The American John Holmquist's performing honors include first prize and a standing ovation at the prestigious Guitar International Competition in Toronto, and a Solo Recitalist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. John Holmquist was the first person to edit the recently rediscovered Ten Etudes for guitar by Giulio Regondi. Unearthed in a private collection in Moscow by Matanya Ophee and published by Editions Orphee, these compositions are held to represent one of the most significant finds in the guitar literature this century. John Holmquist subsequently recorded the manuscript for Naxos.

Chopin, F.: Piano Works - 24 Preludes, Op. 28 / Nocturnes /

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Because John Adams' small yet substantial solo and duo piano output, succinctly described by my colleague Victor Carr Jr, has been so well served on disc, each new release necessarily becomes more vulnerable to comparison. Fortunately, pianist Ralph van Raat displays an innate affinity for the composer's idioms, be it China Gates' lyric beauty, Phrygian Gates' stamina-testing epic sprawl, or American Berserk's thorny, Ives-inspired ragtime allusions. Next to Gloria Cheng's chamber-like refinement and Emanuele Arciuli's extraordinary variety of color and touch, van Raat treats Phrygian Gates as an out-and-out virtuoso vehicle, with plenty of paragraphic sweep and brawny, roof-raising climaxes. Relate Cheng to Kempff, Arciuli to Michelangeli, and van Raat to Gilels, and you'll get my point.

Hallelujah Junction, with Maarten van Veen at the second piano, splits the difference between the aggressive, generously pedaled Andrew Russo/James Ehnes (Black Box) and the much leaner, crystal-clear Rolf Hind/Nicolas Hodges (Nonesuch) recordings. The ethereal impression van Raat conveys in China Gates' opening pages may have something to do with Naxos' slightly distant pickup, in contrast to the full-bodied detail BIS provides Jenny Lin's marvelous interpretation. Although I have yet to meet a China Gates recording I didn't like, on Nonesuch Nicolas Hodges' basic fast tempo and easily lilting inner rhythms appeal to me most of all.

To sum up, you can't go wrong with van Raat's strong performances, plus Naxos' modest cost and decent sonics. Just be aware that the more expensive Nonesuch reference compilation duplicates this repertoire in better sound, and adds a splendid performance of Road Games for violin and piano.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Continuing its work with the rising stars of the early music world, CORO is delighted to present its second recording with one of The Sixteen Orchestra's principal members - Robert Quinney. This album, which was recorded at Trinity College, Cambridge, on the beautiful Metzler Organ, features a number of virtuosic works from Bach's early years including one of the most famous pieces of organ music in the repertory - the Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565). The disc also includes the Toccata and Fugue in F (BWV 540) and the Passacaglia (BWV 582) - one of Bach's most well-known and important organ works. Robert Schumann described the variations of Passacaglia as 'intertwined so ingeniously that one can never cease to be amazed.'

SILVIUS LEOPOLD WEISS Jakob Lindberg, 13-course baroque lute. SILVIUS LEOPOLD WEISS - LUTE MUSIC II: Sonata No. 39 in C major;Tombeau sur la Mort de M. Comte de Logy; Sonata No. 50 in B flatmajor.

The second volume in what one hopes will be a complete Brahms piano music cycle from Jonathan Plowright charges from the starting gate with engines ablaze and fingers primed for action. In other words, behold the most incisive, dramatic, and multi-dimensional account of the composer’s Piano Sonata No. 2 on disc since Katchen and Arrau!

Part of the excitement lies in the pianist’s absolute rather than approximate observation of Brahms’ difficult-to-execute articulation marking in the first-movement exposition, the vivacity and point of his arpeggiated chords, and his ability to project the keyboard writing’s textural mass with minimum pedal and equal attention between registers. Using very little rubato, Plowright conveys the Andante’s “con espressione” largely through minute dynamic gradations and quality of touch. He makes effortless light of the Scherzo’s rapid broken chords while insightfully contouring the finale’s imitative right-hand writing against leaner than usual left-hand pedal-points. In the Op. 21 No. 1 Thema, Plowright’s straightforward tempo anchors all sorts of delicious inflections and altered voicings, although the variations themselves cohere by virtue of the pianist’s tightly-knit tempo relationships and relative simplicity from an expressive standpoint.

The three Op. 117 Intermezzi are no less masterful. Plowright plays No. 1 with a kind of classical understatment that avoids underlining the central section’s across-the-barline phrasings and lush harmonies. By contrast, No. 2 is measured, rounded, and more wistful in relation to the faster, business-like interpretations many younger pianists favor. Rather than veil No. 3’s unison opening in mystery, Plowright parks it in neutral, so to speak, with little hint at the more impassioned than usual major-key climax just around the bend.

If the Op. 4 Scherzo’s opening motive is not so characterfully spelled out as in the old Backhaus, Friedberg, and Kempff recordings, Plowright’s awesome legato control and supple rhythmic sense convey a lithe, elfin shimmer rarely heard in this score. Malcolm McDonald’s terrific booklet notes and BIS’s bracing surround-sound engineering are worthy of their own review. Even in a catalog packed to the rafters with great Brahms piano recordings, this stunning release should not be missed.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

With a flourishing international concert career and an acclaimed discography, Freddy Kempf has become firmly established among the top pianists of today. His very first disc, at the age of 22, was a Schumann recital that made reviewers around the world sit up and take notice.

Kempf now returns to Schumann, with these three solo piano works. The Études symphoniques is one of Schumann’s most imposing piano works and is played here in its 1852 version, with the additional five variations (later published by Brahms) and the third and ninth études from the 1837 edition. This really gives the listener an opportunity to hear this work in all its glory. 

REVIEW:

There is real beauty to Kempf's sound, especially in the lyrical moments of the Fantasiestucke, and careful, intelligent voicing of the very contrapuntal Etudes Symphoniques...there's also rewarding flair which never seems to exist for its own sake, but pursues a larger total impression.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Previously available on six single CDs, BIS offers Ronald Brautigam's Mozart Sonata cycle in one package. While the music easily could have fit on five discs, you still get six for the price of three. It's wonderfully worth it. To be sure, Brautigam's Paul McNulty fortepiano (modeled after an Anton-Gabriel Walter instrument circa 1795) doesn't match the timbral differentiation between registers we often encounter from other fortepianos. It has the advantage, however, of a clear, resonant sound and, praise be, it holds its tuning. Brautigam's imaginative interpretations capture Mozart's many moods, from the gallant style of the six earliest sonatas to the tensile drama and operatic leanings of the A minor (K. 310) and C minor Fantasia and Sonata (K. 457 and 475). Sometimes Brautigam's tapered diminuendos seem a bit arch and unnatural. At least his occasional mannerisms don't emerge as interpretive tics. If you're looking for a reasonably priced Mozart Sonata cycle played on a period instrument, look no further. Excellent sound and annotations, too. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

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


In the early days of CDs, it always was cause for special comment in reviews (and a high rating for sound!) whenever you came across a recording so realistic and natural it seemed as if the performer was right there in the room with you. This disc would have received that production accolade, and happily gets similarly high marks for its first rate, reference-quality performances.

This is certainly not the first time Bach’s suites for solo cello have been performed on viola–a perfectly natural adaptation and transposition, the viola strings identically configured, their tuning an octave higher than the cello–and while there’s no definitive version of the score, there are contemporary copies of these pieces that enable an arranger/adapter such as Simon Rowland-Jones (in this case) to create a performing edition that’s both faithful to Bach and idiomatic to the instrument in question.

And speaking of faithful, violist Maxim Rysanov plays with a respect for the score–no distracting affectations here!–but also distinguishing his interpretations with a well-considered assertiveness in tone and articulation that confirms the viola’s voice as, if not equal in depth and sheer sonic power to that of the cello, at least as technically impressive and musically satisfying. Rysanov performs these three suites on his 1780 Guadagnini viola, and proudly explains his decision to perform Suite No. 6, originally written for a five-stringed instrument, in its original key–D major–in spite of the difficulty this presents for a player on a four-string viola. (This same approach was successfully executed by violist Patricia McCarty in her viola-traversal of the cello suites for Ashmont several years ago–read review here).

That “up-close and realistic” digital sound we marveled at back in the 1980s often had one drawback, due to the newness of the technology, or simply to the ignorance or unawareness of the production team: along with the timbral realism of the strings or flute or piano or whatever came the presence of the equally, frighteningly natural breathing and wheezing and occasional humming and groaning of the performer, or the clicking and clacking of valves or keys, not to mention the squeaking and screeching of fingers sliding on guitar strings. Thankfully, although we do occasionally hear evidence of Rysanov’s physical, breath-taking existence, it’s minimally distracting (unless you choose to clap on the headphones and turn up the volume).

Rysanov recorded the other three suites for BIS on an earlier CD, and it’s clear that in these confident, exemplary readings he confirms these works as legitimate viola concert pieces rather than simply useful studies or “borrowed” material for an instrument short on its own substantive solo repertoire. In fact, in Bach’s own time and place, “authentic” Bach sometimes meant recycled, re-purposed Bach–keyboard concertos from violin concertos; mass movements from cantata movements; sacred works from secular ones. The idea of making transcriptions or arrangements of Bach is as old as the composer himself.

Many violists besides Rysanov have taken on the cello suites (in several different editions)–but of course this practice doesn’t stop with the viola: Bach made an arrangement of the C minor suite BWV 1011 for lute, and indeed the lute and guitar are the instruments of choice in many modern transcriptions. And the ready adaptability of these pieces to other instruments or ensemble forms isn’t confined to plucked and bowed strings–or even to the world of the traditional classical music stage. Let’s enjoy a great example, from the Gigue of the C major suite BWV 1009–an energetic, sometimes feisty little piece that brings out the livelier side of two very different interpreters: Rysanov with his solo viola, and the Swingle Singers of 1964. Whatever your preference, you have to agree–it’s Bach, and it works.

-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

C.P.E Bach's 'Zweyte Fortsetzung' Sonatas are a sequel to his famous Sonatas with Varied Reprises (1760). Of the six 'Fortsetzung' Sonatas, the first three appear here. The pre-sequel set had proven successful, possibly because it included written-out ‘improvisations’ for repeated sections - a feature, oddly, more or less absent from its two sequels. However, an alternative version exists of the first movement of Sonata No.3, which Miklós Spányi includes here, together with two unrelated 1760s sonatas. The second sequel also includes two stylistically contrasting 1740s era sonatas.

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

-----



The lute music from this period represents some of the best ever written for the instrument. Under Lindberg's fingers, and on his beloved Sixtus Rauwolf lute (c. 1590), even the relatively straightforward anonymous Scottish pieces included here are imbued with the same affecting lyricism he lavishes on the [other] works.

– Gramophone

***** (out of 5)
The sound of Jakob Lindberg's lute, made by Sixtus Rauwolf in the last decade of the 16th century, is unusually warm. A meticulously voiced recital that moves between court, theatre, and tavern. Lindberg conjures an age that was as perilous as it was rich in musical invention.

– BBC Music Magazine

JACOBEAN LUTE MUSIC • Jakob Lindberg (lt) • BIS 2055 (81:12)

Works by: DOWLAND, ROBINSON, R. JOHNSON, BACHELER, HELY, J. GAULTIER, ANONYMOUS

Jakob Lindberg here turns to familiar territory, and deals with it in exemplary, historically informed fashion. His phrasing is impeccable, and the articulation of multiple lines, always clear and balanced. Great reserves of color can be heard in the slower, longer works, such as the pavans by Robert Johnson and Danile Bacheler, while all the divisions in the many faster pieces are tossed off with deceptive ease, and on occasion, an appropriate dash of humor. Not the least of the disc’s charms is the program itself, cleverly varied by length, character, complexity, and textures over a succession of works.

In short, this is one of Lindberg’s most immediately accessible releases to date. I’ve heard him accused in the past of too great a sense of restraint, but never found this true, myself; and here there certainly is no room for that complaint. Without ever waxing sentimental, a rich vein of expressiveness should be obvious to all on this generously timed disc. Highly recommended.

FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Known particularly for his orchestral output – 16 symphonies and 21 concertos to date! – the Finnish composer Kalevi Aho was recently described in Gramophone as having ‘a strong claim to the title of greatest living symphonist’. But as followers of the ongoing releases of his music on BIS will know, Aho has also composed a large number of works for smaller forces – quartets and quintets, duos and solo pieces. On the present disc, the Finnish pianist Sonja Fräki presents his output for solo piano, comfortably fitting on one disc, but nevertheless spanning some 30 years of a long career. The disc in fact opens with Aho’s earliest published work, the Nineteen Preludes from 1965-68, written before the composer had begun any formal studies of either composition or the piaNo.There is even a first version of Prelude No.8 dating from 1963, when Kalevi Aho was in his early teens and was just beginning to teach himself the piano, writing music intended mainly as practice pieces for his own use. Since then Aho has composed for other budding pianists – the Two Easy Piano Pieces for Children and the Sonatina – but as in much of his other music, the works for piano display his characteristic fascination with the virtuosic and technically brilliant side of music-making. On the present disc, this quality comes to the fore in the Sonata, with its sparkling first movement and percussive, toccata-like second movement followed by a searching Tranquillo molto, characterized by a trill which continues almost without interruption throughout the movement. Commissioned as a set piece for a piano competition, Solo II is likewise a challenge for any pianist, and forms part of a series of big (roughly ten-minute) solo works for various instruments, of which several have been recorded by BIS.

A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month

This SACD from Pentatone showcases the Aeolian Op. 1785 of Duke University Chapel, built between 1931 and 1932. It boasts four manuals, 81 stops, 102 ranks and, as Mike Foley points out in his absorbing booklet essay, some of the largest-scaled pipes ever to leave the firm’s factory in Garwood, New Jersey. This was Aeolian’s last independent project – they were taken over by rivals Skinner in 1932 – but the Op. 1785 saga doesn’t end there. Thanks to a public outcry the organ was saved from replacement in the 1980s and restored by Foley-Baker Inc. in 2008.

Listening to this disc I can only say it would have been a tragedy to lose an instrument of this calibre. It’s played here by Christopher Jacobson FRCO, chapel organist and a widely travelled recitalist. The recording is by Soundmirror, the Boston-based company that’s become something of a byword for engineering excellence. Among their high-profile projects are the Rachmaninov All-Night Vigil with Charles Bruffy and his fine choirs (Chandos) and several well-reviewed recordings with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony (Reference Recordings). John Newton is the recording engineer on this release, with Mark Donahue responsible for mixing and mastering.

There’s no better curtain raiser than Finlandia, Sibelius’s stirring hymn to nascent nationhood. It’s given here in an arrangement by H. A. Fricker, who took over from William Spark as Civic Organist at Leeds Town Hall in 1898. He gave twice-weekly recitals on the hall’s Gray & Davison – free downstairs, 6d in the gallery – which, if his arrangement of this Sibelian showstopper is anything to go by, must have been hugely entertaining.

Jacobson’s account of the piece is huge too, but his playing is very well judged in terms of scale, articulation, rhythm and colour. As for the sound of this mighty beast it’s simply stupendous; the pedals – skull and rafter rattling – are probably as close to ‘being there’ as one’s ever likely to get, and the rest of the instrument’s range is just as well caught. Happily there’s no detail-obscuring echo and the wide, deep soundstage avoids the fatiguing ‘wall of sound’ that afflicts so many organ recordings. In any event this is a demonstration-quality track that’s will give your woofers a workout, impress your friends and annoy the neighbours.

That’s all very well, but albums such as this work best when the programme is varied in terms of scale, mood and style, each piece illuminating a different aspect of the organ’s character. The glorious surge and swell of Howells’ Rhapsody has never sounded so thrilling, its quieter passages so radiant. Then again this organ speaks with a warm, honest voice that suits this music very nicely. The ensuing excerpt from French composer-organist André Fleury’s Organ Symphony No. 2 shows just how clean-limbed this Aeolian is. What a delightful performance, brimming with quiet brilliance and firm but gentle rhythms.

The British composer-organist Edwin Lemare is probably best known for his transcriptions. Among the most popular and poignant of these is the Irish Tune from County Derry, immortalised as Danny Boy. My go-to version of the piece is on Warner-EMI’s Unforgettable Organ Classics, with Noel Rawsthorne at the organ of Coventry Cathedral. Poised, cleanly articulated and not at all sentimentalised that performance is hard to beat. As it happens heartfelt playing, apt registrations and a superb recording make Jacobson’s version very special too.

The most substantial work on this disc are the Trois Préludes et Fugues by the great French composer, organist and improviser Marcel Dupré. I’m more used to hearing these virtuoso pieces on a Cavaillé-Coll, but this awesome Aeolian certainly gives M. Aristide’s behemoths a run for their money. The contrapuntal writing is clear and well focused, as are those magnificent panoplies of sound. Perhaps others play the Op. 7 with a little more panache – daring, even – but Jacobson’s steady, thoughtful progress has its own rewards. Most important, perhaps, is that he scales and paces this music with great authority and skill.

After all that showmanship the lovely cadences of Vaughan Williams’ Rhosymedre (Lovely), based on a Welsh hymn tune by John David Edwards (1805-1885), find the organ at its full, open-hearted best. What a lovely, embraceable instrument this is, and how impeccably behaved. Even in ceremonial mode, as in Gloucester Cathedral organist and composer Herbert Brewer’s Marche Héroïque, this Aeolian processes with a quiet dignity that’s so utterly British. Once again the recording team capture all the fanfare and unfettered dynamics of this extraordinary instrument.

That’s followed by something very different: Jesus Loves Me, US composer William Bolcom’s spare but rather affecting take on the well-known children’s hymn. But this recital ends as it began with a guaranteed crowd-pleaser; it’s the French master Eugène Gigout’s Grand Chœur Dialogué in Scott McIntosh’s bold, bracing arrangement for organ and brass. The steel and sting of the Amalgam Ensemble makes for a thrilling contrast with the warm, weighty organ. What a knock-out; indeed, if an audience were present this spirited sign-off would surely elicit a spontaneous roar of approbation.

Goodness, I haven’t enjoyed an organ recital so much since Reference Recordings’ Organ Polychrome. A fabulous instrument, superbly played and recorded; an absolute must for organ fans.

– MusicWeb International (Dan Morgan)

Allan Pettersson is best known, even notorious in some circles, for having composed some of the bleakest symphonic music of the post-war era, especially those works cast in a single, uninterrupted movement filling a vast, grim canvass. Among his earliest mature compositions, however, stands this remarkable cycle of seven sonatas for two violins, all written in 1951. These are compact works ranging from three-and-a-half to 13 minutes in length. Each foam at the mouth with nervous, creative energy and relentless virtuosic demands. Folk-related themes plus fingerprint ostinatos and repeated notes morph into twisted images in a room full of fun house mirrors. Shrieking glissandos and stabbing pizzicatos spruce up Pettersson's visionary string deployment, which often gives the illusion of more than a mere pair of fiddlers. For the most part, Martin and Cecilia Gelland bring out the music's unbridled, daring aspects to more cogent effect than the Grünfarb/Mannberg violin duo that pioneered the sonatas in the late 1970s on the Caprice label. Some listeners, though, may prefer the earlier duo's suaver and steadier opening in the First Sonata. A group of violin/piano miniatures fills out the disc. These early, brooding character pieces are both somber and fragile, and are sensitively played by Martin Gelland and pianist Lennart Wallin. There's little to choose between Wallin's stark reading of Petterson's 1945 Lamento and Volker Banfield's slightly more animated, flowing version on CPO. Alexander Keuk's clear and useful annotations will appeal to curious Pettersson neophytes. If you've never encountered Pettersson's uncompromising brand of modernism, the sonatas for two violins are the best place to start. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

SCHUMANN Waldszenen, Op. 82; Symphonische Etüden, Op. 13; Arabeske, Op. 18 • Martin Helmchen (pn) • PENTATONE 5186 452 (SACD: 60:52)


Martin Helmchen is a name which is probably new to no one: He has won numerous awards (including first prize in the Clara Haskil Competition in 2001), has worked with numerous illustrious orchestras, among them the Deutsche Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, and various chamber orchestras around Europe, with such master conductors as Marek Janowski, Philippe Herreweghe, Valery Gergiev, and Bernhard Klee. He has partnered in chamber music recitals with Boris Pergamenschikow, Heinrich Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Daniel Hope, and Lars Vogt, among many others. He is, in other words, a fabulous instrumentalist. And that is clear from the current recital.


The opening Waldszenen is for me the highlight of the disc. Here Helmchen is calm and reserved for the most part: The Eintritt here acts as not just an entranceway into the piece, but into the program as a whole. Oddly, when comparing it to Volodos’s version on his live recital from Vienna, Volodos seems to shade more sweetly than does Helmchen, but Helmchen does not see the piece in the same way: Here he captures an amazing simplicity akin to the C-Major Prelude in Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book I. His continuity of sound is entrancing. Verrufene Stelle evokes perfectly the odd, almost twisted quality of those ill-reputed places which Schumann musically describes so perfectly. Of course the highlight for most people is the strange and enigmatic Vogel als Prophet . While there is hardly a pianist out there capable of attaining the magical atmosphere of this piece as well as Alfred Cortot did, Helmchen does as admirable a job as many. The chorale-like middle section sounds as odd in this performance as it should, stopping the piece in midtrack, appearing and then disappearing just as quickly. The Symphonische Etüden, performed here with the five Anhang variations interspersed throughout the cycle, works well: The extra variations seem as though they truly belong to the cycle. It is far more satisfying to hear them this way than performed together at the conclusion of the opus proper. Here Helmchen alters his sound to fit his conception of the work. This is no longer light-hearted fare. This is as heavy and brooding as Schumann gets. And perhaps Helmchen here plays the work a bit too poised, too “normal” for my tastes. I tend to like my Schumann ever more schizophrenic in its rhythmic intricacies and eccentric in its numerous sforzandi . Helmchen plays the work a bit lighter than I would like, making it sound almost like Mendelssohn, yet there are moments when this works beautifully: Etude III and even Variation V sound as though they are lost parts of Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses here. The C-Major Arabeske brings us back to the light-hearted world of the opening, acting as both conclusion and encore. The pianist plays it simply: smooth, flowing, and tender. With bonus SACD quality sound, PentaTone has done it again. This one’s a keeper.


FANFARE: Scott Noriega

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Brahms: Four-Hand Piano Music, Vol. 8

Brahms: Four-Hand Piano Music, Vol. 6