPIN Nocturnes: Nos. 1–20. Mazurkas: Nos. 1–49; in a, “Notre Temps”; in a, “A Emile Gaillard”; in B?, op. posth.; in D, op. posth.; in C, op. posth.; in G, op. posth.; in D, op. posth. Barcarolle. Berceuse. Allegro de Concert. Piano Sonata No. 31 • Nadia Reisenberg (pn) • BRIDGE 9276, mono (4 CDs: 300:40) 1Live: New York 1947

Nadia Reisenberg was one of the great Chopin pianists of the 20th century. This statement presupposes a number of attributes on the artist’s part. Chopin was a fastidious and worldly man, who sought musical expression that was intensely refined and intricate. Despite this, his music must sound natural and interpretively effortless. It should be no surprise, therefore, that some of the great accounts of Chopin’s music are by wise old souls with a big technique, such as Nikita Magaloff and Witold Ma?cu?y?ski. Nadia Reisenberg, heard here in her 40s and 50s, similarly is a wise old soul who can do almost anything at the keyboard. She generally takes a moderate approach to tempo in Chopin, so that structurally everything holds together easily as the composer has written it in the music. Even so, Reisenberg always has time for a telling accent here and a useful rubato there, making her expression an organic part of the music. One of the most especially notable aspects of her playing is her pedaling, a truly underappreciated art in itself. In 1988 I heard Nelson Freire play Chopin’s Preludes and was mesmerized by his pedaling. The pedal even fluttered at times, as Freire gave every passage its appropriate sonic duration. Reisenberg is at least as much a master of the pedal as Freire is. She uses the pedal to provide just the right amount of color, accent, and shading to her playing. For so many young pianists, the pedal exists to create great washes of sound, thereby supposedly emphasizing their virtuosity. But Reisenberg, as an experienced chamber music player, knows how to integrate her pedaling into the total interpretation. She also realizes when to leave well enough alone and not to pedal for a notable passage, particularly in the mazurkas. Taken all together, the elements of Reisenberg’s pianism contain every facet of the art needed to yield Chopin interpretations which are striking and memorable.

Reisenberg recorded the nocturnes shortly after her husband’s death. This was a period of intense grief and stress for the pianist. A lesser artist might have used such circumstances to wallow in sentiment in her playing. Not Reisenberg; she found at this time a heightened sense of interpretive insight and coherence. Her sister, Clara Rockmore, said, “She never played anything more beautifully than those Chopin Nocturnes,” and I believe her. In the pre-electric light 19th century, these night pieces embodied a time of mystery and confided secrets, an atmosphere Reisenberg evokes completely. No. 1 proceeds with unruffled ease, like Schubert. No. 3 feels like nightfall observed from a house in the country. Reisenberg makes No. 4 truly Cantabile, with a fragile bel canto feel. She realizes an unusually singing left hand in No. 5. The B section of No. 6 possesses rare nobility. No. 7 sounds like music for the repose of the dead. No. 8 is a recollection of a time of sadness. Reisenberg interprets No. 10 as though it were a perfectly formed short story by Chekhov. No. 12 has the atmosphere of a child’s bedtime, while No. 13 is a study in almost Lisztian colors.

The second CD begins with an account of No. 15 that reminds me of two lovers seated together by candlelight. In No. 16, I think I can see a drowsy cat. A quiet conversation takes place in No. 17. No. 18 features an especially vibrant left hand. No. 19 is a real tearjerker. I feel that No. 20 is a recollection of one’s youth. Reisenberg omits No. 21, as does Nelson Freire. The recordings of the nocturnes I listen to most often are by Daniel Barenboim and Elisabeth Leonskaja, but Reisenberg accomplishes at least as much as they do. Her Barcarolle has a wonderful flexibility in mood and tempo, with an ebb and flow as the emotion builds. In the Berceuse, there is a tremendous feeling of fantasy, with kaleidoscopic colors. Stephen Hough’s timings in the Barcarolle and the Berceuse are similar to Reisenberg’s, but so much more happens in her performances. The only other recording I know of the Allegro de Concert is Claudio Arrau’s 1956 version. He tosses off the piece with considerable verve, but Reisenberg’s account is more involving. It is especially Russian in its singing tone, big sound, and rich drama—perhaps because she studied it with Leonid Nikolayev at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.

Reisenberg’s live 1947 Carnegie Hall Third Sonata is a major statement of the work. The opening movement is Maestoso in its accents and feeling of resolve, while the B section is especially wistful. There is no exposition repeat. Her Scherzo is gossamer. The Largo has a hushed intensity and achieves profundity with an apparent absence of effort. Reisenberg’s Finale is filled with pianistic fireworks. I compared her performance with two other live accounts by great Chopin exponents, Martha Argerich and Jakob Gimpel. Argerich in 1967 predictably is thrilling in the fast moments, but her interpretation lacks Reisenberg’s coherence and warmth. Gimpel in 1976 produces a rich-hued and glowing account, comparable to Reisenberg’s in impact but lacking her verve and élan. Her performance is primal in its conception.

Of the mazurkas Reisenberg said, “Maybe being Russian helped me feel the very special rhythms of these stylized dances.” They are “stylized,” like the difference between a medieval tapestry and a photograph. Reisenberg’s mazurkas generally are very earthy. These are not the mystical mazurkas of Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. Instead, we sometimes enter the folkloric world of Dvo?ák’s tone poems, with their goblins and witches. Reisenberg’s dance rhythms jump out at you, like the marches and rags in the later orchestral works of Charles Ives. No. 2 could portray a water sprite. In No. 5, two slightly tipsy peasants dance together at a wedding. No. 10 is Risoluto but with warmth and panache. Reisenberg unravels the subtle dance rhythms of No. 13 like a cat playing with a ball of string. No. 15 goes off like firecrackers. No. 19, with its Vivace marking but in a minor key, nearly evokes Jacques Brel. No. 20 has almost a drone bass. In No. 21, we perhaps are witnessing a slightly awkward flirtation. No. 26 is Maestoso, yet swings. A kind of idealized parlor music informs No. 29. An Oriental feel imbues No. 32. No. 34 is a Vivace dance by a giant. In No. 37, Reisenberg creates an organ-like sonority. No. 40 could be a ballad in poetry. No. 45 is characterized by a subtle realization of the Animato marking in a minor key. A ghost dances through No. 47. In Chopin’s last completed work, No. 49, Reisenberg’s playing is mildly ironic, perhaps the composer’s own attitude to his impending death. As much as I enjoy Alexander Brailowsky and Alexander Uninsky’s collections of the mazurkas, my preference now is for Reisenberg’s.

The original monaural Westminster recordings have come up very well on CD. The sound is close up, yet warm and well balanced. As for the 1947 live Third Sonata, it sounds excellent for its age, a tribute perhaps to the pre-renovation acoustics of Carnegie Hall. The remastering engineer also has resisted the temptation to reduce the surface noise from the original disc master, thereby preserving a warm sonority. The album notes by Reisenberg’s son, broadcaster Robert Sherman, are insightful and elegant. I rarely get to review an album as fulfilling as Reisenberg’s Chopin. I’ve spent over 20 hours in her company, and there has not been a dull moment. This is a pianist to treasure. Nothing passes her hands that isn’t full of life and deep understanding.

FANFARE: Dave Saemann

This disc begins a new series of recordings devoted to the music of the German-American composer, Ursula Mamlok. Ursula Mamlok was born in Berlin in 1923. She began her musical studies at an early age, studying piano, theory and composition with Gustav Ernest. In 1939, she fled with her parents from Nazi Germany to Guayaquil, Ecuador. Mamlok came to America in 1940 to study composition with George Szell at the Mannes School of Music. In the summer of 1944, she took a master class with Ernst Krenek, later studying with Vittorio Giannini, Roger Sessions, Erich Itor Kahn, Eduard Steuermann (piano), Stefan Wolpe, and Ralph Shapey. Mamlok has written more than sixty works, which include pieces for both small and large ensembles, vocal music, music for children, and three major works for orchestra. Most of the works on this new recording are being recorded for the first time.

A special and splendid collection of the piano music of Stefan Wolpe played to perfection by the leading living interpreter of his keyboard music.

This excellent series of music by Stefan Wolpe, whose life spanned the first three quarters of the last century, continues both to perplex and to delight. To perplex because the musical character of German exile to Palestine Wolpe was so complex, enigmatic and diverse. To delight because of the very high quality both of that intriguing music and its playing.
 
Indeed, David Holzman's first CD in the series (BRIDGE 9116) in 2003 was nominated for 'Best Solo Instrumental Performance' in that year's Grammys and did in fact go on to win AFIM's INDIE award as 'Best Classical CD'. The current recital has all the vigour, perception and delicacy of his earlier success. The music played here was written between 1926 - before Wolpe and Irma Schoenberg (1902-1984) emigrated to Palestine, in 1934 - and 1959 only just over a decade before his death.
 
Particularly noteworthy is the first complete recording of Wolpe's huge Four Studies on Basic Rows (1935-36). It occupies almost half this CD and includes the composer's most frequently-recorded piano piece, the 'Passacaglia' [tr.4], which is in turn the longest single movement here at getting on for a quarter of an hour.
 
Music representing Wolpe's time in Germany, Palestine and America is included. It varies in complexity and scope from the experimental to music written for his students. So you're getting a mixture, a taster, of Wolpe's output for the instrument. You're also getting it played by undeniably the greatest interpreter of Wolpe's keyboard music alive today.
 
In his essay for the CD's liner notes, Holzman describes how he has come to know Wolpe so intimately that he can detect the composer's most minutely expressed moods and feelings in his music. Although this is evident from Holzman's control of tempi, phrasing and timbral nuance, the pianist is never permissive to the exclusion of the true musical essence which he's gently intent on conveying. It's insight and interpretation first, and any hint of special understanding second. The playing of the 'Passacaglia', for instance, is approached with great confidence and all the necessary familiarity; Holzman unshowily brings to the performance his ability to anticipate and to pace the music yet is as fresh and full of surprises as can be.
 
Holzman reveals and commends the depth and breadth as well as the engaging beauty of these works: Wolpe's fascination with the colours (literally) of intervals was never mechanical, forced or self-indulgently indecisive. Holzman quietly and effectively communicates with great conviction and confidence the gentle and at times understated loveliness in music whose titles sound as though they were mere exercises. They're not. Their range and originality are impossible to miss thanks to Holzman's perception and dedication.
 
His playing is alert and alive. It continually presents new delights. Listen to the juxtaposition of the 'Pastorale' then 'Con fuoco' of the Two Pieces for Piano from 1941 [trs. 9, 10]. It's not that they could be by different composers (Berg then Webern perhaps); nor that the same composer is as versatile as he clearly is. The playing succeeds because it's conversant with the wealth of resources on which Wolpe draws at any one time. These include moods, light, invention, ties to other formats, references and original topoi in which Wolpe is so evidently at home. As a result, what does emerge in contrasts and parallels somehow has its own logic.
 
Technically Holzman is flawless. The piano is recorded nicely forward yet with enough space to allow full air to the many timbres and palettes it's required to evoke. The notes, which are nicely informative - especially for someone new to Wolpe's world - explain the somewhat relaxed circumstances under which this recital was prepared and executed. Indeed, there's a spontaneity and lack of deliberateness to the playing, to the order in which the pieces are heard and consequently to the listener's overall delight in this slice of a very intriguing composer. But this is a freedom which not for a minute even hints at sacrificing the rigour necessary for music as demanding as this. The result: an hour and a quarter's sheer enjoyment and inspiration.
 
This sixth volume in Bridge's series fulfils the promise of the others released so far. It's a great introduction to Wolpe's piano music for those unfamiliar with it. Since most of the pieces here presented are not available elsewhere, Holzman's recital will also satisfy collectors of Wolpe. Don't hesitate.
 
-- Mark Sealey, MusicWeb International

RUDERS Piano Concerto No. 2 1. Serenade on the Shores of the Cosmic Ocean 2. Bel Canto 3 • 1 Vassily Primakov (pn); 1 Thomas Søndergard, cond; 1 Norwegian RO; 2 Mikko Luoma (acc); 2 iO Str Qrt; 3 Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (vn) • BRIDGE 9336 (64:03)


Bridge Records, a company primarily known for its commitment to contemporary American composers like Elliott Carter, continues to promote the music of the Dane Poul Ruders (b.1949). This disc is the sixth in its Ruders series. It contains compelling performances of two recent works of considerable power.


Ruders’s music has been described as a triumph of stylistic pluralism. What that means in listener’s terms is that you can never be sure the composer is going in the direction you think he is; he retains a genuine ability to surprise. Both the larger works on this disc provide examples of this. His very recent Piano Concerto No. 2 (2009–10) begins in a relatively romantic vein, evident more in its flow than its thematic material or harmony, but as the movement evolves the piano develops an almost aggressive desperation: a determination to break the formal and harmonic boundaries with frequent attacks and note clusters. The roles are reversed in the extraordinary slow movement. This consists for the most part of a tentative, exploratory line of single notes in the piano’s treble, discreetly supported by vibraphone, harp, and a solo violin. The soft, meandering solo is confronted from time to time by orchestral onslaughts of dissonant brass, squealing piccolos, and fearsome fortissimos , which seem to have no effect on the dissociative soloist, although the first of these interruptions would probably have a visceral effect on concertgoers in a live performance! In the third and final movement, the piano takes control and ushers in a brilliant and rapid moto perpetuo that crams as many notes as possible into its four and a half minutes. Ruders uses a traditional framework but fills it with quirky episodes, unexpected colors, and—in a phrase—pushes the concerto envelope. The work is similarly formal in shape but more wide-ranging in effect than his first Piano Concerto of 1994.


Color is at the forefront of Serenade on the Shores of the Cosmic Ocean , a 2004 suite in nine continuous movements for accordion and string quartet. Here Ruders displays great imagination in his exploitation of the extremes of the accordion’s range, and by blending it into the many textural devices available to the quartet. The work is inspired by literature from a variety of sources, including Shakespeare, Darwin, and Conrad; quotations or references preface each section. It begins with a cataclysmic explosion of sound (tone clusters from the accordion predominate), which gradually morphs into a passage of warm, lyrical beauty and eventually into single, long-held high notes, rather the way a composition by Silvestrov proceeds. We move through many moods, some incorporating a degree of grotesquery in galumphing ostinatos or deep growls from the lowest reaches of the solo instrument. Then in contrast the composer will lure us into pure neoromanticism—as in the sixth movement, “Threnos,” prefaced by a quotation from Shakespeare’s The Phoenix and the Turtle : “Beauty, truth and rarity / Grace in all simplicity / Here enclosed in cinders lie.” At all times in this work, as is usual with Ruders, the listener has little idea what is coming next.


The accompanying Bel Canto (also 2004) is for solo violin, commissioned by the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition. As the title suggests it is primarily a cantabile , although there are moments of double-stopping in minor seconds to provide the unexpected. A folk or hymn-like tune brings the lament to a quiet close.


The music on this recording is a challenge but also a pleasure to get to know. It is performed with dedication and brilliance; I can’t praise highly enough the talents of pianist Primakov, violinist Sørensen, the iO Quartet (whose personnel are violinists Christina McGann and Sarah Crocker, violist Elizabeth Weisser, and cellist Chris Gross) and the remarkable accordion virtuoso Mikko Luoma. Want List material.


FANFARE: Phillip Scott

Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello was Morton Feldman’s last work. Not only does it have comparable qualities in scale and content to other mature masterpieces such as Piano and String Quartet (review), but also it seems, if anything, to possess them under an enhancing lens. The spread chords of Piano and String Quartet lend an elaborated, almost baroque flavour to the piece by comparison with the chords of Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello, which drop into the sonic landscape vertically.

There is much to be said about this music but there are few words which sum it up better than the composer’s own commentary on the stretched duration of his later pieces, “… scale is another matter. You have to have control of the piece – it requires a heightened kind of concentration. Before, my pieces were objects; now, they are like evolving things.”

Seventy-five minutes may seem daunting for a single piece of music, but it can easily embrace you in its time-altering atmosphere, and the duration can smoothly pass with the lightness of the beat of a butterfly’s wing. In the beauty of its closing minutes you can find yourself wishing it had been longer. That sense of ‘control’ is evident at every moment. There are no sections where the composer is marking time, nor thank goodness is there any evidence of the musicians back-pedalling in this excellent performance. There is relaxation and tension; as there is in the movement of your own chest when breathing. Notes and chords follow with impeccable logic from their predecessors, phrases are shaped, contrasts of timbre emerge, broad curves of profoundly far-reaching musical gesture are spread before us.

Everyone will have their own personal response to this, but for me it is an ultimate expression of loneliness. There is an undeniable melancholy about this piece, which always shifts away from any consolatory resolutions which seek to take root too firmly. There are fragments which might remind you of Debussy’s Des pas sur la neige, and in some ways it might be seen as a vast extension of its first two bars. As pianist Aleck Karis states in his brief booklet note, this is also a “luminous melancholy”, one which creates impulse and attracts rather than making one turn away and wish it would stop.

I’ve had a hunt around but there don’t seem to be any readily available alternatives. The Hat Hut label released a recording in 1995 with members of the Dutch Ives Ensemble which is no longer in print. In any case I have no hesitation in choosing this as a default first choice. If I have any criticism of the recording it is that the piano sounds a little soft-textured or mid-range heavy in its timbre, but this is not something which detracts from the effect of the whole.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

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

CARTER Horn Concerto 1,2. Mad Regales 3. Tintinnabulation 4. Wind Rose. 2 Sound Fields 2. On Conversing with Paradise 5. Retracing. 6 Clarinet Quintet 7. Figment V 8. La Musique 9. Retracing III 10. Due Duetti 11. Figment III 12. Figment IV 13. Poems of Louis Zukovsky 14. Retracing II 15 • 1 Martin Owen (hn); Oliver Knussen, cond; 2 BBC SO; 3 BBC Singers; 4 Frank Epstein, cond; New England Conservatory Perc Ens; 5 Leigh McIrose (bar); Oliver Knussen, cond; Birmingham Contemporary Music Group; 6 Peter Kolkay (bn); 7 Charles Neidich (cl); Juilliard Str Qt; 8 Simon Boyar (mar); 9 Lucy Shelton (sop); 10 Jon Nelson (tr); 11 Rolf Schulte (vn); Fred Sherry (vc); 12 Donald Palma (db); 13 Hsin-Yun Huang (va); 14 Lucy Shelton (sop); Charles Neidich (cl); 15 William Purvis (hn) • BRIDGE 9314 A/B (2 CDs: 103:11 Text and Translation)


Elliott Carter, now in his 102nd year, is on a roll, and is a phenomenon. It doesn’t overstate the point to say that here we are witnessing a composer’s late-age musical flowering unprecedented in human history. This double-CD set includes 16 new works, all written since 2002 (when the composer was 94). Only one is from 2002, and one is from 2006; the remainder are 2007–09. And this collection doesn’t include everything written in this period. Do the math.


It would be remarkable enough if this were just a matter of quantity. But this is also music on an elevated level of expression, technique, and questing vision. While dense and concise in the manner of late Stravinsky, neither are they offhand bagatelles or doodlings. In fact (though I’ve said this too much already, I suspect), Carter’s “late-late-late” period is producing some of his finest work, distinguished by a combination of adventure, clarity, and total confidence. The impact of the almost two hours of music here is comparable to many hours more from some other composers.


With so many works in play, I think it’s a mistake to run through a critical exegesis of each piece. All of these will merit several listenings over time to parse out the details and get a better sense of their individual characters. Rather, I’m going to make a few global observations.


First, Carter has become more “experimental” as he’s aged. This is not so much in terms of taking up aesthetics alien to what he’s already committed himself to over the years. Rather, it has to do with meeting the challenge of ensembles and media he’s avoided in the past (for whatever reason). Thus, in the 2008 Tintinnabulation , we have a work for six percussionists, all with instruments of relative or no distinct pitch. (The piece is one of the few that doesn’t quite work for me, but how marvelous that the composer has jettisoned pitch as a factor to see what he’ll come up with!) Even more stunning are the 2007 Sound Fields for string orchestra and the 2008 Wind Rose for wind ensemble. These are slowly shifting, relatively static textures, cycling through different permutations of complex 12-note chords. They’re about as close to Morton Feldman as Carter will ever get, but of course they still sound utterly Carteresque in their harmonies.


Second, Carter’s vocal music has grown in ways I could not anticipate. After a series of neoclassic choral works in the 1940s, he left the voice as a medium until the 1970s, beginning with the song cycle on Elizabeth Bishop poems, A Mirror on Which to Dwell. I was impressed by the work, but successive cycles on Ashberry and Lowell struck me as overly cluttered, and not particularly grateful for the voice. But over time, Carter has refined his vocal practice. Now, having continued his pursuit of an A-list of modernist poets, I think he’s developed a technique that is eminently suited to these texts and their aesthetic. The vocal line still tends to be proclamative, a sort of modernist recitative, but it is stripped down, and more careful in prosody and projection of text. There’s less angularity and fewer wide leaps. And it doesn’t shy away from memorable and repeatable gesture; for example, the 2008 Pound setting On Conversing with Paradise culminates with a near-terrifying reiteration of the line “Pull down thy vanity!” The Zukovsky settings for soprano and clarinet (also 2008) are marvels of tone-painting, with the two principals distinctly characterized and each idiomatic. And the 2007 Mad Regales , three compact settings of Ashberry for a six-voice ensemble, is sparkling in its wit, invention, and beauty, a true new madrigal form. To take just one example, in the first text, each one of its eight lines is intoned by a different solo voice, against a slowly morphing, prismatic setting of the word “haiku” by the remaining five.


Third, Carter has created the most authoritative body of solo instrumental miniatures of anyone. Like Hindemith, he seems to be checking every orchestral instrument off his list (though these works have no accompaniment). The closest analog is the Berio Sequenzi , but Carter’s pieces are bagatelles in comparison. In one sense they’re slighter and more offhand. On the other, they tend to avoid the overambition and ponderousness that can weigh down some of Berio’s essays. Whatever the final judgment, they seem to be a great gift to performers, who reciprocate with gratitude, love, and programming. The Figments are a series that project consistent wit and fantasy. The Retracings are works derived quite literally from other pieces; for example, the first written, the 2002 bassoon work, is a largely unaltered transcription of the instrument’s solo from the 2000 ASKO Concerto . The notes suggest that these pieces pay tribute to Carter’s lesson learned from Nadia Boulanger, namely that every contrapuntal piece must be made up of individual lines, each of which could stand as an autonomous work.


Finally, Carter has not forsaken his trademark complexity and prolixity. The 2006 Horn Concerto is fast, intense, quicksilver. Though tiny, the same goes for the 2009 Due Duetti. The 2007 Clarinet Quintet has all of Carter’s trademark rhythmic devices of overlaid polytempos and metric modulations, but it also erupts in barrages of notes for its soloist that one can hardly believe. A thing that is astonishing about this work, and not only because of the age of its creator, is its sheer energy , the ability to write as many notes as needed to make its point, with no limit.


All performances are stunning, as usual for the Bridge series (this is Volume 8 in its Carter canon). A few of the larger works are taken from live performances, but under the sure hand of Oliver Knussen, their execution is impeccable and ambient noise negligible. It’s almost a cliché for me now, but this probably goes on the next Want List. Essential listening for anyone who wishes to be aware of one of the most remarkable musical enterprises currently still in process.


FANFARE: Robert Carl

The recording of Eliott Carter's "Boston Concerto" on this album was nominated for the 2007 Grammy Award for "Best Classical Contemporary Composition."

Frank Glazer's rich and varied musical life as touring virtuoso, teacher, music director, television host, annotator, and much else is enough for five careers. The 91-year-old pianist's long resume includes everything from studies with Schnabel and Schoenberg to playing in vaudeville houses and, believe it or not, the Icelandic premiere of Brahms' second piano concerto. At 85, he recorded a recital of once-fashionable/now-frowned-upon encores, the type of repertoire Arthur Loesser used to call "cream of corn". Few pianists today have a genuine feeling for such pieces, save, of course, Earl Wild (Glazer's slightly younger contemporary) and perhaps Stephen Hough or Marc-André Hamelin. However, Glazer's beautiful, robust tone and innate charm are exactly what this music needs.

The disc opens with a curvaceous and ravishingly sung out account of Mendelssohn's Spring Song, followed by Alfred Grünfeld's pretty if overlong Romanze and Grieg's Papillon, which is fuller in body and less cameo-like than we often hear. Glazer pays heed to the inner voices in Godowsky's Alt-Wien, although it doesn't quite attain the tonal magic of Shura Cherkassky's recently reissued 1974 recording. Although Sinding's Rustle of Spring, Moszkowski's E major Waltz, and Rubinstein's Melody in F would benefit from a lighter touch and more rippling accompanimental figures, Glazer's legato scales and subtle tonal shadings--using remarkably little pedal--in Liadov's Musical Snuff-Box are worthy of the old Hofmann and Rosenthal recordings.

Rubinstein's Kamennoi-Ostrow moves too slowly to sustain the music's bland harmonic appeal, while Paderewski's Menuet in G and Macdowell's Witches Dance are a shade heavy-handed and lacking in élan. Glazer accommodates the prevalent thick textures of Dohnanyi's "Nalia" transcription by taking overly slow tempos, yet the pianist's sustaining power prevents them from sounding labored. On the other hand, Glazer's fingers sound 60 years younger in Stephen Heller's fluffy transcription of Schubert's "The Trout", while Liszt's Third Liebestraume is direct, elegant, and free of treacle. All told, a lovely disc.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

SIERRA Cicada Shell 1. Birds and Insects , Book 1 2. Surrounded Ground 3. 2 Neruda Odes 4. Colmena 5. Ballistae 6 • 1, 5, 6 Jayce Ogren, cond; International Contemporary Ens; 2 Vassily Primakov (pn); 3 Charles Neidich (cl); Stephen Gosling (pn); Daedalus Qrt; 4 Susan Narucki (sop); Raman Ramakrishnan (vc); Stephen Gosling (pn) • BRIDGE 9343 (72:30)


Born in 1970, American composer Arlene Sierra is presently based in the U.K., where she is a senior lecturer in musical composition at Cardiff University. Sierra has studied with some of the leading composers of our time, including Magnus Lindberg, and her music has already received many accolades. In recent years, Sierra has received commissions from esteemed orchestras and festivals such as the New York Philharmonic, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Tanglewood Music Festival, and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. For consideration here is Sierra’s debut CD, on the prestigious label Bridge.


There can be no doubt that Sierra has an uncanny ability to realize and build her musical ideas toward shattering conclusions, oftentimes literally so. But be forewarned: this is definitely not music for the fainthearted. While she may look like a pacifist on the album cover, Sierra is fascinated with the martial arts and writes music that is as intense as it is complex. Consider the sources of inspiration for three of the six works presented on this recording: Cicada Shell is based on The Thirty-Six Strategies , an ancient collection of battle tactics; Surrounded Ground is based on Sun Tzu’s The Art of War ; and Ballistae is based on a treatise by Vitruvius, which explains how to build and deploy ancient machines of warfare. Although not expressly inspired by military literature, the penultimate featured work, Colmena , which apparently means “beehive” in Spanish, is almost as vehement.


How does Sierra realize musical warfare? By pitting instruments and groups of instruments against each other; by organizing thematic content in small, repetitive cells that move in organized, militaristic fashion; by favoring bright textures that slowly grow in complexity; and by gradually turning up the volume. There is a lot of compounded dissonance and, save for the middle section of Surrounded Ground —which, ironically, is titled “Feigned Retreat”—there is essentially no repose in these four works. The cumulative effect is highly potent and, for that reason, I believe that Sierra’s martial music is best enjoyed—and, I dare say, intended to be enjoyed—in controlled doses.


But there is also a mellower side to Sierra’s music, which will likely also appeal to pacifists. That is featured in the remaining two works on this recording, Birds and Insects and the Two Neruda Odes . The former is a series of five mysterious works for piano, in which one hears hints of Ravel, Messiaen, Webern, and Berio. The highly expressionistic Neruda Odes for soprano, cello, and piano was probably inspired by Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire . Sierra’s setting of Neruda’s allegorical poetry—which pays homage to two common objects, the plate and the table—is truly masterly, as is the way in which she manages to build tension towards the end of the second ode.


The recording features uniformly excellent playing by musicians of the International Contemporary Ensemble, the Daedalus Quartet, soprano Susan Narucki, clarinetist Charles Neidich, cellist Raman Ramakrishnan, and pianists Vassily Primakov and Stephen Gosling. Jayce Ogren, who conducts the three works for larger ensembles, deserves special praise for his mastery of these complex scores. The quality of the recorded sound is outstanding.


FANFARE: Radu A. Lelutiu

This release contains two of Mozart's greatest concertos. 1784 found the 28-year-old Mozart at the peak of his popularity in Vienna, if we can judge by the fact that he composed no less than six piano concertos during that year. Piano Concerto No. 17 in G major, K. 453 was written in the early spring. Mozart completed it, according to the date he noted on the score and his recently-begun work-catalogue, on April 12. Scored for a small orchestra without clarinets, trumpets, or drums, K. 453 is one of the most graceful of all Mozart's concertos, typically mingling a sense of gaiety with melancholic undertones. A year and a half after the first performance of Concerto No. 17, Mozart completed Piano Concerto No. 22 in E flat, K 482, which he entered as completed into his work-catalog on December 16, 1785. Urbane and aristocratic in character, it gains a regal warmth of sound from the orchestra's inclusion of clarinets instead of oboes - the first time Mozart had done so in a concerto. Vassily Primakov plays Mozart's own cadenzas in K. 453, and those of Camille Saint-Saëns in K. 482.

MOZART Piano Concertos Nos. 12–14 (arr. unknown) • Anne-Marie McDermott (pn); Calder Qrt; David J. Grossman (db) • BRIDGE 9403 (75:54)


From Wikipedia, regarding Concertos No. 11-13: “arrangements exist for them for piano plus string quartet that lose little,” with no indication if those arrangements are by Mozart or not. Nothing is said in the liner notes about these or the string quintet reduction of Concerto No. 14. Yet a review of a similar recording, made by pianist Jean-Phillippe Collard for EMI in 1988 at allmusic.com, indicates that the arangements are Mozart’s own, “his justification for doing them was that if he didn’t, someone else would.” To ears used to a full orchestral accompaniment, the sound is a little strange at first—we keep waiting for orchestral tuttis that never arrive—but the bottom line is whether or not the performances are musically convincing and valid, and for me they are, particularly since Anne-Marie McDermott, one of the truly great American pianists of our time, seems to be using a lean-sounding if modern piano (possibly a Baldwin of the type favored by Glenn Gould?), and these lean, crisp sonorities play well against the string quartet (and quintet in the case of No. 14).


The concertos nos. 12 and 13 (presented on the CD in reverse order) are not among Mozart’s most profound compositions in this genre, but rather fall into the category of music that the cynical composer described to his father in a letter: “These concertos (Nos. 11–13) are a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural without being vapid….In order to win applause one must write stuff which is so inane that a coachman could sing it, or so unintelligible that it pleases precisely because no reasonable man can understand it.” (This quote, again, from Wikipedia.)


McDermott, producing an appropriately light yet well-inflected sound throughout most of each concerto, really lets herself go in the first-movement cadenzas, and it is here that she separates herself from the more delicate, almost prissy Mozart interpreters on record. Not that she attacks the keyboard as if the music were by Beethoven (though she certainly has the power to do so), but because she understands that the nature of these cadenzas was to stand out and assert center stage, however briefly.


As Mozart indicated, concertos 12 and 13 aren’t exactly profound music. Despite some nicely subtle passages (he never wrote anything that did not have such sections within them), they tend to be lightweight works, designed, as he so aptly put it, “to please” without unduly challenging the average listener’s mind. Yet when the music does turn profound, as it does (quite dramatically so) in the Andante of No. 12, McDermott and the Calder Quartet are up to the challenge. Here, their playing includes a great deal of coloration in addition to the subtlest of modifications within the beats, producing an exquisite musical flow.


The Concerto No. 14 inhabits an entirely different musical world. This is richer, deeper, more mature Mozart, the music alternating in mood between “prettiness” (you’ve got to please the public!) and darker, more penetrating depths, and oddly enough this also applies to the first-movement cadenza. Mozart wisely adds a double bass to the proceedings here; it is necessary to counterbalance the thematic material and its development with a richer texture. This performance alone is worth the price of the CD: it is worthy of the music in every way. Note, particularly, Mozart’s subtle yet dramatic use of descending chromatics and his equally impressive use of what one might call grace notes played as part of the overall structure.


This is an excellent album of its type, although your willingness to acquire it will naturally depend on how many other versions you have of these concertos and whether or not you’d like to have them in chamber music arrangements. Recommended nevertheless.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Classical Music

Miguel del Aguila has for several years now been making quite a name for himself throughout the Americas. He has been a prize-winner of awards such as the Kennedy Centre Friedheim. He was Composer-in-Residence with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra. However his music has hardly ever percolated beyond America.

This is not the first CD to contain some of his music but I believe it’s the first to be devoted entirely to him. He has been described as a composer of “turbulent fantasy” and the anonymous booklet notes here comment that in his music there is “captivating interplay, even fertile tension, between Classical formal balance and Romantic excess”. I have to say that this Uruguayan composer is a typical example of cross-over, not though manufactured, but with a real living and genuine language so beloved of those for whom modern music normally takes too much concentration time.

The opening work is infectious and clever. “Charango Capriccioso” is built gradually from a very still and quiet start to a manic climax via repeated and obsessive syncopated rhythmic patterns. It then peters out after massive chords to a thoughtful and forgiving coda. The recording seems a little choked when the music is at its most wild. Perhaps the volume is tricky to adjust at the beginning; nevertheless this piece creates a promising opening impression.

The second work ‘Presto II’ is an enlarged version of the finale of his Second String Quartet which Aguila wrote whilst living in Vienna where the form is considered to be ‘sacrosanct’. Apparently its performance was reviewed as “not serious” by the local press. It is frenetic and spends most of its time in 7/8 time. It finds time to take a bow towards 1920s Jazz. It also contains ‘col legno’ and ‘sul pont’ effects and ends with a shout from the players. Good fun.

I have to describe ‘Life is a dream’ as a heroic failure, despite the fact that it is quite original and at times catchy. The composer has translated a poem by Pedro Calderon del Barca (1600-1681) about the meaning of life. This is narrated, practically twice - incidentally there are two narrators; the female not named - at varying points during the work’s progress. The “reality” is represented on stage but there is a “distant reality ... personified by the first violin who finlly joins the on-stage performers.” There is then a dance - “a dysfunctional jota” - with the evocation of guitars. There’s a flavour of Andalusia and the Phrygian mode present throughout old Spanish music is much in evidence. It is a complex tapestry of a work and one hearing I felt was probably quite adequate. However for the purposes of this review I listened again and, sadly, found it even less revealing.

If you felt, as I did that Aguila is the musical grandson as it were of Astor Piazzolla then ‘Salon Buenos Aires’ will add further ‘confirmation’. The first movement is a Samba, which in addition to the rich instrumental mix adds some (uncredited) disembodied, vocalising, and demonstrates what we are told in the booklet notes that “The three movements comprise a nostalgic musical portrait of 1950s Buenos Aires” which “springs from the composer’s childhood memories”. The middle movement grows from and ends in mist but builds to a powerful climax. This is a ‘Tango to Dream’ transition. Its thickly contrapuntal middle section would have benefited from more air around the players. In fact the recording as a whole is rather too close for comfort at times. This is the longest movement but we move on to an irritating - to this reviewer anyway - ‘Obsessed Milonga’. I should not have been surprised because the notes quote the newspaper the Wiener Zeitung as describing the composer as “of obsessive vitality”. A Milonga is incidentally an earlier Uruguayan tango form. The flute leads off manically with the melody and the other players repeat it in various keys for the next four minutes.

If I have been a little luke-warm so far then all changes with the last work. ‘Clocks’ is for piano quintet and the composer might well have called it ‘A Clock Museum’. This is original, colourful and pleasing. It falls into six sections. The first 'Shelves of Clocks’ sets up a ‘tocking and a ticking’ with the use of a polyphony of very high pizzicatos and harmonics. There are sharp staccato piano notes. In movement two, ‘Midnight Strikes’ there are clangorous, resonant chords. The third is ‘The Old Clock’s tale’ which is romantic and generally slightly ‘Hollywood’ in effect. ‘Sundial 2000BC’ is great fun incorporating some rugged rather primeval vocal work with which we might associate Roman ritual. It features a 3+3+2 dance rhythm. ‘Romance of Swiss Clocks’ makes a fascinating contrast being rather twee and flecked with bon-bons. Finally there is the longest movement, the riotous ‘The Joy of keeping time’ based on various South-American dance rhythms. This ends with the clocks in an empty museum indulging in something near to a musical orgy.

The whole disc is played with great enthusiasm. I’m not mad on the recording quality as mentioned above but the booklet is useful with photos and succinct musical asides.

-- Gary Higginson, MusicWeb International

Paul Mendelssohn, Felix’s younger brother, was a banker by profession but an accomplished amateur cellist, and it is to him that we owe Felix Mendelssohn's three major compositions for cello and piano. This new recording presents Mendelssohn's complete output for cello and piano, and includes the three large scale works, as well as two short pieces, performed by leading virtuosi Marcy Rosen and Lydia Artymiw. Marcy Rosen has established herself as one of the most important and respected artists of our day. Los Angeles Times music critic Herbert Glass has called her "one of the intimate art's abiding treasures." She has performed in recital and with orchestra throughout Canada, England, France, Japan, Italy, Switzerland, and all fifty of the United States. She made her concerto debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of eighteen and has since appeared with such noted orchestras as the Dallas Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony, the Caramoor Festival Orchestra, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in Carnegie Hall, the Jupiter Symphony and Concordia Chamber Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall, and the Tokyo Symphony at the famed Orchard Hall in Tokyo. Lydia Artymiw has emerged as one of the most compelling and individual pianists of her generation. For over forty years, she has consistently earned rave reviews, firmly establishing herself as a unique artistic personality with rare communicative gifts. Critics have praised her artistry and highly original interpretations, her warmth, intelligence, poetic gifts, thoughtfulness, versatility, and most of all, her distinctive and beautiful sound.