“Perched at a sonic event horizon, the nine string quartets of composer Gloria Coates exquisitely warp listeners’ sense of place. The floorboards yield like latex and the supernovae above are seduced to within an arm’s reach through her elongating, microtonal alchemy. In the deft hands of the UK’s Kreutzer Quartet, the nocturnal harmonies found here are rendered not bleak, but radiant.” – Doyle Armbrust, Time Out Chicago


At long last, the aural equivalent to Salvador Dali's melted watches! Gloria Coates (b. 1939) has created a string quartet language out of glissandos: long, short, abrupt, gradual, creaky, rounded, often dissonant, sometimes consonant. The music conjures up vivid aural images. The Fifth Quartet, for instance, begins with delicate high-register, insect-like squeals. These assiduously descend into detuned, slow moving canons that resemble a chorus of drunken cartoon cats and coyotes intoning half-remembered hymns and barroom ballads. Its second movement is built from glissandos that ascend and descend in super-slow motion. By contrast, the third movement nearly recaps the second at a hundred times the speed, the double stops suggesting a veritable orchestra of quartets whizzing before you in a race against time.


The brief First Quartet dates from the composer's late 20s and reveals that the basic elements of her present style already were in place, if not so extreme in their deployment. I especially like the Sixth Quartet's concluding "Evanescence" movement, where palpable melodic shapes emerge from intertwining long, sustained, slowly modulated glissandos, demarcated by occasional gentle pizzicato dabs. If Coates is the painter, the Kreutzer Quartet is the widely varied palette of colors and the big, austere canvas. The sheer variety of nuance and timbre the players bring to these scores will be hard to equal, let alone surpass. Kyle Gann's exemplary notes are analytical without being academic.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com
Reviewing original release of Quartets 1, 5 & 6

I get the feeling that Gloria Coates does not spend a lot of time worrying about whether or not other people enjoy her music. That is a compliment, not a complaint. Whether or not you like what she does, she does it with a very personal style and with great conviction. The present CD, the fifth of Coates’s music to be released under Naxos’s American Classics imprint, ranks very low on the list of CDs one would play as light background music during a convivial dinner with friends. Coates’s music, this CD included, forces one to consider why we listen to music at all, and to examine what we mean by “entertainment.” To my thinking, entertainment, in the usual sense of the word, is overrated. We need to devote equal time and effort to moving ourselves into new emotional and intellectual territories, even at the risk of causing ourselves a little pain.


Coates is an American who now lives in Germany. In an interview, she describes the German culture as “very serious and formal,” and comments, “One is left alone much of the time unless he plans ahead.” Is there anyone in the United States who is writing music quite like Coates’s? Not that I am aware of. Her music says difficult things—things Americans seem unwilling to say at this point.


This is the world premiere recording of her recent (2007) String Quartet No. 9. The work is in two movements, both of them slow, and both of them making an almost obsessively detailed exploration of texture and sound. The first is a canon and nearly a palindrome, although the materials thus treated are not only melodic but also textural. The long, siren-like glissando, a trademark of Coates’s music from the start of her career, appears six minutes in and produces an unsettling effect. The listener also is thrown off kilter by pitch, because the first violin and the viola are tuned down one quarter-tone. Glissandos occur in the second movement, albeit within a narrower range; imagine listening to the slow movement of a late Beethoven quartet on a turntable whose motor is giving out and from an LP that has been pressed off-center. As Kyle Gann writes in his booklet notes, “The atmosphere is unworldly, creepily dissonant and yet serene, a kind of music of the spheres.”


The Sonata for Violin Solo (2000) allows aspects of Coates’s compositional style to stand out in stark relief. The movement titles—Prelude, Fantasia, Berceuse, and Hornpipe—suggest Handel or Bach, or at any rate more “traditional” composers, but once again, Coates goes her own fascinating way.


One might think that Emily Dickinson would elicit a brighter response from any composer. All of the Lyric Suite’s (1996) seven movements are headed by a fragment from Dickinson’s poetry. The Belle of Amherst was a mystic and a visionary, though, and Coates’s music underscores the notion that much of Dickinson’s work was actually quite strange, considering the time and place in which she lived. Once again, unusual playing techniques, including strings tuned a quarter-tone flat, create a sound world that is eerily beautiful and queasy.


For Coates newbies, any of the discs featuring her orchestral works might be a slightly easier introduction. Nevertheless, I feel that the present CD is an honest representation of who she is and what she does.


The Kreutzer Quartet has participated in earlier Coates recordings, and the quartet’s first violinist, Peter Sheppard Skærved, has championed Coates for her music for two decades. (Neil Heyde is the quartet’s cellist.) It is hard to know what to say about the performances, except that there would be little point in performing and recording this music if one didn’t believe in it. Separately and together, the quartet’s members, plus pianist Chadwick, are committed to the task, and carry it out with deep concentration.


As usual, the cover art is a painting by Gloria Coates, whose visual art looks much like her music sounds. As the saying goes, when God gave out talent, she stood in line twice.


FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle
Reviewing Quartet no 9, Violin Sonata, Lyric Suite

Richter Archives, Vol. 1: Beethoven Late Piano Sonatas (Live

Rachmaninov’s ‘Piano Concerto No. 3’ is a complex, epic narrative that moves from a simple opening melody to the triumphant apotheosis at its conclusion. The composer ingeniously links motifs, melodies and at times whole sections between the movements, unifying the concerto into a single overarching storyline. In the ‘Variations on a Theme of Correlli,’ Rachmaninov reworks the original theme using his unique harmonic language until there is no trace left of its Baroque or Renaissance origins. Pianist Boris Giltburg was born in 1984 in Moscow and has lived in Tel Aviv since early childhood. He began lessons with his mother at the age of five and went on to study with Arie Vardi. In 2013 he took first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, catapulting his career to a new level. His previous solo Rachmaninov recording was named Gramophone album of the month in June 2016, and more recently his first concerto album won a Diapason d’or for his account of the Shostakovich concertos.

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REVIEWS:

Boris Giltburg’s new Naxos recording of the D minor Concerto with Carlos Miguel Prieto and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra shatters the encrustation of reputational habit, offering instead a vividly imaginative re creation of a score that lives and breathes with irresistible vitality. Giltburg’s approach is fundamentally lyrical, rhetorically apt and, aided and abetted by Prieto and the Scots, sensitive to every marking in the score.

– Gramophone The opening bars of this Third Concerto performance set the scene for a very personal approach to the ones we have already on disc; the whole performance gives us a totally new approach where the choice of tempos is very personal, at times unusually relaxed, at other times are charging headlong. The first movement cadenza is almost improvisatory in every respect, and sets out his credentials as one of today’s most outgoing virtuosos. His finale is full of white-heat moments. The conductor, Carlos Miguel Prieto, is at one with his soloist, while the Royal Scottish National are on fine form. A very attractive account of the Variations on a Theme of Corelli closes the disc. The recorded quality of the concerto is excellent..

– David's Review Corner (David Denton)

Based on the book Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do by Studs Terkel, 1978's Working tells the story of average working people through original songs written by Stephen Schwartz (who also directed the show), James Taylor, Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers, and Susan Birkenhead. Terkel described the production as a celebration of the “ordinary” people whose lives are unsung. Though Working only ran for a total of 24 performances, it was nominated for six Tony Awards including Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actor in a Musical (Steven Boockvor and Rex Everhart). The formidable cast also included Joe Mantegna and Lynne Thigpen as well as Bob Gunton and Patti LuPone, who would be reunited a year later as husband and wife in the original Broadway cast of Evita. Working continues to be revised and performed throughout the world and was adapted for an episode of PBS’s “American Playhouse” in 1982.

Original songs by Craig Carnella, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers, Susan Birkenhead, Stephen Schwartz, James Taylor.

Principal Cast: David Langston Smyrl, David Patrick Kelly, Matthew McGrath, Bobo Lewis, Matt Landers, Joe Mantegna, Susan Bigelow, Robin Lamont, Lynne Thigpen, Arny Freeman, Lenora Nemetz, Bob Gunton.

Producers include: Elliot Scheiner, Stephen Schwartz.

Reissue producer: Bruce Kimmel.

Recorded at A & R Studios, New York, New York. Includes liner notes by Stephen Schwartz and Studs Terkel.

All tracks have been digitally remastered.

Lyricists: Craig Carnelia, James Taylor, Micki Grant, Matt Landers, Graciela Daniele, and Stephen Schwartz.

Personnel: Matt Landers (vocals, guitar); Stephen Schwartz (vocals, keyboards); David Langston Smyrl, David Patrick Kelly , Micki Grant, Arny Freeman, Steven Boockvor, Brad Sullivan, Lenora Nemetz, Matthew McGrath, Susan Bigelow, Kennard Ramsey, Bob Gunton, Rex Everhart, Robin Lamont, Joe Mantegna, Lynne Thigpen, Patti LuPone, Bob Lewis (vocals); Jerry Wiener, Scott Kuney (guitar); John Kunkel, Jesse Cusimano, Evelyn Glover, Terry Woitach (violin); Carolyn Halik, Clarissa Howell (cello); Richard Centalonza, Joe Palmer (woodwinds); John Bova (trumpet); Donald Corrado (French horn); Eddie Bert, Jack D. Elliot (trombone); Rosalinda DeLeon, Kenneth Bichel (keyboards); Don Simmons (drums); Jim Ogden (percussion).

Recording information: A&R Studios, New York, NY.

Despite an accomplished background as both a writer and an actor, Studs Terkel has never been known as a playwright. It has been left to other writers to put Terkel's works on the stage, and several have given it a shot, including Arthur Miller (The American Clock) and Jamie Pachino (Race). But none of them has had more success than Stephen Schwartz, whose musical adaptation of Terkel's Working has been produced around the world for more than 20 years now. The strength of the musical is the diversity of the songwriting, which is meant to reflect the diversity of the working men and women of America. Mary Rodgers and James Taylor are especially effective at capturing the voices of their characters without falling back too readily on musical theater clichés. On the whole the soundtrack captures the substance of both the musical and Terkel's book.

– Evan Cater, AllMusic.com

What Makes Sammy Run? is based on the 1941 novel by Budd Schulberg and tells, through memorable songs and tragicomic situations the story of movie producer Sammy Glick, brilliantly portrayed by Steve Lawrence. The plot turns the inspiring rags-to-riches story upside-down revealing Sammy's manipulative rise to the top of Hollywood through intimidation, blatant plagiarism and back-stabbing. Sammy will stop at nothing yet he always seems to come out ahead, making Sammy Glick among the most memorable and complex of Broadway show villains.
In addition to Steve Lawrence, the cast includes Sally Ann Howes as ghostwriter Kit Sargent, Bernice Massi as Laurette Harrington and Robert Alda as Al Manheim.

The songs for the 1964 musical were composed by Ervin Drake with the show's script written by novelist Budd Schulberg and his brother, Stuart Schulberg. What Makes Sammy Run? was earlier dramatized into several made-for-TV plays starring José Ferrer and later Larry Blyden, but in its depiction of the decadent side of Hollywood, it is telling that though the rights to a movie version were purchased by Warner Brothers, the musical and the original novel and TV dramas have never been made into a movie.

The album includes all the songs from the original Broadway cast recording plus an illustrated booklet with a thorough and entertaining story of the show and complete plot synopsis written by Curtis F. Brown and Lucy E. Cross.

What Makes Sammy Run?
Based on the novel by BUDD SCHULBERG
Music and Lyrics by ERVIN DRAKE
Book by BUDD and STUART SCHULBERG
Starring STEVE LAWRENCE, SALLY ANN HOWES, BERNICE MASSI, ROBERT ALDA
Musical Staging by MATT MATTOX with BARRY NEWMAN, ARNY FREEMAN, RICHARD FRANCE ,GEORGE COE, GRACIE LA DANIELE , MACE BARRETT , RALPH STANTLEY,EDWARD MCNALLY and WALTER KAVUN
Vocal Arrangements and Musical Direction by LEHMAN ENGEL
Orchestrations by DON WALKER Dance Arrangements by ARNOLD GOLAND
Production Manager: MICHAEL THOMA

Production Supervised by ROBERT WEINER
Directed by ABE BURROWS
Produced for records by GODDARD LIEBERSON

Florent Schmitt stands alongside Debussy and Ravel as one of the most original and influential French composers of his time. Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1900, Schmitt wrote successfully in many forms but he was a formidable pianist who described his often rich and multi-staved scores as “fistfuls of piano”. His music for the instrument is colourful, filled with adventurous harmonic innovation, stylistic bravura and good humoured wit. This complete collection for piano duo and duet includes unpublished works and rarities.

Sibelius may not have written the flashiest piano music of his time, yet the stark beauty of his mature harmonic language and instinct for effective keyboard deployment (which certainly developed as he progressed) characterize each and every work on this disc. As with previous volumes in this series, pianist Håvard Gimse imbues these pieces with all the color, dynamic range, technical control, insight, and tender loving care he can muster, and there's much to savor despite this collection's anonymous-sounding titles.


In particular, the collections of Op. 75 and 85, subtitled "The Trees" and "The Flowers", are appealingly nature-inspired, and Gimse wrings every drop of poetry from their often unassuming outward appearance. And that's saying a lot, since Gimse is one of the most cultivated, musicianly pianists on the scene. Top class sonics and fine annotations further enhance my recommendation. If you've been collecting Naxos' Sibelius piano music cycle, you'll want this disc as a matter of course.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

This is the first release ever of all the Bruckner symphony recordings that Hans Rosbaud made for SDR (now SWR). Hans Rosbaud is remembered chiefly as a committed performer of contemporary music. This resulted from his regular appearances in Donaueschingen, where he conducted either the world or regional premieres of works by Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and many others. Crucially important was his conducting of the first concert performance of Arnold Schönberg’s opera Moses and Aaron in Hamburg on 12 March 1954. However he devoted equal attention to the works of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. which is all the more reason to take a closer look also at his other recordings, in this case, at his Bruckner interpretations. Rosbaud produced performances of all Bruckner's symphonies for the radio broadcasting company Sudwestfunk (SDR), apart from the First, which he never conducted.

Zenph Studios applies its "re-performance" technology to a selection of Sergei Rachmaninov's flat discs for RCA Victor, recorded between 1921 and 1942. I described the company's process in an earlier review, and it bears reiterating. Zenph employs a software application that analyzes a recorded piano performance by separating its pianistic attributes from mechanical and environmental factors to an unprecedented degree of specificity and refinement. The information then is encoded to high-definition MIDI files that are played through a piano equipped to do so--in this case, a 1909 Steinway, painstakingly rebuilt by Faust Harrison Pianos.

How well do the Zenph re-performances replicate the originals? In one instance, perhaps a little too well: the split note near the beginning of Rachmaninov's 1942 Kreisler Liebesfreud here emerges clean as a whistle. Elsewhere, the phrasings, pedalings, dynamic relationships, and tempos appear accurate to an impressively high degree. However, certain rapid passages that project extraordinary lightness and point on disc sound slightly heavier via Zenph, such as The Flight of the Bumblebee's buzzing runs. Crescendos yield more pronounced sustain pedal and darker colorations on the disc version of the Tchaikovsky/Rachmaninov Lullaby Op. 16 No. 1. Certain detaché articulations in the Mendelssohn Midsummer Night's Dream Scherzo seem softer, less hard-hitting under Zenph's watch.

The re-performances are programmed twice: first in surround-sound, then again in two-channel stereo from the perspective of the pianist at the keyboard. Given Rachmaninov's perfectionist attitude in the recording studio, one wonders what he would have made of this fascinating and potentially controversial project.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

The voice of this lovely singer is now in its freshest full bloom. These years, the early middle period, of a singer's career ought to be cherished and relished like the fine days of our fickle summer. Yet we have an ungrateful way of passing them over with a forward look towards the things of autumn, the mellow fruitfulness of the mature interpreter, the ripeness of art that knows all shades of expression from the most playful to the most profound. Listening to this record, I find the critical habit urging me on to commit this kind of folly. In the very first song, Dowland's Come again, one is already preparing to go and look for Janet Baker's record (HMV HQS1091, 7/67); in Liszt's Die drei Zigeuner the ineffaceable memory of Schwarzkopf interposes. And it is true: there are limitations to the success of this delightful record. By comparison with Schwarzkopf there is something passive and underlit about the story-telling in that song; just as Baker's exceptionally strong projection and rhythmic vitality make von Stade's singing of Conte again seem placidly hymn-like, wanting sharpness of flavour (and sometimes of consonant also). There is a limit, too, to the success of The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation, the dynamics less imaginatively judged than in Britten's edition of the piece, and with a rather square regularity in the pacing of recitative. But how sad if because of this one were to miss the tender absorption of von Stade's performance here, or the lovely pianissimo of such phrases as "flattering hopes, farewell". What a loss, too, if the second side of the record were to go unheard because of the qualified success of the first. The Bilitis songs have the most winning feminity, "La chevelure" drawing from the singer a richer, more sensual tone, while a new darkness colours the satyres' obituary in the last song (and, if reassurance is needed, it should be added that Martin Katz accompanies more sensitively than he did in the recording by Marilyn Home some years ago—Decca SXL6577, 6/74). Then comes the set of four French folk songs arranged by Canteloube of the Auvergne: magically evocative, and bolder in the projection of personality. Finally, a touching, quite simple American song, addressed to Jenny Rebecca ("four days old"), serves as an encore piece, allowing the voice to settle and linger graciously in the mind. Von Stade is already an accomplished recitalist, though she will no doubt come to communicate more vividly and imaginatively on record. Meanwhile, here is one of the finest singers of the younger generation, her voice in that precious early summertime condition, fresh-toned and beautifully placed: a fine, admirably recorded, first song recital, and, one hopes, the first of many.

– Gramophone [11/1978]

SYMPHONY 7 SACD

Artfulness disguised as simplicity – achingly beautiful.

‘Flicka’, as she is known among friends, has garnered the opera houses and concert halls around the world for four decades and her agenda is still well-filled. As a recording artist she has been prolific and appeared in opera, art-song, sacred music, operetta, Broadway musical and cross-over albums – always with glorious results. The present disc, recorded in 1978 and reissued by Arkiv with the original cover picture and Lionel Salter’s liner notes, was one of the few records with her I never bought on LP – God knows why! Now that I finally have it in my collection I feel satisfied. Mahler songs and Frederica von Stade’s voice have always seemed the ideal combination.

Her clean, slim voice is especially well suited to Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. One of her specialities in opera was the trouser role: Cherubino and Octavian. The opening lines of Wenn mein Schatz are sung with innocent, boyish tone and in Ging heut’ Morgen she is wonderfully fresh and youthful, singing the final lines touchingly with ‘naked’ tone. She can also be strong and dramatic: Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer has all the necessary intensity with desperation almost visible. Then Die zwei blauen Augen is simplicity itself. I have heard few recordings of this cycle that sound so right – and this in spite of a woman singing what is, after all, a man’s words.

The two Wunderhorn songs are just as affecting. In Rheinlegendchen she adopts that boyish tone again and sings, so to speak, with wide open eyes – a spontaneous story-teller. Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?, famously recorded in the 1930s by Elisabeth Schumann, definitely has an open-air atmosphere. Schumann was a charmer, ‘Flicka’ with rounder tone is no less charming.

The five Rückert songs are, for me, indelibly connected with Janet Baker and her late 1960s recording with Barbirolli. Baker could, like no-one else, combine simplicity and deep emotions. But Frederica von Stade’s leaner voice is equally well suited to these songs. Her sophisticated artlessness – sounds like a contradiction but is exactly what I hear; artfulness disguised as simplicity – makes Liebst du um Schönheit so achingly beautiful. She applies the same light touch on Um Mitternacht, and this doesn’t exclude interpretative depth. She has the required power for the big emotional moments, most importantly the final pages of this great song.

The final song, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, has for forty years been one of the family’s great favourites – always in Janet Baker’s reading. Other recordings have popped up and we have admired them, listened closely and in the last analysis returned to Ms Baker. I still find it the deepest-probing but Frederica von Stade’s ethereal rendering of Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel (Rückert actually wrote Weltgewimmel) has also etched itself into my store of unforgettable musical moments. A wonderful end to a memorable recording.

The recording is first class and the LPO play like gods under Andrew Davis’s watchful direction. There are no song texts in the booklet, which is a pity, but they are easily available on the internet.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International [6/2011]

Drawn from the worldwide catalog holdings of Sony Classical, which includes both the Columbia/CBS and RCA Victor label imprints, the SONY Classical Originals, SONY Classical Masters Singles and Box Sets, and SONY Opera House series offer an extensive selection of highly desirable and collectible EU (Germany) pressed import editions, smartly designed and graphically pleasing, featuring the most sought-after recordings by the world's preeminent, legendary artists both past and present, with many titles newly re-mastered in 24 bit High Resolution Audio.

In 1949/50 the Juilliard Quartet recorded the first integral Bartók quartet cycle on disc. The group revisited the six works for stereo in 1963, and again in 1981, with the advent of digital technology. Critical consensus has long considered the 1963 cycle (now released for the first time complete on CD in America) as a benchmark, and rightly so. Some listeners may find the overly close-up engineering a bit monochrome and astringent, yet the Juilliards' uncanny precision, inner rhythmic drive, and pinpoint intonation successfully get past the microphone's unforgiving observation. And even considering today's high sonic and interpretive standards vis-à-vis the Emerson, Hagen, and Takács cycles, these Juilliard performances withstand time's cruel test.

Sample, for instance, the stunning synchronicity of the glissandos and thick tutti chords in the first movement of the Fourth quartet, the textural diversity the players bring to the muted Prestissimo movement, and notice how the all-pizzicato movement's loudest pluckings never compromise pitch definition. In the Second quartet, listen to the gorgeously-layered and controlled slow, sustained lines at the Lento's outset, and revel in the Third quartet coda's joyous intensity and dramatic payoff. I especially like the brisk, effortless conversational quality of the Fifth quartet Scherzo's asymmetrical lines, the group's impeccable dynamic contouring of the unison single lines in the first movement of the Sixth, as well as the hushed, sustained rapture in the same work's final movement. A big thank you to Sony and Arkivmusic.com for making this milestone Bartók cycle available again.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

SCHUMANN: SZENEN AUS GOETHES

PIANO CONCERTOS NO. 3 & 4

When I was young, there were three pianists whom I always hoped to be able to hear in person, Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Horowitz, and Arthur Rubenstein. I finally heard all three, Horowitz only once. These were, of course, the most high-profile pianists living in the United States in the post-WW II years, and all three had prominent recording contracts to keep their names available.

I don’t suppose I have heard these (1962–63) recordings for 30 or more years, and revisiting old pleasures can be a disappointing experience. My youthful enthusiasm anointed Serkin as the ultimate keeper of Beethoven’s flame and relegated Rubinstein to the category of a good show. Time and experience tempered these judgments, as they must, and hearing Rubinstein live several times certainly gave nuance to what a “good show” ought to be. I think what finally did it was letting myself hear Rubinstein’s astonishing sense of line and delicacy of touch, which drew rather than propelled us through even the well-known bars of the “Moonlight” Sonata. I have always admired the way his playing makes each note suggest there is an obvious following one that will appear in its due course. Above all, in his playing there is the sense of the sheer pleasure he takes in it. By this I do not mean he is self-indulgent or willful or careless. On the contrary. Though I recall him as a good showman and though there was the occasional fluff, I always had the sense that when he sat down at the piano, Beethoven came first.

The sonatas here are the “warhorses” of the repertoire, of course, and there is good reason for that: they are sturdy stuff. But how many actually play the triplets of the first movement of No. 14 “with a most delicate touch,” as Beethoven asks of the whole movement, and make them go somewhere? How many can? Rubinstein does so and uses that to create an urgency only released by the arrival of the tune in m. 10, a melody, in turn, urged toward its resolution in m. 22. What sets Rubinstein apart for me is that he does this not by driving us through the music but by drawing us along with it: this is not Bach à la Beethoven. This is not to say that Rubinstein is all delicacy: subtlety need not be understated, nor passion overplayed. There is fire enough when called for, as in the last movement of the “Moonlight” Sonata, for example. In 29/6, James Reel called this playing “poetic,” and we have need of such poetry today.

FANFARE: Alan Swanson Reviewing earlier release

Ronald Binge was one of the most highly respected and successful English composers of his generation. He played a significant role in creating the Mantovani sound, but his big breakthrough came with the Elizabethan Serenade, which became an international hit. The evocative moods and memorable melodies of his best works saw their regular use as themes for TV and radio, and the soothing tones of Sailing By are still in use today as the close-down music for BBC Radio 4.

VLADIMIR HOROWITZ AT CARNEGIE HALL—THE PRIVATE COLLECTION • Vladimir Horowitz (pn) • RCA 754604, mono (50:10) Live: New York 1945–1950


SCHUMANN Phantasie in C. BALAKIREV Oriental Fantasy, “ Islamey.” CHOPIN Barcarolle. LISZT (arr. Horowitz) Légendes: St. Francis de Paul Walks on Water


This latest treasure trove from the recorded legacy of Vladimir Horowitz, all previously unreleased recordings, is of performances recorded live in concert at Carnegie Hall between 1945 and 1950. (A similar collection of recorded performances, with different repertoire, was released by RCA in the mid 1990s.) The present discs were donated to the Yale Music Library by Horowitz and his wife, along with a wide variety of other valuable archival materials such as concert programs, scores, correspondence, and the like. The interesting background to this CD is that Horowitz hired a private company to record his Carnegie Hall concerts during those five years, apparently for his own use, and would listen to them on occasion. Eventually, they were forgotten, and given to Yale by Horowitz as part of the archive. The restoration of most of the originals has been remarkably successful.


The music world is a great deal richer for having access now to this collection. While some of the works on this disc were favorites of Horowitz, and performed and recorded on other occasions, there are two indisputably important and unique additions here: arrangements by Horowitz of Liszt’s “St. Francis de Paul Walks on Water” from Légendes , and Balakirev’s fabled “Islamey.” Although he performed them in concert, they were never recorded for commercial release. (Actually Horowitz performed “Islamey” during only one concert season, 1950, and the present performance dates from that time.) As most pianists are well aware, “Islamey” is considered one of the most technically demanding works in the keyboard repertoire—in other words, a perfect vehicle for Horowitz. Both the Liszt and Balakirev are absolutely stunning; the sheer technique involved—the tricky fast repeated notes, the cascades of runs and other fast passages, the accuracy of leaps, the control of dynamics—reveal Horowitz at the very peak of his career, demonstrating his absolute supremacy over the keyboard. The same must be said for his beautiful performance of Chopin’s Barcarolle, in which the pianist’s legendary singing right hand and judicious use of rubato create a haunting landscape.


The Schumann Phantasie was one of Horowitz’s favorite works; it was on the program at his 1965 Carnegie Hall “comeback” concert following a 12-year absence from the concert stage, and was issued by Columbia shortly after. The Phantasie heard here was recorded in April 1946, unfortunately accompanied by a good bit of noise from the original lacquer surfaces. Horowitz’s treatment of the first movement is truly like a fantasy, sounding dreamlike and spontaneous. It is a beautiful performance, even though in the treacherous coda of the second movement Horowitz seems to succumb to an attack of nerves, begins to rush, and actually loses it briefly before the final measures, with a memory slip and some wrong notes. But magically, the worst over, he plays the last movement with transfixing tenderness and beauty of sound.


This CD may constitute the final hidden treasures from Horowitz’s recorded legacy; but even if some new treasures are discovered, this one is a must for serious collectors.


FANFARE: Susan Kagan


This is prime Horowitz on staggering, fearless form..."

The second of three releases culled from Vladimir Horowitz's mid-1940s/early-1950s Carnegie Hall recitals offers alternative views of two works long familiar from his commercial discography, along with two showpieces otherwise unavailable in the Horowitz canon. The Schumann Fantasy is a classic example of Horowitz's genius for transforming the composer's busy, often thick textures into lean, translucent, and provocatively contoured sonorities. However, an unsettled quality emerges from the pianist's small yet persistent speed-ups and slow-downs within phrases that he would shape more simply in his 1965 comeback recital. Listeners following the score also will notice booming added octaves, plus a deletion of 19 measures from the second movement that's clearly intentional--not a memory lapse. Horowitz's similarly affetuoso approach to the Chopin Barcarolle flows better here than in his 1957 studio recording, notwithstanding the overly aggressive and tight-fisted coda.

Listeners familiar with Liszt's St. François de Paule marchant sur les flots will notice quite a few textual emendations that ultimately draw more attention to the pianist than the composer. That said, this is prime Horowitz on staggering, fearless form, as he also is throughout Balakirev's Islamey. Simon Barere may be unmatched for sheer speed, yet Horowitz's virtuosity is more expressive in its focused articulation, motoric momentum, and shrewd pedaling. He also omits a few bars here and there. Although words cannot adequately mirror the Horowitz experience, David Dubal's vibrant, refreshingly frank booklet notes come pretty darn close.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

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Also Available: Volume 1 - Vladimir Horowitz At Carnegie Hall - The Private Collection - Music of Mussorgsky & Liszt.

This second release from the Yale archive recordings captures Vladimir Horowitz in his golden prime, playing his signature repertoire in concert at Carnegie Hall, where he celebrated the milestones in his career. Horowitz employed an engineer to make 78-rpm recordings of his Carnegie Hall concerts in this period, and he used them to review and judge his performances. Most of these mono recordings were originally contained on 12 and 16-inch acetate discs. They have been impeccably mastered, with the sound restored, from new transfers made in the Yale archives. Significant press accompanied the original announcement of the donation of these recordings to Yale, where Horowitz performed often through the years and was assistant fellow of Silliman College.

The second Private Collection release includes four works that take the listener deep into the heart of the Romantic age – Schumann’s Fantasy in C Major, Op. 17; Chopin’s lilting Barcarolle, Op. 60; Liszt’s evocative musical meditation Legende No. 2 – St. Francis de Paule Walking on the Waves; and one of the most demanding pieces ever written for solo piano, Russian composer Mily Balakirev’s breathtaking steeplechase Islamey.

- Carnegie Hall Presents Series from Sony Masterworks

This recording contains the complete recital given by Clara Haskil at Ludwigsburg Castle in April, 1953. The Debussy works and the encores have never been previously released. The performance is musically outstanding and features engaging repertoire, thus being an impressive record of a legendary musician. The eminent Romanian pianist, Clara Haskil began, her career as a child prodigy and entered at the Bucharest Conservatory when she was 6. At age 7 she was sent to Vienna and profited from the tutelage pf Richard Robert (whose memorable pupils included Rudolf Serkin and George Szell) and briefly with Ferruccio Busoni. She was only 7 (or 10) when she made her public debut there. At 10 she was sent to Paris to continue her training with Morpain, and, at 12, entered the Paris Conservatoire. A celebrated interpreter of classical and early romantic repertoire, many considered Clara the foremost interpreter of W. A. Mozart in her time. She was also widely known for her interpretation of Beethoven and Schumann, both of which can be heard on this recital.

I know of no more dramatic and beautifully played account of the Concerto.

Sol Gabetta is a cellist in great demand as a concert performer. If the high-end German record shops such as Ludwig Beck, Munich and Dussmann, Berlin are anything to go by Gabetta is being strongly marketed by her record label. The programme chosen this time for the young Argentine cellist is all-Shostakovich with wonderful accounts of both the Concerto and the Sonata. The Concerto recording was made at live concerts in January 2008 in the admirable acoustic of the Philharmonie at Munich’s Gasteig. The applause has been elided. On the other hand the Sonata in which Gabetta teams up with Romanian-born pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa is a studio recording made in Zurich. My disc was sent from Germany with German-only text.

The Cello Concerto No.2, written in the last decade of his life, was dedicated to Rostropovich who premièred the score at Shostakovich’s 60th birthday concert in Moscow. Compared to the first Cello Concerto, Op. 107 from 1959 this relatively underrated score is only now beginning to establish its rightful place in the repertoire. The harsh constraints of living and working under the Soviet regime must surely have helped shape its character.

In the opening Largo the cello plays virtually continuously. Right from the first bars the darkly brooding intensity of the cello is spine-tingling. Gabetta’s rich mocha-toned instrument is caught splendidly by the sound engineers. Taking the listener by surprise the cannon salvos and pounding martial beat at 3:58-4:03 is highly dramatic. From 4:31 the anguished wails of the cello are remarkably affecting. A reflective passage on the cello at 5:34 and 6:55 is developed by the orchestra into a thickly textured and deeply depressing episode. A concentrated section from 7:28 feels almost overwhelming. Coming as a welcome relief from 8:35 is a more upbeat passage. It is not long before the playful figures become restless and demanding and the overwhelming weight of torment returns. At 10:32-10:59 the percussion blows are quite ferocious and serve as an ominous warning. The pounding continues but fades and disappears into the distance. Over a rumbling and restless orchestra the cello from 12:54 with its plaintive theme tries to calm the agitation.

Serving as a Scherzo the central movement marked Allegretto is terse and highly rhythmic. A waltz-like street theme on the cello with a sardonic twist opens the movement. Horn-calls punctuate the scene together with a colourful array of percussive effects. Gabetta’s energetic playing cuts through the macabre orchestral writing seemingly intent on holding the cello back. Played continuously, the closing movement also an Allegretto, is heralded by a horn fanfare and drum-roll. Gabetta plays a languorous melody of a certain nobility that has been described as “ barcarolle-like”. Especially interesting are the unusual orchestral textures with notable percussive effects. From 4:41 the tempi shift quickly several times and take on a curious galloping quality. At 6:35 the cello theme becomes one of sadness and tender introspection - a mood that underpins the remainder of the movement. Percussion lashes against a frenetic cello line from 9:41 create a disconcerting effect and this builds to a terrifying climax at 10:52. The breathless cello writing then recovers its poise to repeat the melancholic but introspectively steely theme. If that was possible the mood becomes even more mournful with Gabetta’s cello sounding as if it was weeping. Snare drums and other light percussion effects close the score. The orchestra provide warm and positive support .

For alternative versions of the Cello Concerto No.2 I have long been satisfied with that from cellist Heinrich Schiff with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich. With playing of impressive assurance the performance was recorded in 1984 at the Hercules Hall, Residenz, Munich on Philips 475 7575. (c/w Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1). Another beautifully played account is from cellist Mischa Maisky with the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas. It was recorded in 1993 at the Abbey Road Studios in London on Deutsche Grammophon 445 821-2. (c/w Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1).

The four movement Cello Sonata was written when Shostakovich still had artistic freedom. This was prior to the denunciation in 1936 by the Soviet authorities and before his fall from favour owing to the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Essentially a lyrical score rather than experimental the Sonata was premièred in 1934 in Moscow by cellist Viktor Kubatsky, its dedicatee. Interestingly there have been several arrangements for viola and piano.

The two main themes of the opening movement could not be more different in character. The first is an upright elegant melody that Gabetta and Ursuleasa. It is intensified in tension and made more weighty until it becomes unruly bordering on stormy. By contrast the second theme is cloaked in lush yearning Romanticism. Gabetta’s glorious tone is outstanding and Ursuleasa revels in the long warm lines. An Allegro the second movement is a countryside romp that Gabetta and Ursuleasa develop into the manner of an excitable folk dance. Sombre and mournful in the third movement Largo Gabetta’s cello sounds as if it is sobbing. The intensity becomes heavier with the cello reaching down to its deepest register. In the skittish and scampering Rondo: Finale the piano has abundant opportunity to shine with Ursuleasa demonstrating her assurance in a number of dazzling runs. It is Gabetta’s relatively restrained cello part that keeps the merriment in check.

For both the splendid playing as well being an important music document I admire the version of the Sonata played by cellist Daniil Shafran and the composer on piano. Recorded in 1956 I have the performance on Revelation RV10017. (c/w Rachmaninov Cello Sonata). I also play often the account from cellist Leonid Gorokhov and pianist Nikolai Demidenko. This satisfying version was recorded at Champs Hill, Pulborough, Sussex in 2004 on ASV Gold GLD4006.

I was perfectly happy with this RCA Victor Red Seal recording in both the concerto and sonata. Gabetta’s cello is placed well forward and is vividly clear. I know of no more dramatic and beautifully played account of the Concerto.

-- Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International

This disc of pieces played by pianist Polina Osetinskaya brings together the music of Nino Rota and Leonid Desyatnikov. An odd combination? Actually, no! Rota lived entirely in the 20th century while Desyatnikov was born in 1955, but what these composers have in common is not just the century they lived in but the way their work challenges what academic music had become. Neither Rota nor Desyatnikov has ever been part of any musical movement, and they have written no theoretical tracts (as was all the rage in the 20th century), but we can still see their music as a riposte to contemporary isolationism, arrogance, and fear.

MAHLER Rheinlegendchen. Ich ging mit lust. Frühlingsmorgen. Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht? Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. Zu Strassburg auf der Schanz. Das irdische Leben. Nicht wiedersehen. Phantasie. Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen. 5 Rückert Lieder. Urlicht • Christian Gerhaher (bar); Gerold Huber (pn) • RCA RED SEAL 756773 (75:52 Text and Translation)


Christian Gerhaher’s generous Mahler recital offers samples of the early, unorchestrated Lieder und Gesänge aus der Jugendzeit (Early Songs and Ballads), several of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn songs, the early cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer), and the later set of five Rückert songs.


The program begins with three lighter songs, intimately sung. Doubts about Gerhaher’s vocal substance are dispelled in the Songs of a Wayfarer, which he sings with a fuller tone and greater dynamic range. It’s a great performance of Mahler’s early masterpiece. Gerhaher sometimes sounds like the young Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, particularly in his upper register, and his Wayfarer approaches the level of Fischer- Dieskau’s magical performance from 1952 with Fürtwangler conducting. (I call it “magical” because it captures Fischer-Dieskau at his most unaffected and therefore most affecting). Gerhaher doesn’t have as rich a lower register as Fischer-Dieskau, nor is his singing, at this stage, marred by the self-consciousness that sometimes affected the older singer.


There’s an appealing modesty to Gerhaher’s approach that suits Mahler’s folk-like early songs particularly well. The voice suggests a sensitive youth singing with great sincerity, which seems at odds with the singer’s unshaven, morose-looking cover photo. (Is this an attempt at marketing Mahlerian angst? Why?) Gerhaher’s lack of mannerisms and lovely though not particularly distinctive sound do not mean that he doesn’t interpret the darker songs with real intensity of emotion—he does. The two big Rückert songs, “Um Mitternacht” and “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,” are given satisfying readings, and “Das irdische Leben,” a feverish drama with narrator and several characters like Schubert’s “Erlking,” is strongly characterized.


There’s a treasurable version of the Rückert songs that Fischer-Dieskau recorded with Leonard Bernstein as pianist, a deeper, more italicized approach than Gerhaher’s—it seems to be currently unavailable—and there is also a wonderful concert performance by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson with Roger Vignoles, but I’m sure that I will return to Gerhaher’s performance for his natural manner of singing and for the outstanding contribution of the pianist, Gerold Huber.


I usually prefer to hear the songs that Mahler orchestrated played by an orchestra, but Huber’s piano playing has the rhythmic control of the greatest conductors. Every sound and balance is judged meticulously and his huge range of articulation and color sets a new standard in the playing of Mahler’s orchestral parts on the piano. Other than in the Rückert songs with their very delicate, specific instrumental timbres, I don’t miss the orchestra. The disc is well recorded and highly recommended.


FANFARE: Paul Orgel

YO-YO MA PLAYS CLARINET TRIOS

Alberic Magnard became a French national hero when he died defending his home at the outbreak of the First World War and, although he wrote relatively little, his catalogue is full of expansive and beautifully crafted music. Magnard was a symphonist at heart, and with its evocations of landscape and expressive lyricism his Third Symphony was admired by Paul Dukas for its ‘perfect clarity’ and as an ‘all too rare creation.’ The luminous Fourth Symphony is one of Magnard’s last surviving works- a masterpiece that successfully synthesizes Wagnerian high drama with Classical transparency.

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REVIEW:

There’s little to quibble about concerning this well-filled new disc containing Albéric Magnard’s two best (and best-known) symphonies. Fabrice Bollon delivers confident, flowing performances that fully encompass the music’s wide-ranging expressive vocabulary, from the haunting modal opening of the Third Symphony, to an amazing clean and clear fugal development in the finale of the Fourth. He and the Freiburg orchestral clearly enjoy the rustic charm of the two scherzos, while the profound lyricism of the slow movements emerges naturally and songfully, without dragging.

If there are any negatives, they have to do with the Freiburg Philharmonic which, despite committed playing, sounds a bit undernourished in the string section. In the richly scored Fourth Symphony the added clarity this offers the woodwinds compensates to some degree, but I found myself wishing that these symphonies would get picked up by one of our truly great orchestras. The music deserves the attention, and it would be wonderful to hear it done at the very highest level. As it stands, this does not displace Thomas Sanderling’s reference versions on BIS, but it’s a heck of a lot less expensive and well worth hearing all the same.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)