Unfortunately we know absolutely nothing about the life of Charles Dollé. Not even his approximate birth and death dates are known. From his six collections of instrumental works published between 1737 and 1754 we can logically infer that he was a Frenchman, a viola da gamba virtuoso, and a composer. The chronic dearth of further information about this musicians is evidently the reason why music historians have either completely passed him by or relegated him to mere footnote, in the shadow of his contemporaries Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray who are generally regarded as representing the best and technically most difficult works for viola da gamba. Petr Wagner get Dollé's music out of his undeserved shadowy existence.

INVOCACIONES: Mexican Music for Flute and Piano • Evangelina Reyes (fl); Camelia Goila (pn) • URTEXT DIGITAL JBCC-188 (67:27)


ZYMAN Sonata for Flute and Piano. LAVISTA Dance of Degas’s Ballerinas. CORAL Not So Short Sonata for Flute and Piano. ARMENGOL Divertimento. ARANDA Mnemósine. Cadenza. LUNA Six Fantasies for Flute and Piano. E. TOUSSAINT Bop Study No.1 for Flute Solo


This is another one of those collections of miscellany that is so easily overlooked or dismissed—I would probably pass over it myself if I were just a reader of this magazine. But this recording offers fine performances of an extremely appealing recital program, with a repertoire that ranges from the truly superb to the merely pleasant. I will discuss the program in my own judgment of descending order of interest.


The most fully satisfying work is the 17-minute sonata by the Mexican-American composer Samuel Zyman, now in his late-50s, and a member of the Juilliard faculty for quite a few years. From my personal vantage point, Zyman’s music seems to have drawn little serious attention, but of nearly a dozen of his works that I’ve encountered over the years I haven’t heard one that failed to exhibit an irresistible sense of compelling creative urgency, vividly and expertly articulated within a general language of traditional modern neoclassicism. But unlike the neoclassical norm, often characterized by a cool detachment and lack of emotional commitment, Zyman’s music is always serious and expressive in tone, with a driving contrapuntal energy. I cannot imagine a flutist who wouldn’t relish a work like this, which grabs the listener intensely from the first moment and never lets go. The piece it most resembles is the perennially popular Sonata for Flute and Piano by the late Robert Muczynski, but Zyman’s 1993 sonata is somewhat more driven and edgy.


Also of considerable interest and appeal is the Dance of Degas’s Ballerinas , composed in 1992 by Mario Lavista. Born in 1943, Lavista seems to have the most cosmopolitan academic pedigree of the composers represented, having studied with a range of mentors from Nadia Boulanger and György Ligeti to Karlheinz Stockhausen. But the short piece that we hear here is a consistently absorbing abstract work in a modern traditionalist style. Some listeners may find their imaginations stimulated by the title, but I heard no convincing musical connection to the suggested images, yet had no problem connecting with the piece as pure music.


Leonardo Coral, born in 1962, is a prolific composer whose music has been performed widely throughout Mexico. His four-movement piece, whose title may be translated as Not So Short Sonata for Flute and Piano , dates from 2003. It is a pleasant piece with an occasional reminiscence of Poulenc—pretty, straightforward, but with no plumbing of expressive depths. Mario Ruiz Armengol (1914-2002) was a versatile figure in Mexican music, celebrated in the classical, light classical, and popular fields. His Divertimento in G (1979) for alto flute and piano is a gracious, warmly lyrical piece. Alexis Aranda, not yet 40 and the youngest composer represented here, has been hailed as a major talent within the Mexican music establishment. A student of Mario Lavista, noted above, he is represented here by two very short pieces. The first, Mnemósine , refers to the goddess of memory. Dating from 2002, it begins with striking dissonance, but quickly warms up to an appealingly tonal lyricism. The earlier Cadenza for unaccompanied flute is a rather late addition to a genre overflowing with mediocre pieces.


Armando Luna (b. 1964) received his graduate training under Leonardo Balada at Carnegie Mellon University, while his career has flourished actively in his native Mexico. The program notes accompanying his Six Fantasies of 1992 make all sorts of intriguingly colorful references, but the actual music does not bear them out and is rather ordinary if pleasant enough. Like many of the composers represented on this recital, Eugenio Toussaint (1954-2011) was active in Mexico’s popular, jazz, and classical worlds. His Bop Study No. 1 (1994) was originally written for recorder, but Evangelina Reyes transcribed it for flute. As it stands, the short piece exploits a wide range of flute effects, both familiar and unconventional, many of them suggestive of “bop”-style jazz. All the pieces are performed expertly by both Reyes and her accompanist Camelia Goila.


FANFARE: Walter Simmons

MISON, L.: Sonata in A minor / LOCATELLI, P.A.: Sonata No. 2

Classical Music

A native of Turkey, Betul Soykan has the full measure of these colorful works. She is beautifully accompanied by Russian pianist Anatoly Sheludyakov.

KOZELUH KNOBLOCHOVA; SEMERADOVA; FLEKOVA SONATAS FOR FORTEPIANO, FLUTE AND CELLO

Classical Music

The composer Julius Röntgen (1855-1932) was born in Leipzig. His father was first violinist in the Gewandhaus Orchestra, his first piano teacher was Carl Reinecke, the director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. In 1877 Röntgen went to Amsterdam, and became a piano teacher in the Conservatory there. As renowned accompanying pianist, Röntgen was working for the great violinist Carl Flesch and the cello player Pablo Casals. For a while these musicians even formed a piano trio with Röntgen. After the highly acclaimed volume one with Piano Trios (ARS 38031), the Storioni Trio presents now the Piano Trios no. 2 and 4, written in 1894 and 1898. The Storioni Trio, founded in 1995, has worked over the years with great musicians such as Isaac Stern, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Menahem Pressler, as well as members of the Emerson Quartet and the Vermeer Quartet, and performs chamber music with artists such as Gidon Kremer, Dimitri Sitkovetsky, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Rainer Kussmaul, Nobuko Imai, Emma Johnson. The Storioni Trio regularly give concerts at all major venues in the Netherlands, such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and at the most important music centres in the world, such as the Weill Recital Hall (Carnegie Hall) or the Wigmore Hall in London.

Ignaz Joseph Pleyel (1757-1831) wrote a number of remarkable string quintets that have largely been ignored by musical scholarship owing to the fact that there were no extant scores or reprints available. As part of their efforts to produce a complete scientific edition of Pleyel’s oeuvre, the Int’l Pleyel Society has undertaken the task of setting the scores and individual parts of all 17 String Quintets (Ben 271-287) using the Sibelius software program. Pleyel’s string quintets are firmly rooted in the Viennese tradition of such composers as Hoffmeister, Krommer and Wranitzky.

Great works of chamber music by a master of melodies, performed by internationally renowned musicians - all the elements are in place for a feast of surprises on this recording. First up is a string quartet for violin, two violas and violoncello. Pleyel's String Sextet, a work that holds up well against other sextets from that time, was first recognized in the Hoffmeister edition published on 14 May 1791. Pleyel's four-movement Quintet in G minor with its surprisingly short and slow introduction could be described as "a prodigious and prescient romantic reconception." In this work, Pleyel did not comply with the dictate of fashion - instead of writing for the music market, he wrote for an audience of connoisseurs, availing himself of "the science of composition." As the musicologist and composer Vogler put it, "he can when he wants to." In all likelihood, the String Quintet has never been publicly performed and is therefore one of his (and not only his) most interesting string quintets.

Classical Music

Classical Music

This new release brings together works for flute and piano from the early 20th century. An era that was ruled by the idea of "L'art pour l'art". "This CD is one of the most interesting to be issued for a long time. The repertoire is very attractive. It is very well recorded and the playing is of the highest standard. A pleasure to listen to." - Sir James Galway

This new release presents the complete piano trios of Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959). The piano trios span two decades of Martinu’s life, and his compositional evolution can be seen as the pieces progress. The Smetana Trio, which consists of pianist Jitka Cechova, violinist Jiri Vodicka, and cellist Jan Palenicek, performs these works brilliantly.

Composer, pianist, and teacher Jeanne-Louise Dumont Farrenc was born in 1804 into an artistic and bohemian Parisian family. She studied with Anton Reicha at the Paris Conservatory, where she later became a professor. She was the only female professor at the Conservatory in the 19th century. Her most famous works are chamber music compositions.

Classical Music

J. S. Bach – Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903, French Suite No. 5 in G major, BWV 816, Concerto for Harpsichord No. 9 in G major, Op. 4 No. 1, BWV 980 Domenico Scarlatti – Sonatas (selection)* Manuel de Falla – Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin and Cello * Viktor Kalabis – Sei invenzioni canonici per cembalo, Op. 20 * Francis Poulenc – Concert champêtre – Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra * Jan Rychlík – Hommaggi gravicembalistici for Harpsichord * Bohuslav Martin? – Concerto for Harpsichord and Small Orchestra, H 246 * First time on CD

Includes work(s) for piano by Bedrich Smetana.

Classical Music

Includes work(s) for piano by Claude Debussy. Soloist: Peter Frankl.

Haydn's piano sonatas have thrilled me since childhood. This music may seem easy to grasp at first glance: so much seems clear and straightforward. However, once you take a closer look and spend more time playing and listening to Haydn's music, it develops an endless, multifaceted life of its own. It becomes more concrete and at teh same time it develops an endless, multifaceted life of its own. It becomes more concrete and at teh same time more mysterious. Unexpected turns of phrase, sudden occurences, humorous juxtapositions and startling asymmetries are just as much a part of this music as its extended melodic arcs that make the piano sing. Haydn's music forms an intimate bond between song and speech. In each movement of the ca. 60 piano sonatas he wrote, we meet a personality, an unmistakeable character, evoked in detail. Haydn was long viewed as teh mere forerunner of vienna Classicism - Mozart and Beethoven's Papa, so to speak. His sonatas were mainly regarded as witty, useful pedagogical material. Several generations seem to have been unaware of his profoundly nuanced approach. Perhaps, however, Haydn's keyboard oeuvre might require even better interpreters than the works written by his towering colleagues. One cannot clothe this music in an adequate form without applying a great deal of fantasy in one's choice of timbres, along with a keen sense for musical thetoric and careful regard for phrasing. Most of all, the Haydn performer should be able to modify the entire timbre effect and redistribute the balance among parts from one moment to the next. We must not forget that he was born way back in 1732: Haydn thus still had one foot in the Baroque age, as one can tell from the latent polyphony and frequent figures of musical rhetoric. His variegated types of articulation cover a wide spectrum: dozens of nuances fill out the range between Haydn's profound, songlike legato and his humorously accentuated staccato. Here is not where we will find Beethoven's force and dramatic vigor, neither Mozart's ethereal beauty. Haydn wrote a music of profound humanity, with a basic outlook similar to what the German Romantics called humor": a reflection of human life with all its beauties, unfathomable depths, hopes, losses, crises and joys, all shouldered with a large dose of passion and irony.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

QUARTET AMERICAN STYLE: POSTCARDS FROM THE AMERICAN MUSICAL PAST • Serafin Str Qrt • CENTAUR 3050 (65:52)

STILL Danzas de Panama. DVO?ÁK String Quartet No. 12 in F, op. 96, “American”.BARBER String Quartet in b, op. 11. GERSHWIN Lullaby

In the informative notes that accompany this disc, writer Renée Silberman asks: “What is ‘American music’—a school of American composition? Musical institutions? High art or folk art? Traditions of the Native Americans, of Blacks, of immigrants and visitors?” As Silberman suggests, it is all but impossible to explain what makes music “American.” Like the striking diversity that makes up our people’s DNA, American music is not readily susceptible to description or categorization, let alone definition. It is remarkable, therefore, that all-American music programs bode so well in the concert hall or on record, as evidenced by the album for consideration here, which I believe marks the debut of the Serafin Quartet, a string ensemble based in Wilmington, Delaware.

The album begins and ends on a lighter note, with William Grant Still’s Danzas de Panama and George Gershwin’s well-known Lullaby. In the former work, a delightful suite inspired by Still’s perennial fascination with the music of African slaves and Caribbean people, the Serafins provide idiomatic and rhythmically engaging performances. In the Gershwin work, the ensemble’s relatively quick pace prevents the premature onset of slumber and makes the music sound less repetitive­—and in truth more interesting—than it is. In Dvo?ák’s “American” Quartet, the Serafins play with impressive accuracy and drive, and the silvery tone of the violin of the ensemble’s leader—a Sanctus Serafin—is particularly delightful. If, at the end of the day, I still gravitate towards the Panocha Quartet’s more nuanced interpretation, the Serafin’s comparatively clear-eyed approach is undeniably valid. I have no reservations whatsoever about the ensemble’s performance of the Barber String Quartet. The Serafins are less driven than the Emerson Quartet, and their more flexible tempo allows the Brahmsian pathos of this work to shine through. Violinist Timothy Schwartz’s and cellist Lawrence Stomberg’s contributions in the Molto Adagio—most often heard in the arrangement known as the Adagio for Strings—deserve special note. (In the interest of full disclosure, I note that since this recording was made in 2009, Schwartz has left the ensemble.)

The engineering is excellent. In sum, this is a memorable disc that is guaranteed to provide much enjoyment to chamber music enthusiasts.

FANFARE: Radu A. Lelutiu