There’s no question that the late Georg Tintner was a great Brucknerian, even if some of his textual decisions, such as his preference for the patently inferior first version of the Eighth Symphony, with its minimalistically repetitive scherzo (sound clip), necessarily make this set one to own alongside other, more traditional approaches. On the other hand, put this together with Skrowaczewski’s Oehms set, also at budget price, and you can have two superb, hugely different Bruckner cycles for a very reasonable outlay.

And whether or not you agree with all of Tintner’s decisions with respect to editions, there’s no question that he justifies his choices by delivering what are arguably the best performances available of the alternative in question. This is true of that Eighth, and even more so of his astonishing Third, one of the very greatest Bruckner performances ever committed to disc. Also noteworthy: superb versions of the Seventh, Fourth, and First. The two early works, “0? and “00?, need to be played as well as they are here. They are not great Bruckner, but Tintner’s commitment carries the day.

The orchestras involved aren’t traditional “Bruckner orchestras” either, and so lack that characteristic rich string sound and dark-toned brass–but even this contributes to rather than detracts from Tintner’s distinctive vision, and the playing is never less than up to Bruckner’s demands. You also get the 1878 “Volksfest” finale to the Fourth Symphony, plus a bonus CD containing a very personal discussion by Tintner of Bruckner’s music. Sonically, these are also some of Naxos’ finest efforts, making this box an essential purchase for anyone who loves Bruckner and who missed these performances the first time around.

– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

CHOPIN Etudes, opp. 10, 25. 3 Nouvelles Études • Hardy Rittner (pn) • MDG 904 1747-6 (SACD: 61:30)

Hmm. Another recording of the Chopin etudes? That was my very first thought when I was asked to review the current recording. I have so many different versions of these works as it is—why would I need another? Because I thought that one always needs to be reminded of how great these works truly are, and the pianist—well period-instrument pianist, that is—Hardy Rittner was a name new to me. The pianist chooses to use a Conrad Graf Piano (c.1835, 244cm, 6.5 octaves) that he feels has the necessary dynamic breadth, along with moderator pedals, which allow for changes of color appropriate to the music, and which all together is a historically plausible instrument, as Chopin did play on Graf pianos throughout the 1830s (even though the pianist admits that Chopin did eventually prefer the Pleyel pianos). So what does the recording sound like? In general the upper registers of the instrument are thin and the lower registers are muddled. But this gives little impression of how fine a performance this truly is. What is most important is how the pianist uses these timbres in his survey of the works.

Beginning with op. 10/1, the first etude bursts forth with energy; the individual notes sparkle with clarity and vivacity, while the collected arpeggios ebb and flow. The dreaded op. 10/4 is given a whirlwind performance—one of clarity, yet one full of forward momentum. My favorite of the op. 10 etudes, however, was a Horowitz favorite: No. 8 in F Major. Here Rittner basks not only in the continuously paced arpeggios, but relishes the quirky and bouncing left-hand figures. The first of the op. 25 etudes is also spectacularly played: the accompanimental arpeggiations shimmer underneath a gently lilting melody. The etude that follows (in F Minor) has never been given a better performance than here; there is, no matter the tempo, always a sense of grace present. But the faster etudes are not the only highlights of the disc; the mysterious aura of op. 10/6 and the brooding quality of the lovely “Cello” Etude, op. 25/7, are brought to the fore in these performances. Yet some of the true highlights of this disc are the little-played Trois Nouvelles Études. They provide relief from the storm of the two major books and as they are programmed here—between the two larger sets rather than after them—they feel like an integral part of this recital, not an afterthought. The second of the three is my favorite. It is beautifully phrased and sensitively voiced. In this pianist’s hands it is a true gem.

That said, there are also moments that disappoint. The etude in thirds (op. 25/6) feels like a study. There is a lack of sensitivity and a lack of overall dynamics (rather more like one overall dynamic throughout: medium loud). The op. 25/3 in F Major sounds a bit clunky at times and is tarnished by an odd sense of tempo fluctuation. But these are minor quibbles when one is reviewing a recording of 27 etudes. Whether one has a set (or more) of the Chopin etudes, I would recommend hearing the etudes as Chopin might have. And with performances of this caliber in phenomenal SACD sound, how can one go wrong?

FANFARE: Scott Noriega

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

The traditional Afro-Brazilian berimbau is a disarmingly simple instrument: a single steel string, a wooden bow, a resonating gourd. But on MeiaMeia, the berimbau is literally reinvented. Thanks to custom tuneable instruments expertly hand-crafted by David “Snappy” White, composers Gregory Beyer and Alexis C. Lamb and the dedicated talent of ensemble Projeto Arcomusical take the berimbau to new heights of collaboration, interplay and communication. In the spring of 2013, Beyer and Lamb began working together in an independent study under the auspices of the Undergraduate Artistry and Research Apprenticeship Program at Northern Illinois University. Lamb’s first composition for berimbau, “Descobertas por pau e pedra,” was such a success that the collaboration continued, resulting in a plan to compose an expanding chamber music cycle. MeiaMeia- which in Portuguese means “half-half” as in “six of one, a half dozen of the other” – is that cycle, a dozen pieces written in Beyer and Lamb’s rich and sophisticated language for everything from a solo instrument to a sextet.

During the Biedermeier period, the piano gained huge popularity as a domestic instrument, and piano concertos were increasingly arranged for chamber music ensembles. Ignaz Lachner’s superb arrangements of Mozart’s piano concertos are well known, but his brother Vinzenz Lachner’s arrangements of Beethoven’s concertos are a rarity, though equally as valuable. This volume completes the cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos in Vinzenz Lachner’s transcriptions for piano and string quintet.

For a wind quintet to be successful, each player must be a virtuoso soloist who also is capable of being an ensemble player. The musicians in this quintet fill that bill admirably. On this CD they play a program of 20th century favorites for five wind players--six in the case of the Janácek. The compositions are largely happy works. The opening "March" of the Hindemith is boisterous and upbeat, followed by four movements largely in the same vein. The Barber is more ruminative and romantic, along the lines of the composer's better known works, and the Larsson, except for a somewhat chilly third movement, paints a picture of the sunnier side of Scandinavia. The Janácek, written near the end of his life, is autobiographical, a portrait of the composer's own youth which he had recaptured in an infatuation with a younger woman. The Michael Thompson Woodwind Quintet captures every nuance in these compositions in performances that are virtually free of fault. The sound is more distant than usual for a recording of a small group, but it's exceptionally crisp and clear without any irritating clacking of keys, an effect that often mars more close-up recordings of winds. --Rad Bennett, ClassicsToday.com

William Primrose Collection, Vol. 3: Mozart

Recorded in London, England with esteemed producer Nicholas Parker and bathed in the acoustics of Saint Augustine, The Tree of Life features the Trinity Choir including choristers from across Canada and members of the Tallis Scholars, the Gabrieli Consort and the Monteverdi Choir. These are magnificent interpretations that Daniel Taylor directs with passion and dedication. These compositions span over two thousand years, from a sixth-century chant to the miraculous works of Parsons and Mouton to the remarkable compositions from today by Pärt, Britten and Tavener. Among the pieces we find the "Seven Antiphons" by Arvo Pärt, disarmingly impassioned, otherworldly; the extraordinary "Hymn to the Mother of God" by John Tavener, and Benjamin Britten's transformative "Hymn to the Virgin". In close kinship with these profound offerings, the restrained ecstasy of "Nesciens Mater" by Jean Mouton, the "Ave Maria" of Robert Parsons and the moving "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree" by Elizabeth Poston, bring forth a sense of serene wonder.

“Alla piffaresca, musica rinascimentale per strumenti alti,” presents a rich musical corpus, in which the ancient "pifari" are the perfect instrument to create the typical climax of Renaissance- open parties, and noble and popular festivals. With a main office in Soresina, La Rossignol is a society between artists and researchers that wishes to promote, to produce and to diffuse some initiatives with the goal of the spread of ancient music. Using a study of direct and indirect sources, musicological researches, historical, organological and iconographical investigations, particular attention to the spectacular side of their own work led the members of the group, since 1987, to an active artistic career in Italy, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Russia, India, China, Japan, Rumania, Cyprus, Espana, Syria, Lebanon, Moroc. Among the prestigious festivals in which they’ve performed we can remember above all Autunno Musicale in Como, International Venice Festival, Recitarcantando, le Colombiadi in Genova, le Settimane musicali in Ascona, il Carnevale di Venezia, and the International Reinaissance Festival of Israel.

This volume from the Vlach Quartet Prague's acclaimed Dvorak String Quartet series presents the Third String Quartet of 1869/70, a richly rewarding work.

The rose, as it already was during the Middle Ages, continues to be one of the symbolic images of Renaissance civility. Its different values have persisted for ages: the religious one (the rose symbolizing the Madonna/Mother Mary, image of absolute pureness), the profane one (as a personification of the beloved one) and the esoteric one (symbol of resurrection, immortality, regeneration). This release, recorded live in a fifth century church in Santa Maria in Bressanoro in Castelleone, creates particularly varied and rich atmospheres: the compositions of great authors like Dunstable, Ciconia, Frescobaldi and Monteverdi meet in an aesthetical rather than in a chronological order. They melt together with the very direct, popular versions of devotional praise-songs of Dammonis and, singing and dancing to them, they celebrate the spring awakening of all senses and of passion, as if on a happy trip toward a new sense of harmony, toward the perfection of music, in a period when music still contributes to the great evolution of thought.

TRABACI: Keyboard Music, Book 2

A musical cosmopolitan and a Russian patriot, a highly educated historian and a progressive who was skeptical about progress: there were differences of opinion about Sergei Taneyev even during his lifetime. The Utrecht String Quartet has set itself the task of his long overdue rehabilitation. Dutch musicians, together with Peter Wispelwey and Alexander Zemtsov present his two string quintets in a new recording shedding new light on Russian music from around the turn of the 20th century.

The much-acclaimed inner turmoil of the “Russian soul“ is celebrated here in a stirring manner. Perfect for the Utrecht String Quartet, which once again has made a valuable (re-)discovery!

PAGANINI'S VIOLIN (CD+BOOK+POS

PIANO & ORCHESTRA WORKS

'It is not you who are under my influence, but I who am under yours,' wrote Shostakovich to Ustvolskaya. Certainly, though their music shares sorrow, grotesquerie and violence, Ustvolskaya has a vision all her own. The Octet appears to be an obsessive rite; violins worry over the same narrow range of notes, and cower before the relentless timpanic beating. Leiferkus’s speaking voice provides the only real music in the arid Symphony. Welcome to the Gulag. Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet, spare as it is, arrives like a shower of delightful opulence.

-- Helen Wallace, BBC Music Magazine

This new release by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hannu Lintu is an all-Sibelius program featuring internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. The album includes two major tone poems by Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), Tapiola and En Saga, combined with a set of songs orchestrated by Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) in 2015.

Sibelius’ magnificent tone poem Tapiola, written shortly after the 7th Symphony, may be regarded as the culmination of a period that began with the Fifth Symphony, a period where Sibelius created music that grew organically out of tiny germs into huge processes. It was completed in 1926 and remained Sibelius’s last great orchestral work.

In Tapiola, Sibelius appears to equate the primacy of nature with the value of art for its own sake, the unattainable truths of which remain uneroded by time or by the shifting ideals of mankind.

The genesis of En Saga, originally premiered in 1892, is also shrouded in mystery, and even later in life Sibelius was reluctant to go into any detail regarding its content. It is among Sibelius’ earliest orchestral works, and its original title in Swedish, En saga, refers to ancient Nordic tales of heroes and gods. Although En saga is among the most popular works by Sibelius today, the premiere of the work was not a success and Sibelius revised the score in 1902.

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Sibelius’s birth in 2015 composer Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935) orchestrated a cycle of songs for mezzosoprano Anne Sophie von Otter. This cycle of eight songs contains several less known songs in a cavalcade juxtaposing human emotions and innermost thoughts with the natural environment and experiences in nature.

The recent recordings by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu on Ondine have gathered excellent reviews in the international press.

"Avner Dorman, a 31-year-old Israeli composer who lives in New York, clearly believes that the language of the early 20th century — essentially tonal but ripping free of tonality; within shouting distance of Romanticism but not under its shadow — can still be useful. Though the piano works here are accessible and inviting, describing Mr. Dorman as conservative wouldn't be quite right. These works draw on the energy and spikiness of Prokofiev and Bartok in textures interwoven with moves borrowed from rock, jazz and Middle Eastern folk music...Eliran Avni plays these works with an assurance and flexibility that make them sound as if they had been in his repertory forever. He has the ironclad technique that Mr. Dorman's writing demands, but there is ample suppleness in his playing as well, a quality that makes the slow, quiet movements as arresting as the fiery ones."
- Allan Kozinn, NEW YORK TIMES

WIDOR: Piano Trio, Op. 19 / Piano Quintet, Op. 7

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Weinberger is clearly capable of playing with poetry and expressiveness, and many of the chorale preludes are genuinely gorgeous and even moving. The instruments employed bring us close to what Bach would have recognised as ‘his’, and for that we can value this set.

– MusicWeb International