BRAHMS: PIANO CONCERTO NO 1 A

CELLO CONCERTS & SYMPHONIES

You don't listen to Cecil Taylor (my favorite living pianist) as much as experience him. More often than not he begins one of his extended solo or group pieces with thematic cells stated in quiet, restless octaves, single notes, or sparse clusters of chords. Since the early 1980s he's been sneaking in bits of spoken word. As he gets going, the material slips and slides up and down several octaves and eventually envelops the entire instrument at super speeds. A musician friend of mine once described Taylor's high-velocity keyboard prowess as treating the piano like a punching bag. That's not really true. There's certainly a percussive side to Taylor's decisive, frighteningly ambidextrous articulation, yet the phrase shapes always seem to arise from melodic impulses no matter how fast they transpire. Think of Erroll Garner's rolling, unpredictable solo introductions blown up to feature size, and you'll realize that Taylor is not so avant-garde as he appears on the surface.


Algonquin, commissioned for the Library of Congress and premiered there on February 12, 1999, features the pianist in duet with violinist Mat Maneri. The 55-minute performance is typical of Taylor's collaborative modus operandi in that he plays the way he plays, and the rest of you try to fit in. Rather than offer a violinistic counterpart to Taylor's virtuosity and visceral power, Maneri courageously sticks to his understated, soft-spoken style, which fuses free jazz, traditional folk fiddling, and baroque bowing techniques in a compelling, organic whole. He also employs an electronic pedal that expands the violin's range below its unplugged parameters into viola and cello territory.


Two larger duet sections bracket a pair of unaccompanied solos that reveal each player's mature lyrical inventiveness to telling advantage. That said, I don't think Maneri challenges Taylor to the extent that more dynamic or iconoclastic improvisers have done in the past. Cases in point include Taylor's stimulating recorded collaborations with guitarist Derek Bailey, his wide-ranging duets with percussionist Max Roach, and the 1998 trio session with tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman and the late, great drum icon Elvin Jones--plus, of course, his working trio from the '60s and '70s that included alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons and percussionist Andrew Cyrille.


Newcomers to Cecil Taylor's unique artistry should start with one of his extended live solo performances on CD, like Silent Tongues (Freedom/Black Lion), Air Above Mountains (Enja), or Erzulie Maketh Scent (FMP). Get to know these discs first, then investigate the Bridge release. The engineering is of good archival quality, and the annotations cogently discuss this performance in the context of Taylor's long career.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Andrew Rangell's latest disc is a recital of compositions that the pianist connects, in various ways, to the music of J.S. Bach. Most of the works which comprise this recital were written in the early to middle 1600's, and Rangell writes that: “one can hear fleeting soundprints of Bach here and there: moments of the Goldberg Variations in Sweelinck's Linden Grüne variations or the Tomkins Voluntary; the contrapuntal abstractions of the Art of the Fugue surfacing in Sweelinck's long fantasy or Froberger's mystical ricercares; dance rhythms and metrical patterns from innumerable Bach suites, prefigured in the pavanes and galliards. Though many-faceted, this program is essentially intimate and interior in character. “A Bridge to Bach” -- a figurative, slightly fanciful designation-- is a metaphor meant to suggest how, for me, all the present pieces are linked, spanned, connected, encompassed.” Andrew Rangell's though-provoking recordings for Bridge have sparked considerable debate for their individualistic approach to repertoire and performance practice. Charles Michener in the NY Observer writes: “such was Rangell's intensity—like the late Glenn Gould, he seemed to be propelled by an irresistible force—that the listener's attention was riveted to the music.”

R E V I E W S:

Andrew Rangell always has something interesting to say. After making a series of provocative recordings, mostly Bach and Beethoven, for the Dorian label, Rangell was adopted by the good folks at Bridge, where he has continued to make unusual recordings that are both intellectually and emotionally satisfying.

This time around, Rangell has assembled a program of music composed mostly during the first half of the 17th century – several generations before Johann Sebastian Bach was active. In his extended yet very readable booklet note, Rangell explains this disc's overall title. In some of this music, "one can hear fleeting soundprints of Bach," but that is not precisely what Rangell is trying to get at. "The resemblances are noteworthy," he writes, "but the larger point, for me, is that in the area of articulation, contrapuntal balance, imaginative ornamentation, and rhythmic definition, Bach himself has been my most valued tutor in the study and appreciation of his predecessors."

I'm sure that Glenn Gould, one of the past century's most outstanding interpreters of Bach, would have agreed. Among Gould's recordings is a collection of music by William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (Sony SMK 52589). At one point, Gould claimed that Gibbons was his favorite composer, and that composer's Lord of Salisbury Pavane and Galliard is common to both the Gould disc just referenced and the Rangell disc here reviewed.

For Gould, Gibbons also must have been a "bridge to Bach." There's no mistaking Gould for Rangell, or vice versa, but both pianists clearly adore this music. Both performances are quietly contemplative, and with their perfect proportions and clarity, they make listeners feel that all is right with the world. The same can be said for everything on A Bridge to Bach. The dexterous Rangell uncovers the beauty in all that he touches. He is like one of those professors in college who makes biology or physics not just understandable, but miraculous – even to English majors!

Like Gould, Rangell plays this music not on the keyboard instruments of the early to mid 1600s, but on a modern piano. (In Rangell's case, this is a Hamburg Steinway D.) These recordings, then, will be of little use for authenticists – forgive the neologism, but it seems appropriate – but will deeply satisfy those who believe that the message is more important the medium. Even more than Gould, Rangell uses the piano's full resources to play this music, and this gives his performances colors, excitement, and relevance of their own. Rangell also has a clear advantage in terms of engineering. Bridge's sound is far superior to what Columbia was giving Gould in the 1960s.

Copyright © 2007 by Raymond Tuttle, Classical.net

Also Available - Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1
"Andrew Rangell's free-spirited Bach is distinguished by its powerful drive and intensity and a remarkable articulation that illuminates contrapuntal intricacies with microscopic clarity."
-- Vivien Schweitzer, The New York Times [2/3/2008]

PREIST IHN SEINER WELT ZULIEBE

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CONCERTOS FOR 2 PIANOS

Onslow, G.: Piano Trios Nos. 7 and 8

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Beethoven, L. van: Complete Cello Music

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Recorded in: The Warehouse, London 11-13 March 1996 (Sonatas Nos 1-4 & 6), 28 March 2000 (Sonatas Nos 5 & 7) Producer(s) Nicholas Anderson Sound Engineer(s) Ben Connellan

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Bach: Die schönsten orgelwerke

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FERGUSON Violin Sonata No. 2. BRITTEN Suite for Violin and Piano. WALTON Violin Sonata. Two Pieces for Violin and Piano • Tasmin Little (vn); Piers Lane (pn) • CHANDOS 10770 (61:39)


Here we have the first in a series of British works for violin and piano. Presumably all will feature the excellent team of violinist Tasmin Little and pianist Piers Lane. They are a team in the true sense of the word: Lane well known for his sensitive work in chamber music (he curates and performs in an annual chamber music festival in Townsville, Northern Australia), and Little highly regarded for her performances of British music. Full marks to them for not calling themselves the Little Lane Duo. The series gets off to a fine start with this diverse program of rarely heard and stylistically contrasting works.


The Suite for Violin and Piano op. 6 is among Britten’s earliest pieces (post-juvenilia), when the composer was consciously following continental trends. Its five movements include stylistic pastiches such as a march, a moto perpetuo, and a concluding waltz. Two years later Britten would revisit these forms with even more assurance in his Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge for string orchestra. The piano part in these short pieces is brilliant (as in the composer’s Piano Concerto, another early work), and very French in places; the ghost of Debussy is present in the rippling arpeggios accompanying quiet sections of the finale. In the 1930s Britten’s music was regarded as superficial—playfulness being a quality that sat uneasily with English composers—but the main attribute of this music is its focus. Britten knew what he wanted to say and employed the most precise means with which to say it. This never changed throughout his career, although his aims obviously did. Little brings an equal precision and poise to her playing of the gentle Lullaby that forms the fourth movement, and both musicians revel in the high spirits and punchy accents required elsewhere. Theirs is a performance that makes you wonder why the work is not played more frequently.


Walton’s days as an enfant terrible were over by the time of his Violin Sonata, which came a decade after the highly successful Violin Concerto of 1937. It is in two movements: the first, rhapsodic and lyrical; the second, a theme and variations—a form the composer increasingly turned to in his late music. Each variation in this movement is in a key a semitone higher than its predecessor. In both movements the writing is fulsome, certainly in comparison to Britten’s spare textures, with the violin part displaying yearning lines and wide intervallic leaps that recall the earlier concerto. The piano was not Walton’s instrument and he wrote little for it, yet its colors are effectively exploited in the variations, notably in the Fifth Variation ( Allegretto con moto ) where the keyboard plays in octaves in its high register against the violin’s pizzicato.


On a Chandos recording of Walton’s Violin Concerto the companion piece is an orchestral version of this Sonata, arranged by Christopher Palmer. Palmer’s recreation of the composer’s orchestral style is perfect, but Walton knew best: it is clearly music conceived for two instruments. Little and Lane’s performance leaves no doubt of that. They also unerringly tap the vein of nostalgia in the first of the Two Pieces, titled Canzonetta , and are suitably frisky in the concluding “Scherzetto.”


The disc opens with a major work by the rarely played Irish composer, Howard Ferguson (1908–1999). It was composed in 1946, as Walton was working slowly on his own Sonata. Ferguson was even more meticulous; he later abandoned composition altogether, so out of touch did he feel with the Modernist wave of the 1950s and 60s. His Sonata No. 2 has a traditional three-movement structure, but again within that there is a tendency to rhapsodize. It takes a few hearings to recognize the economy of means that Ferguson uses as a basis for his emotionally charged music.The underlying tone is one of anxiety and sorrow—even anger in the tougher third movement—no doubt due to the work’s wartime provenance. Both musicians are securely on the composer’s wavelength.


I cannot praise Lane and Little highly enough. They face tough competition in the Walton: Daniel Hope and pianist Simon Mulligan recorded it, coupled with the sonata by Elgar, in 2001; Fanfare ’s Robert Maxham wrote that Hope’s “lyricism in the Walton has a strong, perhaps ironic, pungency.” The young Nigel Kennedy also recorded the piece, and there are older performances available by Aaron Rosand and Yehudi Menuhin. Competition is scarce in the other works. Lydia Mordkovitch taped Ferguson’s two violin sonatas for Chandos in the mid-1990s. I have not heard that disc but I tend to prefer Little to Mordkovitch in other repertoire (such as the Walton Concerto).


The version of Britten’s Suite in the newly released Decca Britten box is by LSO violinist Alexander Barantschik, taken from a single EMI disc of Britten’s chamber music from the mid-1990s. Barantschik’s performance also turns up in a recent EMI collection of Britten’s chamber music. Interestingly, his pianist is named as John Alley on the original release, but John Adey on both the reissue boxes. I presume this is a typographical error that neither EMI nor Universal picked up. Barantschik and Alley treat the Suite to a dry Stravinskian attack, making it sound even more starkly modern, and are recorded in a less resonant acoustic that suits their approach, but Little and Lane have great authority and their program is substantial. The new disc is strongly recommended, and promises much in the forthcoming issues from these fine artists.


FANFARE: Phillip Scott

This re-release of William Kapell's 1951 recording of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini with Fritz Reiner and the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra will hopefully serve as a corrective to the many pianists who take this work at dreadfully slow tempos. The fleet and bright Kapell-Reiner reading makes this work's theme and 24 variations cohere in a way that eludes so many other interpretations--as an extended, precise, and often frenetic dance and thus not, in this way, unlike Ravel's 'Bolero.' Such a reading not only teases out a most appropriate Paganinian mania in the faster variations but also rescues the slower ones, like the eighth (here given a cool, easy swing), from sounding like dirges.
Whether under the direction of Reiner or, as with the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No. 2, under William Steinberg, the woodwind soloists of the Robin Hood Dell Orchestra are exemplary, while the strings (especially under Reiner) shimmer. The concerto possesses many moments that require careful advanced staging; otherwise, the work runs the risk of sounding tunefully episodic. With Steinberg keeping the ensemble super-tight throughout all three movements, he and Kapell stage these moments brilliantly.

This CD includes additional tracks of spoken commentary by musicologist H. C. Robbins Landon on Missa "Sunt bona mixta malis" in English, German and French.

GERSHWIN: RHAPSODY IN BLUE, AN

REVIEWS:
BBC Music (3/98, p.74) - "Du Pré's...1977 Elgar Cello Concerto recording....is compelling and richly Romantic....Ormandy and the Philadelphia's 'Enigma' is warmhearted and virtuosic....Davis's 'Pomp and Circumstance' Marches are bold and beefy."

This selection is a Super Audio CD, which is designed for use only on Super Audio CD players. It is also available in standard CD format.
Includes traditional work(s). Ensemble: I Musici de Montreal. Conductor: Yuli Turovsky.

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