With a good surround sound system you will close your eyes and imagine yourself seated in the midst of the performers at a live concert. This is a splendid sonic experience. (Audiophile Audition)

Classical Music

Placing the musicians around the listener has a very unusual effect, because the music besets your body and binds it; you sit in the middle of the musical action and you are under attack from all sides. You physically feel the vibration because it physically spreads through your body. But that is not all: your ears bathe in a sea of fairy-tale colors of the most sublime culture. 4009850011835 TCET118DVA 19542065 .00 26.99 .28 TACET RECORDS DVD AUDIO CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 02/15/2003 https://media.aent-m.com/graphics/items/sdimages/a/500/2/3/3/7/1997332.jpg 4 1 N HAYDN / AURYN QUARTET AURYN SERIES 20: AURYNS HAYDN OP 71 These and other Haydn recordings by the Auryn Quartet convince listeners and indeed make them enthusiastic by their instrumental sovereignty and refinement in their reaction to the given movement characteristics. This is doubtless one of the most important contributions to the Haydn Year" (+ûsterreichische Musikzeitschrift)

In this DVD-A the strings surround the listener with a realistic lifelike presence. It is an effective recording method that makes the musical experience that much more immersive and enjoyable. The goal, as always, is to approach the impact of live music and the Tacet engineers have succeeded. (Audiophile Audition)

GOUVY Sérénades: No. 1 in G; 1 No. 2 in F; 1 Op. post. in d 1. Introduction et Polonaise 2. Danse suédoise 2 • Markus Brönnimann (fl); 1 Kreisler Qt; 1 Ilka Emmert (db); 2 Michael Kleiser (pn) • TOCCATA 0185 (61:42)


As regular readers of this magazine will know, I am an ardent advocate of the music of Louis Théodore Gouvy (1819-1898), an enthusiasm I share with past and present Fanfare reviewers Barry Brenesal, Jerry Dubins, David Johnson, John W. Lambert, Robert McColley, and Peter J. Rabinowitz. The virtual consensus across the board is that Gouvy was a significant composer of the Romantic era who wrote music of considerable substance, which has until recently suffered unjust neglect. At this point, there are now a dozen or so CD sets in print of Gouvy’s compositions, with a few others out of print, devoted primarily to his symphonic works, large-scale choral pieces (secular oratorios and a Requiem), and chamber music, plus one disc apiece of his chansons and his piano music for four hands. I don’t know if this Gouvy renaissance on recordings has led yet to an increase in concert performances—I’ve not seen any myself—but it certainly provides hope for the future, and in the meantime grants a boon to music lovers for private enjoyment.


The present disc adds to our knowledge of Gouvy’s chamber works, with the world premiere recordings of five pieces for flute. (A sixth piece, the Sérénade vénitienne for flute, viola, and harp, was issued in 1999 on a Calliope CD.) All of them date from later in Gouvy’s life: the Danse suédoise from 1879, the Introduction et Polonaise from 1890, and the three sérénades for flute and string quintet (which all add a double-bass to the standard string quartet) from 1888, 1889, and 1891 respectively. The first two pieces are adaptations of movements from other works: the Danse from the op. 71 Octet, and the Introduction from the op. 83 Ghiribizzi for piano duet. The one-movement op. post. Sérénade is probably a torso of a planned larger work that was never completed; as it is, one four-page folio is missing from the surviving unpublished manuscript, but musicologist and Gouvy scholar Oliver Schmitt was able to reconstruct that material from a surviving adaptation for piano duet. While the excellent booklet notes by Schmitt (which include actual musical passages from the scores, a most commendable practice that seems to be all but extinct) do not mention an impetus for the composition of any of the other works, the Sérénade No. 1 was commissioned by the Philharmonic Club of New York, an indication of the international reputation that Gouvy once had before fading into total obscurity immediately upon his death.


While Toccata is to be commended for adding to the Gouvy discography, so far as repertoire is concerned this is definitely minor rather than major Gouvy. All of the pieces are thoroughly charming divertissements with appealing melodies and formal elegance, but none is of great significance. The instrumentalists (who have nice color photos featured on the inside face of the back tray card) are uniformly excellent and play these works with all the charm and gracefulness one could ask for. The recorded sound is ideal, with just the right perspective and balance and an inviting degree of warmth, and as previously mentioned the program notes are outstanding. While this is not an essential acquisition, lovers of Gouvy or of chamber music for flute should find this disc quite appealing, and it is recommended accordingly.


FANFARE: James A. Altena

The Tacet label has approached the leading Welte expert to set up the original sound production mechanism and has recorded the results in excellent modern stereo on a series of CDs now numbering a dozen. These treasures from the Welte-Mignon should be heard by every piano student. (Audiophile Audition)

Albeniz, I.: Iberia (Arr. for Guitar Quartet)

The Isaac Stern Collection: The Trio Recordings, Vol. 1

HAYDN String Quartets, op. 55 • Auryn Qrt • TACET 170 (70:37)


The second subgroup of “Tost” quartets is my first acquaintance with this cycle, which is now at a well-advanced stage. That the Auryn is a class act is evident from the word go in No. 1 in A: alert, well focused, and tight-knit in ensemble. The first violin is often primus inter pares in these works, and his virtuoso flights are dispatched with shapely panache and a well-judged degree of soloistic freedom. The second-half repeat is observed (and consistently throughout the set). The Adagio is taken at a nicely flowing pace, its airy lyricism beautifully conveyed. The marvelous cadenza juggernaut at bars 61 ff. is impressively realized in its combination of slowly gathering weight with improvisatory freedom. The Minuet goes at a buoyant one to the bar, and the finale has an irresistible surging flow. Comparison with their former mentors, the Amadeus (DG), is intriguing: the old Anglicized Germans attack the first movement with a larger-than-life vibrancy that would be hard for anyone to match, and makes the Auryn sound a little pallid by comparison (although its response to dynamic nuances is keen, its deliberate underplaying of single fortes is occasionally overdone). The Amadeus displays an earthier richness in the Adagio, but its Minuet is heavier and its finale has less light and shade than its protégés.


No. 2 in F Minor (the celebrated “Razor” quartet, whose hoary old anecdote is debunked in the notes) struck me as less successful overall; the opening double variations are authoritatively dispatched, but with a tendency to a kind of gliding suaveness—very beautiful in its way, but I find myself craving more friction, or resistance, to the tone (especially the first violin in the major-mode variations). More rhythmic and tonal bite would again not go amiss in the second-movement Allegro, though its oppressively eerie atmosphere is well caught. But the strict contrapuntal “ars combinatorial” of the Minuet is excessively smoothed out, imparting an inappropriately tentative feeling. The performance finds perfect form, though, in an exciting account of the F-Major Presto finale, whose elusive character, alternately tensely conspiratorial and swashbuckling, is very well captured. By way of comparison, I prefer the greater rhythmic solidity and tonal weight of the Angeles Quartet (Philips) in three movements out of four, but its staid finale is no match for the Auryn.


The sinuous first movement of No. 3 in B? receives a subtle, nuanced performance, occasionally slightly over-ethereal in feeling (see the tense first violin/cello dialogue of the second theme—here the Auryn is the polar opposite of the Aeolian [Decca], which goes over the line to an unattractive grittiness; the Tatrai [Hungaroton] strikes a nice balance in its understated brand of deadpan rusticity). The slow movement is beautifully done, with wonderfully soaring flights from the first violin. Once again, its Presto finale finds the requisite headlong drive—truly exhilarating!


The recording is beautifully balanced and natural. All in all, an impressive release that will be self-recommending to collectors of the series, or to anyone wanting a single disc of these incomparable masterpieces.


FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy

Like Volumes 1 and 2, Volume 3 of Charles Wuorinen: Music of Two Decades consists in large part of recordings that appeared first as LPs. One doesn't drape terms like invaluable as bunting. For exotic example, the Concerto for Amplified Violin and Orchestra (Volume 2) appeared first on University of Iowa Press vinyl. Not exactly your household name. (I refer to the label. Were Wuorinen's to become such, I'm sure he'd begin wondering where he went wrong. Another performance by violinist Paul Zukovsky, Inbal conducting the Orchestra of the Hessian Radio, may some day be released.) As an instance of nlh degree rarity, Easley Blackwood's own recording of his live performance of Wuorinen's Piano Variations dwelt prior to Volume l's appearance as a 7'/2-i.p.s. tape on Charles Wuorinen's library shelves. Volume 2's Grand Bamboula, Chamber Concerto, and Ringing Changes got good distribution as Nonesuch LPs which, as a format the label has long since abandoned, have been long out of print. As further reason to applaud these Music & Arts Wuorinen discs, a succession of solid performances rates soundwise from adequate to excellent. In other words, the bad news simply isn't. So, to put conclusions first, as gratifyingly large as a “difficult“ living composer's CDiscography already is, the collector with an interest in the music of his time and place cannot afford to ignore these good resurrections. (Of all the one-man operations I admire—I offer the term as an alternative to “little“ label, which in terms of long catalogs many are not—Fred Maroth's Music & Arts Programs of America, Inc., remains among the more endearingly hydra-headed.)

It's a lot easier to tell you what the electronic piece, Time's Encomium, isn't: it isn't imitative of nature or acoustic musical instruments. If the point seems inappropriate or trivial, I remind the reader that a great deal of synthesized sound appears to exist for these kitsch aspirations. So then, while Times's Encomium in this narrow regard falls on the ear as abstraction pure but far from simple, I urge the reader not to conflate abstract with offputting. The piece abounds with playful energies. When disparate sounds interact as friskily as they do here, play of one kind or another, whether or not one knows the game's name, is obviously the thing, Wuorinen is the kind of cerebral practitioner who requires one's attention in a state of openness. We do not hear Time's Encomium transpiring toward a direction. The logic is rather that of extraordinary fireflies of various heft, hue, and gravitas. As anyone who's spent a country night outdoors, a lightshow's enjoyment need not connect with those forces that stage it. The listener is content (if he's wise) to perceive the co.nposer as firefly or, better yet, the firefly's First Mover. Wuorinen composed the work between 1968-69 at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center In New York.“ . . . The RCA synthesizer . . . is prejudiced by design toward 12-tone equal temperament . . . [I]f one accepts the limitation as a boundary condition . . . it ceases to be a problem. . . . Afterwards, I made the large-scale structure by processing the synthesized materials in one of the [center's] analog studios. Thus the work consists of a core of synthesized music, most of which appears in Part I, surrounded and interlarded with analog-studio transformations of that music. The synthesized [can be] identified by its clarity of pitch. . . . The processed almost always contains reverberation. Thus metaphorically, the listener stands in the midst of the synthesized music, which presents itself . . . with maximal clarity; and stretching away from him, becoming more and more blurred in detail, the various transformations . . .“ I assume that Wuorinen speaks in “standing] in the midst“ of the four-channel original, which one hears to his regret as a two-channel mixdown. We are back on my Fanfare hobby horse.

In no way strange to say, Wuorinen's Piano Sonata (No. 1, 1969) appears on its surface to share in those compositional impulses and schemata that yielded Time's Encomium. This seems to me especially true of the music's fast-paced, angular energies. Of particular interest is the sonata's performer, the late Robert Black. As others have for David Tudor, Wuorinen composed an obviously difficult work in large measure as a tribute to Black's strengths and sympathies. (Because music absorbs its background, we tend to overlook an executant's sometime part in a work's conception, no less its successful performance—which Black's certainly sounds to be.)

Wuorinen's comments about his here handsomely performed First String Quartet have the ring of a manifesto. “The [quartet of 1971] reflects fundamental concerns . . . with questions of large-scale form, in particular the issue of an appropriate developmental—or 'directed'—structure suited to a non tonal environment. I had already become . . . impatient with [much of new music's directionlessness] and wanted to establish formal procedures that would allow local flexibility while solidly undergirding a musical progress analogous to the very powerfully directed structure of tonality [my italics].“ Wuorinen then gives a summary of his solution, which need not detain us here. Enough to know what was then on the mind that remains aloof from a world, in too large part, of half-baked juvenalia. The String Quartet (No. 1) plays vis-à-vis the electronic and solo-piano work a tad richer in lyrical interest, in acknowledgement perhaps of a four-string ensemble's native soulfulness. The insert mentions an earlier Music & Arts CD of this Wuorinen quartet, with one of Milton Babbitt's, as an inferior transfer. While I haven't that disc to compare, the present digitization of an analog master sounds very good indeed. Again, the three volumes of this Wuorinen edition—there are no immediate plans for a fourth—address a need. All three volumes heartily recommended.

-- Mike Silverton, FANFARE [3/1997]

Christoph Ullrich's reverence towards this father of virtuoso keyboard music is always enthralling and rich in variety and has us on the edge of our seats. But then, for two fascinating bonus tracks, Ullrich brings the well-known percussionist Eric Schaefer into the recording studio. There they improvise together on two of the previously recorded sonatas. The result rounds off part 5.

The commercial discography of pianist Josef Lhévinne (1874-1944) is pitifully small - a single CD’s worth and not jam-packed at that. Born in Oryol in Central Russia he studied with Vassily Safonov in Moscow, began his international career in the early 1890s, taught, returned to Moscow as a professor, and then moved on to Berlin. The pattern is unsettled but things got worse. He was interned during the First World War but was finally allowed to emigrate to America, from which base he resumed his international career and taught. In time the latter came to occupy much more of his time than performing. His wife Rosina was a fellow Gold Winner at the Moscow Conservatoire and also a formidable interpreter and teacher.

Those few precious discs are augmented by the piano rolls he made for Welte Mignon in 1906 and 1911. They have been finely reproduced by Tacet, who are one of the leading companies in this field, and whose booklets are full of important technical details as to the system’s operation, the numbers of the particular rolls, and well produced relevant photographs.

One of his warhorses was Schulz-Evler’s Arabesken über Themen des Walzers "An der schönen blauen Donau", the Blue Danube subjected to roulades of virtuosic wit. His Victor recording of May 1928 is a classic of its kind. He cuts the impressionistic shimmering introduction for the commercial 78, to fit it to a 6:59 length but for the roll he can take as much time as he likes, and he does, taking 8:20. But note that Naxos’s transfer of this same roll [8.110677] in their Welte-Mignon series comes up short at 7:48. My own view is that Tacet’s is the more accurate roll restoration, and it also doesn’t enshrine action noise as Naxos’s does. But this kind of thing illuminates only too clearly the dangers of roll reproduction and the vagaries of the system – let alone the editorial mediations that make it so conditional and provisional a method of analysing performance practice with any kind of assurance or objectivity.

Two other rolls were the subject of studio disc recordings. Schumann’s Toccata was set down in roll form in 1906, and recorded on 78 in 1935. The narrative dynamism of the disc is remarkable, the dynamics surging and cresting, the playing full of leonine command. By contrast the roll is a broken albatross; flat, unconvincing and relatively feeble. True, there is nearly thirty years between them, but the objection relates to the mechanics by which the sound is transferred or transformed (not Tacet’s responsibility, obviously). This is even truer perhaps of Chopin’s Etude Op. 25 No.10. The passionate sweep and rubato of the 1935 disc attests to a performance of committed excellence. The roll’s runs are alas mechanical, the schema of the playing rendered antiseptic.

One must be grateful that we can ‘hear’ Josef Lhévinne in repertory he didn’t set down in the studio – there is Liszt, Rubinstein, Weber and much else in these two discs – and one can enjoy speculating as to the performances he must have given. But contrasting the same pieces in both disc and roll form reinforces, yet again, how wrong it would be to take these artefacts at face value.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Tracklist:

Disc One:
1. Paul de Schlozer: Étude de Concert Es-Dur op. 1,1
2. Chopin: Étude h-Moll op. 25,10 ('Oktavenetüde')
3. Benjamin Louis Godard: En route, Scherzo B-Dur op. 107
4. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: 7 Charakterstücke op. 7 Presto F-Dur Nr. 7
5. Alexander Skrjabin: Nocturne für die linke Hand
6. Schumann: Toccata C-Dur op. 7
7. Franz Liszt: Die Loreley R591, Begleitung für Sopran
8. Gluck/Brahms: Iphigenie in Aulis Gavotte aus der Oper von Gluck
9. Anton Rubinstein: Le Bal, Polka op. 14
10. Andrei Schulz-Evier: Arabesken über Themen des Walzers 'An der schönen blauen Donau'

Disc Two:
1. Carl Czerny: Kunst der Fingerfertigkeit Oktaven-Etüde op. 740,5
2. Anton Rubinstein: Kamennoi-Ostrow op. 10,22 Rêve angèlique
3. Giovanni Sgambati: Quattro pezzi op. 18,2 Vecchio Minuetto
4. Beethoven/Saint-Saens: Die Ruinen von Athen op. 113,4 Chor der Derwische
5. Moritz Moszkowski: Menuett G-Dur op. 17,2
6. Anton Rubinstein: Barcarole c-Moll op. 104,4
7. Anton Rubinstein: Album de Peterhof op. 75,9 Prélude f-Moll
8. Chopin: Mazurka Nr. 23 D-Dur op. 33,2
9. Carl Maria von Weber: Sonate C-Dur op. 24 4. Satz Rondo 'Perpetuum mobile'
10. Chopin: Étude c-Moll op. 25,12
11. Franz Liszt: Reminiszensen de 'Robert le Diable' (Meyerbeer)

total playing time: 107:15

Lily Pons was a miraculous soprano coloratura, and this two-CD set pays exquisite homage to her vast artistic gifts. The informative, beautifully-designed liner notes tell the story of Pons' rise to fame and of her association with conductor (and one-time husband) André Kostelanetz. The tracks were recorded during the 1940's at the height of Pons' artistic powers and celebrity. Thoughtfully re-mastered, each selection is a jewel.
Pons produces notes that seem to come from the heavens, heard most remarkably in her "Caro nome" from 'Rigoletto' and Olympia's aria from 'Les Contes d'Hoffmann.' Never sounding like a robot or a mere technician, she brings her effervescent personality to each work in these recordings.
In addition to arias from the operas Pons regularly performed in repertory at the Met, the set includes other composer's works (Milhaud, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Bishop), all artfully executed. Pons lived during a time when opera singers were viewed as movie stars with great voices to boot. Her star-quality shines through on these discs, and one hopes that such a presence will emerge again in modern times.

KANCHELI: SYMPHONIES NO. 6 & N

"Webern’s chamber music for strings stretches throughout his career, from the lushly Romantic Slow Movement of 1905, through the vividly expressionist Five Movements completed four years later, to the lucidly canonic String Quartet of 1938. On the way, there are an early single-movement Quartet that shows the influence of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, the aphoristic Bagatelles, Op. 9 (‘Every glance can be stretched out into a poem, every sigh into a novel,’ wrote Schoenberg in his preface to the score, ‘but to express a novel in a single gesture, a joy in a single intake of breath – such concentration is found only where self-pity is lacking to a corresponding degree’)...The Emerson takes a broader view of the 1905 Slow Movement than the Artis Quartet, which sounds a little impatient with the piece. Elsewhere, however, the Artis is more than able to hold its own against the polished playing of its American rival – indeed, the warmth of the performances on this newcomer inclines me to put it forward as a first choice...Urgently recommended."

-- BBC Music Magazine Reviewing Nimbus 5668

Includes work(s) by various composers. Conductor: Konrad Ruhland.

Prokofiev: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2

MARLBORO FEST 40TH ANNIVERSARY

Track Listing
1. Bugya
2. Mizan Qa'im Wa-nisk
3. Twisya No. 3 Of The Nuba
4. Mizan D-dary
5. Mawwal Al-Istihlal
6. Mawwal On Tab' Al-Hiyaz Al-Kabir
7. Mawwal On Tab' Raml Al-Maya

Ibn Baya Ensemble: Eduardo Paniagua, Luis Delgado, Gloria Lergo, Mohamed El Arabi Serghimi, Omar Metioui.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Haydn: The Last 3 String Quartets

Polish pianist-composer Tadeusz Majerski (1888-1963) wrote some of the most interesting Polish music of his day, bringing together late-Romantic sensitivity and the harmonic freedom of Schoenbergian modernism- although primacy of emotional expression was always his watchword. Majerski spent his entire life in Lwow (now Lviv in Ukraine) and so, despite his musical importance, he has been almost completely lost from sight. This first album dedicated to his work presents one of his major scores, the rhapsodic Concerto-Poem for piano and orchestra, as well as two powerful chamber works and a number of representative piano miniatures. Michal Drewnowski is the pianist who has discovered Majerski and is making him known to the outside world- a task in which this release is playing its part.

Two Chopin best-sellers and five albums with material new to CD headline RCA Red Seal's newest singles breakouts of the critically- acclaimed Arthur Rubinstein Collection.

Artur Rubinstein. RCA RCD1-7156 [Ballades, with Scherzos]; 5613-2-RC [19 Nocturnes; 2 CDs]; 5614-2-RC [51 Mazurkas; 2CDs]; 5615-2 [7 Polonaises]; RCD1-5492 [14 Waltzes]

If there is one sure bet in the music of Chopin, it is Artur Rubinstein. His recordings of the composer’s music can be recommended without hesitation for their warmth, lyricism, and expressive point. Never over-interpreted, the music emerges with spontaneity and freshness in his accounts, always alive, always delightful and surprising. His fiery renditions of the Ballades and Polonaises combine drama and poetry in brilliant fashion, while his readings of the Nocturnes, Mazurkas, and Waltzes are notable for their Mediterranean color and unerring sense of mood. The sound of the 1960s stereo recordings for RCA may occasionally lack depth and seem slightly veiled, but it holds up well enough to convey unmistakably the tone and the touch that made Rubinstein one of the greatest pianists of all time. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.