Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Martinu: Concerto de camera - Concertino - Steinmetz: Solo u

PIANO DREAMS - Most Popular Melodies (The)

Clarinet Music - MOZART, W.A. / WEBER, C.M. von / SPOHR, L.

Classical Music

Embraces its historical lineage...luminous and pulsing.

This isn’t a new release. Maw’s Violin Concerto was written with Joshua Bell specifically in mind in 1993; the recording followed in September 1996. In the very enthusiastic sleeve-notes – I’m not sure how Maw feels about being described as a “genius” – great play is made of the work in relation to the Brahms Violin Concerto. Certainly it has a complex romantic affiliation but the composers’ names that occurred to me were those of Prokofiev and Walton. Not that Maw could be remotely taken to be either of them – but in its cultivation of an almost Italianate lyricism it does summon up the memory of Walton’s Mediterranean work and in its fusion of melodic beauty and scherzo drama it must pay at least oblique, tangential historical homage to Prokofiev.

The Concerto is cast in four movements. It opens with ruminative slowness but then opens out into a flourishing, rich and luminous sound world, bedecked by manifold orchestral and solo felicities; those little orchestral lurches toward the end for instance. The second movement is indeed Walton-like in its vivacity but Maw’s control of lingering lyricism, finely woven into the work’s fabric, ensures seamless warmth from the current-swell of dynamism that he generates. The lodestones here are Prokofiev and Barber but they’re securely absorbed into Maw’s lyric modernist world. The powerful cadential passage over a sustained orchestral chord is followed by a muted upwards drift into orchestral nothingness, a Cherubini-like stroke of translucent and mysterious beauty.

Maw’s predilection for major chords – the C major especially – permeates the third movement. Harmonies are richly complex and there are elements of post-impressionism in the writing, as well glimmers of Berg; but over and above such composer-spotting moments, which are essentially incidental, is the sense of luminous quiet, the rapture, the specific and yet endless personal landscape that Maw evokes. And when he unleashes the finale it comes brimful with tunes, vibrant and exciting, richly orchestrated.

Throughout Bell plays with the romantic ardour that Maw identified – and so admires – in him. His playing manages to balance scrupulous cleanliness of attack with tonal warmth and pliant phrasing. Norrington marshals the LPO in assured, colouristically aware fashion and the recording does full justice to the enterprise.

The Maw is a concerto that embraces its historical lineage without being shackled by it. If you admire the Berg, Barber, Walton and Prokofiev concertos, and like orchestration that is both luminous and pulsing then this is the work for you.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

"The Italians embraced the transverse flute rather more cautiously than others, but when they did it was with characteristic enthusiasm; there are plenty more concertos where these six came from. The attribution of the Pergolesi is unqualified in the statement of contents; the annotator states that it was ''attributed to'' him, but Grove lists it as ''extremely doubtful''; it also describes the Tartini work as ''dubious'', but no hint of this is offered in the inlay-booklet. Regarding Romano Antonio Piacentino and his concerto, even that august dictionary is entirely unhelpful. The concerto proves that he existed and its style places him somewhere in the eighteenth century, but that is all. His ability to create something agreeable out of thematic commonplaces recalls Vivaldi. With Tartini and Piacentino we are in the world of the straightforward baroque instrumental concerto, while 'Pergolesi' and Galuppi show traces of operatic connections. Little is known of Louis Gianella (?1778-1817), a flautist who worked at La Scala in Milan, whose curious and otherwise unrecorded Concerto lugubre patently links his two compositional fields—those of the theatre (opera and ballet) and with-flute instrumental music, which includes two other flute concertos...Galway plays with his accustomed silver-tongued panache and has the benefit of the co-operation of both I Solisti Veneti and the recording engineers at their best."

John Duarte, Gramophone [4/1994]

Vivaldi: Concertos Op.10 - Sammartini: Concerto in F

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players



From the first bar, you know that this brilliant Chinese-American pianist is the business...she leads from the front throughout to exhilarating effect. If you do not have a recording of the Tchaikovsky, then this is up with the very best; likewise the Khachaturian. Paired together, it’s a no-brainer.

– Gramophone

Tchaikovsky’s second piano concerto No. 2 has never been as popular as his first, and listening to Peter Donohoe, Rudolf Barshai and the Bournemouth Symphony in the former makes such neglect seem almost criminal.

To begin with, it’s worth pointing out that the version played by Xiayin Wang – and by Donohoe and Hough – is the original one. The pianist, composer and conductor Alexander Siloti altered the Andante: in fact the violin and cello solos were removed altogether. The score he published in 1897 also included cuts and changes elsewhere. The Khachaturian concerto is another piece that’s been sidelined in recent years; ArkivMusic list just 15 versions in the current catalog.

The pianist Xiayin Wang, who is new to me, has done well in the concert hall. She certainly makes a good impression at the start of the Tchaikovsky; as for Oundjian, his progress may seem a little sedate after Barshai’s cracking pace. The advantage of a more leisurely approach is that the Scottish band's playing is far more secure than that of their English counterparts. As if that weren't praise enough, the piano is much better balanced and the overall sound - engineered by Ralph Couzens and Jonathan Cooper - is first class.

One has to marvel at Wang's exemplary technique, especially in the concerto's bravura sections; however, she's at her thoughtful, eloquent best in the quieter, more lyrical ones. The lovely, clear piano sound is an added attraction.

Maya Iwabuchi on violin and Aleksei Kiseliov on cello don't eclipse Barshai's illustrious pair; that said, they’re still pure of line and ravishing of tone. Indeed, this RSNO performance has an inner glow that’s most beguiling. Any caveats? Well, the narrative thread is a little hard to discern at times. Then again, it almost snaps in Barshai and Donohoe's wild, coruscating finale. The RSNO aren’t pushed quite so much, and that makes for an orderly yet satisfyingly propulsive sign-off. Both Donohoe and Hough are wonderfully compelling musicians, and their accounts of Tchaikovsky's Op. 44 are indispensable. I'd say Wang's performance is just as desirable; indeed, it’s sure to win her a raft of new admirers.

How does she fare in the Khachaturian, written for and premiered by the great Russian virtuoso Lev Oborin? Well, the start of the Allegro has plenty of brio and bite, but as before this pianist is at her most pliant and persuasive in the concerto's quieter passages. Don't be fooled though, for there's a surprising edge – an unrepentant glitter – to her playing in the extrovert ones that’s just riveting. Her articulation is remarkable and those glorious runs are simply breathtaking. The central movement – what dark, moody woodwinds at the outset – is perfectly poised, shape and momentum assured.

Oundjian and the RSNO deliver a big-boned finale, to which the soloist responds with playing of equal force and weight. That she does so without hiatus or hyperbole is proof of her sound technique and good judgment. Katin is not usurped, but this young pretender almost topples him from his throne. Incidentally, Xiayin Wang's account of this concerto comfortably outclasses that of Constantine Orbelian and Neeme Järvi, also on Chandos.

Xiayin Wang astounds at every turn, as does the recording; a terrific coupling, too.

– MusicWeb International (Dan Morgan)

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Classical Music

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Classical Music

TARTINI, G.: Violin Concertos, Vol. 15 (L'Arte dell'Arco) -