From the start, it was literature and poetry which stimulated Schumann. His music is poetic, narrative and descriptive. Schumann preferred small forms, individual pieces that he often compiled into sets like the Intermezzi, Impromptus, Albumbletter and Kinderszenen, as well as the Fantasiestucke presented on this recording.

Kaikhosro Shapurji Sorabji is known as a composer whose pursuit of extremes resulted in vast works such as his Opus Clavicembalisticum which, for many years, was acknowledged as the world's longest non-repetitive piano work. More important is his music's unique and satisfying beauty. From the mystical impressionism of earlier 'nocturnal' pieces to the awe-inspiring energy and massive climaxes of his later work, Sorabji's legacy is one which is increasingly appreciated as a unique contribution to 20th century music. Michael Habermann's now legendary recordings gained Sorabji's exclusive approval, breaking through the notorious ban he had placed on performances of his own work.

CD with color book & posters

Scriabin: Piano Works

WEINBERG Piano Trio. 1,2,4 Sonatina for Violin and Piano. 1,3 Sonata for Solo Bass 5 • 1 Elisaveta Blumina (pn); 2 Kolja Blacher (vn); 3 Erez Ofer (vn); 4 Johannes Moser (vc); 5 Nabil Shehata (db) • CPO 777804-2 (68:23)


The music of Mieczys?aw Weinberg continues to be issued, and continues to impress. Like his British counterpart, York Bowen, Weinberg was a composer trapped in time and place, and it is good that their very different musics are now coming to the fore with such regularity. One of the wonderful things about this disc, aside from the committed, intense playing of the instrumentalists, is the sound: crisp and clear, with only a very little reverb, which brings the sound of the instruments into sharp focus and makes the listener pay attention to the music.


Like Bowen, Weinberg was largely a tonal composer, although heavily influenced by Bartók and his personal friend Shostakovich. Unlike Shostakovich, however, Weinberg seldom engaged in whining, overwrought musical breast-beating; his aesthetic was geared at bringing out intense personal feelings, but always with good taste and a less mocking or posturing tone. The piano trio that opens this disc is a perfect example. Weinberg immediately grabs our attention with a strident forte tremolo on the violin, and this sets the pace for the musical marvels that follow. The intensity of this piece was inspired, so the notes suggest, by Weinberg’s sight of Polish mothers with their children hugging the legs of Russian horses, begging the Soviet soldiers to let them come over because the Nazis were after them. It was that horrible, that terrifying, and the first movement of this trio reflects that mood. So, too, does the raw power of the ensuing Toccata, which builds up to a powerful fugue; and even the slow movement (“Poem”), which begins softly, still has an undercurrent of menace and unrest, which breaks out in the middle of the movement into an ostinato piano figure, receding in volume and intensity to a quiet, almost submissive ending with the violin playing soft, muted passages. The finale does not toy with a fugue, as did the second movement, but builds up through its quiet opening into a really complex and powerful fugue—oddly enough, based on entirely different thematic material from the opening, which sounds like a Bachian fugue theme. This is clearly one of Weinberg’s masterpieces.


Where do we go from here? To the sonatina for violin and piano from 1946, a piece that sounds like the diametric opposite of the trio. Set primarily in D Minor, but vacillating in and out of F major, the sonatina has touches of melancholy about it, but is primarily a lyrical work with what may be termed episodes of sadness. Here, too, some of the melancholy passages sound related to Jewish folk music without ever really using genuine themes. But ever and anon, Weinberg holds your interest through his amazingly creative sense of construction (would that many of our modern-day American wunderkind composers listen to his work and pay heed to what he does). Nothing in Weinberg’s work is ever flippant, thoughtless, or peripheral; he thinks in terms of the whole picture without sacrificing the detail of internal episodes.


One should be forgiven for thinking in advance that to end this disc with a solo sonata for the rather lugubrious-sounding double bass would be a bit of a downer; after all, solo bass sonatas don’t exactly grow on trees. Yet, after an almost predictably slow first movement, Weinberg becomes much more involved in writing music and not necessarily just writing for the bass, if you know what I mean. His creative forces flowed in one direction, which was towards the creation of fascinating musical forms, and never towards empty virtuosity or just “filling space” with his music. Thus the potential interpreter needs to stay focused not so much on the technical challenges (and there are many in this sonata) as on the musical progression and what it means in terms of expressive content. (I fond it interesting, in the notes, to read that bassist Shehata thinks of it as more “similar to a suite in which each movement is structured very clearly thematically.”) I also noted that, aside from its musical marvels, Weinberg manages to elicit some very interesting sounds from the bass, including percussive effects that almost make it resound like an organ—or, in the last movement, pushing it up into the cello range.


The playing of each musician on this disc, from pianist-director Blumina to double bassist Shehata, is simply astonishing, so deeply rooted in the music that it seems to be an extension of the notes on the page, not an extension of a virtuoso who says to the listener, “Look at me, I’m wonderful!” It is virtuosity that consistently serves the composer and his message, not the ego of the performer. This is a truly great disc.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Bin Huang plays Beethoven on the "Guarneri del Gesi" 1742 owned by Nicoli Paganini and Bach on the Guarneri "Isaac Stern, ex Panette" 1737 owned by the famous violinist. Beethoven's Concerto in D major is an extraordinary work. The Partita No. 2 in D minor concludes with the Chaconne, one of the most memorable pieces of the entire violin literature.

Bach: Two-Part Inventions & Sinfonias and Other Keyboard Wor

Classical Music

Following the great success of Gerhard Weinberger’s new and most comprehensive recording ever of Bach’s organ works (German Record Critics Prize, 2009), Mr. Weinberger and CPO now turn to a new edition featuring the organ compositions of Max Reger in performances on selected magnificent organs surviving from Reger’s period. The composer’s overall oeuvre for the organ enabled this instrument to gain new prestige. Vol. 1 contains works offering eloquent testimony to Reger’s veneration of Bach.

EBERL Piano Sonata in g, op. 27 . 12 Variations in D. 10 Variations in E? • Marie-Luise Hinrichs (pn) • CPO 7776052 (53:27)


Present-day appreciation of the music of the prolific Viennese composer Anton Eberl (1765–1807) probably lags behind our awareness of his friendship and musical association with Mozart, and, for a time, his public rivalry with Beethoven. Eberl’s Symphony in E? was favorably compared by at least one Vienna critic to the “Eroica,” which was composed around the same time, and premiered on the same concert.


Eberl’s Grand Sonata in G Minor, op. 27, was published in 1805, a few months prior to Beethoven’s “Waldstein,” and dedicated to Cherubini. It’s an ambitious work whose first movement sounds almost nothing like Mozart‘s keyboard music—though its key and dramatic mood show the influence of the 40th Symphony—and not essentially like Beethoven’s, though each movement’s large dimensions may reflect his influence. Rather, the sonata’s textures, which are thicker than Mozart’s, along with its frequent, quick changes between major and minor, and its overall lyrical impulse, remind me a great deal of Schubert’s early piano sonatas, which it predates, as well as the more harmonically experimental passages in some of Dussek’s. In fact, it’s a better piece than the sonatas that Schubert composed before 1817, operating on a grander scale, and holding consistent interest throughout its three movements. The second movement operates like an early Beethoven slow movement, with florid lines that look toward Weber. The work’s high quality is maintained in its third movement, a large form, one of whose motives echoes the Haydn B-Minor Sonata, but whose sweep looks forward to Mendelssohn, with a dose of Beethovenian humor at the close. This is not to say that the music feels derivative. Repeated hearing of the piece has increased my respect for it, and especially in the first movement, Eberl is a composer with something of emotional import to impart, in a voice that’s his own.


The Variations recorded here are a set of 12 in D, based on an appealing theme by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, the Arietta Freudin sanfter Herzenstriebe , and a set of 10 in E? based on a similarly good-natured theme by the Singspiel composer Ignaz Umlauf, Zu Steffen sprach im Traume , the latter set supposedly held in great esteem by Mozart, and attributed to him many early editions. Here Eberl’s assured keyboard writing might be mistaken for Beethoven’s in many of his early variation sets. Eberl’s variations stick close to the original themes. The music is cheerful, workmanlike, but not terribly interesting. (Come to think of it, that description fits most of Haydn’s keyboard variations, excepting the F-Minor set, the majority of Mozart’s, and Beethoven’s, before he began to experiment with thematic transformation.)


The advocacy of a pianist who plays as well as Marie-Luise Hinrichs is just what is needed to elevate a second-rank composer like Eberl into the category of one whose music should be heard. Her playing is flexible, sensitive, tasteful, and persuasive in every way. She has the ability to communicate warmth of feeling, and if there are other Eberl works that are on the same high level as the G-Minor Sonata, I would enjoy hearing her play them. There’s a 3-CD set of Eberl’s keyboard music that includes the G-Minor Sonata, played by John Khouri on Music and Arts, the recorded sound of whose fortepiano does the music no favors. CPO provides Hinrichs’s modern instrument with flattering sound.


FANFARE: Paul Orgel

Classical Music

This release ably serves two purposes—to display the virtues of the new Caivillé-Coll-style Goll organ recently installed in St. Martin’s Church, Memmingen, and to showcase the talents of organist Jane Parker-Smith. The repertoire has been selected for its accessibility and its potential for virtuoso display. Composers Marcel Lanquetuit (1894–1985), Joseph Boulnois (1884–1918), Henri Mulet (1878–1967), and Joseph Jongen (1873–1953) are squarely in the Franco-Belgian tradition of Franck, Widor, and Vierne. Jeanne Demessieux (1921–1968), a student of Marcel Dupré, enters the world of Messiaen, and English composers Percy Whitlock (1903–1946) and York Bowen (1884–1961) present a parallel English ecclesiastical tradition, while German composer Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943) is in the Bach-Busoni orb. This selection allows Jane Parker-Smith to show, at one extreme, her prowess in a series of pastel-colored works requiring sustained slow tempos and concomitantly revealing registrations (Boulnois’s Choral in F??Minor, Mulet’s Rosace), and, at the other, her ability to tackle the large-scale Lisztian utterances of Jongen’s Sonata eroica and Middelschulte’s stunning Passacaglia.

The success of an organ recording depends both on the prowess of the performer and on the interface between the instrument and its surrounding space. In this case, it is a felicitous marriage. The results are warm, transparent, and, where need be, highly resonant without blurring any details. The quality of the recording rivals that of the Loft label’s best production.

The advent of the CD freed organ recordings of the limitations imposed by the LP tape to disc transfer. A 16 Herz C organ pedal could not be cut at all, let alone at a realistic level. Only its upper harmonics had to suffice. Early organ CDs reveled in their ability to produce woofer-damaging lower frequencies at the expense of any realistic musical balance. Bit by bit, however, musical intelligence finally prevailed, and here it is eloquently made manifest.
Jane Parker-Smith studied at the Royal College of Music in London. She subsequently took instruction with Jean Langlais in Paris. Her performances have the clarity and guisto tempi of those of Keven Boyer and Christopher Herrick. In her readings, she successfully balances the demands for exactitude and linear coherence with that of her need to actually interpret (pardon my split infinitive) these largely post-Romantic pieces. In other words, to personalize them and thus make them really communicate with the contemporary listener. Her success is striking and immediately made manifest in track 1, Marcel Lanquetuit’s Toccata, a kinder and gentler version of the Toccata that closes Widor’s Organ Symphony No. 5.

Igor Stravinsky, an excellent writer for wind instruments once said of the organ, and I paraphrase: “It’s unnatural . . . it never breathes.” Here Jane Parker-Smith makes it breathe. That this is only Volume 1 delights me. I hope that she will continue to explore these still largely musicological byways and illuminate them as beautifully as she has done here.
Preaching to the converted has never been particularly satisfying to me. The result in this case is an illuminating, and in terms of repertoire, essential recording that will delight aficionados, but, most important, will appeal to those just discovering this literature. Full organ specs are provided. If you haven’t gotten the message by now, this one is most warmly recommended.
--William Zagorski, FANFARE

Classical Music

One of the nicest organ recordings I’ve heard.

I’ve been aware of Charles Koechlin for a very long time, having played flute pieces of his for almost as long as I can remember. It’s only relatively recently however that his name seems to have been cropping up more in the CD catalogues, with fascinating and remarkable works such as the piano cycle Les Heures Persanes showing previously little known aspects of the composer. Organist Christian Schmitt has here recorded a representative sample of organ works by Koechlin, and as many of these are première recordings this disc will add considerably to our supply of Koechlinalea.

Koechlin himself was more of a pianist than an organist, and the conventional nature of earlier works such as the Choral in F minor develops into further extremes of contrapuntal extremity as evidenced by the later opus numbered Choral Final du Requiem, which pushes canonic techniques into a labyrinthine elegy. If you like Hindemith’s organ sonatas, then the three Sonatines which Koechlin wrote during 1928-29 occupy comparable melodic and harmonic territory. Koechlin’s fascination and deep study of Bach comes through strongly in the Finale of Sonatine III, and the first and second of these pieces contrast with the rest of the programme in also having lighter Pastorale movements. There is also a good deal of melodic charm in the Quatre Chorals, produced as a by-product of the composer’s own composition classes.

This programme contains what is apparently Koechlin’s last work, the eccentric Pièce pour orgue, Op. 226, which shows the composer exploring the essence of his own expressive palette in what the booklet notes describe as “sketchy textures.” More monumental is the extended Fugue Op.133 II originally written for “a symphonic string apparatus”, and with seemingly impossible chromatic lines. More gentle and improvisatory is the Adagio pour Grand-orgue Op.201, which nonetheless builds a remarkable structure in which one can become totally immersed.

The recently rebuilt 1950s Marktkirche organ is a tremendous instrument, and very well suited to this music. A more nasal French sound might arguably be more appropriate, but whether consciously or not the organ sound here points to the universality of Koechlin’s expressive world and to my ears is both appropriate and highly enjoyable. The CPO recording is very rich and deep even in plain stereo. As an SACD multi-channel experience it really is of demonstration quality. This is one of those inspiring releases which anyone keen on organ music and 20 ^th century repertoire should have around. The organ music of Charles Koechlin should hold no fears for anyone attracted by the romantic worlds of Widor and Duruflé, and indeed it often harks back to more ancient worlds in its sometimes antique style and use of the models of Bach. This organ sound is woodsmoke and nostalgia to me, and has restored my faith in its qualities as a truly expressive instrument. Superbly performed and produced with useful booklet notes, it is one of the nicest organ recordings I’ve heard for a long time.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Guitar Recital: Antigoni Goni

Peter Dickinson' strikingly original approach to organ music, which the composer himself has described as 'far from the English cathedral tradition', reflects a background that was not typical of British organists or composers.

BACH Concertos for Solo Harpsichord: BWV 972-93, 975-76, 978, 980 (after Vivaldi); 974 (after A. Marcello); 979 (after Torrelli); 981 (after B. Marcello); 977, 983, 986, 985 (after Telemann); 982, 984, 987 (after Ernst). Prelude and Fugue in a, BWV 894 • Elizabeth Farr (hpd) • NAXOS 8572006-07 (2 CDs: 150:35)


This recording hit me like a ton of bricks in three ways. First, there is the music itself, not actually by J.S. Bach but rather transcriptions he made for harpsichord of concertos by Vivaldi, Torelli, Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello, Johann Ernst, Telemann, and unknown composers, in addition to his own Prelude and Fugue in A Minor. Second, there is the extraordinarily high quality of Elizabeth Farr’s performances, dramatic, nuanced, and extraordinarily colorful. And third, there is the sound of the instrument, a rare Baroque-era harpsichord with a 16’ set of strings as well as damper and sustain pedals. When this CD first started pouring out of my speakers, I thought I was listening to Wanda Landowska in digital stereo. It turns out that such fabulous beasts did exist, after all, in the Baroque era, in fact from as far back as the 16th century. Well, well, well. It turns out that Landowska, who has been lambasted for more than half a century for her “grotesque,” “gargantuan-sounding” instruments, was on the right track after all. Not having an authentic instrument to play, she simply had Pleyel create one for her. Granted, it had a grand piano frame because she was a touring musician and even a newly minted harpsichord with 16’ strings would have gotten pummeled on trains, but the sound was not that far removed from this.


Farr is also an interesting annotator. In order to save space I refer you to her liner notes, which explain why Bach transcribed 22 concertos by primarily Italian composers for harpsichord (six of them are for two harpsichords). The key to the project was young Prince Johann Ernst, the nephew of Duke Wilhelm, who in fact composed three of the concertos transcribed here. The young prince, an outstanding musician, wanted them to play on his instrument. Bach was willing to oblige for one particular reason: By writing out these concertos he could study their composing methods, and apply what he learned to his own “Italianate” music.


Farr’s playing is in the style of Leonhardt and Kipnis, using a great deal of rubato—some of it obvious, some of it quite subtle—to break up the very regular rhythms. I love this style. It is antithetical to British harpsichordists like Trevor Pinnock (whom I also highly admire), but very much in line with the type of “hesitating” style that Bach himself later employed in so many solo harpsichord works, a style he undoubtedly picked up from his friend and older colleague Buxtehude. She also plays very dramatically—heavy chording and rich textures when emulating the full tutti of the orchestral passages, lighter and airier in slow movements and when emulating solo passages. This took me some getting used to, but I came to enjoy this approach.


Some listeners may feel cheated that only one work (the Prelude and Fugue) is actually by Bach, but as a compendium of Baroque style transcribed by a musical genius, played to perfection and stunningly recorded, this set is very highly recommended.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Classical Music

Axel Borup- J�rgensen (1924-2012) was born in Denmark, but he grew up in Sweden where he was influenced by the incredible scenery and by the gloomy, introverted mood of Swedish poets and composers. The dark, unique tone of the viola fascinated Borup- J�rgensen, and throughout his composing career he utilized this instrument as an opulent resource for expression. The works on this album chronicle the development of Borup- J�rgensen as a composer. His Duo for Violin and Viola Op. 12 is lyrical and accessible, and contrasts Mobiles after Alexander Calder Op. 38 which displays more abstract tonalities. Finally, O Baume Lebens Op. 81 shows intense lyricism and extreme attention to detail.

Classical Music

Bengt Forsberg, one of Sweden's most outstanding pianists, renowned for many CDs and awards, releases now a sensational solo album with music of composers that most people have never heard of. Why? Because the composers were women, and often had to step back for the men. Their works, however, are brilliant and deserve indeed a better destiny than be covered by dust in the archives. A few recordings of some composers such as Beach, Tailleferre, Bacewicz and Carwithen do exist previously, but in for example Aulin's and Almén's cases it's really a matter of world premieres on CD! - DB Productions

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music