Hindermann, W.: Triple Concerto in G Major / Concerto for 2

Handel, G.F.: Organ Concertos Nos. 1-4

Poised on the northern margin of Europe, Swedish composers struggled to have their voices heard but built a strong national musical culture during the course of the 19th century. The works for violin and orchestra collected on this disc have little obviously Swedish content, such as folk tunes. Rather, the composers can be heard drawing on the models of the musical giants of their day, asserting that Swedish music was ready for comparison on equal terms with that of central Europe.
Written early in the century, Franz Berwald's youthful concerto is an eccentric work that stretches the classical tradition. Fragmented melodies and military figures in the outer movements frame a very brief Adagio. Jumping to the end of the century, Wilhelm Stenhammar and Tor Aulin composed under the influence of Bruch, Brahms and Schumann. Stenhammar's Romances are predominantly lyrical, allowing young soloist Tobias Ringborg's attractive singing tone to shine. Aulin's Concerto no 3 is dramatic and impassioned; with many striking unaccompanied passages and austere dialogues between violin and orchestra. Despite the obvious influences, this work has an originality of rhetoric and style that make it the real discovery here.

This recording brings together two undisputed 20th century masterpieces and one from the 21st, all of which share surprising stories of neglect. With its sublime Adagio, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez has become a true phenomenon in the history of Western music, but like the original version of Frank Martin’s extraordinarily powerful Guitare it suffered disapproval from its dedicatee Andrés Segovia. Echoes of Rodrigo can be heard in the cinematic romanticism of Leo Brouwer’s Concierto de Benicàssim, described by the composer as “a panorama of my own ideas” and revived here by Miguel Trápaga a decade after its première.

After excellent accounts for Naxos of Tchaikovsky's First and Third piano concertos, Konstantin Scherbakov and Dmitry Yablonsky offer an even finer sequel. Indeed, this performance of the Second piano concerto moves straight to the top of the pile (along with Pletnev's) as the reference edition of a work that so often comes across as heavy and dull. Not here! With swift tempos and a "take no prisoners" approach, the result is infinitely exciting. The first movement's huge contrasts in tempo and dynamics between first and second subjects (and beautifully executed transitions between them) practically define the Romantic aesthetic, chez Tchaikovsky. The slow movement's accompanied trio textures seldom have flowed more winsomely, and you have to hear Scherbakov to believe how thrillingly he flings himself into the finale's fistfuls of notes. It seems such a simple concept: play the living daylights out of the music. Why do so few pianists attempt it?

While less revelatory an interpretation in terms of the competition, Scherbakov and Yablonsky do just as well by the Concert Fantasy, a wonderful concerto-length piece that no one seems to love. Tuneful, colorfully scored, and innovative in its two-movement form, it deserves to be better known and played with the just the kind of lyrical impetus, bravura, and élan that it receives here. The second movement, "Contrasts", holds together particularly well, perhaps because Scherbakov and Yablonsky take Tchaikovsky at his word and bring out as much variety as possible without ever lapsing into mannerism. Never mind that Naxos has a very fine disc containing exactly this coupling already in its catalog (by Glemser and Wit); this is the one to own, and the excellently balanced sonics and modest price only seal the deal.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.comm

ach of these five contemporary American pieces for wind band, performed by one of the country’s leading ensembles, explores its own very personal soundscape. Paul Dooley delves into the world of drum & bass with electronically inspired orchestrations, whilst for Steve Danyew the exploration of counterpoint is paramount. In composer Roy David Magnuson’s own words, Innsmouth, Massachusetts–1927 is “pulpy horror music” that depicts a night in H.P. Lovecraft’s terrifying The Shadow Over Innsmouth. In contrast, Scott McAllister’s Gone is meditative and prayerful. Pulitzer and GRAMMY® Prize-winner Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto is heard here in its arrangement for wind ensemble.

These are world premiere recordings.

Here, offering a further six concertos, is the latest instalment in Naxos’s recording of Vivaldi’s 37 bassoon concertos; 39 if one counts two incomplete specimens. Those who have invested in earlier volumes in the series (see below), all recorded by the same forces, will know to expect the enjoyable, fluent performances that are to be heard here.

The Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia use modern instruments but, under the direction of Béla Drahos they play with a crisp articulation that is, for the most part, stylistically convincing. Benkócs is a very fine bassoonist indeed, both technically extremely accomplished and musically imaginative. The outer movements – all six are in three movements, fast-slow-fast – frequently call for considerable fleetness of finger and certainty of breath control and Benkócs is never found wanting. There is rapid-fire virtuosity when needed and many delightfully dancing passages. In the slow movements Benkócs plays with lyrical expressivity, elegantly poignant and reflective in music which, as so often in the slow movements of Vivaldi’s concertos has a distinctly operatic feel about it.

Every one of these concertos offers things of real interest – Vivaldi’s musical imagination seems unflagging. There’s the way, for example, in which the opening allegro of RV 477 contrasts the tenor and bass registers of the solo instrument; or the dotted rhythms of the bassoon in the largo of RV 499. Or, particularly pleasant, the final allegro of RV 494 which is full of ingenious twists and turns.

It is puzzling that Vivaldi should have written quite so many concertos for the bassoon – the bassoon wasn’t generally a fashionable solo instrument in this period. Perhaps he wrote them for a specific instrumentalist; if so the identity of that musician remains unknown; certainly Vivaldi demonstrates a thorough understanding of the instrument’s possibilities. Whatever the circumstances which prompted the composition of these concertos, they certainly constitute a rewarding body of music and one of the many demonstrations of Vivaldi’s remarkable ability to produce seemingly infinite variations (and there really is variety here) on a basically simple formula.

A graduate of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Tamás Benkócs is a member of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. I haven’t encountered any other recordings by him outside this Naxos series of the Vivaldi concertos. He is such a fine player that it is to be hoped that he will go onto record more of the bassoon repertoire.

The one reservation – though it is not one that spoils my pleasure in the CDs – that I about this series concerns the rather understated penny-plain continuo, where the concertos would certainly benefit from greater embellishment. Very decent as the contribution of the Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia and Béla Drahos is, I would love to hear Benkócs playing these works with one of the best specialist baroque ensembles.

On balance though, this is an eminently worthwhile and enjoyable series, and this latest volume continues the good work begun by its predecessors. The recorded sound is pleasingly clear and well balanced.

-- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International

Ulvi Cemal Erkin was one of the ‘Turkish Five’, contemporaries who established the foundations of twentieth-century Turkish music by combining Western forms with their own folk traditions. His most performed work is Kocekce, a dance suite inspired by the traditional kocek dancers of his native country. The Violin Concerto employs a classical Western structure but also includes a taksim section in its final movement, typical of improvisatory Turkish violin music. The evocative Symphony No. 2 is the apex of Erkin’s symphonic works, its last movement consisting entirely of folk tunes he himself discovered.

The return of these Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra releases, refugees from Sony Classical’s former “Vivarte” imprint, are very welcome reminders of the high level of musicianship and technical mastery period-instrument performers had achieved by around 1990. This was a group that celebrated the sound of its instruments and whose soloists played with relish and a virtuoso flair that never gave a hint that a Baroque cello or violin was any less worthy than their modern counterparts. Just listen to Anner Bylsma’s dynamic and commanding solos, and take note of the wonderful interplay between Bylsma and violinist Jeanne Lamon in the Allegro molto third movement of the B-flat major concerto. As for style, the allegros are as crisp and lively as can be, the violins pleasingly bright, the inner parts rich and vibrant. And notice the affecting use of vibrato in the Largo of the G major concerto for 2 violins and 2 cellos: it’s some of the loveliest Vivaldi playing you’ll ever hear. And the sound quality is equal to that of the performances. Highly recommended.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

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This collection of concertos for various combinations of stringed instruments is drawn from recordings made by Tafelmusik in 1990, when it was collaborating with Baroque cellist extraordinaire Anner Bylsma. This rerelease is part of the new Tafelmusik label, which, as I noted in the last issue, is a trend that seems to have become more common as the major labels (all save for Naxos) are in a state of flux. As noted, this allows a more direct control over their legacy, as well as providing a marketing niche that both promotes the continued existence of the ensemble and keeps the recordings from going out of print. It is a good trend to see occurring, and hopefully it will come with continued success.


For this set, all of the works have been available on numerous other recordings, all the way from the Academy of Ancient Music to Ton Koopman to Itzhak Perlman; such a list would be exhausting to recall here. Tafelmusik’s renditions, however, have the same benefit as their other recordings of precision, fire, and musicality that bring the works to life. Cellist Bylsma uses blazing fingerwork and technical virtuosity in the tortuous solo lines that makes one sit up and take notice. There is no caution here, but rather the sort of brilliant display that brings these somewhat formulaic works to life. When joined in the B?-Major double concerto by leader Jeanne Lamon, the combination is electric, and even when two others are added to the quadruple concerto, the energy is still maintained. In the quadruple violin concerto, the four soloists are so well coordinated and blended that one is almost convinced that this was one person playing all parts and then having it spliced together. The phrasing complements the score perfectly, with fine and detailed nuances, whether the entire group is performing the ensemble concerti grossi, or supporting the various soloists.


In short, this is the way that Vivaldi ought to be played, in my opinion, and now more than two decades later, it has stood the test of time from when it was released by Sony. There may be other interpretations of these works out there that are equally fine, but for me this will remain one of the standards. If you haven’t yet added it to your collection of Vivaldi’s concertos, this is your opportunity to renew an acquaintance with the excellence that marks Tafelmusik as a premiere Baroque music ensemble.


FANFARE: Bertil van Boer

Classical Music

Myroslav Skoryk holds the title of People’s Artist of Ukraine and is one of his country’s outstanding composers. Both the Cello Concerto and the Seventh Violin Concerto combine bittersweet lyricism with explosive dynamic contrasts. With its swinging rhythms and folk music pungency the Carpathian Concerto is one of Skoryk’s most engaging and popular works. The pensive Melody for strings propelled him to the forefront of Ukrainian music, while the slapstick in his transcription of Paganini’s Caprice No. 19 reveals the composer’s humorous side. These live recordings were made at Myroslav Skoryk’s 75th anniversary concerts in Odessa.

"[A] collection of choral works composed by Italian and Russian composers between 1765 and 1915; 150 years of spine-tingling creations of sheer uplifting beauty. ... Harmonia Sacra under Peter Leech present this music in performances that are skilful, stylish and hugely attractive to the ear. The air is consistently tender rather than forcefully dramatic, and the great attention to detail readily discloses all the subtleties of these quite inspiring gems." – ClassicalNet

Classical Music

Classical Music

What a great disc this is: three delightful contemporary works for harpsichord and orchestra, easy on the ear, but clever and consistently interesting. John Rutter’s Suite Antique might be English Poulenc. The tunes are captivating, and the “antique” element needs to be taken with a large grain of salt (the “waltz” is subtitled “A Jazz Waltz”). The writing for flute and strings is immaculate, graceful, and sounds like great fun to play, while the keyboard solo takes excellent advantage of the instrument’s sparkling timbres and ability to delineate rhythmic patterns with gentle persistence. The performance is also terrific, as fine as the composer’s own, with John McMurtery an excellent flute soloist with a firm, round tone.

Glass’ Harpsichord Concerto also has plenty of arresting harmonies and a wide range of textures. The outer movements chug along with unquenchable vitality, and even touches of humor in the finale, while the central slowish movement makes imaginative play with a variety of melodic shapes. It’s extremely visual: you can almost see the music as it unfolds. Glass takes full advantage of the harpsichord’s natural ability to act both as soloist and accompaniment, with the result that the music’s shifting layers consistently entertain through, and not despite, the usual abundance of repetition.

As for the Françaix, the Concerto begins with two contrasting toccatas, followed by a songful andantino, minuet, and finale. It’s a zesty romp that brings the disc to a wholly winning close. Christopher D. Lewis plays a bright, sweet-toned harpsichord with minimal mechanical clatter. His digital dexterity proves very satisfying, and he’s excellently balanced against the extremely capable West Side Chamber Orchestra under Kevin Mallon. This is one of those discs that you might overlook, but you’d be missing a real treat. I’ve already played it several times just for pleasure, and so will you.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Classical Music

Raphael Wallfisch recorded the First Cello Concerto for Chandos, one of the very first CD releases on that label, coupled with the Barber Concerto. It was a good performance, but it pales in comparison with his remake here. This set offers what is, hands down, the finest pairing of the two Shostakovich Cello Concertos since Heinrich Schiff and the composer's son--with all due respect to Rostropovich--set the modern standard in this music (on Philips). The First Concerto comes across with positively frightening intensity, a product not just of Wallfisch's strong projection of the solo, but also owing much to the take-no-prisoners accompaniments of Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Symphony. Just listen to the interplay between Wallfisch and the sneering, threatening woodwind section--it's what this music is all about.

At the opening of the second movement, Wallfisch adopts a dusky, gamba-like sonority: think of Dowland's Lachrymae. The instrument truly seems to weep through the music, while the finale acquires an extra degree of bitter edge by being played very rhythmically, but not too quickly. Wallfisch really comes into his own in the cadenza, holding the entire movement together through perfect timing and a wide range of tone colors and dynamics. It's a great performance, as is that of the comparatively neglected Second Concerto.

Again we find soloist, conductor, and orchestra keenly attuned to the music's overt emotionalism. In the first movement, Wallfisch and Brabbins subtly characterize both the first and second subjects, preventing any hint of monotonous sameness in the exposition section. The development rises to a splendidly impassioned climax, followed by a ghostly coda that never drags.

In the central scherzo, once again a comparatively deliberate tempo combines with punchy rhythms to the music's expressive advantage, while the lengthy half-sweet, half-grotesque variation-finale never has been so colorfully projected. This is such a beautiful work; only the fact that it ends quietly and mysteriously conspires to keep it in the shadow of the First Concerto. In some ways it's even more melodically appealing, and this is a performance that captures its wide-ranging expression as well or better than any other.

The inclusion of the Cello Sonata and the cello arrangement of the late Viola Sonata, along with two miscellaneous short pieces, completes a package offering all of Shostakovich's music featuring solo cello. In the chamber works, John York is the sensitive piano accompanist, and both he and Wallfisch offer excellent interpretations of both large works. The finale of the Viola/Cello Sonata is particularly well held-together, with the youthful freshness of the earlier "true" Cello Sonata enthusiastically captured.

The engineering in the concertos is absolutely outstanding: balances between cello and orchestra are perfectly judged, but the microphones still capture a tremendous amount of ear-catching detail. Obviously a great deal of credit for this has to go to Brabbins and the orchestra, who offer none of that generic, lazy professionalism so common today. These performances display an idiomatic style of a kind that you seldom find even inside Russia today (witness Pletnev's often bland Russian National Orchestra, or Gergiev's mediocre Kirov band). The result is an absolutely irresistible set that no fan of Shostakovich will want to miss.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

MENDELSSOHN: Flute Concerto in D Minor / Flute Sonatas

THANKSGIVING - A Classic Thanksgiving: We Gather Together

MERCADANTE Flute Concertos: No. 2 in e, op. 57; No. 4 in G; No. 1 in E, op. 49 • Patrick Gallois (fl, cond); Snf Finlandia Jyväskylä • NAXOS 8.572731 (57:34)


Saverio Mercadante’s flute concertos are apparently more popular than I’d have thought—the one in E Minor especially—for not a few recordings of them have been previously reviewed in these pages. How memorable are they? Well, for me, they must not have made any lasting impression at all, for it wasn’t until I checked the Fanfare Archive that I realized I had reviewed a two-disc set of the composer’s flute concertos on Dynamic, performed by flutist Mario Carbotta. What’s interesting, though, is that in only three instances, going back to the early 1990s, have these works been taken up by players with names familiar enough to be recognized by general listeners outside of flute circles: James Galway, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and Peter-Lukas Graf. This new release on Naxos thus appears to be the first in two decades to feature an internationally renowned flutist with a name readers are sure to know, Patrick Gallois.


Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (1795–1870) was primarily a composer of operas. No surprise there; if you were a composer in 19th-century Italy, that’s what you did for a living, and Mercadante must have lived well, for his output of operas was prodigious—at least 60 that we know of. He was also long-lived enough to have witnessed the comings and goings of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti, and to have been around for a good portion of Verdi’s life. While in Paris at Rossini’s invitation in 1836, Mercadante attended performances of operas by Meyerbeer and Halévy, and is said to have been strongly influenced by the French emphasis on grand, dramatic spectacle. After spending some time in Vienna, Spain, and Portugal, Mercadante returned to Italy, settled in for the long haul, and set to work.


Unlike most of his opera-composing Italian contemporaries, Mercadante seems to have had more than just a passing interest in instrumental music. His flute concertos and chamber works that include a flute can be explained by his majoring in the instrument as a student at the Naples Conservatory, but orchestration became a lifelong passion for him. He took special pains with the instrumental scoring in his operas, and during the last 30 years of his life, while director of the Conservatory at which he’d been a student, Mercandante composed a goodly number of non-operatic works. During his last seven years, from approximately 1863 on, he became nearly totally blind.


Sometimes it’s harder than other times to intuit why one composer’s works survive while another’s lose their appeal. Certainly, in his day, Mercadante rivaled Rossini and Donizetti in the field of opera. But for the very first time ever in these pages, I reviewed an opera in 36:6, and that opera happened to be Mercadante’s Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamaccio , categorized as a melodramma giocoso . I didn’t come away from it with a very positive opinion, describing the piece as “an Italian singspiel , and not a very good one, with nary a single memorable tune in this over an hour-and-a-half-long jocularity fit for whistling while you work.” I’m sure it’s not fair to judge Mercadante by this one opus, especially since it may not be representative of his operatic output as a whole, but in a 14: 4 review of Mercadante’s Il reggente , David Johnson wrote: “He was a composer of great gifts, but they were not great enough to survive direct comparisons with the triumvirate of Rossini, Donizetti, and Verdi, whose styles are all reflected in his operas. And he had the unlucky fate of choosing subjects that other composers had or were about to treat more memorably.”


To the extent that Mercadante is remembered today it’s mainly for his seven or so flute concertos, which, in their musical style and virtuoso demands on the soloist, are strongly reminiscent of Paganini’s violin concertos. If the flute could only play double-stops and chords and had the range of a violin, you could almost substitute one for the other. Each begins with an imposing introductory exposition that prepares for the grand entrance of the prima donna. Only in this case, she turns out to be a slip of a thing, a mere mouse, compared to the lioness the orchestral set-up has led us to expect. No disrespect intended towards Patrick Gallois and his brilliant fluting, but there’s something almost comical when the soloist enters twittering and tweeting away after such grandiloquent promises of things to come. It reminds me of the LOL jew’s harp concertos by Albrechtsberger.


Anyway, if you’re a flute fancier, you are guaranteed to find Mercadante’s concertos scintillating entertainment, and Gallois’s performance of them will take your breath away. It’s a miracle they don’t take his breath away, as he twirls and twizzles his way through a seemingly endless triathlon of rapid runs, arpeggios, and register leaps without ever once missing a beat or showing the least sign of strain. This is flute playing on an epic scale, and it’s matched in kind by the 38-member-strong Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä, amazingly well-led by Gallois as he’s playing.


Truth be told, the flute is not high on my list of favorite instruments, but if even I can appreciate the works on this disc and marvel at the execution, think how much you’ll love it if you actually like the flute. A two-thumbs-up recommendation.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins    

TCHAIKOVSKY / BALAKIREV / GLAZUNOV: Arrangements for 2 Piano

Viotti: Violin Concertos (Complete), Vol. 10

Geminiani: Concerti Grossi tratti dalle Op. 3, 1 e 5 di Arca