LOUIS FERDINAND Andante with Variations, op. 4. Piano Quartet, op. 5. Larghetto with Variations, op. 11 • Tr Parnassus; Thomas Selditz (va); Stanislau Anishchanka (db) • MDG 303 1549 (71:49)


You might say that the Trio Parnassus owns the music of Prince Louis Ferdinand, at least his chamber music for small ensemble—piano trios, quartets, and one quintet (op. 11, listed above) with the same scoring as Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet. Titled “Complete Piano Trios, Vol. 3,” the present volume, in fact, has no trios at all; the “complete trios” is more accurately a compilation of most of his chamber music. At present, the Trio Parnassus appears to be alone in recording any of the rather small but worthy corpus of music composed by Louis Ferdinand. (The unfortunate Prince, killed in battle in 1805 at the age of 34, completed a total of just 13 opuses, of which 10 are chamber works with piano.)


The Trio Parnassus has made a vital contribution to the discovery and performance of many forgotten musical treasures from the 19th century, including works by Hummel, Bargiel, Scharwenka, and Rheinberger. Prince Louis Ferdinand, a highly talented and accomplished pianist/composer whose teacher was Jan Ladislav Dussek, certainly deserves inclusion in such a group. He was admired by none other than Beethoven, who, after hearing him play, called him a “true musician” and dedicated his Third Piano Concerto to him.


Louis Ferdinand had a gift for writing attractive melodies, and also a fertile imagination when it came to varying them. Variation movements are common in his œuvre, and although he follows the traditional style of variations—increasing rhythmic figuration and tempo, and including a minor key variation, e.g.—there are often surprises, especially since his harmonic writing at times anticipates the music of Schubert and Schumann. His music—especially the piano parts—is technically difficult and brilliant, no doubt intended to demonstrate the virtuosity of the composer.


The dedication of the Trio Parnassus, aided by excellent collaborators, is evident in the high quality of its performance. The ensemble is precise and the intonation of the strings is spot on. I have commented before on the outstanding work of the pianist, Chia Chou, who in addition to handling the demands of the virtuoso piano-writing with seeming ease, also knows when to fade into the background and leave the spotlight to his colleagues. His playing has polish and refinement as well as brilliance.


MDG once again demonstrates the success of its excellent technique in producing a recording using “the natural acoustics of specially chosen concert halls.” The balance among the instruments is perfect, and the sound is warm and vivid. In sum, this is most attractive music, put together with inspiration and skill. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Susan Kagan

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


Most of the secular choral works of Francis Poulenc have enjoyed respectable treatment on disc--but not for awhile. This newcomer not only is equal to the best in the catalog, but it contains all of Poulenc's a cappella compositions in the genre, including the infrequently heard Petites voix. Although the masterpiece Figure humaine, written in 1943 during the Nazi occupation of France, is the big work here--and it's performed with spectacularly vivid ensemble clarity and all the poignancy that Poulenc must have intended with his very deliberate use of vocal timbre and expressive means--the generous program reminds us also of the merits of the composer's "lighter" works, particularly the Chansons françaises of 1945/46, Chanson à boire, for male choir, and Petites voix (1936), for treble voices. (Incidentally, there's a fine recording of the latter--the only one I know that actually uses real "petites voix"--performed by the Toronto Children's Chorus, available from Marquis.)

In listening to the entire program you also appreciate this excellent German choir's mastery of style, how these singers perfectly convey the array of moods and bring color and life to the poetic texts, from the dark and brooding "Bois meurtri" in Un soir de neige (can three chords be more evocative than those that open this piece?) to the "click, clack" of the clogs and the "tip and tap" of the weavers' looms in the Chansons françaises.

While these works are quite challenging for any choir, they are so masterfully written that even within the more extended harmonies (9ths and 11ths, for instance) there is easily discernible melodic continuity and even the occasionally odd modulations and the more dissonant moments or passages never seem gratuitous but rather grow naturally from what has come before and flow equally naturally onward. Texture is an important component in this music, and thus carefully judged ensemble balance is critical--and it need not be said that the often very exposed voicing cannot tolerate the slightest lapse in intonation.

The choir meets these tests admirably, and the expert recording sets it all in a complementary acoustic at an ideal listening perspective, allowing us to appreciate the full, finely polished sound, whether of men or women alone or of the entire 50-voice ensemble. (A non-musical feature that English-language listeners will appreciate is MDG's printing of the original French texts along with English translations rather than including only German ones, as some German labels tend to do. However, German translations of the texts can be found at MDG's website.) Essential!

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

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

Amilcare Ponchielli's wind concertos number among the most virtuosic works of the romantic era. He distinguished himself with successful pieces for concertante winds during the mid-nineteenth century, and in every measure one hears that this Italian actually felt called to become a music dramatist. The Mecklenburg State Orchestra of Schwerin and the soloists Giuliano Sommerhalder, Roland Fröscher, and Simone Sommerhalder present us his concertos for trumpet, euphonium, and oboe in a swift parforce chase.

Classical Music

In 2000, I reviewed Wergo's mid-price edition of Conlon Nancarrow's complete studies for player piano, where you can access my comments about this unique and extraordinary body of music. While the late composer programmed each of the five Wergo discs by mixing earlier and later studies, MDG's new Nancarrow edition will present the pieces in numerical order that by and large corresponds to their chronology. In essence, jazz and blues inform Studies 1 through 10, yet roots of the multi-ratio canonic writing and sudden velocity shifts that characterize Nancarrow's later studies already are present, especially in the lively, complex counterpoint of Nos. 7 and 8. Newcomers to Nancarrow's music probably should start with the remarkable five-movement Study No. 3a-5, the Boogie-Woogie Suite. Its outer movements sound like Albert Ammons, Professor Longhair, and Jimmy Yancey trapped in Cecil Taylor's body, with the rhythmic layers sounding as if organized by Milton Babbitt on LSD.

The Wergo box stems from 1988 digital recordings made in the composer's Mexico City studio on his own custom-modified Ampico instruments. By contrast, the first volume of MDG's Nancarrow edition utilizes a Bösendorfer grand piano with an Ampico player-piano mechanism owned by Jürgen Hocker, whose hammers were modified with leather strips and metal parts according to Nancarrow's direct specifications. This way you get the percussive clarity Nancarrow favored together with the sonorous and resonant advantages of a first-rate concert grand. Furthermore, the vibrant church acoustic of MDG's recording offers a listening experience altogether different from the close microphone placement and dry acoustic of Nancarrow's studio.

For this reason, I hesitate to claim that MDG is better than Wergo, or vice versa. However, I find that the wiry, harpsichord-like sound that emits from certain registers on Nancarrow's instruments adds a degree of timbral diversity missing from the more evenly regulated Bösendorfer, while Wergo's close-up engineering gives additional clarity to the composer's terraced dynamics and frequent aggregates of rapid notes. Then again, the Bösendorfer's tuning holds up much better under Nancarrow's hypervirtuosic demands. The bottom line is that no new music fan should go through life without at least hearing Nancarrow's amazing studies, while Nancarrow devotees should know that MDG's series eventually will include previously unavailable works.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

How might one combine the worldly elegance of a Chopin with the so very “heavy” chromaticism of Wagner’s Tristan? Felix Blumenfeld, today almost entirely forgotten as a composer, knew the answer to this question – as his Prélude op. 17, No. 19 impressively demonstrates. However, before this so very original gem, which is only one of the highlights on our Blumenfeld album, concludes this program, Karl-Andreas Kolly has a whole series of other surprises ready that will make the hearts of fans of Russian piano virtuosity and other interested listeners beat a little faster. Blumenfeld very much has his place in the legendary phalanx of great Russian virtuosos/composers including his great model Anton Rubinstein and his own pupil Vladimir Horowitz. Nevertheless he regularly develops an individual language rooted not least in the deep veneration in which he held Frederic Chopin, though this did not keep him, in his capacity as a sought-after conductor, from lending his support to the introduction and dissemination of Wagner’s operas in Russia. He also repeatedly included the music of Scriabin and Rimsky-Korsakov on performance programs, even if it meant defying his superiors. The titles of Blumenfeld’s compositions show that formal strictness was not his thing. This practice meant that he was very in touch with his times and knew precisely what the music public wanted. German critics schooled on Brahms and Beethoven did not unanimously approve of this approach. Karl-Andreas Kolly’s previous albums are fondly remembered, and this release again traces a path taking us to a piano repertoire that has been neglected for much too long.

Recording information: Fürstliche Reitbahn Bad Arolsen (01/20/1998); Fürstliche Reitbahn Bad Arolsen (12/16/2001); Fürstliche Reitbahn Bad Arolsen (06/11/2007).

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Franz Xaver Gruber, various composers. Soloist: Florian Pagitsch.

Recording information: Vabalninkas, Pfarrkirche (08/17/2008-08/21/2008); Vilnius, Johanneskirche (08/17/2008-08/21/2008); Pumpenai, Pfarrkirche (08/17/2008-08/21/2008); Sveksna, Pfarrkirche (08/17/2008-08/21/2008); Kretinga, Lutherische Kirche (08/17/2008-08/21/2008); Vilnius, Dominikanerkirche (08/17/2008-08/21/2008); Kretinga, Franziskanerkirche (08/17/2008-08/21/2008); Tytuvenai, Klosterkirche (08/17/2008-08/21/2008); Dotnuva, Klosterkirche (08/17/2008-08/21/2008).

Felix Draeseke’s works immediately reveal that he was a glowing admirer of Liszt and Wagner and a remarkably gifted creator of expressive harmonic designs and far-ranging melodic lines. Here Draeseke accomplished the feat of combining these powerful expressive means with classical forms. MDG is now rereleasing Draeseke’s Sinfonia Tragica, Piano Concerto, and Symphony No. 1 in a special edition featuring performances by the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra in the historic Wuppertal Hall. The first release marked a discographic milestone. When a so very smoothly functioning musical ensemble like the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra under George Hanson, who was then its principal conductor, takes on this multilayered music, then a fascinating listening experience is guaranteed. Then there is the fact that it is performed in one of the world’s most marvelous concert halls. Even discriminating music lovers go into raptures, and now you can join them.

A few years ago Rudolf Innig accomplished a grand discographic feat with his complete recording of the nine organ symphonies of Felix Nowowiejski, thereby rehabilitating an almost entirely forgotten master of late romantic organ sound. He later presented a recording of smaller-format organ compositions by Nowowiejski. The four “Concerti” recorded here conclude this valuable edition now for the first time presenting the Polish master’s complete organ oeuvre. Those who expect an orchestra for the concerto form are in for a genuine surprise. Innig employs the magnificent Sauer organ in the Bremen Cathedral with so much color that the strings and winds will not be missed for a single moment. In harmonic respects they are also highly ambitious. Why Nowowiejski entitled these large format, multi movement works “Concerti” must remain speculation. Might he have been apprehensive about extending the number of his symphonies beyond the magical “Number Nine?” Nowowiejski composed his concertos during difficult times. World War II had just begun with the German army’s invasion of Poland, and the composer, who had developed close ties to Germany over the years, became a professional and personal outsider under the new regime. It is thus hardly surprising that these works repeatedly display autobiographical elements- even if the consoling optimism of the fourth concerto of Easter orientation appears to be somewhat premature in view of the year of its composition in 1941. Nowowiejski also achieved great things in pieces of small format. Whether the Chorale Prelude or Character Pieces, whether pieces for religious services or suitable for concert performances- again and again he found individual forms of expression that Rudolf Innig succeeds in interpreting with profoundly felt musical sensibility. And, as always on MDG, the finely balanced sound picture in the magnificent acoustics of the Bremen Cathedral makes for an absolutely enthralling musical experience.

Recording information: Ehem. Ackerhaus der Abtei Marienmünster (05/26/2008-05/28/2008).

Martin Rost’s tour of the illustrious centers of Northern German organ music now takes us to the baroque splendor of Lüneburg. Even though the glory of this proud city not far from Hamburg was beginning to fade, the renown of its musicians continued to extend to faraway Thuringia when Johann Sebastian Bach – then not quite fifteen years old – set out to complete his musical studies there. Martin Rost’s selection of compositions recorded on his Stellwagen organ demonstrates that a trip to Lüneburg can be rewarding even today.

Breathtaking virtuosity, sumptuous sound, expression brimming with suspense: on his debut album the young Byelorussian clarinetist Vladimir Soltan gives his all while enjoying superb ensemble support from the Hamburg Symphony. Under its conductor José Luíz Gómez this orchestra simply surpasses itself in concertante competition with the soloist.

What Carl Nielsen demanded of the clarinet must have seemed simply impossible to those who witnessed the work’s premiere. The composer fully exploits the instrument’s extreme registers, the dynamic spectrum ranges from the tenderest pianissimo to mighty fortissimo, and even the fingers get a full dexterity workout. Again and again the solo instrument has to endeavor to match the orchestra’s forceful performance stance. A special feature: in the otherwise rather clear instrumentation a snare drum repeatedly comes forward in a solo role, sometimes with a pounding rhythm, other times in chamber style in a duet with the clarinet.

Claude Debussy relies more on tonal beauty, and in fact the Première Rhapsodie develops an enchanting atmosphere in which the solo instrument now and again is fully integrated into the orchestral sound. Jean Françaix’s Concerto features truly mind-blowing virtuosity, both for the soloist and the orchestra. As always in Françaix, this work promises the best of entertainment – generated by the “peppermint harmonies” that might have come from this or that hit tune. When this wonderfully nimbly instrumented piece was composed, there were considerable doubts about its playability, but today it numbers among the most popular works of its genre.

The music sparkles with delight and joy, making for true listening pleasure. And MDG’s 2+2+2 sound in three dimensions enhances this sublime experience: you are right there, live, in the midst of musical things.