Classical Music

BEETHOVEN: PIANO SONATAS OP. 1

CHOEURS DE L'OPERA DE VIENNE -

Classical Music

Classical Music

ALFONSO X EL SABIO: CANTIGAS D

BEN-HAIM String Quartet No. 1, op. 21. String Quintet in e • Carmel Quartet; Shuli Waterman (va) • TOCCATA 0214 (61:37)


   Here are two major chamber works by the Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim (1897–1984), who began his career in Munich as Paul Frankenburger. His lengthy, three-movement String Quintet from 1919, which receives its first recording here, is a representative product of the composer’s early period. Its style might be described as early-20th-century German Romantic with leanings toward Franck and Liszt. It’s an ambitious, expertly scored, three-movement work, though its material might have been equally effectively scored as a symphony. There’s a somewhat Modernistic, Hindemith-like approach to the announcement of themes in the outer movements, before the music moves into nostalgic, 19th-century material reminiscent of Brahms or Mahler (Mahler’s work serving as Frankenburger’s model when, later on, as Ben-Haim, he turned to symphonic writing). In the quintet’s third movement, the music’s eclecticism starts to feel contrived, particularly with the commencement of a fugue two-thirds of the way through, a 19th-century compositional cliché. This is not to make light of a piece that contains much beautiful music, particularly an eloquent slow movement that quotes a theme from one of Frankenburger’s songs set to a Christian Morgenstern text.


Frankenburger/Ben-Haim immigrated to Palestine in 1933, in large part rejecting German musical style in favor of the influence of Debussy and Ravel, but more significantly, incorporating regional folk influences into his music. His close association with the Yemenite singer Bracha Zefira, a “walking anthology of Israeli folk music,” was his main source of inspiration.


The String Quartet No. 1, composed in 1937, was acclaimed at its premiere in 1939 as the first chamber work by an Israeli composer. The work remains popular in Israel, and it’s easy to hear why. The dimensions of its first three movements are more compact than those of the quintet, and the use of modal, ethnic-sounding motives sounds natural and eloquent in the first, third, and fourth. Toccata’s booklet notes compare the quartet’s fourth movement to the Finale of Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2, composed seven years later. In both works, the finale is the most extended movement, and in each, a Jewish dance theme takes on a sense of catastrophe by the end. It’s an apt comparison, though the Ben-Haim Quartet doesn’t achieve (or attempt) the shattering impact of the Shostakovich.


I commend Toccata Classics for the high level of its presentation of two little-known works of very high quality, by a composer who, while hardly unknown, deserves much more attention on recordings. The Carmel Quartet and violist Shuli Waterman play with the technical polish that these colorful, dynamic scores demand, along with obvious commitment and feeling. The recorded sound has good definition and clarity, and the booklet offers two substantial essays by experts on Ben-Haim.


FANFARE: Paul Orgel

This is not an historical recording. Yet mysteriously the music is performed in an interpretation which is historically authentic down to the last detail. The key to this mystery is: The original performer was present at the recent recording session, but not physically: The music is heard on a modern Steinway. Never has music stored in the Welte-Mignon system sounded so "right" or so good. Thanks to TACET's much-praised recording technique, and because the Welte-Mignon memory system and sound production mechanism have now been newly adjusted for the first time by the leading expert in the field - and are thus able to meet TACET's requirements. (Welte-Mignon was invented in 1904.) the Welte-Mignon mystery can now speak to US without distortion.

Heavy and deliberate as Maazel’s idiosyncratic point of view undoubtedly is, you can’t fault the execution, very much on the side of Mahler the modernist. Jagged textures stand revealed throughout, offset by richly resonant sound and characteristically warm VPO strings worked to the bone in an attempt to realise as many of the detailed dynamics as possible. I confess a personal nostalgia for the very Viennese waltzes and ländlers of this scherzo, fondly remembered from youthful impressions of the same work, players and conductor on a first-time visit to Vienna.

-- David Nice, BBC Music Magazine

Christopher Fox is one of the leading lights in British contemporary music. He wrote four pieces with the title "Straight Lines in Broken Times" - this is the second (the third is included on Metier msv 92059).Each piece, though otherwise totally independent, spins it's music out of a continuous stream of notes. The other major works on this album are all expertly performed by the Ives Ensemble.

Evgeni Koroliov has played the Seasons in a particularly lyrical and transparent way impossible to improve upon. (Arpeggio)

This CD, which has been much praised for it's piano and musical quality, has now been published on Audio-DVD by Tacet. In two variants the listener can follow Schirmer's succinct, impressive interpretations of the Russian cycle of pictures and reflections played on a remarkable Fazioli instrument. Ravel's Miroirs are presented in Tacet Real Surround Sound", the pictures are also in "Tacet Moving Real Surround Sound". Compared with the "normal" stereo Version (Tacet 132) the listener is put on the weather side, acoustically speaking, as if he or she was surrounded by the piano - not exactly a natural position. But the result is the birth child of good sound engineering.

Feltsman sweeps through the 24 Preludes with genuine poetic bravura. ...[T]here is a daring and Romantic fire in the playing which only add to the agony of his plight...

-- Allan Ulrich, Los Angeles Times [7/27/1986]

This CD of Adolf Busch's lyrical writing for clarinet is the first in a series of recordings of his light-filled chamber music in an effort to rediscover one of the leading musicians of his day. Bettina Biegelbeck has appeared as clarinet soloist with a number of orchestras. The Busch Kollegium Karlsruhe was founded by Biegelbeck expressly to make this recording.

This is not a historical recording. Yet mysteriously the music is performed in an interpretation which is historically authentic down to the last detail. The key to this mystery is: The original performer was present at the recent recording session, but not physically: The music is heard on a modern Steinway. Never has music stored in the Welte-Mignon system sounded so "right" or so good. Thanks to TACET's much-praised recording technique, and because the Welte-Mignon memory system and sound production mechanism have now been newly adjusted for the first time by the leading expert in the field - and are thus able to meet TACET's requirements. (Welte-Mignon was invented in 1904.) the Welte-Mignon mystery can now speak to US without distortion.

Classical Music

Mozart's Flute Quartets appear on this DVD with excellent sound, and with the instrumentalists situated around the listener, which has become the trademark of the TACET label. The result is a chamber music tonal picture in which all the instruments are of equal importance and the flute does not force itself to the fore. Musically the recording is also remarkable; (crescendo) TACET's creative use of this multichannel medium takes Mozart's lovely Baroque background music out of the soporific and into the energetic. And the playing is first rate. (Audiophile Audition)

For twenty-five years Ulrich Beetz, Birgit Erichson and Gerrit Zitterbart have been making music together as the Abegg Trio": and there can be no doubt that this is a very special recording which this trio, the winner of so many awards, has brought out to celebrate their silver jubilee. It is one which the Abeggs have obviously treated themselves to, because the Piano Trio op. 8 by Frederic Chopin, the Piano Trio op. 42 and the Novelettes op. 29 by Niels Wilhelm Gade are outstanding for the calm and meticulous care which has arisen from long practice with these works.

Classical Music

MOZART: VIOLIN CONCERTO NO 2,

Classical Music

On this recording, the essence of these works has been understood and realized in exemplary fashion. (Der Schallattenmann)

After 20 highly acclaimed classical guitar records, Liona entered the "new age" with style in 1988. Starting with the Vangelis piece from The Year of Living Dangerously (L'Enfant) and featuring guest appearances from Eric Clapton, David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and Yo-Yo Ma, the scope and variety of Persona is kind of "beyond belief." Exciting, beautiful and dazzling, it's just like the artist herself.

-- AllMusic.com

The premiere of Mozart’s Quintet for piano and winds must have been a shock and at the same time a delight for the audience of the 18th century. The immense richness of colors and sounds were entirely unusual. Mozart had been searching for new challenges and was rewarded. After the premier on April 1st, 1784 Mozart has written to his father: "I myself consider it to be the best thing I have written in my life." Mozart celebrated one of the greatest triumphs of his career. For the first time the near-orchestral rich sonorities, the masterful harmony and the continuing and vigorous dialogue of the oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon in relation to the piano was heard. Only thirteen years later Beethoven used the same unusual combination of instruments. His quintet for piano and winds was also premiered in Vienna on April 6, 1797. Both artists chose to compose for an entire unique and by that date unknown instrumentation and each had his own musical approach. Under the group name "Die Freitagsakademie" Katharina Suske gathered some of the finest international artists: Edoardo Torbianelli, Katharina Suske, Pierre-André Taillard, Olivier Darbellay and Lyndon Watt. These five musicians, each with their own unique character, blend together and reciprocally influence each other to create a single flowing sound body and impresses with their entirely new, dynamic interpretation. The unusual instrumentation is recorded in an exceptional way using just one special microphone to capture the beauty of this unique sound experience, the high art of the Wiener Klassik.

In addition to electrifying performances and exciting repertoire, this fascinating disc offers several world premiere recordings to the Cage canon. Flautist and Cage expert Roberto Fabricciani is joined by percussionist Jonathan Faralli in anticipation of John Cage’s 100th birthday in 2013, turning out a disc that reveals a rich interpretation couched in intimate knowledge of the composer’s game-changing aleatoric music. An historic disc for an historic event.