Through a series of new recordings with CPO, cellist Raphael Wallfisch goes on a personal journey to rediscover the forgotten cello music of exiled Jewish composers who escaped Fascism and the Third Reich. The series will include premiere recordings of cello concerti by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Weigl and Reizenstein, and Bloch’s Symphony for Cello and Orchestra. With conductor Nicholas Milton, Wallfisch has joined forces with the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra and Deutschland Radio. This is the first release in the series, featuring the works of Hans Gal and Castelnuovo Tedesco. Gal had a productive career as director of Mainz Conservatory. With the rise of Nazism, his career came to an abrupt end when he was dismissed from his post due to his Jewish ancestry. He eventually fled to England, and wrote his cello concerto in 1944. Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco migrated to the USA in 1939 following the Italian Racial Laws, which banned his music from radio and live performances. Castelnuovo-Tedesco thrived in the US, becoming a prominent film composer an dusing his Jewish heritage for inspiration. Piatigorsky premiered Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s concerto in New York in 1935, conducted by Toscanini.

Pejacevic Piano Quintet in b, Op. 40. String Quartet in C, Op. 58. Piano Quartet in d, Op. 25. Impromptu, Op. 9 • Sine Nomine Str Qrt; Oliver Triendl (pn) • CPO 777421 (2 CDs: 90: 54)


It has been just a little over a year-and-a-half since CPO introduced us to Dora Pejacevic (1885–1923), a late-Romantic, Croatian composer, with a recording of her Symphony in F#-Minor (see Fanfare 35:2). That was followed in the very next issue (35:3) by a second CPO release of a Piano Trio and a Cello Sonata by pejacevic. Then, as recently as 36:3, there appeared on the same label a disc of the composer’s songs, reviewed very favorably by Henry Fogel. By now, pejacevic is no longer an unfamiliar name or a novelty, and here, once again from CPO, comes this time a two-disc set adding immeasurably to our knowledge of her chamber music output.


It’s tempting to draw certain parallels between Pejacevic and the French female composer, Louise Farrenc (1804–1875). Though she died 10 years before Pejacevic was born, and wrote music in a style strongly suggestive of Mendelssohn, Farrenc, like pejacevic, was an unusual case among women composers of the period. Both donned the britches reserved for their menfolk—large-scale symphonic, orchestral, and chamber works, and they both proved themselves quite adept at competing with the boys in the same game and on the same playing field.


The B-Minor Piano Quintet occupied Pejacevic from 1915 to 1918. You could say that for its time it’s a fairly conservative work with roots extending well back into the 19th century. But the same could be said of a lot of romantic-styled music still being written into the first and second decades of the 20th century. The quintet is a big work, not only in size—33 minutes—but in boldness of gesture and discourse. Echoes of Brahms ripple through the first movement as Pejacevic revels in the B-Minor-ness of the thing. It’s eruptive and tragic in cast. But occasional flashes of more contemporary lightning illuminate the score.


It’s hard to know exactly what influences Pejacevic was exposed to, but she did receive formal training in Dresden and Munich, and from 1918 on, she traveled extensively in Europe, visiting Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. My guess is that during her studies in Munich around 1907 she would have heard some of the early chamber works by Richard Strauss, particularly his C-Minor Piano Quartet, op. 13. Whether she might also have heard Fauré’s C-Minor Piano Quartet, op. 15, or his D-Minor Piano Quintet, op. 89, it’s impossible to say, but there’s definitely more than a whiff of the French composer’s harmonic and rhythmic fluidity in Pejacevic ’s quintet.


The C-Major String Quartet dates from 1922, and in the time that elapsed between it and completion of the earlier 1918 quintet, musically speaking, Pejacevic has traveled the equivalent of a lightyear or more. Other than the F#-Minor Symphony, which dates from just about the same time as the quintet, it would be really interesting to hear some of the composer’s transitional works that fill in the gap between the quintet and the quartet, for by 1922 Pejacevic ’s style is largely transformed.


Again, it’s really hard to know the composers and music she came into contact with—there’s no mention in the notes about travel to France or a French connection—but this quartet gives off a strong French scent; and I’m not talking about the obvious Debussy and Ravel brands, but rather the almost unmistakable imprint of Vincent d’Indy’s D-Major Quartet, op. 35, of 1890. But another element makes itself felt in Pejacevic ’s quartet as well, and that is the ethno-musical harmonies and rhythms of Croatian folk song and dance, which, at times, sound not all that distantly removed from the Hungarian and Transylvanian sources drawn upon by Bartók.


Setting the calendar back to 1908 and Pejacevic’s earliest chamber work, we come to the Piano Quartet in D Minor, op. 25. Brahms is part sire to this work, but to continue the analogy, it was impregnated more than once, so multiple fathers are responsible for child support. In some of the climactic cadences, the paternity test detects sperm from Tchaikovsky’s A-Minor Piano Trio, as well as from Saint-Saëns’s Bb-Major Piano Quartet, op. 41—strong genetic stock, no doubt, but the question is, did Pejacevic herself know who the daddy was? It’s easy, in retrospect, to say that a given piece of music bears resemblances to this or that written previously by someone else. But in Pejacevic’s case, at least, we can’t really say what she knew or when she knew it.


Her bio tells us that she was essentially a private person, somewhat of a loner, actually, who was uncomfortable in the company of the aristocratic social milieu into which she was born. Many details of her short life are still not known, including the circumstances of her death. One source claims she wrote a suicide note to her husband when she discovered she was with child; another source claims she died giving birth to the child.


Oliver Triendl is one of CPO’s most reliable pianists, but the Sine Nomine Quartet hasn’t been heard from in a long time, at least not by me. My last encounter with these fine Swiss players was in Fanfare 32:3 when I reviewed the ensemble’s release of string quartets by Goldmark. Prior to that, the Sine Nomine Quartet made my 2006 Want List for its recordings of Beethoven’s middle quartets, a set which, sadly, was never followed up with the early and late quartets. Be that as it may, with Triendl and the Sine Nomine Quartet as her advocates, Dora Pejacevic is in the very best of hands.


Given that these works are only about 10 minutes too long to fit on a single CD and therefore require two discs, I’d have expected to see a set of 91 minutes playing time being sold as a twofer or at least a reduced price. But such seems not to be the case; Amazon is selling it as two full-priced discs for $34.99, while CD Universe has knocked the price down to $30 flat.


The more of Pejacevic’s music that becomes known the more it becomes clear that hers was a significant talent and that her contributions to a still viable romantic tradition in the first two decades of the 20th century are well worth hearing. Recommended.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Johann Rosenm�ller compiled an impressive oeuvre of more than two hundred vocal and instrumental works. On the occasion of this composer's four hundredth birthday, the Ensemble 1684 is presenting a CD with a cross section of his music including the world-premiere recordings of four of his large-dimensioned concertos. Rosenm�ller's post as a teacher at the St. Thomas School introduced him to an exciting musical and academic environment that greatly stimulated him. Very early he displayed his talent for absorbing artistic and cultural influences. The St. Thomas cantor Tobias Michael and the Dresden court music director Heinrich Sch�tz were of particular significance here. The new Italian concerto models with which Sch�tz had become acquainted during his second stay in Venice were above all a source of inspiration for Rosenm�ller, who very soon also began experimenting with them. A masterful compositional craftsman and contrapuntist of Sch�tzian stamp!

Reinhard Keiser’s Der blutige und sterbende Jesus is not only the very first German Passion oratorio but also a highly suspenseful contribution to the Passion season. Lost for many years, it is now available for listening here in the revised version of 1729. The dramatic and musical design of Keiser’s work is astonishing. As in the Italian oratorio type that gained currency after 1700, there is no Evangelist or other narrator, which means that the work has a purely dramatic structure. Even though Keiser’s librettist Christian Friedrich Hunold, whose pseudonym was “Menantes,” did not cite any one of the four Evangelists word for word in his adaptation of the Passion narrative, it is quite evident that the poetic elaboration is (primarily) modeled on Luther’s translation of the Gospel of Matthew. As might be expected, Hunold and Keiser based their work on the dramatic means of the opera typical of their times while working on the one hand with contrasts between short, often homophonic five-part choirs of the two different groups of participants and on the other hand with multipart, interior monologues by the main characters. The great number of very highly expressive arias and ariosi, each of which has its own very special character, produced a tightly woven fabric that, far from the traditional Kantorei tradition, forms a link to the modern music of its times. Keiser’s oft-praised instrumentation artistry is shown here in his innovative, effectively and enthrallingly varied tone-color combinations in the orchestra. His talent for the clear delineation of a musical scenario with only a single accompaniment voice is legendary.

Friedhelm Flamme's series featuring organ works of the Northern German Baroque now finds it's logical continuation with Dietrich Buxtehude, the leading master in the discipline of Northern German organ artistry. In order to underscore his special interpretive style, the result of his many decades of occupation with practically the entire Northern German repertoire, Flamme has selected the Treutmann organ in the Grauhof Monastery near Goslar, an instrument that has been preserved largely in it's original form and conveys Buxtehude's innovative, visionary musical artistry in a very different way than the well-known Schnitger organs in Northern Germany. Each album is designed in the manner of an exciting concert program revealing two things: first, the variety of Buxtehude's compositions, which include free pieces and chorale settings to be executed on the manuals or with virtuosic pedal playing and occur in styles ranging from nimble canzonettas and basso ostinato forms filled with gravity to strict textures in �erudite counterpoint�; second, the vast tonal resources of the Treutmann organ, both in the sense of varietas and in view of the line of suspense traced by the musical keys. It is thus that Vol. 1 forms the beginning with magnificent works by the most important Baroque master of organ artistry prior to Johann Sebastian Bach and along with him. Owing to it's temperament, the Treutmann organ enables the realization of the stylistically correct rendering of pieces in remote keys, something that would have been impossible on mean-tone instruments.

Shows Carl Stamitz the symphonist in a strong light.

Carl Stamitz wrote over 50 symphonies in a career which saw him reach heights of fame and popularity in his lifetime. The lack of recordings of these works to be found in catalogues today can be traced back to a damning statement made about the Stamitz brothers by one W.A. Mozart, and the loss of his autograph papers after his death. The works of Carl Stamitz which survive are those which were printed and published, in the case of the works on these discs for performance at fashionable Parisian ‘Concerts spirituels’, the lack of acceptance to which may in part have lead to Mozart’s grumpy remarks about his more successful contemporaries.

These symphonies are very much a product of their time, pandering to the demands of audiences who would have been delighted with exciting ostinati and crescendi, hunting horns and a mixture of affect and effect in the soft and slow, loud and fast contrasts. Today these works are inevitably compared with those of Mozart and Haydn, but on their own terms they have a great deal to offer. Charming and direct, the central Andante movements are often witty and fun, like that of the D minor Symphony Op.15, 3 with its walking pizzicato strings, the little melodic ornaments of the Symphony in E flat and muted delicacy of that in the Symphony in E minor Op.15, 2. Outer movements are rousing and energetic but full of surprises. Have a listen to 16 to 26 seconds into the Prestissimo of the Symphony in D minor Op.15, 3 – after an opening which arguably has elements of Vivaldi, I hear Beethoven in some of those little inner phrases. The Allegro con spirito which opens the Symphony in E flat major is full of catchy syncopations, and the last movement Un poco presto, is that in a fast 3 beat, or 2, or 4? I think I know, but the composer might just be wrong-footing us all the way. The Symphony in E minor Op.15, 2 is another remarkably entertaining work, starting out with a refined sense of mystery and taking off on entirely different paths, and with the added colour of two flutes this is a symphony with plenty of secrets to be revealed. The last Symphony in F major has nicely prominent parts for two clarinets and is nicknamed ‘La chasse’ for its energetic and galloping final movement. The horn parts might have been expected to be a little more prominent, but the natural horns used here balance more with the rest of the orchestra rather than leaping over the strings and drowning everyone out.

There is another disc of Carl Stamitz’s symphonies on the Chandos label: CHAN 9358, with the London Mozart Players directed by Matthias Bamert. This is a somewhat bigger-boned recording, the larger orchestra creating a fatter sound and the period feel only really pointed out by the addition of a harpsichord as continuo, something not used by L’arte del mondo. The symphony La Chasse is also different, the one in D major rather than the one in F on the present disc, so the Chandos recording can be seen more as a companion than a competitor. With fine performances and a very good recording, this CPO disc is a welcome release, showing us a strong side to a rather neglected name.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

The term used to describe the epoch in which the works brought together on this album were composed is a matter of dispute. Did it come before the period of Viennese classicism, which means that it represents "pre-Classicism?" Or is it part of this period, that is, "Early Classicism?" The Austrian musicologist Rudolf Flotzinger came up with a pithy formulation for this phase of music history, terming it "the epoch between the epochs," which means that it is no longer Baroque and not yet Classicism. During this period, in the middle of the eighteenth century and in the age of Empress Maria Theresa, the genres of instrumental ensemble music continuing even today to dominate the concert repertoire were developed - including the "clavier concerto," which was performed in equal measure on the organ, on the harpsichord, and later on the pianoforte. The designation "clavier" current at that time merely generally referred to an instrument with claves (keys). A collection of clavier concertos extant in the Studies Library in Ptuj (Pettau), Slovenia, preserves the compositions recorded here in manuscript form. The harpsichordist Michael Hell, along with the Neue Hofkapelle Graz, led by him and Lucia Froihofer, performs these exciting works. Two highly outstanding instruments were available to Michael Hell for this recording: the harpsichord built by Johann Leydecker in Vienna in 1755, now freshly restored, and it's copy built by Martin P�hringer in 2017. These instruments enable listeners to become acquainted with two instruments forming a perfect match for this repertoire: on an extremely well-preserved original instrument and on a copy that in it's way is tonally just as suitable - after all, even during the time of it's composition the music was performed on new instruments. The Ptuj collection shows how fragile and incomplete our knowledge of the musical practice from "the epoch between the epochs" really is. The transmitted manuscripts, above all the extant concertos by Wagenseil, document the variety of performance options, broad compositional palette, and widespread dissemination of music for keyboard instruments.

It is not exactly easy to find one’s way around in the pages of Benda family history with its two Georgs, three Friedrichs, two Heinrichs – and more! This family of musicians from Bohemia came to Germany in 1742 at the request of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1712-86), and served at the court there for a century. The unknown Benda with whom we are concerned here was Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich, the son of Franz Benda and nephew of Georg Benda. He was born in 1745 and died in 1814. Although he wrote operas, cantatas, and oratorios, he is best known for his instrumental compositions and for the concertos he wrote for various instruments. His talent as a gifted violist and violinist also made him a popular interpreter. The virtuoso passages in his three concertos for viola demonstrate his perfect mastery of the instrumental technique of the viola typifying his times. We have our soloist Jean-Eric Soucy to thank for the discovery of the viola concertos, and he in turn is grateful to the Edition Offenburg publishing company, which with its outstanding correction work has made available a wonderful gift for all violists. Friedrich Benda’s viola concertos are beyond doubt magnificent additions to the viola repertoire on the same high level as Stamitz, Hoffmeister, and others.

These performances are absolutely stunning, so much so that a reappraisal of Schumann's Violin sonatas is in order. What once sounded like pre-Brahmsian music (as presented by Ara Malikian and Serouj Kradjian on Hänssler Classic), with its harmonic exploration and varied moods, is here revealed as the full-bodied passion of Schumann at his most impetuous. (It's interesting to note that these two women--violinist Isabelle Faust and pianist Silke Avenhaus--come up with far more aggressive and masculine interpretations than do the two men on the Hänssler disc.)


From the urgent opening of Sonata No. 1, Faust mounts the music as if it were a wild stallion, riding out the first movement's emotional twists and turns with a sure grip on its technical challenges. Avenhaus is right there with her, riding side saddle, making the two a formidable team. Faust pulls back slightly for Schumann's big, overtly symphonic Sonata No. 2, especially in the dreamy adagio where she achieves a particularly beautiful tone quality. But it's back to flame throwing for the No. 3 (a work that went unpublished until 1956), making for a powerful conclusion to the program. CPO's sound is more compact than Hänssler's (with its large hall acoustic), an effect that brings the duo vividly into your listening room. If you're at all curious about Schumann's violin sonatas (and you should be), this disc demands your investigation.
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Franz Krommer (1759-1831) was a first rate composer. As you can see, he was three years younger than Mozart, and outlived both Beethoven and Schubert. During that time, he wrote hundreds of instrumental works: chamber music, concertos, nine symphonies (No. 8 is missing), and the wind ensemble music on which his reputation now largely rests. Interestingly, he composed almost no vocal music. The quality of his output is very high: he really sounds like the natural successor to Haydn in many respects. His symphonies are almost exactly contemporary with Beethoven’s, and rather than sounding conservative or reactionary, we can hear them as part of an evolving tradition–different but not necessarily inferior.

Krommer’s idiom evolved as he aged. These three symphonies date from the 1820s, and reveal a composer moving comfortably within the classical style (of which he was a charter member, let’s not forget), but extending its expressive range through vivid orchestration and an expanded harmonic vocabulary. In its rhythms and frequent alternation between major and minor modes, his music also sounds recognizably Czech. Consider the dance movements in each of these three symphonies. Although he calls them “Menuetto,” they are true scherzos (sound clip), full of harmonic and rhythmic audacities. You won’t find Beethoven’s bigness of vision here, but then you don’t find that anywhere else either. In all other respects, these are outstandingly fine works.

The symphonies have been recorded previously (most of them, anyway), but these versions from Howard Griffiths are exemplary in their stylishness and alertness to every nuance that Krommer asks for. The findings of the period instrument movement manifest in the generally swift tempos and incisive accents, but this never becomes a fetish. Excellent engineering makes this release utterly irresistible. We badly need a systematic critical edition of Krommer’s works, accompanied by a wide ranging series of recordings. In the meantime, grab this and marvel.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

Sunhae I'm's uniquely enthralling voice and her extraordinary stage presence have made her one of the world's leading sopranos in the opera and concert fields. "Ravishing" - this is how the Neue Z�rcher Zeitung described her very special voice. Under the title of Didone abbandonata she now interprets opera arias and cantatas for CPO, some of them with strings, others with continuo, by Niccol� Jommelli Giovanni Ristori, Johann Adolph Hasse, Nicola Antonio Porpora, and other composers. She is accompanied by Teatro del Mondo, an ensemble that has set itself the task of performing Baroque music tracing it's origins to changing times. Dido, the Queen of Carthage who fell in love with Aeneas but whom he then left behind on his voyage from Troy to Rome, is one of the great tragic female figures of antiquity. Operas and some cantatas such as those by Ristori and Faggioli attest to the timeless fascination of this story and to it's significance for the Italian Baroque opera.

Classical Music

The String Symphonies are among Mendelssohn’s very early works begun at the astonishing age of twelve years old. By then, he was already prodigious in his output along with regularly presenting in public parlor recitals in his home. The sterling L’Orfeo Barockorchester led by conductor and founder Michi Gaigg present a captivatingly dynamic and vibrant reading of the first six of these preternaturally mature works.

On its brand-new second Graupner album the Kirchheimer BachConsort performs solo and dialogue cantatas by this composer who always met the highest standards of his times. Graupner sought opportunities for original expression and was open to the latest developments and to unfamiliar instruments. With his inexhaustible imagination he was able to create cantatas rich in contrasts and with variability, originality, diversified instrumentation, special tone color opulence, intelligent voice leading, and drama schooled on the opera as their hallmarks. The interplay of the vocal and instrumental parts is also a special feature of his music. In the introduction to his Hymnbook published in 1728 Graupner emphasized what in his view was the most important task facing a composer: “Edifying words in a song make an even deeper impression on human hearts when the meaning and message of the text, as it were, are vividly presented through the music with carefully considered and select expressions. And this is the noblest thing in every composition in which specific texts and words are prescribed.” In his cantatas Graupner succeeded in employing purposeful musical affections to illustrate and represent the texts. For him there was no difference between secular and sacred music; he knew how to engage in skillful negotiations between these two genres.