Includes work(s) by Alan Hovhaness. Soloist: Robin Dauer.

DEBUSSY Estampes. Pour le piano. Suite bergamasques: Clair de lune. Préludes: Feux d’artifice. Des pas sur la neige; La puerta del vino; Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest. Etudes: pour les sonorities opposes. Berceuse héroique. Morceau de concours. Ballade. Pièce sans titre. Elégie • Roberta Rust (pn) • CENTAUR 2867 (71:18)


This is my first encounter with the playing of Roberta Rust, a pianist who has studied with John Perry and Ivan Davis, among others. She now has an active international career and her previous recordings include piano works by Haydn, Villa-Lobos, and Prokofiev. On this disc she proves herself a first-rate Debussy player, someone who listens acutely to each sound she makes, who characterizes the music in a personal way while at the same time honoring Debussy’s very detailed notation, and who has an arsenal of touches—and a beautifully recorded piano—at her disposal. The disc provides a fine cross section of Debussy piano output, from the early, ubiquitous “Clair de lune” (1890) to his great triptych Estampes (1903) and his final piano pieces, including the sad little Elegie (1915). For me, Estampes is the highlight, with the numerous fade-ins and fade-outs of ideas under superb control in all three movements: “Pagodes” and “Soirée dans Grenade” come across as wonderfully evocative improvisations—and not even a Richter has always been so successful at this; and “Jardins sous la pluie” is truly a tempest in a théière. In Pour le piano, the Prelude and Toccata are never dry—and the latter concludes with tremendous reserves of speed and color. Imagination and virtuosity are equally in the service of “Feux d’artifice” and “Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest” (technically the two hardest of Debussy’s 24 Préludes ), and the hypnotic mood of “Des pas sur la neige” (the slowest and easiest of them) is captured perfectly. This is quite simply one of the finest Debussy discs I have heard in recent memory, and I hope that it won’t be long before Rust gives a complete set of the Préludes or the two sets of Images. Very highly recommended.


FANFARE: Charles Timbrell

There is an amazing abundance of great songs from Finland, Sweden and Norway. This album features a collection of these works, composed over a span ranging from the second half of the 19th century to 1960. Soprano Mimmi Fulmer has made a specialty of this repertoire.

This disc features four great Victorian works for Cello and Piano. This is literature that deserves to be a part of the standard repertoire.

ZOLTAN KODALY; ARAM KHACHATURIAN; ALAN HOVHANESS; RICHARD ARNELL Antony Cooke, cello. THE SOLO CELLO - ZOLTAN KODALY: Solo Sonata, Op. 8; ARAM KHACHATURIAN: Sonata-Fantasy; ALA HOVHANESS: Yakamochi; RICHARD ARNELL: Suite for Unaccompanied Cello.

Pianist Alexander Kobrin, born in Russia in 1980 and now based in the U.S. is an internationally acclaimed pianist who, among other honors, is a former winner of the Gold Medal Prize in the heralded Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. + This Centaur release features Mr. Kobrin’s in an all-Schumann program, opening with one of the composer’s finest of several piano masterpieces that comprise Schumann’s first two dozen or so published works, Carnaval, op. 9, followed by Waldszenen, op. 82, which contains the wondrous Vogel als Prophet, and concludes with the op. 18 Arabesque.

Francois Couperin was one of the finest French Baroque composers and keyboardists. In fact, he was known as “Couperin the Great” to distinguish him from the rest of his talented Couperin family. This release features some of Couperin’s finest works, including Huitieme Concert “Dans le gout Theatral,” and “Les Ondes.” All works on this recording are performed on period instruments by the acclaimed Aulos Ensemble.

BACH Six Cello Suites • Carmine Miranda (vc) • CENTAUR 3263/4 (2 CDs: 130:10)


Since reviewing Truls Mørk’s version of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites in 29:5, no fewer than six more accounts have crossed my desk. In chronological order, they were Jean-Guihen Queyras (31:4), Sara Sant’Ambrogio (33:3), Luigi Piovano (34:5), Hekun Wu (34:6), Tanya Tomkins (35:1), and Richard Tuncliffe (36:1). Some of the cellists used conventional cellos, others period instruments. All but two, however, had one thing in common: They were uniformly awful, though each in its own way, ranging from barely tolerable to downright execrable. The one I kept coming back to as my preferred and strongly recommended set throughout those reviews was the first on this list, the one by Jean-Guihen Queyras, with Hekun Wu being a close runner-up. Both, by the way, performed the suites on cellos in modern configuration.


Bach’s six cello suites are like a Siren’s call to cellists of all persuasions, luring many of them to ruin. And the thing is there’s no reason for it. Was it a singular achievement for Bach to write such technically challenging works for an instrument that was relatively new at the time, and a melody instrument to boot, one that takes even more kindly to intensive double-stopping than the violin? Yes. But are the cello suites comparable on levels of musical scope and intellectual depth to the unaccompanied violin sonatas and partitas? Not even close. There are no massive fugues in the cello suites and nothing that approaches the dimensions of the D-Minor Violin Partita’s Chaconne. The cello suites are exactly what their title tells us they are—six sets of relatively short, stylized baroque dances. Yet for cellists—and for some listeners, I think—they’ve taken on an import that may be beyond their actual significance in Bach’s output, virtually becoming every cellist’s initiation rite.


So, how does the young Venezuelan cellist, Carmine Miranda (b. 1988), fare in his initiation into cellodom’s manhood? Well, first a few words about this young artist, who is likely unknown to readers, as this is his recording debut; he was 22 when he recorded the Bach suites for Centaur in 2011–12. Miranda’s early training took place in his native country, where he studied at the Carabobo State Music Conservatory, then in the Latin-American Academy of Violoncello, and finally at the Simon Bolivar Conservatory of Music (the institution that spawned the famous “El Sistema”). Miranda then traveled to the States to study with Ross Harbaugh at the University of Miami, followed by further coaching under Yehuda Hanani at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where Miranda obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and is a candidate for a doctorate.


In the U.S., he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Bowdoin Music Festival, the Bach Annalia Festival in Cincinnati, the Young People’s Festival in Chatham, N.Y., and is on the artist’s roster for the Close Encounters with Music Series in Great Barrington, N.Y., both under the direction of Yehuda Hanani and others.


Among Miranda’s awards are first prize at the 2005 Alhambra Music Competition, the National Prize for best soloist from the FMEA (Florida Music Educators Association), and the 2008–09 University of Cincinnati Cello Competition. He has collaborated with recognized international artists such as Yehuda Hanani, Awadagin Pratt, Rodolfo Saglimbeni and performed as a soloist with several chamber ensembles and orchestras, recently including the Caracas Municipal Symphony Orchestra. He is also the founder and member of the Troika Piano Trio comprised of violinist Joshua Ulrich and pianist Assaf Sommer.


Miranda, who authored his own album note, makes no mention of the instrument(s) he uses for these performances, how he handles the scordatura tuning of the Fifth Suite—does he retune his cello according to the original manuscript or use the modern standard-tuning edition?—or what he does to accommodate the Sixth Suite, believed to have been originally written for a five-string violoncello piccolo. His note speaks only of his personal impressions of, and responses to, the emotional and spiritual character and quality of each of the pieces. At one point, in fact, I was quite taken aback to read, “Interpretation of the suites has nothing to do with what is correct, accurate, and historical, but it rather has to do with going deep within the soul of the writing…” That raised a red flag for me, not to mention an eyebrow. I couldn’t help but think to myself that only the immodesty of youth could be so callow and cavalier with respect to the years of serious musicological research that have attempted to ascertain what is “correct, accurate, and historical,” and to the many veteran cellists who have spent more years studying these works than Miranda has been alive. But the proof, as they say, is in the hearing. And so I decided not to allow my annoyance with Miranda’s words to influence my judgment of his playing.


Instantly, from the very first bar of the G-Major Suite, the cellist that came to mind was Pablo Casals, a comparison that elicits no higher compliment. In my above-mentioned review of Tanya Tomkins’s Bach suites, I noted how slow and super-romanticized her readings were; she takes 3:16 for the opening Prelude, a full half-minute longer than Jacqueline du Pré, who, at 2:35, is hardly fast. So, I went back to Casals’s 1950s recording and found that he dispatched the Prelude in two minutes flat and without any rhythmic distensions or distortions. What about Carmine Miranda? 2:09. I don’t know if Miranda studied Casals’s recordings, but if he didn’t, it’s truly uncanny how closely he channels both the letter and the spirit of the great cellist’s example.


It’s really difficult to express in words the beauty of Miranda’s performances. His cello is a modern instrument, or at least one updated with modern fittings and tuned to modern pitch, but the tone it emits is lighter in weight than that which we often hear in versions played on modern cellos. Of course, much of that can be attributed to Miranda’s bowing. He doesn’t dig into the strings to produce guttural sounds. The tone is clean and clear and intonation perfect. But one expects more than technical proficiency, dexterity, and finesse; and more—much more than that—is what one gets from Miranda’s readings.


Alluded to above is the fact that these are suites of dances, and time and again, in extolling the virtues of Jean-Guihen Queyras’s performances, I’ve remarked on the way in which he manages to capture the essence of each dance step. Miranda, it seems to me, goes one step further (no pun intended). He hears, and allows us to hear, the historical roots of each dance and whence it comes, which is pretty funny when you try to square that with his comment that interpretation of the suites has nothing to do with the historical. Yet listen to Miranda’s courantes, and you will hear not just rapid tempos, but the very definition of the Renaissance dance as described by Thoinot Arbeau, the 16th-century French theorist who tells us that the courante was danced with fast running and jumping steps. If Miranda didn’t learn this from reading music history, he knows it intuitively, for it’s not just his accelerated tempos but the effect of rhythmic arrest you would observe in a dance that involved running forward several steps, then making a sudden jump, hop, or jerk to stop short the forward motion. In Miranda’s hands, the suites don’t just sound dance-like , as in stylized baroque refinements, they sound like actual Renaissance dances.


Likewise, Miranda’s sarabandes are played with the stately gravitas that would have been à la mode for a processional court dance in 17th-century France. Interestingly, the sarabande had its origins as a fairly fast dance a century earlier and quite likely in Mexico or Central America. When Spanish colonists brought the dance back to Spain with them, it was banned in 1583 for being obscene. It wasn’t until the sarabande made its way to Italy and then France that it became the slow, triple-meter dance that was widely adopted into the baroque suite.


I’ve never heard Bach’s cello suites played in quite this way, and while I wouldn’t want to be without the versions by Queyras, Hekun Wu, Casals, and János Starker, Carmine Miranda’s will not only join them, it will stand out as perhaps the most original and imaginative interpretations of the suites I’ve heard.


Centaur’s recording, too, is outstanding, capturing Miranda’s cello fairly close up but with sufficient air around it to allow for a natural sounding bloom, yet without any annoying echo effect. An album note states that the recording was made without any editing. This is a definite buy recommendation for both connoisseurs of Bach’s cello suites and those who appreciate cello playing at its best. I’d have to say that Carmine Miranda has passed his initiation with flying colors. Welcome to the ranks of the world class players.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

Virtuoso saxophonist Farrell Vernon performs a program of works that span the centuries. All works are for soprano sax.

David Finko is a Russian American composer who studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov School of the Performing Arts and the Leningrad Conservatory. He was a member of the Union of Soviet Composers and also wrote commissioned works for the Soviet Ministry of Culture.

The Los Angeles New Music Ensemble was formed in 2007 with the purpose of promoting new classical music, collaboration within the arts, the commissioning of new works, and the creation of multimedia presentations within innovative live performances. + Commissioning new classical chamber works and preserving chamber music written after 1900 is the Ensemble’s focus. + This Centaur release captures five years of recording activity for the ensemble, and features several newly commissioned works along with O King, a work by the late Italian composer Luciano Berio.

This new release is Volume 9 in Centaur’s Steven Staryk retrospective. Born April 27, 1932 in Toronto of Ukrainian immigrant parents, Steven Staryk began his violin studies at the age of seven. The publication of his career memoirs and observations in Fiddling With Life has been lauded by reviewers and distinguished musicians. His prodigious career was a unique and extraordinary integration of related activities: soloist, pedagogue, chamber musician and concertmaster; he surpassed the summit in each and every role. The title “King of Concertmasters” was bestowed upon him by The Strad magazine after having led three major orchestras by the age of 35: the Royal Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw (the first British subject to attain a major position in continental Europe) and the Chicago Symphony. He also served as Concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the CBC Symphony and the Boyd Neel Orchestra. This release presents Staryk performing alongside Quartet Canada the works of Brahms and Strauss.

Hailed for Their Outstanding Musicianship, the Arianna String Quartet - Violinists John McGrosso and Julia Sakharova, Violist Joanna Mendoza and Cellist Kurt Baldwin - Has Firmly Established Itself As One of America's Finest Chamber Ensembles. Their Performances Have Been Praised for Tonal Warmth, Fastidious Balance... Expressive Vitality (Chicago Tribune) and Emotional Commitment and Fluent Virtuosity, (Pretoria News, South Africa). This Double-Disc Set Finds the Group Initiating a Complete Beethoven String Quartet Cycle with the Earliest of the Quartet Opuses, Op. 18/1-6.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Pianist Richard Cionco – praised by Donal Henahan of the New York Times for his “sensitive pianism” – made his orchestral debut at the age of nine, and has since performed with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra and the Seijo Symphony of Tokyo. He is currently a faculty member at California State University at Sacramento and is a Steinway artist.

Classical Music

Soprano Kyoung Cho is a teacher and singer of international recognition. Music critics praised her performances as "Sublimely beautiful, transcendent, serene, dazzling, and heavenly". Dr. Cho holds degrees from Yonsei University, Manhattan School of Music, University of Memphis, Yale University and Israel International Vocal Institute.

The spotlight is on Argentinean native Tomas Cotik in this program of works for solo violin by Telemann, Bach, Schubert and fellow countryman Astor Piazzolla. Mr. Cotik, whose studies began in Argentina, continued his educational pursuits in Germany, Canada and finally the US where he earned his Doctorate at the University of Miami. Alongside his recording and teaching obligations, Mr. Cotik and frequent duo partner pianist Tao Lin received critical acclaim for their Schubert: Complete Works for Violin and Piano, V.1 release, including a Recording of the Year nomination from MusicWeb Int'l.

Classical Music

This album features two towering masterpieces of the romantic piano music literature, Brahms’ Paganini Variations, op. 35 and Schumann’s Études Symphoniques, op. 13. Now based in the US, Ukrainian pianist Sophia Agranovich, a Steinway Artist and Juilliard graduate, is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso, recording artist and educator, performing as a soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. “Agranovich possesses not only technique, but superior musicianship…” (American Record Guide) “…mind-bending technical prowess and heart-melting emotional expressivity…” (Fanfare)

Classical Music

The Italian composer Tommaso Giordani (1738 - 1806) wrote a substantial body of works, including a number of operas. This album features a set of first-rate duos for two cellos, beautifully performed by Charlie Rasmussen and Anton TenWolde. Charlie Rasmussen strives to help his students develop a lifelong passion for music and cello playing. Mr. Rasmussen is currently a cello faculty member and string department co-chair at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee where he teaches private and group cello lessons, musicianship classes, and coaches chamber ensembles. He was previously on faculty at the Talent Education Suzuki School in Norwalk, CT. an Amerongen, cellist with the The Hague Philharmonic Orchestra (Residentie Orkest). While earning his degree in Applied Physics at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Anton performed with Ton Koopman, and toured with the Netherlands Student Chamber Orchestra and the Netherlands Student Baroque Orchestra. In 1973 he moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where he worked for 27 years as a Research Physicist and Project Leader at the Forest Products Laboratory. For many years he played principal cello with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. He is a founding member of the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble and regularly performs with the Madison Bach Musicians and the Bach Collegium-Fort Wayne.

This is Volume 3 in Centaur's cycle of the complete piano sonatas of Hummel, performed by Antonio Pompa-Baldi. This cycle is setting a very high bar for complete Hummel sonata cycles. Born and raised in Foggia, Italy, Antonio Pompa-Baldi won the Cleveland International Piano Competition in 1999 and embarked on a career that continues to extend across five continents. He also won a silver medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn Competition, as well as a bronze medal at the 1998 Marguerite Long Competition in Paris. The New York Times described his playing as “meltingly beautiful.” Pompa-Baldi founded the Todi International Music Masters Festival, of which he is artistic director and faculty member, and sits on the juries of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world.