Ars Antiqua Austria and Gunar Letzbor present outstanding sacred concerts by Rupert Ignaz Mayr for voice, a virtuoso solo violin and basso continuo. Mayr, working largely in Munich from 1683 until his death, is considered a reformer of southern Germany’s Catholic sacred music with his clever combining of the largely protestant sacred concert of the north with the extemporizing concertante style of Italy. R.I. Mayr’s works were influenced by his study trip to Paris as well as the Italian musicians who dominated musical life at the Munich court. Paired with echoes of Bavarian folk music, Mayr’s music reveals both a typically Austrian blend as well as very personal hues. At that time, Catholic church music was dominated by the stile antico. Mayr gently expands this ancient art by introducing the concerto form as well as the monody. He elaborately weaves polyphonic textures, his monodies emerging highly expressive, melodious and also virtuosic. Mayr easily joins the ranks of his famous Austrian colleagues, matching the quality of a J.K. Kerll or the Austrian masters around H.F. Biber.

Here is an album whose contents seem odd as it couples the violin concerto of a (still) Russian composer to the viola concerto of an English one. Instead, the coupling is very clever since Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, whose premiere was in 1923 (while the composer was still living in France, a few years before his return to Soviet Union) served as a much-admired model to Walton’s Viola Concerto, whose first performance was played by Paul Hindemith in 1929. The similarities between the two works go beyond the three-movement structure slow-quick-slow and concern themes, accompaniments and the rondo form of the virtuoso central Scherzo. The smart idea of such unusual coupling came to one of the few great living violinists who can really play the viola with equal skill: Isabelle van Keulen. This glorious album is crowned by the orchestrated version of Vaughan Williams’ masterpiece The Lark Ascending. One of German radio’s best orchestras, the NDR Radiophilharmonie is conducted by Andrew Manze, Keri-Lynn Wilson, and Andrew Litton.

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REVIEW:

Full marks for this well-conceived program, which brings together two works closely related but rarely coupled. Van Keulen plays the Prokofiev with a shiny, rather glassy (rather than glossy) tone. No reservations are needed for the Walton, whose introverted yet deep running emotion well suits van Keulen’s way with the husky-toned viola she plays. Conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson finds an ideal balance of restraint and (in the scherzo) extroversion.

– BBC Music Magazine

Classical Music

The Dutch composer, music journalist and novelist Elmer Schonberger once described the Second Symphony as a sub-genre of a primarily psychological nature, albeit with considerable stylistic consequences: in a first symphony, a composer will more or less reflect the traditions from which he comes, and in a second he will deliberately break away from them. Prokofiev’s Second, composed eight years after the First, appears to be a defiant ode to the modern era, witnessed by the layers of mechanically persistent rhythms, expressionist harmonies, ostensibly unfathomable forms and its very expansive take on tonality. The work was premiered in Paris in 1925, conducted by Serge Koussevitsky. Prokofiev decided to revise his Fourth Symphony, Op. 47, after the successful premieres of his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. The original four movements remained largely intact, but the changes say a great deal about his style at that point. The first alteration was to insert or expand some passages that were predominantly reflective, with a strong emphasis on melody. Another example is the attempt to align the scale more closely with what was required by Social Realism, in which the neo-classical is overlaid with a considerable dose of heroism and sometimes even bombast. The association of Op. 112 with Social Realism subsequently proved to be an obstacle to its acceptance in the West. Once again, James Gaffigan interprets these works with incredible candor and dazzling aplomb.

PROKOFIEV Violin Sonatas: No. 2 in D; No. 1 in f. Five Mélodies, op. 35a • Isabelle van Keulen (vn); Ronald Brautigam (pn) • CHALLENGE 72580 (60: 59)


Violinist Isabelle van Keulen and her frequent duo partner, pianist Ronald Brautigam, present Prokofiev’s two violin sonatas in the order of their appearance. The Second Sonata originally appeared as a flute sonata; David Oistrakh, who heard the premiere, asked the composer to arrange it for violin and piano. Prokofiev left the piano part untouched and collaborated with Oistrakh on adapting the flute part to the violin. When once practicing the Sonata, I heard a flute player in the next room playing the flute version. We both emerged into the hallway to argue about the superiority of the one over the other—I championing the flute version, and she the one for violin. Apparently, Oistrakh and Prokofiev did their jobs well. In fact, though, I always thought that Oistrakh played the piece like a flute sonata, while Nathan Milstein played it like a violin sonata (I can’t think of any flute players who play it like a violin sonata).


Van Keulen digs so deeply into the strings in her aggressive statement of the two themes that she erases all vestiges of that flute version. Yet she adds a silvery sheen to some of the passagework that keeps the movement from sounding coarse or brutal. She or Brautigam occasionally releases an intense outburst that reveals the music’s bubbling hot core, however irenic Prokofiev himself thought the music to be overall; and they showcase the Scherzo’s quicksilver sprightliness, although van Keulen draws an almost hoarsely rich tone from the lower registers of her 1734 Guarneri del Gesù in the trio—a timbre that also suggests steamy sultriness in the outer portions of the third movement—to say nothing of its slinky middle section. Van Keulen sounds almost ferocious—as did Milstein—in the Finale’s opening theme. I remember Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s recording as suggesting high resolution but equalized tension (Virgin 7243 5 61887, Fanfare 25:2). The resolution’s all here in van Keulen’s reading, but not the equalized tension—at the very least, the dynamic interplay between the duo partners guarantees that and they sprint with breathtaking élan to the finish.


In the First Sonata, van Keulen deploys a tone of great strength—modern textile armor wrapped around steel—which lends a hard edge to the first movement; and Brautigam delivers the already grim musical message with intimidating intensity, spreading the terror from the “wind in the graveyard” passages throughout the entire movement. The second movement begins with a snarl; and van Keulen’s very strength—a strength that occasionally causes her violinistic voice to crack, principally the first time it’s heard—lends a somewhat different musical meaning to the lyrical second theme from that which many listeners may have come to expect. She adopts a somewhat kinder and gentler manner in the more introspective third movement, but the duo gives the Finale a topsy-turvy sense of hurling jagged fragments.


The program ends with the Five Melodies . Once again a violinist, this time Paul Kochanski, helped Prokofiev arrange the part for violin. In Joseph Szigeti’s reading of these pieces with Carlo Bussotti, they retained a quirkiness that they lack in van Keulen’s and Brautigam’s version; but since van Keulen and Brautigam play passages like the middle of the second with joyous energy, and bring an almost searing intensity to the opening of the third, they can hardly be accused of pruning the pieces emotionally.


For those seeking a view of these works more recent than those of the first performers, van Keulen and Brautigam certainly provide an almost comparable musical understanding combined with, arguably, an equally ample technical command and, not at all arguably, superior recorded sound. Very strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Isabelle van Keulen is a top Dutch violinist who performs all over the world as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles. She heard an Astor Piazzolla LP at the tender age of six, and has been a tango music lover ever since. Isabelle has long wanted to play this music in an ensemble, and now her dream comes true with not only an SACD but also a DVD and Blu-ray, which both include a moving film by director Hans Pannecoucke as well as a behind-the-scenes documentary on the project.

The angel as a symbol of the tango-dance, death, and resurrection. Without losing the romance, the violence, eroticism and devotion of the traditional tango that he saw as empty and hollowed out, Piazzolla renewed and modified it with elements of European art music, Argentine folklore and jazz, and thus tango took on a new meaning and shape. The writer Alberto Rodriguez Munoz approached Piazzolla in 1961 with a request to write music for his play Tango del angel, which is about an angel appearing in an apartment block in Buenos Aires to cleanse the souls of it's inhabitants. The titles Introduccion al angel, Milonga del angel, and Muerte del angel were created. The latter, a four-part fugue with hard, uncompromising harmonies and rhythms, impressively shows how far Piazzolla pushed the boundaries of traditional tango. When they play was performed in 1962, even the previously hostile parts of ht emusical public in Argentina had to admit how fitting and successful this music was and the titles, especially Milonga del angel, gained extraordinary popularity. The motives of Angel and Diablo appear in many of the tangos composed by Astor Piazzolla: "In my story, angels and devils mix- you have to have something in everything."

Classical Music

This recording has been ‘in the can’ for a long time. Indeed the Bach arias have appeared before on CC 72034, the concertos on the Vanguard Classics label way back around the turn of the century. This attractive double-disc release gives the aria texts in German only at the back of the booklet, and has interesting if largely somewhat anecdotal booklet notes by Pauline Oostenrijk.

Your response to CD 1 will depend a little on whether you fancy the idea of 13 of Bach’s cantata arias for soprano and oboe obbligato taken in isolation and played back to back. It can be a bit much in one sitting, but the programme has been nicely ordered to provide contrast and is packed full of beautiful music. Nienke and Pauline Oostenrijk have performed these works many times before, and their familiarity with and love for these pieces radiates warmly through your speakers. Nienke’s soprano voice is a touch darker than choirboy purity, though it can take on this character at some moments. She uses vibrato in a natural fashion, not throwing it in like an opera diva’s wide wobble, but also not cramping her own style in an attempt to fit some abstract early music performance ideal. There are one or two moments where Bach’s technical demands test her accuracy just a little such as in the energetic Flößt, mein Heiland from the Christmas Oratorio, but there are lovely little touches as well, such as the echo in Liebster Jesu, Mein Verlangen which appears to have been dropped in during post production, the soloist taking up a position somewhere at the back of the church to provide the effect. The soprano voice and oboe are balanced nicely against the continuo harpsichord or organ and, where applicable, strings or other instruments. There are lovely numbers throughout the programme, but my highlights include the pointillist organ and recorders and scrunchy harmonies of Die Seele ruht in Jesu Händen, as well as the gorgeous opening track Ich Bin Vergnuegt Mit Meinem Gluecke and the moving Seufer, Tränen, Kummer, Not. There are a few similar collections around, including a very fine but much more large scale and operatic sounding one on the Archiv label with Magdalena Kozená, a comparison with which would be like comparing chalk with marble.

The J.S. Bach oboe concerto overlaps with a couple of recent releases I’ve looked at, from ECM with Heinz Holliger, and with Alexei Ogrintchouk on the BIS label for the BWV 1055 reconstruction. Pauline Oostenrijk’s recording doesn’t really replace either of these, but it is very fine in a fairly laid back sort of way. Her oboe d’amore playing is truly lyrical in the central Larghetto, and the playing is lively if not particularly urgent in the outer movements.
The delicious sound of the Amsterdam Sinfonietta suits Johann Christian Bach’s Mozart-influenced Concerto in F perfectly. This gentle approach obtains maximum tenderness in J.C. Bach’s Larghetto, but I was glad to hear the orchestral articulation and dynamics firming up for elder brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Concerto in E flat. It’s perhaps a little far -fetched to read too much Sturm und Drang into this concerto, which is more pleasantly diverting than filled with the ‘violent mood changes’ which Oostenrijk claims for it in her booklet notes, but there is plenty of that empfindsame expression which characterises C.P.E. Bach’s melodically strong compositional style.

This is a fine brace of re-releases packaged in an attractive SACD hybrid single-thickness double jewel case. The SACD layer is a recent re-mastering, but doesn’t add a huge amount to already more than decent stereo recordings.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Marie and Veronica Kuijken play historical pianofortes for this recording of Mozart four-hand pieces. The instrument dictates, so to speak, what can and cannot be done; as its touch is much lighter than that of a modern piano, it is also much easier to gracefully play the virtuosic fast passages. The Kuijken sisters explore the limits of the pianoforte, both literally and regarding sound volume. A splendid, deeply musical, and refined recording!

Mozart conceived the 3 piano concerti KV 414, 413, and 415 in 1782, one year after he had settled in Vienna as a more or less free-lance musician. From onset, his idea was to get these works published; he obviously expected a positive response from the public, not only on the financial level but also as a composer and piano virtuoso. In order to enhance the attraction for his publication, he decided to write these concertos in such a way that they could be performed not only with full orchestra, but also with a reduced accompaniment of only string quartet. Clearly, Mozart did not consider this strategic starting point as an artistic limitation, but rather as a challenge: in fact, already the score without the wind parts should leave nothing to be desired. This resulted in a very careful and beautiful string writing, matching the solo part in the most effective and intimate way. The wind parts were then conceived to accentuate and “color” certain passages in the accompaniment with even more depth. For this recording, Sigiswald Kuijken replaces the cello with a double-bass as its role is purely that of a basso continuo. This is a new and exciting release in the discography of La Petite Bande.

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REVIEW:

There are so many recordings of Mozart piano concertos already available, that it might be hard to see where this one might fit in. Suffice it to say that, if you’re looking for these three concertos together, are interested in far-more-intimate playing, though which still respects the raison d’être of the concerto-form, and an instrumental sound as close to what audiences might have heard at the time, then this new CD is definitely an attractive proposition. Couple this with a superb performance, and recording – which sounds perfectly fine even on my bog-standard CD player – then this should be more than enough to sway the balance.

– MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

In these new reconstructions of Delalande's all-too-rare "table music" for the French court of Louis XIV - on CD for the first time - the music is performed in the original five-part textures and on period instruments. Immediately after starting in his post as Superintendent of the House Music in 1689, Delalande began composing instrumental movements. These suites were chiefly intended for the king's suppers which, in reality, were "performances" before an audience. It was an honor to be allowed to watch the king eat, a greater honor to be spoken to during the meal, and a supreme honor to be invited to serve him his food or eat with him. In this context, instrumental music played an important role, it's magnificence reflecting the regent's powerful self-image. Since new works were continually being demanded, this practice resulted, over the course of the years, in an impressive body of works.

"...slowly, as my musical path kept unfolding, I got to the point where more and more I was able to let go of my preconceived notions aout the Violin Concerto and more clearly start to see and hear my own voice in it. Over the years I got to know so much more music by Mendelssohn, from the inside out, and I felt the language become more fully my own. When working with Kees Bakels on it a couple of years ago things started to really fall into place, and last May when performing it with the Amhem Philharmonic I really was all of a sudden struck by a distinct feeling that I can only describe as falling in love all over again with this magical piece. Certain details in the score seemed to appear completely new to me and the idea of approaching the work with the same collaborative energy as in chamber music made me experience it completely afresh. The combination of passion, grand emotions and at the same time lightness and elegance, such characteristic traits for Mendelssohn, fell completely into place. To feel this way about such a familiar piece was revelatory and I knew I wanted to share these discoveries, if you like, with many more people." (Liza Ferschtman)