Classical Music

Musical scholars like Ralph Kirkpatrick, whose classic book on Scarlatti is here quoted at length (though without acknowledging the source), are understandably fascinated by the inexhaustible diversity brought to basically binary-form movements by this Sicilian-descended, Neapolitan-born genius, who spent exactly half his life in the Iberian peninsula. For music lovers in general, however, the fascination lies in his enormous vitality, his demands for unprecedented keyboard virtuosity and his highly individual use of melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and instrumental Hispanicisms that demonstrate how far he had fallen under the spell of Spanish folk-music and folk life.

All these facets are zestfully displayed on this stimulating disc. Apart from genuine Spanish dances—the bulerias of Kk492, the peteneras of 502 and the Andalusian 519 which bubbles from minor to major—there are impressions of street processions (490, 491 with unmistakable sounds of trumpets, horns and drums, and a marching element in 518) and the exciting rattle of castanets or tambourines in the rapid note-reiterations of 141, 119 and 455, and Scarlatti's unique telescoped chords (490 and the even more dissonant 119). His unexpected modulations and side-stepping key-changes are to be heard in several sonatas, and his stamping basses in 502 and 517. And besides the hurtling arpeggios or broken-chord patterns (141, 454) and chains of trills (118, 501) there are the Scarlattian quirks such as the out-of-step octave unisons in 203 or the surprise changes of metre in 502. It is a pity we can't see Staier performing the vertiginous cross-hand leaps in the remarkable 108, as well as in 118 and the exuberant 119, but the sheer breakneck speed at which he plays 517, shooting off like an arrow from a bow, will leave listeners breathless.

He uses a harpsichord of German type with the G in alt called for in 454, 455 and 502, makes a few logically defensible registration changes in some sonatas, and adds occasional discreet ornamentation on repeats (which are fully observed except in five cases). This is a most enjoyable disc, which I would recommend very highly: there are many recordings of Scarlatti, but this is among the best.

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone [2/1992]

Classical Music

SZYMANOWSKI: STRING QUARTETS

Classical Music

The Polish contemporary composer Slawomir Kupczak is introduced with a selection of compositions featuring the rich interplay of flute, accordion, piano and electronics.

Classical Music

Classical Music

This new release of works by the Poland-based Dux label's greatest and most highly-acclaimed living fellow countryman composer Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933) features two concerti - the Clarinet Concerto (1984; transcribed from the Viola Concerto), the Flute Concerto (1992) and his (2001) Concerto Grosso No. 1. These concertante works were written during a time when Penderecki had synthesized experiences of Romantic provenance (typical of his middle period) with other, sometimes drastically varying sources of inspiration, while aiming at an anchoring in universal humanistic values.

Leonard Shure (1910-1995), an Artur Schnabel student, was one of the most respected American pianist and pedagogs of the 20th century. This new release presents live performances, including his 1960 collaboration with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic on the Brahms' first piano concerto. "Shure played with a thrilling blend of insight, breadth, authority and daring,” wrote The New York Times. Also included is his Carnegie Hall Recital from February 1956, which features his Encores, and his Symphony Hall Boston concert from February 1936. This is the first release of each of these recordings.

"I know of no virtuoso trio of this class in the entire world." (Wieland Wagner, 1934) The Trio d’Anches (Reed Trio), of whom Wieland refers, bassoonist Fernand Oubradous, Myrtil Morel (oboe) and Pierre Lefebvre (clarinet) came together in the Paris of the 1920s. This tribute to them, the colorful Parisian world of the time and that typical French line-up of oboe, clarinet and bassoon features a number of original compositions and arrangements as played by the first-rate Trio Lézard.

DAS LIED VON DER ERDE

On Sweet Melancholy, the selections include compositions by English composers which focus around the German idea of ‘Weltschmerz,’ or the weariness caused by the ills of the world. Dance settings and fantasies by Thomas Lupo, Henry Purcell, John Hingeston, William Byrd, and more are featured here. The Cellini Consort was founded by three gambists, Goals Eketorp, Brian Franklin, and Thomas Goetschel in 2012. Since then the ensemble has explored the music of the Renaissance and Baroque, filling each performance with their originality and freshness.

MONARCA DELLA TROMBA

DAVIDSBUNDLERTANZE. 18 CHARAKT

Carl Friedrich Abel was one of the few composers to be painted by a famous painter. Two portraits of the composer, done by Thomas Gainsborough, are preserved. This shows his status as one of the foremost composers of his day. This release features his Sonatas and Trios from the Ledenburg Collection. Many of these works are receiving their world premiere recording with this release. Thomas Fritzsch is one of the finest gambists of our day. Joining him on period instruments are pianist Michael Schonheit, violinist Eva Salonen, and cellist Katharina Holzhey.

Recording of the Month

When it comes to the music of Robert Schumann the dramatic works have always seemed to be the poor relations when compared to the rest of his music. This is mainly due to the writing of Eduard Hanslick, who at best damned the works with faint praise. The so-called "War of the Romantics" did not help: Schumann was seen as part of the conservative side by the followers of the modernists who included Liszt and Wagner. Either way his dramatic output and especially his opera, Genoveva, a work I enjoy, suffered as a consequence. Scenes from Goethe's Faust did not fare much better, which is a real shame as I have always regarded it as one of his greatest pieces, and not just of his late period, the music of which Hanslick all but dismisses. A convincing argument for the Scenes as a major work is made in the excellent accompanying book.

One of the perceived problems is that it is difficult to describe. It is not an opera but it's hardly an oratorio either. Perhaps a new genre needs to be developed to describe it. Until then perhaps we can call it an opera-oratorio, a description that highlights the best that the work has to offer in both worlds.

Scenes from Goethe's Faust had a prolonged gestation period of some nine years (1844-1853), with the third section having originally been conceived as a standalone work. The first two sections - Schumann was the first composer to set part two of Goethe's text to music - were added later. This led to the criticism that it was unbalanced with the best music being found in the final section, while the rest, which was composed during the period of Schumann's final illness said to lack the spark of inspiration. This is far from the truth. The work has to be seen as a whole or the scenes do not work together. These sections are used to highlight specific aspects of the 'Faust' myth and not the story as a whole.

If the third part could be said to be the most inspired, this is due to Goethe's text. The second part is the most dramatic and lends itself to a more dramatic interpretation through music. The result is a work which deserves more recognition. I would love to hear it performed live but whilst I can't see that happening anytime soon, this is the second new recording to have appeared in the last few years; Wit's Naxos version is the other. Perhaps people are coming to recognise this for what it is: one of Schumann's most important pieces as well as a seminal work in Romantic musical literature.

When it comes to performances the classic recording by Benjamin Britten has always been seen as the one to beat, although I must say that I have always had a soft spot for Abbado's star-studded live Sony recording from Berlin in 1994. I have always enjoyed Abbado's Schumann recordings. Is it any coincidence therefore that Daniel Harding, who became the assistant to Abbado in Berlin the following year, should choose to perform and ultimately record the work as well. This is an excellent performance, a true case of the apprentice learning well from the master. Christian Gerhaher is every bit as convincing as Bryn Terfel in the title role, while Christiane Karg, a soprano to watch, brings out a little more vulnerability to the role of Gretchen than Karita Mattila. That said there is very little to choose between the two, with all performers, soloists, chorus and orchestra, being on top form. Where the present recording wins hands down is on recording quality. There have obviously been a great many improvements in miking live performances over the last nineteen years, as this new recorded sound is a great deal brighter and more natural than that enjoyed by Abbado. This helps to bring out every nuance of the music and gives the listener new insights, especially when it comes to orchestration.

The booklet essay is excellent. It places the work in its true place of prominence. Added to this we find an interview with Christian Gerhaher in which he discusses the piece and a kind of glossary in which the characters are explained. This is all packaged in an attractive hardback book format.

– Stuart Sillitoe, MusicWeb International

Born in Debica on November 23, 1933, Krzysztof Penderecki studied composition with Artur Malawski and Stanislaw Wiechowicz at the State Higher School of Music in Krakow (1954-58). In 1959 three of his works won him the top prizes at the Young Composers’ Competition of the Polish Composers’ Union. A year later, he captured the attention of Western critics with Anaklasis, performed at the Donaueschingen Festival. Penderecki’s international position was consolidated in the 1960s thanks to such pieces as Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the St. Luke Passion, and Dies irae. This release in the Polish Sinfonia luventus Orchestra's Penderecki series features his Concerto doppio per violin, viola, e orchestra (2012), his Concerto per pianoforte ed orchestra Resurrection (2001-2002 rev. 2007), and his Concertino per tromba e orchestra (2015).

The Blue Chamber Quartet recording George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue could just have easily come at the beginning of their career, as the ensemble, founded 2005, and Gershwin’s compositions from 1923/24 share a similar approach: the connection between classical music in the broadest sense with elements of jazz. + This can also be seen in the other works on this recording, particularly those of Leonard Bernstein, Mark Glentworth and Allen Shawn, that the Blue Chamber Quartet play in their very own way. “… an ear-opening classical crossover quartet.” (Audiophile Audition – USA)

Looking back on the Verdi year of 2013, BR-Klassik has now supplemented its discography with the live recording of a concert highlight of October 2013. + With the Messa da Requiem, the conductor Mariss Jansons is now represented on the BR-Klassik label with Verdi's choral-symphonic legacy. + Together with international soloists Krassimira Stoyanova, Marina Prudenskaya, Saimir Pirgu, Orlin Anastassov and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Chorus of the Bayerischer Rundfunk is also a fundamental element of the Requiem, and its tonal versatility received special praise from the press. + Giuseppi Verdi’s Requiem, as dramatic a work as are any of his immortal operas and reproached in its day in some quarters as more theatrical than spiritual, was completed in 1874 shortly after the death of the great Italian author and patriot Alessandro Mazzoni, for whom it was performed on the first anniversary of his death.

Born in Debica on November 23, 1933, Krzysztof Penderecki studied composition with Artur Malawski and Stanislaw Wiechowicz at the State Higher School of Music in Krakow (1954-58). In 1959 three of his works won him the top prizes at the Young Composers’ Competition of the Polish Composers’ Union. A year later, he captured the attention of Western critics with Anaklasis, performed at the Donaueschingen Festival. Penderecki’s international position was consolidated in the 1960s thanks to such pieces as Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the St. Luke Passion, and Dies irae. This release in the Polish Sinfonia luventus Orchestra’s Penderecki series features his Concerto per viola ed orchestra (version for saxophone, 2015), and his Concerto per violin ed orchestra no. 2 Metamorphosen (1995).

SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 6 1. TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6 2 • Mariss Jansons, cond; Bavarian RSO • BR 900123 (75:25) Live: 1 Münich Herkulessaal 3/21/2013; 2 Münich Philharmonie 6/7/2013


Mariss Jansons is not new to either of these scores. Between 1988 and 2005, he recorded all 15 of Shostakovich’s symphonies, most in live performances, with more than half-a-dozen different orchestras in as many different venues. It could hardly be called an integral cycle, though EMI assembled all 10 discs into a boxed set, which it put out in 2006 at a budget price. Truer to the definition of “cycle” was Jansons’s traversal of Tchaikovsky’s symphonies. All six were recorded with the same orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, over a two-year period between 1984 and 1986, and put out as a budget-priced boxed set by Chandos in 2008.


I’m not familiar with Jansons’s Tchaikovsky, but I do have his Shostakovich, so I’m able to compare his 1991 Oslo performance of Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony to this new one with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. As always, timing differences are interesting, though seldom determinative in judging the relative merits of one performance vs. another. In this case, the differences between each of the symphony’s three movements are fairly small, but incrementally, they add up to a total of two minutes, with the biggest difference occurring in the score’s Presto finale.

1991	2013
15:20	15:41
5:47	6:21
6:39	7:42
27:46	29:44

Unusual in structure, Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony, completed in 1939, begins with an expansive Largo , longer than the following two scherzo-like movements combined. Those who expected another large-scale tragic-triumphant work along the lines of the preceding Fifth Symphony must have been nonplussed, but no more so than Shostakovich himself, who had planned on composing a monumental choral symphony on a poem extolling Lenin. Whatever the reason, Shostakovich changed his mind and came up instead with this strange piece that pits a dark, brooding first movement against two careening, cartwheeling, clownish-sounding fast movements that skate on the thin edge between comic and manic.


The concluding Presto should sound like it’s about to come unhinged, and in Jansons’s 1991 performance it does. But in 1991, the Oslo Philharmonic was not quite the world-class orchestra it has become today, while in 2013, when Jansons took up his baton to conduct Shostakovich’s Sixth again, this time with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, he led an ensemble that had already achieved world-class status. Jansons’s new account may be more detailed and distinguished by better playing, especially in the woodwinds, but his slower Presto sounds more cautious and controlled than it did in the earlier performance. As for the recording, the new BR Klassik CD may have a slight edge over the older EMI disc when it comes to resolution and depth of field, but EMI’s sonic image is actually more dynamic and has greater impact.


Jansons’s new Shostakovich Sixth is a very good one, but I wouldn’t rate it better than his Oslo effort. In fact, in my recent review of Vasily Petrenko’s Sixth on Naxos in 37:4, I stated that Gergiev and Jansons were my current favorites, but that was before I received this new release, so I had to be referring to Jansons’s Oslo performance on EMI.


That brings us to Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique,” which may well be the deciding factor for you in whether you wish to add this disc to your collection. As I said at the top, I’ve not heard the conductor’s earlier version with the Oslo Philharmonic on Chandos, but Howard Kornblum reviewed it in 10:6, and gave it very high marks, writing that Jansons “has an uncommonly deep feeling for the composer, shaping each movement with a fresh and unswerving sense of continuity, with great expressiveness and energy.”


Those same qualities are abundant in this new performance as well. Jansons definitely has a way of teasing Tchaikovsky’s melodies into long-spun lines of great beauty. Having only recently completed reviewing the lion’s share of four different Tchaikovsky cycles, among which Pletnev and Kitaenko emerged as my favorites, I can’t honestly say that Jansons whips up the tumultuous first-movement development section to quite as frenzied and frightful a pitch as either of them, and I’ve heard the development launched with a more incisive, impactful wallop than it receives here. But on the other hand, Jansons makes more of the menacing Furies that visit their wrath on the lower strings in swirling counterpoints of dire warning. One doesn’t usually hear these string rejoinders brought to the surface quite as clearly as they are here.


The more I listen to this performance of the “Pathétique,” the more convinced I become that it’s one of the great ones. It’s highly dramatic, without being theatrical, which was something I was slightly critical of Pletnev for, and it’s emotionally quite draining, which is what any really good “Pathétique” should be.


If Jansons’s Shostakovich Sixth is not necessarily a first choice, it’s still very, very good; and coupled as it is with a better than very, very good Tchaikovsky Sixth, I think this release deserves a very, very strong recommendation.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Mozart’s Mitridate, re di Ponto was first performed in Milan in 1770—the composer was still a month short of his fifteenth birthday and the opera ran for an impressive 22 performances. As well as the complete opera, this release includes original versions of a number of arias that Mozart subsequently changed.

Classical Music

MOZART Clarinet Concerto in A 1. GLIÈRE Harp Concerto in E? 2. KORNGOLD Violin Concerto in D 2 • 1 Cornelius Meister, 2 Lawrence Renes, cond; Sebastian Manz (cl); Emmanuel Ceysson (hp); Hyeyoon Park (vn); Bavarian RSO • BR (76:07) Live: Munich 1 9/19/2008; 2 9/18/2009


If you guessed that these performances were presented for the benefit of three young and very talented contest winners, you’d be right. Each of these prize-winning soloists at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich was given the opportunity to launch his or her career in a concert appearance with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The CD at hand documents those concerts.


For his solo appearance Sebastian Manz chose perhaps not the most difficult clarinet concerto in the literature, but certainly the most widely known and loved, Mozart’s A-Major Concerto, K 622. Playing a basset clarinet, and properly so, Manz navigates his part with exceptional agility, gorgeous tone, exquisite phrasing, and highly cultivated musical taste, quite an accomplishment for a 22-year-old. The influence of his teacher, celebrated clarinetist Sabine Meyer, is manifest.


The double-action pedal harp was patented by Sebastien Érard in 1801. Its modern descendant has 46 or 47 strings and weighs around 80 pounds. Suddenly, one doesn’t feel so sorry for double-bass players anymore. This was the instrument that Reinhold Glière was writing for when he wrote his Harp Concerto in 1938, and in doing so he sought the help of harpist Ksenia Erdeli. In fact, so extensive was her advice that Glière proposed to credit her as co-composer, but she refused the honor, preferring to be acknowledged as the editor. The result was a piece as idiomatically written for the harp as any ever has been; though judging by the number of currently listed recordings, it doesn’t seem to be quite as popular as I believe it once was. Emmanuel Ceysson is really superb. He plays with fluent ease in the most difficult passages and spins the score’s enchanting Russian lyricism with color and character.


Seventeen-year-old Korean violinist Hyeyoon Park is obviously very talented. She would have to be to tackle Korngold’s technically taxing Violin Concerto. The difficulty she faces is that there have been at least three quite recent recordings of the piece, by Renaud Capuçon, Vadim Gluzman, and Nikolai Znaider, on top of which there are classic versions by Heifetz and Perlman, as well as fine accounts by Mutter, Hahn, and Ehnes. Park is very good, but she is not yet in the same class as those named, though she comes pretty darn close, which is an amazing achievement for one so young. She plays with solid technique, tonal vibrancy, and strong emotional commitment.


It wouldn’t be fair really to compare any of these three soloists to much older and more seasoned artists who have performed these concertos many times in concert under various conductors and with different orchestras. These are firsts for all three of them, and exceptional firsts they are. This is a beautiful recording—most enjoyable and highly recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins