Heinrich Biber’s Mystery Sonatas may have brought the composer to the attention of academics, especially for their thoroughgoing and imaginative exploration of scordatura, but during the last decade, many musicians have begun exploring the sonatas of 1681 as well. Anton Steck’s collection begins on familiar ground, but soon disappears in the wilds of less frequently explored repertoire. But the less familiar sonatas, like the one in E Major and the Ciacona in D Major, feature the same exuberantly fleet figuration that sparkles through the Mysteries and the 1681 sonatas. And whether in the form of a chaconne or simply strung like beads on a string, dizzying and giddy variations play as prominent a role in the stray sonatas as in the more familiar sets. The variations embedded in the Sonata in E Major serve as an example of the kind of virtuosity in which the Germans indulged at roughly the same time that Corelli fashioned his apotheoses of first and third position. Monica Huggett has alluded, in notes to her recordings of the Mystery Sonatas , to the folk origins of Biber’s style of violin playing. And Anton Steck and his entire ensemble do very little to dim the ruddy glow of the works’ earthy inspiration. The booklet, and its notes by Bernhard Moosbauer, express doubts about the authorship of the Sonatas in G Minor and B ? Major, but their cast of technical characters, too, shows the familiar, Biber-like, faces of rushing figuration in détaché , pulverized into coruscating rapid note values and of droning basses. The first of these two works also incorporates a languorous chromaticism that colors the work almost beyond recognition. And scordatura appears here and there, sometimes, as in the Sonata in G Minor, requiring the violinist to retune the E string back to E during the performance. Nevertheless, these works hardly suggest the progressively tortured tunings and subsequent timbral chiaroscuro that characterize the Mystery Sonatas . Muffat’s Sonata, though one of the era’s celebrated masterworks, seems almost sedate, especially in its first movement, after Biber’s extended pyrotechnical display; yet the subtlety of Muffat’s contrapuntal second movement, and the seemingly more purposeful virtuosity (in times of greater ignorance—or, at least, less intimate familiarity—I used to compare Biber’s often jagged lines to Brownian motion), harmonic daring, and expressivity guarantee for the work, on the whole, just as strong an impact.


Steck and his ensemble make as much of the creative possibilities of the music as does Andrew Manze in similar repertoire, but the piquant timbres of Steck’s 1701 Alessandro Gagliano and a copy of Paganini’s Cannon by Tilman Muthesius sound titillating rather than merely eccentric or quizzical—they communicate in themselves rather than simply serve as means of communication. And Steck’s virtuosity (notable in the Ciacona) sounds so breathtaking at times as to remind listeners, as no mere biography could, that Biber himself had been a formidable virtuoso and, presumably, just as highly creative in his role as performer as he must have been as a composer. Of course, if the ensemble didn’t share Steck’s robust vision of Biber’s works, and if the engineers (at least in the CD format, which I auditioned) hadn’t preserved the bright tonal highlights showered by their thumping rhythmic verve, some of the collection’s appeal might have been lost. Strongly recommended to Biber aficionados for the rarity of the repertoire and, just as urgently, to general listeners, who can respond directly and immediately to the ensemble’s tangy advocacy.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Backofen is certainly an obscure figure to most music-lovers. He was born in Durlach, Germany and aside from taking to his musical studies like a duck to water also proved a talented draughtsman and a gifted linguist. Influenced by the Paris-based 19th century clarinet master Xavier Lefèvre he wrote a number of works for clarinet. Works for harp also feature in his catalogue. He was recognised in the Gotha orchestra as an outstanding player of clarinet, basset-horn and harp. After Gotha his final move was to the Darmstadt orchestra as part of the Court of Hesse. Ever the astute entrepreneur he there established a wind instrument factory.

The language of these three concertos is strikingly Mozartian at times (e.g. Jupiter Symphony in the first and last movements of opp. 3 and 16). All the usual delightful clarinet virtues appear in the golden middle movement of Op. 3, the finale of which holds a few surprises. These include some almost Greek folksy trills, bubbles and other endearments. The solo part of Op. 16 suggests a cheeky Neapolitan street singer. Some of the more animated writing looks forward to Rossini's overtures ... and there is something of a facial resemblance too. Op. 24 is ushered in by Beethovenian funereal writing before Backofen's accustomed bel canto nonchalance steps up to the line disarming and without a care in the world. The Andante is in this one case rather more perfunctory than the earlier middle movements.

Klöcker is a graceful guide and a luminous-toned exponent. His orchestra is the SWR Rundfunkorchester Kaiserslauten which is stylishly conducted by Johannes Moesus. This is by no means a luxury band and a certain thinness can sometimes be noted. That said, attention quite naturally fixes on the solo and there is plenty there to distract and beguile. Masterworks? Well, no but they are eminently entertaining and touching and administer a few surprises along the way.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

BÉRIOT Violin Concertos: No. 7; No. 2; No. 4 • Laurent Albrecht Breuninger (vn); Frank Beermann, cond; Northwest German PO • cpo 777 167 (64:29)


Charles-Auguste de Bériot may be better known to violinists as the composer of several symphonic duets for violins, which, if they don’t reach the level of Louis Spohr’s contributions to the genre, nevertheless display a keen ear for sonorities and regale performers and listeners alike with a graceful and elegant melodic and harmonic confection. Bériot’s 60 concert studies, at one time taught in conjunction with Gaviniès’s Matinées , acquaint violin students with virtuosic fluency in a highly ingratiating setting. Bériot, often credited with teaching the instrument to Henri Vieuxtemps, actually worked with the boy only for several years. Yet the impression he left must have been a deep one: Paul Stoeving considered Vieuxtemps’s own concertos a sort of deluxe edition of Bériot’s, and, in fact, the similarities do seem difficult to overlook, though Vieuxtemps displayed a more secure mastery of orchestration and explored a much higher technical stratosphere. But master and student share a grand rhetoric that identifies the soloist as a hero in a noble quest. Sonorous tuttis introduce commanding double-stopped declamations, soaring cantilena, and technical passages echoing Paganini’s technique without (in Bériot’s case, anyway) equaling it. Modern listeners have largely abandoned these works—as well as, perhaps, more generally, the role of conqueror—and so, it appears, have teachers. At one time, the First, Seventh, and Ninth of Bériot’s concertos, at least, provided study material for ambitious intermediate students. Now they seem not so easily available (at least, the First). Maude Powell recorded the Seventh Concerto (12 minutes of it, anyway) in 1915 and 1916 with pianist George Falkenstein. Laurent Breuninger gives a bravura account of it with orchestra, cutting a dashing figure in the sweeping virtuosic passages—or perhaps creating them out of nothing. His brisk tempos and crisp staccato passages recall Paganini’s concertos rather than the drudgery of student days when these pieces presented difficulties that could be surmounted, if insecurely, only at lugubrious tempos. And his bel canto recalls the nobility of Milstein’s hallmark performance of Goldmark’s Concerto. (That’s especially relevant in view of the suggestion that the voice of Bériot’s deceased first wife, Maria Malibran, continued to sing in his works.) Breuninger’s inserted cadenzas in this Seventh Concerto as well as into the Fourth, however, represent what many might consider a mismatch of styles. All of the composer’s works that I’ve heard or played remain, even during their stormiest moments, politely within the realm of salon music. Nevertheless, the Second Concerto lasts just over half an hour (the Seventh weighs in at just over 20 minutes and the Fourth at about half that). That the longer among them don’t grow tiresome at this length suggests the fecundity of melodic imagination and the abundant harmonic (and virtuosic) charm that once, in the hands of their creator, guaranteed these works a place on the stage and that makes them stirring virtuosic vehicles for Breuninger and his 1803 Lupot violin.


Bériot’s First (“Military”), Eighth, and Ninth Concertos appeared in a recording by Takako Nishizaki (Marco Polo 8.220440), so the composer hasn’t been entirely forgotten. And the first concert studies remain available as an even better tutor, perhaps, for students of the big Romantic style than the concertos themselves. But hearing these concertos played with their intended panache and in their intended form, accompanied enthusiastically and, in the Second Concerto, with percussive sound and fury, and recorded with striking clarity and full dynamic range—all this recalls an age long past when giants walked the earth. Recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Not too many years ago Max Bruch was close to being a "one-hit wonder" in the classical music lists, that hit being his G minor violin concerto. There were a couple of shorter pieces, notably the Kol Nidrei, but there was little available evidence to judge the opinion of some familiar observers that Bruch was as great a composer as his contemporary Johannes Brahms.


With the CD era came an expansion of recorded repertoire, and now Bruch's three symphonies, more concertos, and several other large-scale works are available. None I've heard shows that he was near Brahms' equal, but they have solid workmanship, good melodies, considerable imagination, and other virtues that result in worthwhile music. However, what likely kept Bruch from the highest compositional magnitude is his music's pervasive comfortable Victorian bourgeois outlook.


A look at Bruch's catalog reveals an emphasis on choral music, including that form so beloved of Victorians, the oratorio. Lay of the Bell (as its title is rendered in the flowery English translation of Edward Bulwer Lytton used in CPO's detailed program book) is not religious, but it is moralistic. Schiller's text was a mainstay of German sentiment during the 19th century. Casting a bell in a foundry is an allegory for raising a child to be a good person, presumed to be the path to ensuring personal prosperity and a well-ordered society. This sentiment foundered on the shoals of World War I and went under entirely during the Nazi era.

So this 100-minute-long choral and orchestral piece comes with a strike against it: It's a bit hard to read the text (particularly in the overheated language of Bulwer Lytton, he most famed for "It was a dark and stormy night...") without sniggering, the while Bruch's music plows on with undiminished earnestness. However, heard without first reading program notes or text, it becomes a very interesting, entertaining work, and it remains so on subsequent listening. There is some stodginess in the music, but it doesn't drag despite the pompous text. The large form is shaped well, so that the unexpected presence of the Christmas tune "Silent Night" at the work's end (unexplained by the notes or the text) evokes a satisfying frisson.

The performers approach the work as worthy of admiration, and they prove that it is. Fine melodies, along with an intriguing harmonic language marrying Brahmsian solidity with Wagnerian love of suspensions and other devices to keep harmonies unpredictable, make the music interesting. The four soloists are a fine group, singing with lyrical tones rather than the barking sound often heard in middle-European oratorio performances. Jac van Steen and his orchestra and chorus work well together, and the live audience is well behaved. The sound is a bit opaque, but not to a troublesome degree.

This is a big piece, obviously intended by the composer to be an Important Work. Ein Deutsches Requiem it ain't, but in this recording it provides a welcome insight into a composer who evidently has a lot of good unknown music still mouldering on library shelves.
--Joseph Stevenson, ClassicsToday.com

A composition student of Napoleon-Henri Reber and a violin student of Henri Vieuxtemps, Benjamin Godard received a thorough education before beginning his teaching career at the Paris Conservatory in 1887. Although much of Godard’s works are forgotten, possibly due to his untimely death, his symphonic works featured here show an original outlook on the genre, fusing together melodic qualities with technical brilliance. This release features his Symphony No. 2, Op. 57, his Trois Morceaux, Op. 51, and his Symphonie gothique, Op. 23 performed by the Munchner Rundfunkorchester, conducted by David Reiland.

Agreeable geniality: benign, attractive melodically with gloriously yearning themes.

There are a number of composers who are best known almost exclusively for writing one particular work from a substantial compositional output. The principal names that spring to mind are Gustav Holst for The Planets; Max Bruch for his First Violin Concerto and Carl Orff for Carmina Burana. Falling into this category is the German late-Romantic composer Engelbert Humperdinck who is really only known for his much loved opera Hänsel und Gretel composed in 1891/92. Based on the Brothers Grimm fairytale the composer described his score as a Märchenoper (Fairytale opera- based on Brothers Grimm). The richly scored opera has become inextricably associated with children and families, and is traditionally performed at Christmas time.

Humperdinck wrote a considerable number of works in several genres including a number of stage works but none have come anywhere close to attaining the popularity of Hänsel und Gretel. I am told that the Königskinder (The King’s Children) is sometimes staged but I have never come across it. Contained on this CPO release are six chamber scores the majority of which were composed in the 1870s and only published in recent years with the exception being the String quartet in C major from 1919/20.

The earliest work on the release is the single movement Menuet in E flat major for Piano Quintet marked Allegro composed in 1872 as an alternative for a Christmas programme. Bearing a dedication to Johannes Degen, a judge and amateur violinist, the substantial String Quartet Movement in E minor was written in 1873. With regard to completing the score Humperdinck got as far as sketching out another two movements. Cast in three movements, the Piano Quintet in G major was completed in 1875. It seems that it was played by Johannes Degen music group in which Humperdinck would sometimes stand in as the pianist. The score of the central Adagio bears an inscription to the memory of Humperdinck’s sister Ernestine who died aged only seventeen. In the concluding Allegro Humperdinck blends a Scherzo with a Rondo. The String Quartet Movement in C minor takes around 7 minutes. Humperdinck won the Frankfurt Mozart prize with the C minor score. The Notturno for Violin and String Quartet in G major is marked Andante tranquillo. After its completion in October 1879 Humperdinck before the ink was almost dry prepared an alternative arrangement of the score for violin and piano doing away the quartet. Cast in three movements the String Quartet in C major was written some thirty years after Hänsel und Gretel and is Humperdinck’s final chamber score. Humperdinck explained that the central Gemächlich (Leisurely) is a contrasting combination of a slow movement and Scherzo.

Irrespective of the tempi indications Humperdinck’s undemanding writing tends to inhabit a similar mood. The prevailing character of the slow movements is one of agreeable geniality: benign, highly attractive melodically with gloriously yearning themes. The outer movements, although occasionally squally and moderately windswept, offer more of the same but with a quicker speed. There’s no whiff of German Sturm und Drang or late-Romantic Wagnerian or Straussian excess in any of Humperdinck’s chamber scores. Owing to the lack of stylistic, melodic and dynamic contrast one can understand why these scores have remained neglected for so long. Out of the six Humperdinck works the String Quartet (1919/20) with its catchy central movement Gemächlich is certainly agreeable as is the Notturno for violin and string quartet but it is the Piano Quintet that I consider to be the finest. Without plumbing great emotional depths I also greatly enjoyed the central Adagio of the Piano Quintet for its tender yearning quality; serving as a fine tribute to Humperdinck’s deceased sister Ernestine.

The Diogenes Quartet is a Munich based ensemble and was founded in 1996. The Diogenes number the Amadeus and La Salle quartets amongst their teachers. I couldn’t fault the beautiful playing of the Diogenes who adopts a straightforward unadorned style that feels wholly convincing. Glorious string tone and impeccable ensemble are trademarks of this first-rate quartet. For the Piano quintet in G major and the Menuet for piano quintet the Diogenes are augmented by pianist Andreas Kirpal who makes a terrific contribution sharing this music with tightly matched teamwork. The Notturno for violin and string quartet in G major is a real find with the Diogenes joined by Lydia Dubrovskaya who takes the solo violin part. With assurance and refined musicianship Dubrovskaya plays this nocturne quite beautifully. I can easily imagine this score becoming quite a hit on a Classic FM Relaxing Classics programme.

The recording was made at the August Everding Saal, Grünwald on the outskirts of Munich and the sound quality is spectacular. It’s vividly clear and superbly balanced too which is something that I rarely encounter where piano and string quartets are concerned.

-- Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International

Forget about the period instrument aspects of this recording. The claim that some of the musicians use instruments that were actually played in orchestras of Liszt’s time is nothing but a gimmick; it’s not the instrument that makes the performance, it’s the player. The claim that this represents “The Sound of Weimar” is pure puffery, and frankly I’m very tired of it and all such similar nonsense. So let’s get that out of the way and move on. It’s not a selling point.

What is a selling point is that this is a very attractive set of the six orchestral Hungarian Rhapsodies. Martin Haselböck remains a fine organist and musician generally, and his belief in Liszt is both honest and musically persuasive. This ongoing “Sound of Weimar” Liszt series has appeared on several labels, and has been largely impressive, not because of the period instrument aspect, but because the Orchestra of the Vienna Academy plays well (mostly), and because the interpretations ask us to take Liszt as seriously as the conductor does. In other words, the musicianship is there. Haselböck paces this music very well. The First Rhapsody, for example, doesn’t really get going until it’s almost half over, but Haselböck finds a flowing tempo from the outset that makes those introductory gestures sound, well, rhapsodic rather than merely spasmodic. Rhapsody No. 4 manages to sound less repetitious than it usually can, while No. 5, the darkest of the set, really does have a nicely “Hungarian” tang that never turns merely glum.

There are only two small caveats: these tasteful performances could benefit from a touch more sparkle, a bit more sense of fun, because the music can take it without necessarily turning vulgar. In both Rhapsody No. 2 and No. 6 Haselböck sounds a touch careful, but if too much seriousness is a fault then it’s probably one in the right direction given what usually happens to these pieces. Second, those “original” trumpets could be played more confidently; they have a lot to do and the players could offer a touch more swagger.

That said, these remain very pleasing, listenable performances even at a single sitting. Textures are clean and clear, and the fact that the music was arranged by Franz Doppler, later corrected and approved by Liszt, seems to make the orchestration in general less screechy than Liszt’s norm. Toss in excellent engineering from the Liszt Concert Hall in his home town of Raiding, and the result is a very enjoyable experience that just might be more musically substantial than you thought possible.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Five string quartets by Carl Reinecke from all the phases of his career, from it's beginnings to his old age, are extant. He himself played the first violin in his father's quartet and in this way very early became acquainted with an extensive quartet repertoire. When he began composing his first quartet, he not only was familiar with the contributions to this genre by Mozart and Beethoven but also knew Schumann's brand new Quartets op. 41. Reinecke pays homage to Schumann's music in particular in the lyrical moments of his Quartet No. 2. He composed the Quartets Nos. 3 and 4 during his years as the conductor of the Gewandhaus Orchestra. No. 3 surprises us with it's expansive key plans, which also make us sit up and take notice in his subsequent quartets and undermine the clich� of a epigone who rigidly adhered to convention and academism. In his last contribution to the genre, the Quartet No. 5, he remains true to his style. This work perhaps sounds somewhat less like Schumann and somewhat more like Brahms, whose music Reinecke very much admired.

Gyrowetz numbers among those composers of whom Fischer states in Haydn und seine Zeit, “They would appear to us today to be the great composers of the epoch if they had not had the misfortune of being contemporaries of Haydn and Mozart.” Gyrowetz’s later works had a romantic musical language – as is audible here.

LISZT Ad nos, ad salutarem undam Fantasy and Fugue for organ and orchestra (arr. Dupré). Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (orch. Weiner). Orpheus, for organ (trans. Liszt). Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H (orch. Bischof) • Martin Haselböck, cond; Christian Schmitt (org); Deutsche RP (Saarbrücken/Kaiserslautern) • CPO 777 472–2 (69:58)


During his Weimar years, Liszt’s friend, the organist Alexander Winterberger, spurred his interest in the organ, prompting the composition of two of his most ambitious works, the Ad nos… Fantasy and Fugue (1850) and the Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H (1855, revised 1870). Thereafter, Liszt experimented, transcribing a number of his own works, including the tone poem Orpheus . The Weinen, Klagen,… variations, composed for piano in 1862, were transcribed for organ the following year. Considering the metamorphoses visited upon them by their composer, the step to orchestral arrangements by other hands was small, if ambitious. Depending on venue and acoustics, the instrument, registrations, and the acumen of engineers, these organ works can come across as towering masterpieces or murky monster-pieces. One of the joys of the orchestral transcriptions is hearing details often covered in cavernous rumble or obscured by distance on the organ standing forth boldly from the orchestra, their intricacies revealed, while their climactic moments acquire major clout and transparency. Weiner’s tilt at Weinen, Klagen,… is indebted to mid-19th-century models, highlighting a Gothic, cobwebby aura clinging to Liszt’s kaleidoscopic variations. Rainer Bischof’s take on the BACH Prelude and Fugue , on the other hand, is brash, brassy, and unabashedly modern in its use of an overloaded wind and percussion contingent (in addition to the cited vibraphone, do I hear a wood block, tubular bells, and a glockenspiel, among other novelties?) to make for metallic brilliance, glittering passage work, and climactic cataclysmics. The Gothic stunner, however, is Marcel Dupré’s arrangement of the Ad nos … Fantasy and Fugue for organ and orchestra, a feat placing what many believe to be Liszt’s greatest single work in company with the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony and Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra.


One expected more of Christian Schmitt, whose recent go at Koechlin’s organ works (CPO 777 512–2, Fanfare 36:4) demonstrated an arresting keenness to that composer’s psychic, haunted atmospherics. His Orpheus is well-paced in the way that one thing leads to another, though having heard performances in which episodes escalate with fraught portent—e.g., Olivier Vernet’s solo rendering, or, as we’re considering transcriptions, his duo with Laurent Cabasso on piano (a six-CD intégrale , Ligia 0104226–11)—Schmitt’s dynamic range and resources of feeling are audibly constricted. The Ad nos … arrangement compels more adventurous playing, but Schmitt is disadvantaged by the recessed capture of the organ in Luxembourg’s Philharmonic Hall which allows orchestral overshadowing. That said, the upshot is still thrilling, magnificent, and magisterial. To the last point, one may feel that, in their orchestral and orchestra/organ garb, one is hearing these works for the first time. Martin Haselböck, himself an organist of exceptional prowess, who has performed the originals many times and recorded them at least twice, leads with a sweep alert to detail and, in the Ad nos … Fantasy and Fugue , manages the organ/orchestra dialogue with potent eloquence, though the recording imbalance becomes distracting in the fugue. The orchestral works come across in immediate, transparent, often walloping sound. Enthusiastically recommended.


FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

After studying at the University of Leipzig and spending several years as an organist at the city's Nikolai Church, the Saxon musician Johann Rosenmuller had to abruptly leave his position around 1655 for reasons less than honorable. He eventually found his way to Venice, where he worked at St. Mark's Basilica and the renowned Ospedale della Pieta. Among the many musical "souvenirs" he later brought back from the South was a new church style, infused with a vibrant colorfulness previously unknown in the more austere musical traditions of the North. It's no wonder that worshippers felt as if they were hearing angelic choirs and left the sacred concerts with their faith renewed. This�musica coelestis�continues to capture pure hearts and inspire a better life, even 340 years after the great composer's death.

Joseph Franz Weigl, the father of our composer, was the principal cellist in Prince Esterhazy's orchestra, thus serving under the kapellmeister Joseph Haydn, who was the godfather at the son's baptism in 1766 and likely had a hand in the boy's musical education. Weigl junior was taught by Johann Georg Albrechtsberger and Antonio Salieri, under whose guidance he flourished. He assisted Mozart with the premieres of�Figaro,�Cos� fan tutte, and�Don Giovanni, partly conducting subsequent performances of these works and getting an early taste of the theater world. His own operas and singspiels were successful, benefiting from his enviable melodic talent. Listen to the six delightful trios for oboe, violin, and cello assembled here, which, as light-hearted interludes, provide exquisite entertainment from the first to the last measure. Indeed, such mastery is something to aspire to!

Early opera underwent a strange development in the 17th century: under pressure from the paying public, comic elements increasingly overshadowed the fates of the great heroic figures it was supposed to be about. At some point, the brakes were applied and opera seria emerged, in which only noble characters acted. Slapsticks were isolated and played as interludes in front of the curtain for the audience's enjoyment. The two most famous of these intermezzi, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Serva padrona and Livietta e Tracollo, were recorded by the Boston Early Music Festival after several live performances in Bremen last fall - two caprices that were real "hits" even during the (very short) lifetime of their creator and still unfold their Neapolitan wit today: The story of the maid who cleverly conquers her master's heart and the turbulent "robber's tale" of the cunning peasant girl who puts the scoundrel on the right path to the marriage haven are available here in an irresistible double pack.