The Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (the original spelling: Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach) is a collection of keyboard music compiled by Johann Sebastian Bach for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann, who went on to become one of Europe's greatest improvising composers. The book has a clear didactic purpose. Most of the pieces included are better known as parts of The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Inventions and Sinfonias. The pieces in the collection are sequenced by complexity, beginning with the simplest works. The works are for “Keyboard” so they may be played on any instrument of the time: organ, harpsichord, spinet, or clavichord. Bach, however, considered the clavichord the best instrument for personal use, because it is able to express most adequately the cantabile way of playing.

Played on the clavichord by Yuan Sheng, “China’s premier interpreter of Bach” (International Piano Magazine) and a pupil of Solomon Mikowsky and Rosalyn Tureck, Yuan Sheng extensively studied the performance practice of Baroque music. Equally at home at the piano as at the harpsichord, he has an instinctive feeling for the possibilities, sonorities, and touch of the instrument at hand, so that “the listener might easily have imagined the composer at the keyboard” (Boston Intelligencer).

Born in Nuremberg in 1564 within a musical family, Hassler received his formative musical instruction from his father and quickly developed into a keyboard player of formidable gifts: in the dedication to his 1591 Cantiones sacrae he noted that he was ‘from a tender age more talkative with the fingers than with the tongue’. In 1584 Hassler left Nuremberg to continue his education in Venice, becoming one of the first in a long line of German musicians who journeyed south of the Alps for study in Italian musical centers. While his motets and other vocal works were widely disseminated during his lifetime and have attracted recordings by period-instrument luminaries such as Philippe Herreweghe, his output for organ and harpsichord has received much less than its fair share of attention. Manuel Tomadin demonstrates that across its range there is no reason for music of this invention and lively originality to be hid under a bushel. In a 1593 portrait, Hassler is described as a ‘most esteemed organist’, and a single-manual chamber organ with pedal is prominently included in the frame. After moving back to Germany, taking a succession of prestigious posts in musical centers across central and southern Germany including his home city, he became known as an expert in organ design, and his own music for the instrument exploits every possible technical and coloristic refinement of the new instruments of his age.

On this set, Manuel Tomadin plays a collection of historically appropriate instruments in Italian churches, and the collection is highly attractive as a gallery of Italian organ-building in its own right. The formal weight of Hassler’s output falls on instrumental paraphrases and elaborations of the Magnificat hymn, complemented as in Frescobaldi with ornate and harmonically adventurous ricercars and more lyrical canzonas.

The recent Kozeluch revival, featuring recordings of his solo, chamber and orchestral music, has demonstrated his status as one of the most important figures in the whole of Viennese Classicism. This double album dedicated to Kozeluch’s works for fortepiano four-hands provides further confirmation of his compositional mastery, on a level bearing comparison with his contemporaries.

Leopold Antoniìn Kozeluch was born on 26 June 1747 in Velvary, to the north-west of Prague. He began his musical career in 1771 as a composer of ballet music and in 1778 decided to abandon the study of the law and to move to Vienna, where in a short time he was able to establish himself as a composer and performer thanks to his indisputable musical qualities and his ability to cultivate good relations to sustain and expand his activities. Building upon stylistic influences inherited from his teacher Frantisek Xaver Dusek (the first Czech composer to approach the four-hands piano genre in a manner neither frivolous nor didactic), Kozeluch committed himself to composing for keyboard duo, raising its aesthetic and technical level and contributing to the evolution of a concert hall repertoire worthy of the same attention as solo sonatas. The large-scale works were recorded on an original fortepiano constructed in Vienna by Johann Schantz in the early years of the 19th century and therefore contemporary with Kozeluch. The Duo Op.19 and Trio Sonatas Op.12 Nos. 1 and 2, with their domestic character, were recorded on the Longman & Broderip square piano, a type of instrument extremely popular in the households of the day and therefore appropriate for Hausmusik.

Though Frederick II of Prussia, better known as “the Great” (1712–1786), was one of the greatest strategists of history; he found a way of reconciling his army life, his battles, and his political determination with his passion for the flute and for music in general. He played every day, even when he was at war, and in the course of his life he composed, among other things, 121 sonatas and 4 concertos for flute, annotating some of these works with the phrase ‘Frederick composed [it] amidst torments’.

In Potsdam Frederick had teachers of extraordinary skill, ranging from Johann Joachim Quantz to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and while he was certainly influenced by their style, he also proposed a style of his own that was not only closely associated with forms of ‘recitative’ influenced by vocal music, but also inspired – in certain respects – by his masonic faith. In fact, in his music one finds interesting esoteric symbolisms associated with numerology, masonic keys and the concept of the initiatory journey. Almost all the sonatas for flute and continuo are in three movements in an ascending progression of tempos: Adagio, Allegro, Presto. Of particular interest is the Sonata in C minor (King’s Catalogue No.190) in which an introductory Recitativo and an Andante cantabile lead to the closing movement, which is a Fugue (the only example of this genre of composition in all his works). Moreover, the subject of the fugue includes an evident reference to the ‘Thema Regium’, the famous theme that the King gave to Johann Sebastian Bach during their meeting in Potsdam in 1747, which formed the basis of the Musical Offering BWV1079.

The three compositions on this album were all created at turning points in Dvořák’s life, when radical changes in his situation impacted his creative career. His Serenade for Strings was composed in 1875, the year the impoverished musician became a successful composer almost overnight. Each of its five movements is a variation on ternary (A–B–A) form. The resourcefulness with which Dvořák invents novel ways of returning from the middle section to the opening motive and key is astounding.

Silent Woods has much to do with Dvorak’s relocation to America. He was engaged to establish and direct a new National Conservatory in New York. Based on his now established ability to blend Czech folk music with large-scale classical forms, it was hoped he would do the same in his new post with American folk music. In 1892, before leaving his home for the US, Dvorak gave something of a farewell tour of Czech cities, writing the cello version of Silent Woods for performance on these recitals. Ten years later, Dvorak created the version for cello and orchestra recorded here. At the conclusion of his time in New York and on his return to Bohemia, Dvorak was focused particularly on writing his Cello Concerto. At first believing the cello an unsuitable instrument for concertante music, his mind changed on hearing a concerto by American composer Victor Herbert; Dvořák’s masterpiece took on definitive form in 1895.

Previous Brilliant Classics albums by this Dutch string orchestra, based in The Hague, have focused on late-Romantic ‘American Pioneers’ (96086) and composers in early 20th-century Paris (95734). Under their founder-director Dick van Gasteren, they now turn to the rich history of Rhineland music from the high-point of its immortalisation in operatic culture as the bedrock of Wagner’s Ring cycle. Das Rheingold itself is present by implication in the cycle of Wesendonck-Lieder which Wagner composed on the shore of Lake Zurich, initially as sketches for Tristan und Isolde, which he had embarked upon as a venture to drum up interest and capital for the larger project of the Ring. Inspired by his intimate association with as well as the poetry of Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of a wealthy silk merchant who was underwriting the composer’s sojourn in Zurich, Wagner then developed the songs into a self-contained cycle which throbs with transfigured desire much like the opera. The cycle is sung here by the mezzo-soprano Karin Strobos, whose career was launched by singing Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier at the Netherlands Opera under Sir Simon Rattle. She also sings the album’s notable rarity: a setting of Heine’s Loreley text, which describes the mythical creatures who lure unsuspecting Rhenish sailors to their doom like Greek Sirens. Originally composed as a male-voice partsong by Friedrich Silcher (1798-1860), the song has been transcribed by Dick van Gasteren for Strobos and La Ciconia. Complementing the songs are two unfamiliar but attractive examples of late-Romantic German string music: the Serenade Op.242 by Carl Reinecke, and the Concerto for String Orchestra by Max Bruch. Neither work enjoys more than a toehold on the record catalogue, and this engagingly vivid new recording makes the most persuasive case for them.

REVIEW:

Somehow this quartet of pieces brought to my mind the old wedding saw of “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” For “something old” there is this Serenade of Carl Reinecke (1824–1910). Although I certainly recognize his name, I cannot recollect ever having heard any of his music before now, but this thoroughly delightful six-movement work shows that his oeuvre warrants further investigation.

For “something new” we have a work by Max Bruch (1838–1920) — the string octet he wrote in 1920, only a few months before his death. In the score, Bruch indicated that the piece was also suitable for performance by a full string orchestra, and upon publication of that version his publisher Simrock attached the title “Concerto.” While the octet has enjoyed no less than six previous recordings in its original form, this is the first one for full orchestra, and thus makes a welcome addition to the Bruch discography.

“Something borrowed” comes in the guise of Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, in a 2006 reduction for string orchestra by Gerhard Heydt. Frankly, I’m not certain what the point of this exercise is; certainly Wagner is hardly in need of reorchestration, and a good degree of tonal color is lost in subtracting woodwinds and brass. Mezzo-soprano Karin Strobos has a reasonably attractive and well produced but not exceptional voice; she sings with sincerity, but not the degree of subtle inflection these texts and settings require. This was by no means unpleasant to listen to, but there is no strong incentive to return to it.

Finally, for “something blue,” Strobos sings a setting by Friedrich Silcher (1798–1860) of Heinrich Heine’s famous poem of the original Rhine Maiden, whose beautiful appearance and singing lure ships and sailors to destruction. Silcher’s Lied is a bit peculiar in that it’s a lilting, waltz-like ditty, devoid of any darker undertones. Here Strobos and the ensemble are in their proper element.

The Ciconia Consort is further identified as being a nom de guerre for The Hague String Orchestra. Dick van Gasteren directs the players with a sure hand. The recorded sound is warm, with a certain degree of plush resonance. The booklet provides brief notes and song texts in German without translations. Although I would have preferred a full disc of lesser-known German string serenades, this definitely makes for enjoyable listening; cordially recommended.

-- Fanfare (James A. Altena)

The works in this collection emerged from the genre of duo concertant initially conceived as showcases for the virtuosity of Nicolò Paganini and his successors in the Franco-Belgian school of violin playing, notably Henry Vieuxtemps. He and Louise Farrenc remain attractive outliers in the chronology of French violin sonatas, which began proper in 1877 with the first performance of Fauré’s First Sonata, followed in short order by comparably significant works by Saint-Saëns and Franck. These three works considered together form a trinity linked by features which came to define the character of the French violin sonata as a genre over the next few decades: recitative-like sections, cyclical form, modal techniques and organ-like pedal points, especially in the piano part – all three composers having spent a good part of their career as titular organists at landmark churches in Paris.

A further spur to the flood of of violin sonatas from Paris during the first decades of the 20th century was the abundance of superb performers who had made Paris their home: foremost among them Pablo Sarasate, Eugène Ysaÿe, Georges Enescu, and Jacques Thibaut. The Wagnerian shadow falling over works by Roussel and Lekeu is decisively dispelled by Debussy’s late and sinuous masterpiece, and then more radically by Ravel in the lazy, seductive Blues of his Sonata. The collection evolves further with a bold Sonata of 1932 by André Jolivet, whose movement titles advertise his rejection of the classical forms honored by previous rarities – not only Louise Farrenc but also Rhené-Emmanuel Bâton, who composed in a richly mystical but traditional idiom as an outlet for the creative urges accumulated and repressed like Mahler during his occupation as a conductor.

REVIEW:

A sure-fire bet for collectors of unusual repertoire is Brilliant Classics’ set of French Violin Sonatas, which is headed, interpretatively, by the Debussy, Ravel (Second), and Franck sonatas, superbly played by violinist Kristóf Baráti and pianist Klára Würtz. All of these excellent recordings date from between 1987 and 2020.

-- Gramophone

Canto Ostinato is the work that defines the legacy of the composer Simeon ten Holt, who died in 2012 at the age of 89. There are 106 sections of repeating five-beat patterns whose patterned, repetitive but gradually evolving repetition produce a mesmerizing effect on the listener – a dance-like sense of even unevenness – akin to masterpieces from the US minimalist school such as Steve Reich’s Music for 16 Musicians and Philip Glass’s Music in 12 Parts. However, the sections need not be repeated literally, and the performers can vary the dynamics, the manner of playing (legato vs. staccato, for example), and the octave in which the material is played.

Ten Holt completed Canto Ostinato in 1979 for an instrumentation of three pianos and electronic organ, but the cycle has proved itself adaptable to several different combinations of keyboard instruments, and these versions were brought together by Jeroen van Veen on a compendium produced by Brilliant Classics in 2014. ‘Canto Ostinato XL’ (9453) included this two-piano scoring as well as versions for prepared pianos, organ and marimbas, but Jeroen and Sandra van Veen have re-recorded it in 2021; the fourth version they have produced, which brings together all the varieties of arrangement and articulation developed through the course of concert performances given across the world. ‘Tonality after the death of tonality’, Ten Holt described the language of Canto Ostinato, and Jeroen van Veen compares its style to the music of Chopin: tranquil, immersive, melancholic and romantic. He worked closely with the composer over many years and can justly be regarded as the most authoritative living performer of his music.

REVIEW:

For listeners coming to this music for the first time, you don’t know what you have been missing. I think a two-piano performance that lasts a little more or less than 120 minutes is a good place to start. (In his introduction to the score, ten Holt actually expressed a preference for four pianos, although the premiere was played by three pianos and an electronic organ.) The two van Veens recorded it together for the first time in 1996, and have recorded it on two pianos at least one other time (in 2008) before this new version from 2021. I think some of their earlier versions (alone or with other musicians) have been more dramatic (with an imaginative performer or performers, ten Holt’s works can be hair-raising, at times), but no one, least of all the composer, said that Canto Ostinato needs to be dramatic. With this new version, one is newly impressed by the music’s ability to maintain its core identity no matter how much the details change, and the details this time make the music sound a little more contemporary and a little less Romantic. Your mileage may vary. As for me, I am glad to add this version to my already not minimal ten Holt collection. 

-- Fanfare

The history of Scriabin’s piano music is like a condensed history of piano music, for his style changed perhaps more than any other composer during his life. It has been said that young Scriabin kept Chopin’s music under his pillow, and the early Preludes and Mazurkas certainly breathe the same heightened air of ardour and yearning. His journey from the traditional tonal harmony of these Chopinesque beginnings to his atonal ‘Mystic chord’ (based on fourths) is, however, a masterfully smooth one, best appreciated when taking the sum of his work into account. Born in 1947, long resident in London as a professor at the Royal College of Music,

Dmitri Alexeev entered the Moscow Conservatory at six years of age. A string of EMI recordings in the 80s established his reputation worldwide, but they included scant representation of one of his most ardent passions, the music of Scriabin, beyond the concertante Prometheus conducted by Riccardo Muti. Alexeev’s touch emulates the contemporary accounts of Scriabin’s own playing, which did not rely on power because of his slight build. Rather, he ‘captivated the listener through his ability to enhance his sound with an extraordinary range and gradation of color…his fingers seemingly plucked the sound from the piano keys…as if his hands flew over the keyboard barely touching it.’ Made between 2008 and 2019 in London and in the purpose-built Music Room at Champs Hill, home to many superlative modern chamber-music albums, these recordings won broad critical acclaim on their original publication. Their reissue at super-budget price makes an obvious first port of call for any listener looking to immerse themselves in the rich, heady world of Scriabin’s piano writing.

REVIEW:

Single-artist sets such as this are rarely satisfactory with their inevitable troughs and peaks. Here, for two reasons, is an exception: first, for any pianist to play the complete solo piano works of Scriabin (except for works without opus numbers) is a tremendously challenging undertaking; second, the pianist in question is one of today’s keyboard giants. Dmitri Alexeev must rank as one of the most under-the-radar great pianists currently active. Having won the Leeds Competition in 1975 (the first Russian to do so, beating Schiff and Uchida in the process) and enjoyed a high-profile international career for the following decades, Alexeev devotes much of his time to teaching (at the Royal College of Music) and sitting on competition juries. But great pianist he remains.

-- Gramophone