I was unaware of the existence of Chandos’s series of Introduction to ... recordings until they very generously offered every recipient of their e-newsletter the opportunity freely to download their Introduction to Vaughan Williams.

The opening performance of The Hebrides Overture (better known as Fingal’s Cave) emphasises the mystery of the music rather than the excitement of the crashing waves – Mendelssohn was struck by both aspects of his visit to the cave on the island of Staffa. For all that it fails to live up to some of our usual expectations of this music, it’s an accomplished performance. It’s been recycled quite frequently – it was even once available on the short-lived Boots own label together with other maritime music and it’s also on Spirit of Scotland, CHAN10412X, and Seascapes, CHAN6538 – but it’s none the worse for that and the recording has worn well.

The inclusion of the first Piano Concerto, rather than the expected Violin Concerto, is for me the highlight of the CD. Most collectors, even those for whom an Introduction to ... would be likely to appeal, will already have a version of the Violin Concerto, or be likely to obtain one at an early stage, usually coupled with the Bruch or Tchaikovsky – there are plenty of versions to choose from, even in the lower price categories.

It’s quite unusual to find a bargain-price version of the First Piano Concerto: Peter Katin’s versions of both Piano Concertos once featured on a Decca Weekend recording, coupled with the Capriccio brilliant and Rondo brillant (425 504-2, long deleted) – good performances but in rather dated sound. Otherwise, as far as I am aware, the only competitor in this price range is Benjamin Frith’s Naxos version of the four works (8.550681), which I haven’t heard but which has been favourably reviewed.

That the performance offered is by Howard Shelley - as soloist and director of the London Mozart Players - is an added bonus, since this performance combines technical virtuosity and a delicacy of touch that ensures that this early work is never overwhelmed. Shelley’s tempo in the outer movements is brisk – he moves the music along without sounding rushed, especially in the Finale where he takes 6:11 against 6:54 on the Katin/Collins recording. In the slow movement, he gives the music time to breathe – 6:39 against Katin’s 6:13 – without sentimentalising it.

In the Capriccio brilliant he also give the music time to breathe – 11:28 against Katin’s 10:35; ensuring that the brilliance inferred by the title is not at the expense of expressiveness. When the brilliant music arrives, it is all the more effective for the contrast with the rather measured opening Andante. My only real criticism of this introductory CD is that it will probably lead buyers to duplication when, as they will be tempted to do, they purchase the parent Chandos CD, where Shelley performs both concertos plus the Capriccio (CHAN9215).

The Wedding March was an inevitable choice and it’s performed well by the RLPO under Sir Charles Groves, stately but not pompous.

If the two piano works make an unexpected but very welcome appearance on the CD, the more predictable choice of the Italian Symphony as the final work is equally welcome in the Philharmonia/Walter Weller version. Again, as with the Shelley performance, my only complaint is that those seeking recommendable versions of all Mendelssohn’s symphonies – and, surely, most collectors will want at least Nos.3-5, the Scottish, Italian and Reformation symphonies at some fairly early stage – are unlikely to find a better combination of affordable price, quality of performance and recording than the 3-CD Chandos set with Walter Weller (CHAN10224X).

Weller’s tempi for the symphony are generally on the fast side, though by no means excessively so. This is one of those works, like Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, where the outer movements lend themselves well to fast speeds. I felt that Weller might have given the slow movement a little more time to breathe, but it is marked Andante con moto. The con moto element is more in evidence here than in Wolfgang Sawallisch’s otherwise very fine performance with the predecessor of the same orchestra (then called the New Philharmonia) in 1966. The Sawallisch was formerly on Philips 422 470-2 with the Reformation Symphony (no longer available). How about a reissue from Australian Eloquence?

Only in the Finale is Weller marginally slower than Sawallisch; this movement combines elements of the saltarello and tarantella, both lively Italian dances. The latter is said to be imitative of the action of stamping on a poisonous tarantula spider or leaping about in agony after its bite – as the Latin American cucaracha imitates stamping on cockroaches. I would have preferred a slightly more hectic pace in this movement. At least, that was my feeling on my initial hearing – subsequently this account of the Finale has grown on me.

Though made at different times, all the recordings are more than acceptable. I tried the lossless download version (wma) from Chandos’s theclassicalshop.net and found it fully equal to CD quality; experience suggests that even the mp3 version would be more than acceptable. I couldn’t find this recording at classicsonline or on eMusic, both of whom do offer many Chandos downloads.

For a low-price series, all the notes which I have seen from this Introduction to ... series have been excellent and this recording is no exception. If the programme appeals, buy with confidence; the only reason why I have withheld any accolade is the likelihood that purchasers are likely to duplicate these performances in building their collection.

Don’t forget the Introduction to Vaughan Williams (CHAN2028) if you weren’t fortunate enough to receive the free offer. It contains The Wasps Overture, the Greensleeves Fantasia, The Lark Ascending, that favourite of Classic FM listeners, and the Second Symphony, all in more than decent performances. I was particularly pleased to see Bryden Thomson’s version of the symphony reappear in this form; it may not be quite the equal of the Barbirolli version from which I first got to know the work on a Pye Golden Guinea LP or Chandos’s own Richard Hickox performance of the original version, but it is well worth hearing as an alternative to the Hickox. Not everyone will want to hear the fuller version every time. I might have preferred the Tallis Fantasia to one of the shorter pieces – as a lover of Tallis, I’m fascinated by the perfect blending of the 16th and 20th centuries in this work. However I’m sure the Second was the right VW symphony to introduce to the beginner and the Thomson recording is one of the best from a variable series.

-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International

What inexhaustible richness: the baritone Daniel Blumenschein, together with the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra under its conductor Robbert van Steijn, opens the door to a vast musical land. On their new GENUIN release, they embark on a journey through the most beautiful German folk songs in colorful new orchestral arrangements by Stephan König. The track list includes, for example, "Komm, lieber Mai und mache" ("Come, dear May and make"), "Kein schöner Land" ("No fairer land") and, of course, the titular "Im schönsten Wiesengrunde" ("In the most beautiful meadow grounds"). With a well-balanced mixture of tradition and modernity, the album knows how to capture the musical language of the recorded songs in ever new ways and transport them into the present time. As a result, we experience what is seemingly familiar completely anew!

This 14-album box contains all the recordings of the complete sacred vocal music of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with the Kammerchor Stuttgart under the direction of Frieder Bernius. The complete recording on the CARUS label, which took more than two decades to complete, was highly praised by the press and won many awards. Now Bernius' masterful interpretations, which unfold Mendelssohn's sense of cantabile melody and differentiated harmony in a high sound culture and colorful, transparent diction, are available in a complete set.

Lars Vogt: 8 September 1970 - 5 September 2022

This new release is pianist-conductor Lars Vogt’s debut album together with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. Lars Vogt started his tenure as the new Music Director of the orchestra on 1 July 2020. This album release continues Lars Vogt’s discography of recordings of cornerstone works within the classic piano concerto literature conducting from the keyboard. Previous album releases include the complete piano concertos of Beethoven and Brahms with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. In 2021, Lars Vogt won the OPUS Klassik award for the best solo piano album release of year from his recent Janácek solo album release (ODE 1382-2).

REVIEWS:

Lars Vogt’s dazzling playing on this new recording does [the concertos] full justice…this newcomer is very impressive and benefits greatly from the fine playing of the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris.

--BBC Music Magazine

German pianist Lars Vogt has been music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia since 2015, and the recordings where he conducts from the keyboard have been markedly successful, including a complete Beethoven concerto cycle and (more daringly) the two Brahms piano concertos.

Vogt deserves praise for the crisp, precise, and buoyant accompaniments he evokes here from the Orchestre de chambre de Paris. These are vigorous, animated readings that take best advantage of the brilliant fast music in the outer movements, particularly the rocket that takes off at the start of Concerto No. 1. He made me appreciate the slow movements in both concertos, which doesn’t happen often, and the orchestral part is played with real warmth. Also, Ondine’s recorded sound is lovely, capturing piano and orchestra in perfect balance.

What I’ll return to are the two piano concertos, in which Vogt’s performances are as fine as any I’ve heard in years. Warmly recommended.

--Fanfare

Mendelssohn’s piano concertos are rather rarely played. Lars Vogt has recorded two of them together with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, of which he is the Music Director.

He and his orchestra play the Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 with a great deal of impetus, unaffected, fresh, and very colorful. Vogt has the necessary polish and pulsating agility for these movements. The slower passages are interpreted sensitively, nuanced, poetic, but by no means too emotional. The overall result is a joyful and thrilling performance that can only be warmly welcomed and recommended. The well-balanced orchestra, playing with a fresh sound, is an excellent partner for Vogt, sworn to his conducting and soloistic rhetoric.

The Capriccio brilliant, however, leaves the most lasting impression. Lars Vogt plays it not only energetically, but with jubilant enthusiasm, and he transfers this enthusiasm to the musicians of the Paris Chamber Orchestra, who play with great spontaneity.

It is important to note that Vogt does not work according to the principle of ‘fast and loud’, but combines his energy with a fine feeling for the musicality of the works. The result is fascinating.

--Pizzicato

Mendelssohn performed by a chamber orchestra and directed from the keyboard always looks like an enticing proposition. And so it proves with this new set from the Paris Chamber Orchestra with Lars Vogt at the helm.

There’s a wonderfully Beethovenian flair to the First Concerto’s opening movement, but equally striking is the musicians’ way with more lyrical moments. And, as you might expect from such a first-class chamber musician, he gives as much attention to places where the piano accompanies as he does when he’s center stage. Crucially, the orchestra respond in kind, matching the soloist’s articulation and dynamics to an unusual degree. There’s plenty of fantasy too – in the piano passages Mendelssohn writes to link the first and second movements of each concerto, for instance, which unfurl with a naturalness reminiscent of Murray Perahia.

The Presto finales are imbued with terrific energy but never become merely note-fests – the level of detail remains impressive.

The album is filled out by the Capriccio brillant, Op 22, and what can be mere froth in unimaginative hands is wonderfully characterful here, the mock military march given a jokey swagger, with nicely present timpani and brass. In the final a tempo, with its mad running dash of semiquavers, Vogt is impressively unfazed and dazzlingly understated. The recording is excellent too, with a vividness that brings these master musicians right into your sitting room.

--Gramophone

Mikhail Pochekin writes of this new release: “Both violin concertos have in common that they were composed with great violinists in mind. With Mendelssohn it was the violin virtuoso Ferdinand David. There’s an interesting exchange of letters about the E Minor Violin Concerto and the friendship shared by Mendelssohn and David, which is a highly informative and compelling read. And the Bruch Concerto is unthinkable without Sarasate. Both works are based on a similar foundation. What the works have in common, however, is that they are two completely different masterpieces, each of which tells a completely different “story”. This combination creates many moments full of suspense, at least that’s what I hope when people listen to this album!”

Classical Music

Shakespeare's comedy of magic and love's delusions are set to the music of Felix Mendelssohn is guaranteed to please every audience in the fantastic DVD.

Mendelssohn played with freshness and vigor, subtlety and panache.

In her review of Lester's and Tomes's issue of Mendelssohn's complete works for cello and piano, JOC praised this duo for both their ''acute telepathy'' and for the ability to sound ''very much on the composer's own imaginative wavelength''. With the present period-instrument alternative, Isserlis and Tan offer comparably idiomatic, well-turned performances; but closer parity between cello and fortepiano helps to generate even greater expressive concentration. Moreover, Isserlis and Tan's predilection for fast tempos gives their performances an added freshness and vigor. Try, for example, the First Sonata in B flat major (which Mendelssohn wrote for his brother, Paul, in 1838), where the second movement's dual function as scherzo and slow movement is convincingly characterized, and the music's passionate outbursts sound arrestingly potent. The Variations concertantes, Op. 17, were also written for Paul Mendelssohn and here, too, Isserlis's and Tan's fine blend of subtlety and panache (enhanced by the fortepiano's relatively delicate timbre) affectingly conveys the music's nostalgic mood, and culminates powerfully in the work's conclusion. In the D major Second Sonata, Isserlis's and Tan's spontaneity and energy in the outer movements, skilfully controlled variety of timbre and touch in the scherzo, and dramatic opposition of chorale (piano) and recitative (cello) in the third movement—with its striking resolution in the piano's own recitative statement—sound immensely compelling.

The Assai tranquillo, written during a journey from Dusseldorf to Leipzig in 1835, bears a touching dedication from the composer to his friend, Julius Rietz. Here, as in the charming Song without words, Op. 109, sympathetic tonal balance between cello and fortepiano in the softly lit recording poignantly brings out the music's sentiment. Lester's and Tomes's version is warm and poetic but Isserlis and Tan effectively draw out the work's inconclusive ending to create a more telling analogy of the eternal nature of friendship.

-- Gramophone [3/1995]

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

...Interpretatively Ormandy scores consistently...whether in the mystery of the fairy music or the natural unforced sweetness of the slow coda of the Overture or the lightness of pointing in the Scherzo. Also the soloists of the Philadelphia Orchestra consistently shine... -- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [1/1986]

Please note: this audio biography contains narration in German.

The two eldest children of the music-loving banker Abraham Mendelssohn and his wife Lea were highly musical: Fanny, born in late 1805, and her brother Felix, who was three and a half years her junior. The lucky children enjoyed a carefree youth, in which music played a central role. While Felix became a famous composer and conductor, Fanny, according to the dictates of the time, had to subordinate her own composing talents to a role as wife and mother. The musical compositions of this highly-regarded concert pianist only received more attention from the 1970s onwards, when they were re-edited, and have since appeared more frequently in concert programs.

In his new audio biography, Jörg Handstein tells the life stories of these two important creative artists of the early 19th century, both of whom died far too early in 1847 (Felix was only 38 and Fanny only 41 years old).

The audio biography is duly entitled: “Two lives devoted to music”. Linking the well-known phases in the life and compositions of Felix with those of his elder sister Fanny opens up different and entirely new insights into the musical history of those times. This detailed audio biography, elaborated as usual on the basis of original sources and accompanied by numerous impressive musical examples, is dedicated to the life stories of both siblings, and combines exciting and lively narration with inspired musicianship.

Some of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s early works have been included as bonus tracks: the String Symphonies Nos. 8 and 12 that he composed at the age of 13 and 14 respectively. They were written in 1822/23 for concerts at Mendelssohn's parental home in Berlin, where he himself rehearsed and directed them. The Symphoniesatz in C minor, a single movement that he completed on December 29, 1823, also numbers among his early string symphonies. These works by the young Mendelssohn are complemented by his choral cantata Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich (1831), which is based on the text of the traditional Lutheran chorale.

Includes work(s) by Felix Mendelssohn.

This is the first time the complete works for cello and piano by Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn appear on a single album performed on modern instruments. There is little of Fanny Mendelssohn's music and it is rare to hear both siblings together on an album. She wrote the Fantasia and Capriccio for her brother Paul, the dedicatee of Felix’s Variations concertantes also heard on this album. Along with the main works on the release, the two substantial Cello Sonatas, there are two shorter works of beauty, including Lied ohne Worte and Albumblatt, the latter being discovered in the 1960s.

Weber, C.M. Von: Clarinet Quintet in B-Flat Major / Grand Du

The piano duet was an opportunity to have fun and make music with friends for Mendelssohn as it was for many other 19th-century composers, who wrote pieces that far transcended their domestic origins and often arranged their larger-scale works for the medium so that it could be appreciated by listeners where full orchestral performances were much harder to come by. In 1844 Mendelssohn made his own piano-duet arrangement of the Incidental music he had composed to accompany a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Potsdam two years earlier, a suite which itself drew on the precociously immortal Overture he had composed as a 16-year-old. The magical purity of the orchestral score is here translated into a limpid graininess which renders each phrase even more crystalline than in the symphonic version, especially in its most rapid passages. The relationship between the two versions might be likened to that between a sketch and a painting, though with no certainty as to which had been composed first. A comparison of the full-colour orchestral score with the ‘black and white’ of the piano-duet arrangement reveals how the timbres of Mendelssohn’s orchestral imagination stem from the conceptual outlines and regular forms first devised on a keyboard. Thus the arrangement has plenty to reveal about the score to even to listeners intimately familiar with the fully scored original. Having given the triumphant premiere of the overture to The Fair Melusine in Leipzig in 1836, Mendelssohn then arranged it for piano duet the same year. Again, every phrase of the symphonic original resounds with greater emphasis: the yielding swell of the waves is evoked by a delicacy of touch rendered almost liquid by brushing of the damper pedal.