Classical Music

Because it's the most immediately accessible of the piano disc's works, let's begin with this two-piano version of Rzewski's hard-driving, viscerally affecting Winnshoro Cotton Mill Blues of 1980. (For the original, spectacularly recorded solo assault, see hatART 6089, North American Ballads & Squares, Frederic Rzewski performing.) The piece pictures its subject, a cotton mill at full tilt, as handily as any tone poem I can think of, working itself thence into a neat transition to the eponymous job-lament dating from the 1930s ("Old man Sargent, sittin' at his desk I The damned old fool won't give us a rest I He'd take the nickels offa dead man's eyes . . . ").

Night Crossing with Fisherman (1994), for two pianos (Ursula Oppens is the dedicatee), isn't quite as thematically coherent as its title suggests. The work divides into three parts, "Night," a moody introspection for piano solo; the aptly titled "Crossing," for two pianos in intense conversation; and "Fisherman," for piano solo and Rzewski's recitation of a passage from the Arabian Nights (politically relevant, of course) about a fisherman who labors through the night for a man asleep. (Presumably it is Oppens who takes the "Night" solo.)

Winnshoro Cotton Mill Blues makes its mark by kicking subtlety out the door. By contrast, Ludes I and 2, of 12 short pieces each (the longest, 1:41, the shortest, 0:38), insinuate themselves into one's affections, playful, will-o'-the-wisp creatures that they are, by degree. Rzewski does an excellent, often fascinating job of explaining his music's background and form. So I won't trouble to summarize his "how these delights came about." Suffice that they range widely in substance and mood, happily short of Rzewski's affection for maul-driven social panaceas.

-- Mike Silverton, FANFARE

Few pianists can equal Charles Rosen for sheer lucidity of thought... the playing is big and confident (nothing frail about Rosen's vision of Chopin). Then, too, his fastidious attention to detail—especially his rhythmic acuity and his scrupulous inner lines—often lights up the music in revealing ways (note how he puts into relief the dotted gestures in the Polonaise-fantaisie). And his sympathy for the avant-garde carries over to the finale of the Second Sonata, which has rarely had its modernistic spirit so persuasively conveyed.

-- Peter J. Rabinowitz, FANFARE [1/1991]

"Some consider Arrau’s live Beethoven sonata performances superior to the studio versions. In the later sonatas, Arrau himself alluded to the fact that an improvisatory approach was required which was difficult to achieve within a recording studio. Of op. 111, Jonathan Summers says in his booklet note that ‘as we near the close...we realise we've been transported to another world by Arrau’. This 1960 Stockholm recording, with Arrau at his career peak, is extremely rare and has never been issued."

Classical Music

Dussek: Duos for 2 Fortepianos

Harpsichord Recital: Willi, Barbara Maria - BACH, J.S. / COU

Classical Music

Classical Music

"Bavouzet’s Haydn is unmatched in its zest and its wit. But it is also substantial, informed and deeply rewarding."

--The New York Times on Bavouzet's Haydn Sonatas cycle, 2022

The multi-award winning and ever-popular Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is back with Volume 2 of Chandos' highly acclaimed Haydn Sonata series. This new release follows Bavouzet's complete Debussy cycle and a number of recent concerto recordings - all of which have been extraordinarily well received by critics and audiences alike, picking up numerous awards along the way.

Many leading pianists have tackled these at times technically challenging classical sonatas by Haydn, but in Bavouzet's own words, this is a composer who always left the door open for new interpretations: 'One often forgets how little information Haydn left in the text of his keyboard works: few instructions on nuance and phrasing, and very minimal tempo indications. Playing them is all the more fascinating for that, but it is also arduous and even risky for the performer, who must, even more than usual, create his or her own world and internal logic, only hoping - in the absence of tangible proof - that he or she is not straying too far from the composer's intentions, forever out of reach.'

For the recording Bavouzet brought in a specially selected Yamaha piano which he feels gives the sort of tonal quality he is looking for, and it shows in the programme for Volume 2 which includes the elegantly virtuosic Sonata in E minor, No. 19; Sonata in B flat major, No. 20; Sonata in G minor, No. 32; Sonata in C major, No. 48, and Sonata in D major, No. 50.

REVIEWS

Though better known in French repertory, Mr Bavouzet has begun an exploration of Haydn’s long-underrated sonatas. The first installment was dazzling, and the second is too: crisp and detailed. Mr Bavouzet’s slow movements are particularly memorable; he shows instinctive feeling for the way this music breathes.

--New York Times (Zachary Woolfe)

This second volume in Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s Haydn sonata is every bit as outstanding as the first…the sonics are as brilliant and natural as the playing. A wonderful recital, from first note to last.

--ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

The Heifetz Collection, Vol. 46 - The Final Recital

Zara Nelsova's technical facility along with a strong stage presence commanded attention and with the younger Jacqueline du Pre, together they formed a vanguard that forever breached gender stereotypes. Made in the period between 1956 and 1965, these recordings from the archives of RIAS Berlin range far and wide, including the Cello Concertos by Darius Milhaud and Dmitri Kabalevsky, works previously unreleased and Nelsova's first commercial recordings of this repertoire. This 4 CD boxed set spotlights the importance of her pivotal legacy. With Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and conductors Georg Ludwig Jochum and Gerd Albrecht.

Classical Music

FRANCK COMPLETE ORGAN WORKS • Hans-Eberhard Roß (org) • AUDITE 21413 (6 CDs: 411:46)


When it comes to the organ, I think it’s safe to say that César Franck is the most important composer since Bach, and here we have a survey of Franck’s organ music so complete that it would take an entire page to list the entire contents of these six discs in standard Fanfare headnote format. In fact, there’s not another collection in existence this complete—not Jean Guillou’s, Marie-Claire Alain’s, Anthony Newman’s, or anyone else’s—since whole discs full of items here are flagged as being premiere recordings, premiere recordings for organ, premiere complete recordings, or premiere complete recordings for organ. So, I have decided to describe the set’s contents on a disc-by-disc basis. Let me forewarn the reader, though, that this is a release dedicated to the doggedly determined among lovers of organ music in general and Franck’s organ music in particular.


Organist Hans-Eberhard Roß performs all 142 pieces on a single instrument, the Goll organ at St. Martin’s Church in Memmingen, Germany. I haven’t been able to find any detailed information on the organ builder, but the enclosed booklet gives the following specifications for the organ: built in 1998, it has four manuals plus pedal, controlling 62 registers. The recordings were made between 2004 and 2005 and were originally released in three two-disc sets in SACD. The boxed-up, six-disc set that came to me for review was on standard, two-channel CDs.


One criticism I will lodge about the presentation is this: the track listings for every piece give the date it was composed, the date it was published, and which of nine editions Roß uses. This last bit of information about the editions may be of interest to the musicologist or scholar studying Franck’s organ works, but more interesting to the general listener, I think, would have been a concordance of stops and registrations used for each piece, something I’ve seen in the notes to other organ recordings, and something that ought, I think, to be material to an undertaking of this seriousness.


Disc 1 starts off with a first-time recording of Pièce en mi bémol ; i.e., Piece in E?. Of course, you’d have to listen to it to know if it was major or minor, but I’ll save you the effort. It’s more or less both, opening with a chord progression that eerily anticipates the ear-curling pronouncement at the beginning of Poulenc’s Organ Concerto. This is followed by another early work, Pièce pour Grand Orgue . It’s not asterisked as a premiere recording but is nonetheless absent from current listings except for this version. Several more early works fill the first disc, all dating from between 1854 and 1856. There are five pieces by Franck originally written for harmonium and transcribed for organ by Louis Vierne, and this is their first time on record. Also a first on record is a first version of a Fantaisie in C Major. Its second version, apparently not a first on record, is also included on the disc. Roß, himself, has transcribed the harmonium piece, Quasi Marcia , op. 22, and plays it here for the first time on organ.


If it’s mainly a CD of Franck’s big organ hits you want, you would be happy with just disc 2. They’re all there in one place: the Fantaisie in C Major, op. 16, the Grand Pièce Symphonique , op. 17, the Prélude, Fugue, et Variation , op. 18, the Pastorale , op. 19, Prière , op. 20, and Final, op. 21.


Disc 3 contains no fewer than 39 short pieces collected under the heading of Posthumous Pieces for Harmonium or Organ with Pedal for L’Office Ordinaire . This spills over onto disc 4, which contains another seven pieces that are part of the same collection. The fourth disc is then filled out by Three Pieces for Grand Organ , a Petit Offertoire , and an Untitled piece, that last two of which were both originally for harmonium. The entire contents of discs 3 and 4, with the exception of the Three Pieces for Grand Organ , are flagged with three asterisks (***), referencing the fact that they are heard here for the first time complete on organ.


Disc 5 and almost all of disc 6 are occupied by Franck’s answer to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier , the sets of Pieces for Organ or Harmonium. The number seven must have held some mystical significance for Franck because there are nine sets of these pieces, each containing seven numbers, beginning with 7 Pieces in C Major and C Minor , progressing to 7 Pieces in D?-Major and C?-Minor , then to 7 Pieces in D Major and D Minor , which he subtitles, Pour le temps de Noël , and so on. The cycle stops after the 7 Pieces in A?-Major and G?-Minor , leaving the keys of A, B?, and B unexplored. There’s nothing mysterious or supernatural about the reason; Franck died before he was able to finish the project. The entirety of the Pieces for Organ or Harmonium is also thrice asterisked, meaning this is its first complete recording on organ. The final disc in the set concludes with the 3 Chorales for Grand Organ.


At first, I was a bit skeptical of how Franck’s organ music would sound on a modern, German-built instrument. It’s difficult to disassociate these works from the Cavaillé-Coll organs that inspired them. Much of this music, in fact, was composed during Franck’s tenure as organist and maître de chapelle at Sainte-Clotilde between 1858 and 1872. Of the three-manual plus pedal Cavaillé-Coll organ installed in the church, Franck is quoted as saying, “If you only knew how I love this instrument . . . it is so supple beneath my fingers and so obedient to all my thoughts.”


Concluding the 63-page booklet note by Martin Weyer (translated by Viola Scheffel) is a lengthy apologia in defense of playing these works on a Goll organ. The author twists himself in knots talking about the historical period-instrument movement and then tries to turn the argument on its head by explaining why this modern Goll instrument is an appropriate substitute for a Cavaillé-Coll organ and Franck’s music. “Upon hearing the instrument,” Weyer contends, “one will discover a lot of similarities to the sort of instrument that Franck found inspiring.” One could counter that many an organist has recorded Franck’s organ works on authentic Cavaillé-Coll instruments, and that if organist Hans-Eberhard Roß had betaken himself to France to make these recordings, he could have done likewise. But, as far as I’m concerned, the point is irrelevant. Roß is a consummately accomplished player who uses the richly variegated palette of the Goll organ to paint Franck’s pieces in an amazing array of tonal color combinations both bright and subtle, and the acoustic of Memmingen’s St. Martin church, perfectly captured by Audite’s engineers, is ideal. Franck and Cavaillé-Coll are nodding their heads in approval.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

In the 1950's, John Cage tried to make the genesis of his compositions dependent on random processes. Several years later this randomness of the compositional process was reflected in the indeterminacy of the performance, with the aim of separating the compositional design from the interpretive result. Solo for Piano comprises 63 pages with 84 different types of graphical structures, which, due to their shape, are reminiscent of musical notation, but on the other hand, represent no clearly reproducible notes. Here, the notation is modified into a kind of "proposal" for the performer; thus, all kinds of implementation of the score are infinitely possible. On this disc from Wergo, pianist Sabine Liebner presents her own unique interpretation of Cage's musical proposal.

The first two volumes in this series -the only one ever recorded with the same pianist playing all works - met with high critical acclaim. Jonathan Woolf wrote in MusicWeb International "...beautifully played, and recorded, the first box in Music & Arts' series [CD-1236] is profoundly impressive." And Jed Distler wrote in Gramophone: "My review of Volume I praised Grante's thoughtful virtuosity and stylistic insights, together with his wide range of agogic stresses, articulations and embellishments, not to mention an acute sense of textural diversity an registral differentiation that have as much to do with Grante as with the vintage Bösendorfer grand used. These words apply even more to Volume 2 [CD-1242] where Grante's highly detaile fingerwork goes right to the heart of each sonata's character." " "Sales Inventory

FARWELL Dawn, op. 12. Tone Pictures after Pastels in Prose, op. 7. Polytonal Studies, op. 100: Series II. Mesa and Plain, op. 20/2: Pawnee Horses • Lisa Cheryl Thomas (pn) • TOCCATA 0222 (65:03)


I reviewed Volume One of this Farwell series in Fanfare 36:5, where I gave background details for this composer and concluded with the statement that the second volume was awaited with enthusiasm. Here it is, full of delights. Lisa Cheryl Thomas provides excellent and detailed booklet notes. Farwell’s op. 12 Dawn (1902) reflects the importance held by Native Indians for the rising of the sun. Here Farwell quotes two melodies from the Nebraska Omaha tribe. It is played with great affection and confidence by Lisa Cheryl Thomas. The recording captures her lovely round sound well; it also supports the levels of detail she finds, and her clear mastery of voice-leading.


The nine movements of Tone Pictures after Pastels in Prose (1895) are inspired by prose poems of Theodore de Barville, Baudelaire, Charles Bernard, and Judith Gautier. Quotations are included in the helpful booklet, along with descriptions of the music. The decidedly Chopinesque third piece (“The Stranger,” after Baudelaire) is most effective, with a left-hand singing melody that seems evocative of the cello (the booklet rightly links it to Chopin’s Étude op. 25/7). Thomas brings the sort of adult knowing to childhood wonder that makes one posit she would be an excellent Kinderszenen interpreter to this music, particularly perhaps “Indifference to the Lures of Spring” (after Gautier). There is indeed a marked spirit of reflection through most of these pieces, a mood that Thomas captures to perfection. Her right hand cantabile is particularly attractive.


The arrival of the Polytonal Studies, composed between 1940 and 1952, brings a marked change in style. It also continues on from Volume One, which presented the first 11: here is Nos. 12 through 26. The more progressive harmonic language seems to draw depth from Farwell’s pen. There is a delicious Stravinskian tinge to the B-Minor/G-Minor (No. 14), a sort of two-part of invention, a trait that recurs in the D-Minor/E-Minor (No. 16), although here the music seems to strain to return to a purer Bachian mode of expression. The C-Minor/E?-Minor (No. 15) has a reflective quality that almost at times tends towards the blues. The more extended studies last around five minutes, and in the case of No. 18 (F-Minor/F?-Minor), this results in a miniature tone poem. The grand No. 19 (G-Minor/B-Minor) comes as a surprise. The opening implies a full scale transcription of a Bach organ prelude and fugue (although true fugue-like writing only arrives in No. 21, the B?-Minor/G-Minor): Thomas in her notes posits links in No. 19 to Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev (and indeed a Russian tinge creeps in as the music progresses).


Native American rhythms (and harmonies) permeate the final offering, “Pawnee Horses” (1905). It seems as if though piece acts as summary of the heart of Farwell’s music, and makes the perfect close to the disc.


FANFARE: Colin Clarke

On this CD, "Zyklus für einen Schlagzeuger" ["Cycle for One Percussionist"] can be heard in two different versions performed by two different performers, Max Neuhaus and Christoph Caskel. Stockhausen originally wrote it as a required piece for the Kranichstein Percussion Competition in 1959. He deliberately did not determine the length of the piece's performance, so as not to be overly specific concerning the work's multiplicity of meanings, the different characters of various performances, or the technical abilities of the players. Max Neuhaus, for example, tried to find the best possible positions or arrangement of the individual instruments relative to each other to form them into one "instrument". In addition, he developed his own playing techniques specially adapted to the piece and instrument. For "Klavierstück X", Stockhausen combined two extremes: The work is based on the attempt to mediate between relative disorder and order, chaos and balance. The interpretation on this CD was performed by the legendary pianist Frederic Rzewski.

Czech-born composer Antoine Reicha (1770-1836) was an extremely influential influence on composers of the late 19th century. His own compositions, however, fell into obscurity in the shadows of his contemporaries Haydn and Beethoven. This release, compiling Reicha’s complete piano works, displays his usage of both Baroque compositional practices and of compositional practices that would look forward into the twentieth century. An international authority on the piano works of Reicha, Henrik Lowenmark is a Stockholm-based musician who is active as a solo artist, accompanist, and chamber musician.

A contemporary and friend of Rachmaninov, Medtner and other major composer-pianists, Konstantin Romanovich Eiges (1875-1950), was a member of a gifted eastern Ukrainian Jewish family. His music bears the impress of his teacher Taneyev and of Scriabin and has points in common with his aforementioned friends, but deserves to be remembered in it's own right. This first-ever CD dedicated to this unjustly forgotten musical figure features Jonathan Powell, who knows Russian piano music of this period like few other musicians and has a reputation for tackling music of enormous difficulty.

Of the three pianist-composers represented here as composers only Levitzki and Friedman have an extensive recorded legacy as executants. By comparison Gabrilowitsch, who also conducted the Detroit Symphony, seems to have been neglected when it came to the recording studio. Levitzki commanded his own series on Naxos (Volume 1 ~ Volume 2 ~ Volume 3) while the same label also celebrated Friedman with similar splendor (Volume 1 ~ Volume 2 ~ Volume 3 ~ Volume 4).

Trust Toccata Classics to approach these three names from one of the golden ages of pianism from an unaccustomed angle. All three wrote piano music under the nurturing that being a great world-touring pianist brings. Levitzki's haughty Valse de concert - one of many waltzes from his pen - has plenty of sentimental fancy in play. There's a touching Valse in A Major, a slow motion swirling Arabesque Valsante and a nice Valse Tzigane. The dance theme continues with a Meissen china Gavotte, a trilling and tear-unfocused Enchanted Nymph and a Dance of the Doll that bears the stamp of ragtime.

There's not a lot of Gabrilowitsch but it is classy. The Romance is touching and perfumed with a romance that sweeps along in Chopin-like grandeur. A deliberate pulse is often favored and this seems to imply cool calculation rather than anything impulsive. The Gavotte, rather like the one by Levitzki, has a predictably antique surface. The Feuillet is successful - a vehicle for the finer emotions; nothing cheap and nothing melodramatic.

I was less impressed with the Friedman arrangements. The four offered up seem prettified and of them only the Couperin, with its grace-note delights and ice-palace fantasy, holds the attention. The disc concludes with no fewer than eleven original works by Friedman. The four Preludes are impressive: No. 1: subtle with delicately chiming dissonances and a sleepy sign-off; No. 2: alive with swirling activity; No. 3: bell-tower Rachmaninov echoes but too short-breathed and No. 4: a quick pulsed and capricious brevity. The selection of Études include a trillingly liquid charmer (No.1 ), an exercise in rapid tremolo (No. 2), a luxuriously emotional essay presented in velvet (No. 4), a sentimental Allegro, con abandono (No. 9), a Godowsky-style study in decorative intricacy, a stormy tempest of the heart, very much in the Rachmaninovian manner (No. 11); likewise the final one (No. 16).

This very well-packed CD is further evidence that Toccata continues to enrich the classical listening experience with unexpected perspectives. Where Toccata lead others may follow. Not everything from these three contemporaries has striking musical substance but there is much to impress and where it does not impress it certainly delights.

– MusicWeb International (Rob Barnett)

Now almost entirely forgotten, Adolf Jensen (1837-79), one of the major figures of German Romanticism, composed a large corpus of songs and piano music in a language fusing the heritage of Schumann, Chopin and Liszt into an individual style distinguished by it's melodic and lyrical appeal. This first in an important, new series of recordings of Jensen's music features Erling R. Eriksen, Prof. Of piano in the Dept. Of Music and Dance at the Univ. Of Stavanger (Norway). The extensive booklet notes are by one of the experts on 19th c. piano music, Rohan Stewart-McDonald.

Includes work(s) by Franz Tunder. Soloist: Bernard Foccroulle.

Chopin: Scherzos & Mazurkas