A chamber-music ensemble of star instrumentalists is an oxymoron; this foursome proves to be the exception. Isaac Stern is the key: His thrilling tone may have diminished and impeccable technique eroded, but his innate musicality has grown into wisdom. He is the Rudolf Serkin of our day, influencing innumerable young artists to become musicians rather than superstars. Which is not to slight the three others here: Each fits the mold perfectly, and Laredo and Ma have been strongly influenced by both Serkin and Stern. The four play as one, with youthful exuberance as well as the wisdom of age. The playing is filled with rhythmic vitality and avoids any touch of sentimentality. That it also has little Czech warmth is emphasized by rather clinical recorded sound. There have been more emotional performances (Josef Suk and colleagues) and more elegant ones (Artur Rubinstein with Guarneri members, Menahem Pressler with Emerson), but this sturdy reading is well worth hearing.

The duo performances are in a similar mold. The Sonatina is a delight, a blend of spirit and ease. The Romantic Pieces need a more luminous tone and vivacious expression than Stern provides. He receives sympathetic support from pianist Robert McDonald.

-- James H. North, FANFARE [9/2000]

YO-YO MA: THE NEW YORK ALBUM

YO-YO MA: MADE IN AMERICA

Also available - 8 Guarneri reissues appearing for the first time on CD!

"...few performing groups can bring as much sheer musicality and communicativeness to the music at hand. Even at this latter stage of their performing life, the Guarneri still bring a quality of artistry and musicianship that other quartets can only envy.

Consider...the Second String Quartet of Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly. It's an early work (written in 1918) that nimbly blends modern sonorities with traditional folk-dance melodies and rhythms. No doubt, only a handful in attendance had heard it before. The Guarneri immersed themselves in the music, crafting a performance that left a favorable impression of the music (rather than draw attention to themselves)."

- Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News

Coupling the 1899 Verklärte Nacht with the 1946 String Trio – a late 12-note work – raises the possibility of special pleading: buy the disc for Schoenberg’s reassuringly familiar Romantic composition, and you might be converted to the more difficult one too. As a marketing strategy, that seems reasonable; both performances here could persuade a variety of listeners. You’d expect a big-gestured, strongly characterised reading with Walter Trampler and Yo-Yo Ma augmenting the Juilliard Quartet in Verklärte Nacht; and though these players sometimes take a larger-than-life approach to the score’s dynamic markings, the results never struck me as inappropriate. This 1991 performance is real chamber music; if the case notes hadn’t revealed that Trampler and Ma play second viola and second cello respectively, I wouldn’t have been sure who were the guests. Like many leading string players, at least one musician adds some irritating breathing noises to the quite close-miked recording. The 1985 recording of the trio benefits from the continuing vitality and real musicality, as well as experience, of three of the Juilliard Quartet’s members. There is much to enjoy as well as simply admire here.

-- Keith Potter, BBC Music Magazine

RACHMANINOV, PROKOFIEV: CELLO

REVIEWS OF THE ORIGINAL BROADWAY PRODUCTION:

“Both the freshest and funniest show on Broadway, and it establishes some sort of standard in skill, taste and comic dexterity ... In style and taste A Thurber Carnival is wonderful – a glorious world of meaningful nonsense.” ATKINSON, The Times

“Completely captivating ... between the meaningful silences and the great guffaws there are dandy chuckles ... A Thurber Carnival is sheer delight ... The whole thing is dandy. And very advanced.” KERR, Herald Tribune

“About as agreeably comic as it can be ... very often we find ourselves laugh- ing at what was said a couple of lines ago ... From the opening dance ... we feel perfectly adjusted to the dry cli- mate of (Mr. Thurber’s) unostentatious humor ... (and) comfortably participating in the chaos of our times.” HEWES, Saturday Review

“A tonic anthology of the great man’s work compiled by himself, and easily the funniest show on Broadway ... music which is unfailingly spruce and witty.” TYNAN, The New Yorker

“If there is one proposition upon which every intelligent English-speaking man, woman and child is in hearty agree- ment, it is that James Thurber is incom- parable as wit, humorist and sage ... (A Thurber Carnival) is a civilized joy ... there is cause for nothing but delight.” WATTS, Post

“A joyous, magnificently lunatic festival ... anybody who shuns this house of laughter is crazy...” CHAPMAN, News

COMPLETE TRACK LIST:

1 . OPENING 2:30 Don Elliott Quartet
2 . WORD DANCE (PART I) 4:56 Peggy Cass, Paul Ford, John McGiver, Alice Ghostley, Peter Turgeon, Wynne Miller, Margo Lungreen, Charles Braswell
3 . THE NIGHT THE BED FELL 10:00 Tom Ewell
4 . THE UNICORN IN THE GARDEN 2:58 Narrator: Peter Turgeon Man: Paul Ford She: Alice Ghostley Psychiatrist: John McGiver Policeman: Charles Braswell
5 . THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE WOLF 1:37 Narrator: Peggy Cass Wolf: Paul Ford Little Girl: Wynne Miller
6 . MEMORIAL TO A DOG 5:02 Tom Ewell
7 . CASUALS OF THE KEYS 8:10 Visitor: John McGiver Darrel Darke: Paul Ford
8 . THE LAST FLOWER 3:16 Tom Ewell
9 . FILE AND FORGET 13:29 James Thurber: Tom Ewell Miss Bagley: Margo Lungreen Miss Alma Wineage: Peggy Cass Miss Wynne: Wynne Miller Jeannette Gaines: Alice Ghostley Clint Jordan: Paul Ford H.F. Cluffman: John McGiver
10 . WORD DANCE (PART II) 3:06 Tom Ewell, Peggy Cass, Paul Ford, John McGiver, Alice Ghostley, Peter Turgeon, Wynne Miller, Margo Lungreen, Charles Braswell, Don Elliott Quartet

A Thurber Carnival opened at the ANTA Theatre in New York City on February 26, 1960 and ran for 223 performances, with a break from June 25 to September 5. It closed on November 26, 1960.

Produced for records by GODDARD LIEBERSON.

Wonderfully warm, committed and utterly convincing. A fascinating disc.

If you are puzzled, as I was, by the title of this CD then there is a logical explanation which is given at the beginning of the booklet notes. It was Julius’s cousin Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) who discovered X-Rays, who won the Nobel Prize in 1901 and who ultimately transformed medical science. Knowledge of Conrad however led Grieg to say, after hearing a piece by Julius, that the music “went right to the bone”, hence the CD title. Although it seems to be just a clever remark it has more than a ray of truth!

The music of Julius Röntgen is just beginning to be noticed again after years of lying forgotten on dusty shelves. “Oh no,” you say, “Not another mediocre worthy dug out by musicians with nothing else to do.” Well if you think that then read on - indeed listen on - because I can tell you that this is very fine music indeed. The revival which is just beginning is worth every penny and every column inch spent on it. So let’s forget that this music was written when Bartók, Schoenberg and Ives were at their heights and take it with an innocent ear just as it comes. Indeed it may be more helpful to remember that Röntgen is almost an exact contemporary of Elgar.

A few words of biography first. In 1924 Röntgen retired from public life to concentrate on composing. Although already quite prolific, many more works started to flow from him. He had studied in Leipzig, meeting Liszt and Franz Lachner, Carl Reinecke and Heinrich von Herzogenberg, but he made the surprising decision to live and work in Amsterdam. There, amongst other activities, he was one of the founders of the Concertgebouw and even more significantly he was instrumental in establishing the Amsterdam Conservatoire. He worked there not as a Director but as an accompanist and so he had time to compose. He also had influence as Director of an organization with the snappy title ‘The Society for the Promotion of Musical Arts’ which meant at that time much new music.

You may fear that Brahms might have been a strong influence. Röntgen was the soloist in the first Dutch performance in 1884 of the master’s 2nd Piano Concerto under Brahms’s direction. After that Röntgen saw Brahms socially as it were for many years. Also Röntgen liked to work on quite large canvases, yet he is no clone of Brahms indeed there is much originality here. The ghostly and eerie second movement of the Viola Sonata’s outer section is like nothing else I can describe, and the finale has an occasional touch of Debussy about it. The initial impassioned Allegro has an opening idea which has remained with me for some days. The excellent booklet notes by Simon Wynberg mentions César Franck as an influence.

The CD begins with a fine and arresting work: the Quintet for piano and strings. In its opening movement there is a restless and memorable idea, sextuplets or quadruplets in the piano and cello with the violins above singing a lovely melody canonically in the minor key. The melting sequences also give the music an unforgettable character. The compound time second movement, marked Allegro, is rhythmically memorable with a wonderful passage towards the end over an ostinato pedal building to the final bars. The slow movement is questing and exploratory at first until a cello melody answered by violin takes over with a melody which Borodin would have been proud of. At the end of the contrapuntal and at times fugal Con moto finale Röntgen quotes briefly his first movement opening and ends the piece in a questing atmosphere.

The Clarinet Trio falls into three movements with an especially sunny initial movement. Brahms did come to my mind during this piece but none the worse for that. The main weight of the work rests on the finale with its memorable ‘Sostenuto’ opening suddenly transforming into a friendly Allegro commodo. It is the earliest work (1921) here and has the occasional Mendelssohnian touch in its lightness and sophistication.

The String Sextet really has little in common with the two by Brahms although it is in a late-Romantic style. The first movement may remind one more of Max Reger; the booklet writer mentions Max Bruch. With the grace and ease of the second movement Andante we step gently into the world of Dvo?ák, except that the middle section is unexpectedly storm-tossed before subsiding again. Curiously it’s followed by another Andante which is a set of variations and then an Allegro of great vigour, especially for the cellos.

The performances are wonderfully warm, committed and utterly convincing. These are young performers who, one assumes, have not come across Röntgen before. The booklet pictures them and gives some biographical details. I remember reading a sensational review of their debut in New York in 2003. This is, in my view, top quality musicianship and even if the music was not that interesting I would still be praising the music-making. The recording only serves to enhance all that they achieve.

This then is a fascinating disc and I urge you to look into it. From there you might join me in a search for more music by this, as yet, little known but true master of the early twentieth century.

-- Gary Higginson, MusicWeb International

Over the last three or four years, Yo-Yo Ma has been exploring the peaks of the cello repertory in a quickly growing series of LPs. Those disks, in turn, have helped establish him not only as one of the finest cellists of his generation... The Kabalevsky...boasts a melancholy central Largo with the kind of long, arching cello line that allows Mr. Ma to display his rich sound.

-- Allian Kozinn, The New York Times [1/1/1984]

RACHMANINOFF Suite for Orchestra in d (for piano). Fugue in d. Études-tableaux, op. 39/2,6,9. Prelude in g, op. 23/5. Prelude in g?, op. 32/12. Piano Sonata No. 2 (1931) • Denis Matsuev (pn) • RCA 715591 (60:23)


This album is titled “Unknown Rachmaninoff”—and for most aficionados, the big news is the inclusion of two recently uncovered works apparently from 1891: a fugue written for a composition class with Arensky (actually, a longer version of the work previously published as the Piece in D Minor) and the composer’s own transcription of an orchestral suite long thought lost. Or, more accurately, the disc includes what’s claimed as the piano version of the Suite: certainly, the information we’re given in Marina Gaykovich’s notes doesn’t allay any initial doubts. The manuscript, missing its first page, identifies neither composer nor title; and all we’re told about the process of attribution is that “specialists [who?] managed to verify [how?] Rachmaninoff as the author and proved [how?] that it was the Suite.” I’m maintaining a healthy skepticism.


In any case, the Suite is a substantial work (nearly 20 minutes) most notable for its grand first movement. It sounds momentarily like a premonition of the C?-Minor Prelude, but it soon launches into a striving melodic surge with a surprising kinship to the first movement of the Paderewski Sonata. Lasting an extremely eventful eight minutes, the movement offers plenty of intricate inner voice activity, a great deal of attractive (if not especially Rachmaninoffian) melodic material, and consistent evidence of harmonic ingenuity. The three follow-ups are less engaging (the pseudo-Classical gestures of the third-movement minuet are particularly bland), but even here, the music offers splashes of interest—say, in the contrapuntal curls of the Lento or the outdoorsy spirit of the final Allegro. If the work is really by Rachmaninoff, the piece further confirms his early mastery of the keyboard (it certainly doesn’t sound like a transcription); if it’s by someone else, it’s someone else worth knowing. As for the so-called Fugue: largely written in two voices, it’s more of a toccata than a fugue; but whatever you call it, it’s fueled by bracing energy and dashes of harmonic spice.


It’s especially good to have this new material introduced by so persuasive an advocate as Denis Matsuev. As you might expect from a youthful firebrand whose first recording was called “Tribute to Horowitz,” virtuoso brilliance takes precedence over lyrical expression—but he’s far from cold, and he plays the Fugue and the Suite with the unflagging conviction usually reserved for masterpieces. The more familiar works are impressive too. Matsuev’s playing tends to be lean and angular, but he keeps the busiest passages from sounding cluttered (rarely has the passagework in the first movement of the Sonata emerged so cleanly), and he plays with plenty of rhythmic snap. Those who prefer their Rachmaninoff lush may, at times, feel a bit battered—Matsuev certainly pounces on every opportunity to crush you with reminders of his power (the Étude-tableau in D , op. 39/9 sounds particularly cataclysmic here). And it would be idle to pretend that his recording of the Sonata has the depth of Grimaud’s or that he matches the ebb and flow of Richter in the Preludes and in the Études-tableaux that he recorded. But given Matsuev’s premises, this is playing of a very high order; certainly, his reading of the Fugue is far more thrilling than, say, Biret’s or Shelley’s relatively anodyne recordings of the shorter version.


The recording was made on Rachmaninoff’s own Steinway at his villa in Senar, Switzerland—and the engineering is up-front and immediate. All in all, a significant release.


FANFARE: Peter J. Rabinowitz

* The King and I - The 1964 Music Theater of Lincoln Center revival recording!
* Richard Rodgers oversaw this production, which stars Risë Stevens and TV perennial Darren McGavin.
* Includes the first complete version of the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ballet sequence.

The King and I, one of the most appealing, tender and completely delightful musicals by the unparalleled collaborators Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, was the ideal choice as the first production of the Music Theater of Lincoln Center.

Based on Margaret Landon’s best-selling novel Anna and the King of Siam, the musical, first produced in 1951, tells the story of Anna Leonowens, an attractive mid-Victorian English widow, who has come to Bangkok at the request of the King of Siam to tutor his 67 children and palace of many wives through exposure to Western culture.

This 1964 production starred international opera singer Risë Stevens as Anna and Darren McGavin as the King. Others in the great cast include Lee Venora, Patricia Neway and Frank Porretta.

Risë Stevens, a Juilliard graduate, had established herself with many outstanding performances including that of Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and she later became the Met's leading mezzo-soprano. She sang with an equal commitment to beauty and excellence in serious opera, Hollywood film scores and Broadway musicals.

Darren McGavin, best known to TV viewers for his role in the series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and his delightful portrayal as the grumpy Hoosier Dad and in the Jean Shepard classic film A Christmas Story, also appeared on Broadway stages in several noted productions including this one before returning more heavily into film and TV. His portrayal of the King of Siam is regal and commanding.

On the delightful bonus tracks, offered only on this CD there are performances of some of the memorable songs from this musical sung by Dinah Shore, Robert Merrill and Richard Kiley. The bonus tracks were actually recorded a few days before the show’s 1951 premiere at the St James Theater. Dinah Shore’s “I Whistle a Happy Tune,” Robert Merrill’s “A Puzzlement” and the version of “I Have Dreamed” that partners Patrice Munsel and Tony Martin come from an RCA Victor studio recording with Al Goodman and Henri Rene conducting. Shore and Martin were top-selling pop singers, and Munsel and Merriill crossed over from the opera stage. Their performances are a souvenir of another era, when Broadway musicals were the source of top-40 pop hits. Richard Kiley’s bonus tracks come from the singer/actor’s 1959 RCA Victor studio recording of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, recorded in the wake of Kiley’s Tony Award winning performance in Redhead.

These bonus tracks, all cover versions, present arrangements that are fascinatingly different from the great songs within the context of the original show. Being pop arrangements, they were designed to appeal to casual listeners yet they also remain a part of the pop-culture legacy of The King and I.

- Excerpted and based on the liner notes.

The King and I - Music Theater of Lincoln Center revival recording.
Music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein.
Principal cast includes: Risë Stevens, Darren McGavin, Lee Venora, Frank Porretta, and Patricia Neway.
Franz Allers, conductor.

Bonus tracks include tracks by Richard Kiley, Dinah Shore and Robert Merrill.
Recorded 1964, in the Music Theater of Lincoln Center, New York, NY.
Directed by: Edward M. Greenberg.

Orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett Tracks:
Act I:
1. The King and I - Overture / Franz Allers
2. I Whistle A Happy Tune / Risë Stevens; James Harvey
3. My Lord And Master / Lee Venora
4. Hello, Young Lovers / Risë Stevens
5. March Of The Siamese Children / Franz Allers
6. A Puzzlement / Darren McGavin
7. Getting To Know You / Risë Stevens
8. We Kiss In A Shadow / Lee Venora; Frank Porretta
9. Shall I Tell You What I Think Of You? / Risë Stevens
10. Something Wonderful / Patricia Neway
Act II:v 11. Western People Funny / Patricia Neway
12. I Have Dreamed / Lee Venora;Frank Porretta
13. The Small House Of Uncle Thomas / Lee Venora
14. Shall We Dance? / Risë Stevens;Darren McGavin
15. Something Wonderful (reprise)

When I reviewed Robert White's Angel collection of Beethoven and Weber folk-song arrangements {The Gallant Troubadour, Fanfare 9:4), I mentioned this RCA collection as another possible source of pleasure to those who enjoyed the Angel set. Here it is on compact disc sounding at least as good as ever with the tenor in his element supported by virtuoso playing (Beethoven's settings were supposed to be playable by amateurs but they'd better be good amateurs). Full texts are provided, but so clear is White's enunciation that you'll have little need for them; one of the songs, “The Soldier,“ is probably better known nowadays as “The Minstrel Boy.“ Unfortunately, RCA could think of nothing appropriate that would serve to fill the CD out, so it contains only 44:25 of music, including pauses between songs, but what's here is certainly choice.

-- James Miller, FANFARE [9/1987]

Rather as I expected, the reissue of Lorin Maazel's three recent recordings of Puccini's one-acters as a co-ordinated box of the Trittico sharply brings out the conductor's distinctive approach. It is an approach which is typified by the very start of Gianni Schicchi, where there is an almost Stravinskian sharpness in the ostinato rhythms. Generally Maazel's concessions to romantic expressiveness are calculated rather than obviously warm. This degree of severity has the merit of underlining the musical cogency of all three pieces, splendid examples of Puccini's mastery at his high maturity, and Suor Angelica—wrongly regarded for far too long as a limp piece of sentimentality —benefits just as much as either of the others with the succeeding climaxes spaced in carefully balanced relationship.

The snag is that particularly with CBS's somewhat close recording balance, the atmospheric qualities of each opera—which some Puccinians would regard as among their highest merits—are underplayed. When I first reviewed Il tabarro, this absence of essential atmosphere made me give a less charitable review than I would now. Hearing it in context with the other performances, it is refreshing and invigorating to have a taut and relatively unyielding view of a fine score, even while one misses the dark evocations of the scene under a bridge of the Seine in Paris, which other versions so vividly capture.

The other gain from hearing the performances together is to have the dominance of Renata Scotto reinforced in both It tabarro and Suor Angelica. In Il tabarro neither Placido Domingo as Luigi (not quite in his warmest voice) nor Ingvar Wixell as the bargemaster Michele (rather too gritty-toned as recorded) is exactly a cipher, but Renata Scotto consistently focuses the centre of involvement with her dramatic and finely detailed singing.

In Gianni Schicchi the central pivot is provided of course by the contribution of the veteran Tito Gobbi, and though there may be some signs of the voice not being as young as it was, it is a deeply satisfying performance, as fine in its way as the classic one he recorded for HMV 20 years earlier. That HMV version is included in the boxed reissue set of Il trittico which appeared two years ago (SLS5066, 10/76), with all three operas given marvellous performances but with very dated recording and only Schicchi in stereo. The Decca set under Gardelli (SET 236-8, 12/62) is more idiomatic in performance than this Maazel CBS issue, and the sixties recording is amazingly bright and full for its age. But the new issue, controversial as it may be in some ways, is certainly refreshing, and should in particular win converts among those who still regard Puccini as merely soft and sentimental.

-- Gramophone [8/1978, reviewing the LP release of Il Trittico]

This is a disc that many strictly "classical" listeners may pass over--not surprisingly, since this isn't really a "classical" recording. However, its illustrious and very accomplished host deserves a chance to show another side (or sides, actually) of his musical life, one that includes informal collaboration in his New York home with artists from pop, jazz, and non-western classical genres--and so he offers this rather congenial hodge-podge that somehow goes together while juxtaposing extremely diverse styles and levels of artistic refinement.

Actually, when you hear the opening track--a fine light jazz treatment of I loves you Porgy, with Bell, pianist Billy Childs, a number of other instrumental players, and featuring jazz/pop trumpeter Chris Botti--you may just wish this group would take the whole program. But we move from Gershwin to Dowland via the voice of Sting, whose slightly strained, boyish quality is overshadowed by the lively obbligato/accompaniment of Bell's violin.

There are hits--bandoneon-ist Carel Kraayenhof and Bell in Piazzolla's Oblivion and Luis Bacalov's Il Postino; Bell, baritone Nathan Gunn, and pianist Jeremy Denk in Rachmaninov's song O, cease thy singing, maiden fair (with obbligato by Fritz Kreisler); Ravi Shankar's duet for sitar and violin, performed by daughter Anoushka and Bell; Bell and Marvin Hamlisch's rendition of I'll take Manhattan--and misses: pop singer Josh Groban's Cinema Paradiso (exactly what language is that...?); Kristin Chenoweth's unconvincing, uncomfortable My Funny Valentine (not her song); bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolinist Chris Thile's weirdly meandering Look Away. But hey, this is a hodge-podge meant to capture the spirit of Bell's "anything goes" house concerts--and in that it succeeds.

Of course, the recordings were not actually made in Bell's home--rather they were made in a couple of different studios, and you can tell. There's a decided artificiality to the balances due to some odd mixing and highlighting of certain instruments that do not seem to share the same acoustic space. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this, especially for Bell's clever, artful, and always appropriately stylish playing.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

The VocaMe vocal ensemble has committed itself to presenting exceptional female figures in early music, and the four ladies have already attracted much attention with the songs of Hildegard and Kassia. The secret of their success lies in their special approach to interpretation: against a background of thorough understanding of historical performance practice, the four singers and their musical director and instrumentalist Michael Popp feel their way into the ancient sources, which usually leave much room for conjecture. VocaMe has pursued this idea and used late medieval melodies and sounds to transform Christine's poetry into fascinating music.

For 20 years now, Bell’Arte Salzburg has been one of the leading ensembles for period performance practice. For its new album “Himlische Weynacht”, the musicians under the direction of Annegret Siedel went in search of the most impressive and moving works of Luther’s day. Vocal support for Bell’Arte Salzburg in the choral works comes from young soprano Marie Luise Werneburg and the well-known bass Klaus Mertens, two exceptional vocal soloists in this genre. In consort with the ensemble, they perform a highly varied round of festive airs, adding detail to our mental picture of Luther’s time with their musical representation of a Christmas celebration in those days.

X2:BAROQUE ALBUM

In the Cello Concerto Yo-Yo Ma's playing is characteristically refined, but keenly affectionate too... both he and Sir Colin Davis are thoroughly attuned to the sensibility of this composer and the recording balance is excellent.

-- Penguin Guide [2003/4 edition]
reviewing the Cello Concerto previously released as Sony 89716

Includes a fascinating history booklet with show titles, dates of productions, singers, directors and producers. Recording dates range from 1949 to 2008. Indispensable for all lovers of Broadway musicals, "The Rodgers & Hammerstein Songbook" features indelible Richard Rodgers melodies and top singers recorded at the height of their careers.

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II came together professionally at what seemed like the perfect moment in their careers – certainly at the perfect moment for the American musical theater. They were very different men in style and personality. But their understanding of their collaboration was as wise and perceptive as it was successful.

- Introduction to the liner notes

Music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Additional arrangements by Robert Russel Bennett. Additional orchestral and choir conducting by Lehman Engel.

Ma and Ax bring their series of Beethoven's music for cello and piano to a close with this release. No recording date is given, but we must assume the performances were taped some time after the preceding four sonatas, not only because of the later release but because of the immeasurably improved sonics. Ma is now the aural equal of Ax, and no longer sounds as if he's playing some respectful obbligato from another room. Ma's elegance and propensity toward understatement are no match for the muscular and assertive Ax as it is, and the cellist needs all the help he can get to give his 50%. an equal hearing. Which is my basic problem with the Ma-Ax partnership: I don't find them particularly well-suited to each other, especially in these sonatas where equality is the key to the performance (as in the equal fire of Rostropovich and Richter in their be-all Philips set). But mine is a minor voice where this popular duo is concerned, and those who have followed the series with satisfaction and joy will find the familiar silken tones of the cellist and the rambunctiousness of the pianist much in evidence. Their C-major Sonata is unmistakably related to their D major, that is, both are played like early 19th-century works rather than the beginning of Beethoven's late period. Like the D major this new C major sings and jumps with an extrovertedness which is quite different from the pensive, mysterious performances we're apt to hear of these perplexing sonatas. If Rostropovich and Richter tell me a whole lot more of what I think I want to hear in these works, I nonetheless am quite taken with the spirit (and the sensational playing) of Ma and Ax, although as I've said, I'd rather hear them paired with others (Ma with Alfred Brendel sounds good, while Ax with Mischa Maisky would probably be hair-raising).

Ma lets his hair down (doesn't sound right, does it?) for the variation pieces, and he comes out slugging with his partner, with the results being some positively ebullient music-making. I've always loved the “Maccabaeus“ variations, and a quick comparison with Barenboim and du Pré (a particular favorite) clearly establishes the newer recording as the one to have for brio, virtuosity, and just plain ol' craziness. I loved it, and I was quite pleased with the sense of fun and beautiful tone (from Ma especially) in the Mozart variations. Even if the sonata is not to your liking, the variations are well worth the purchase of the disc and can easily be put at the top of the list of the not-very-many recordings of these charmers.

As mentioned above, CBS' engineers have the balance right this time, and one may enjoy this unusual partnership in warm and roomy sound. The surfaces on my copy (domestic for this issue) could have, should have, been better. The CD edition, due any day, should certainly be the medium to opt for.

Before winding up with a recommendation for fans of the Ma-Ax duo, I must mention the cover of the album which pictures these two wonderful-looking people—Ma cross-legged and Ax with his gams hanging over the keyboard—sitting atop the piano. The happiness on their faces gives me a really good feeling. If you like these boys in this repertory, or have been searching for a special recording of the three variation works, by all means snap this one up.

-- Vincent Alfano, FANFARE [9/1986]

SYMPHONY 9 SACD

PIANO WORKS

ELGAR: ENIGMA VARIATIONS, OP.

STRAUSS: FOUR LAST SONGS DIE

EXPERIENCE:LIVE NYC