Includes work(s) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Soloist: Siegbert Rampe.

Classical Music

Classical Music

These recordings were formerly available as MD&G 3346.

When thinking of the guitar these days, the Spanish "school" of Segovia and other great names in the 20th century is likely to be uppermost in the mind. Spain and the guitar are justifiably inseparable, but in the first half of the 19th century a so-called "Guitaromanie" in Europe saw its focus in Vienna, then the capital of the Austrian Empire. Instrument makers such as Johann Georg Stauffer vied for the finest sound and innovated in ways of constructing guitars, and composer/players such as Mauro Giuliani became the music stars of their day, touring and making their fortunes throughout Europe.

Johann Kaspar Mertz also toured widely, and his music reflects the influence of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Liszt and others, placing his stylistic character more firmly in the Romantic period than would previously have been associated with the guitar. His marriage and professional association with the pianist Josephine Plantin would no doubt have had its effect on this assimilation of styles, and with his choice of the ten-string guitar for his solo performances Mertz was more able to compete with the range of the piano at concerts. Published editions of his music needed to be as commercially viable as possible, and so these were designated as for the more conventional six-string guitar. This recording is therefore the first to present Mertz's music on an instrument he would have used.

The results in terms of colour and depth of sound are quite remarkable. The added bass strings not only add a convincing reinforcement to the fundament of harmonies, but also free up the mid and treble range so that the instrument seems to project an enhanced clarity throughout. Pictures show a guitar with a double neck and the additional four strings on an unfretted fingerboard. This must be tricky to play well, but Frank Bungarten's technique is very much up to the virtuoso demands of Mertz's writing.

There are of course some typical guitar 'fireworks' in pieces such as the Harmonie du Soir (Grand Fantasie), but for me the highlights are as much in the refinement and vocal quality of the polyphonic interactions. The Orgelfuge is a good but rather academic example, but listen to the different voices in the arrangement of Schubert's Aufenthalt and you'll hear what I really mean. Not only is the vocal line nicely etched, but the colour and character of each response below is a crucible of delights.

The familiarity of the Schubert tunes gives us insights into the ways in which Mertz solved the problems of transcribing piano music for guitar and made them very much part of his instrument's idiom. The freedoms expressed in something like the Fantasie hongroise then come as more breathtaking, Mertz joyously revelling at the top of his game in technical and expressive composing and making it easy for us to understand the massive popularity of the guitar in his time.

Frank Bungarten's notes for this recording also deserve a mention, bringing the instrument building techniques of the past right into the present and reflecting for instance on innovations by Stauffer that have translated directly into the design of flagship rock music instruments such as the Fender Stratocaster. This is a very fine recording of some hugely entertaining music, and will be a 'must hear' for all guitar fans and players.

– MusicWeb International (Dominy Clements)

Boundless energy is the word! When the Leipzig String Quartet takes on Mendelssohn's string quintets, the atmosphere is electrifying. Nervous sixteenth repetitions, above them the animation and euphoria of the theme in the first violin, propelled by accents in the lower voices: this is music charged with energy, and it rushes forward on its stormy path. And then we suddenly find ourselves in another world: the greatest intimacy pervades the presentation of the second theme, and with quiet legato motion it opposes an idyll's pastel hues to the eruption initially staged by the forces of nature.

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

Technically flawless and very sensitively performed.

Felix Mendelssohn is recognised for helping revive the reputation of J.S. Bach, but it was his mother who encouraged Felix and his sister Fanny to play Bach. This early keyboard exploration of Bach’s forms and counterpoint is no doubt responsible for the many fugues and preludes in Mendelssohn’s output, and the Sechs Präludien und Fugen op. 35 are prime examples. The shapes of the fugue themes in particular echo Bach’s model, and it is impossible to hear the opening of the A flat major fugue, for instance, without thinking of the Well Tempered Clavier. Mendelssohn’s song-like flow and love of chorales are all part of the mix, and the pieces are by no means a pale imitation of Bach. Not conceived as a cycle, these preludes & fugues nevertheless traverse a wide range of approaches and styles, creating a nicely contrasting set. The adaptation of Mendelssohn’s idiom into ‘antique’ styles of polyphony results in the kind of intensification of ideas within a fugue which makes for a variation-form feel and grand climaxes. Mendelssohn’s skill however maintains a sincere clarity, and even where all the stops are pulled out one can sense a lack of pomposity and bombast – ably assisted of course by the fine playing of Mi-Joo Lee. Schumann was famously inspired to state that Mendelssohn’s Preludes & Fugues were “birches, where Bach once placed such mighty oaks...” and “compositions born of the spirit and executed in poetic style.”
 
The playing of piano duets was a strong element of music making in households at this time, and the Mendelssohn residence was no exception. Arrangements of the latest symphonic or operatic hits would inevitably have arrangements made, and be made widely popular through domestic use. The problem with Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny is that they had far too much skill and fun, and would play through all kinds of repertoire without needing to go through all the tedious effort of writing down the notes. As a result there is very little of Mendelssohn’s own work in this genre which reaches us. The Ouvertüre zum Sommernachtstraum was eventually arranged for piano duet in a simplified but still highly virtuosic form - the one developed by Felix and Fanny over numerous performances done from the score must have been remarkable indeed. This is always a refreshingly inspired piece, and comes across with plenty of colour and sparkle from the duet on this recording.
 
The Andante con Variazioni op. 83a is an arrangement and expansion of the original Op.83 version for two hands, made in haste by Mendelssohn for one of Fanny’s ‘Sonntagsmusiken’ concerts. The original five variations received an additional three movements, and the whole given plenty of extra technical fireworks. The Andante und Allegro assai vivace op. 92 was especially written for and appeared on the 1841 Leipzig Gewandhaus programme played by Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, the same concert at which Schumann’s first symphony was premiered. There is a certain amount of editorial interest with this piece, with the first published engraving being derived from an incomplete draft and not the final copy, which was first published only in 1994. The best known element is the Allegro, which is here preceded with the more recently added Andante introduction. Of all the pieces here this is the most remarkable in terms of its musical content – the virtuoso elements taking hold of the textural content of the work in ways which can take you quite by surprise, almost approaching the kinds of thing I’ve become more used to hearing in MDG’s ‘Player Piano’ series.
 
Mi-Joo Lee has received justified plaudits for her previous recordings of Schumann and Saint-Saëns on the MDG label, and fans will have plenty to entertain them with this Mendelssohn disc. The duet pieces with Klaus Hellwig are technically flawless and very sensitively performed in true chamber music style, and there are few enough recordings of this repertoire around to make this a very welcome top-flight addition to the catalogue. There is a bit of lower mid-range bloom in the piano sound, but any mild sponginess snaps more into focus with SACD decoding. I have no doubt MDG’s 2+2+2 setup would bring even more improvements, but in essence the sound is very good all round, with plenty of depth and colour.
 
-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International
 

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

It never fails. No sooner was my 10/10 review of the Talich Quartet's Mendelssohn String Quartets Op. 12 and 13 on Calliope posted here (type Q4803 in Search Reviews) than the mail brought another pairing of the same works by the Leipzig Quartet that challenges the Talich's superiority. I wrote: "the Talich Quartet reveals all the lyric and dramatic excellences of the music." And largely, so do the Leipzigers, but in different ways. In general, they favor a warmer tonal blend than the Talich and tend to be more volatile, playing fast sections faster and slow ones slower. Thus they linger a bit in the Adagio non lento movement of the Op. 13 where the Talich scores with a more flowing pace. They are less overtly expressive too, and their rhythm too often inclines to the sluggish. In the Op. 13's Intermezzo movement the Talich's pointed rhythms are more effective, and while the Leipzigers are even more lightning-quick in the Presto, shaving more than a minute off the Talich's timing, the critical violin soliloquy and the ensuing quiet ending are more openly emotional in the Talich's interpretation.


A similar story is told in the Op. 12, where the race is closer thanks to the Leipzig's warmer sound, but the Talich still scores with its greater intensity. The differences are widest in the Canzonetta, where the Talich Quartet, taking the movement at its Allegretto marking, is irresistible while the more leisurely Leipzigers are rhythmically square. So the nod still goes to the Talich, whose interpretations more fully encompass the full range of the young Mendelssohn's accomplishments in these pieces; but the Leipzig runs them close enough to be a reasonable alternative. Both of these ensembles are preferable to other versions of these works and both offer excellent sonics.
--Dan Davis, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Hard to believe but true: it is here for the first time that Bohuslav Martinu’s concertante compositions for violoncello have been brought together on a double album. Along with the two Cello Concertos, Petr Nouzovský and the Plzen Philharmonic under Thomas Brauner also perform the Concertino and the Sonata da Camera – a richly colored portrait of this composer whose playful treatment of his musical creations continues to fascinate us even today. Deeply rooted in the Bohemian musical tradition, Martinu’s compositions combine rhythmic sophistication, traditional folk motifs, and a classical understanding of form. His concertante works were inspired both by the Baroque concerto grosso and the romantic virtuoso concerto. And of course by Paris: French neoclassicism centering on Stravinsky and the Groupe des Six has left behind clear traces. From the early Concertino- Martinu’s first concertante composition of all- to his second Cello Concerto, a work whose premiere the composer no longer lived to experience, Petr Nouzovsky and the Pizen Philharmonic cover an exciting spectrum depicting a rich and fulfilled artist’s life. Here we encounter a lyrical and pastoral atmosphere as well as rhythmic vitality of dance character- a delightful composer’s portrait of the highest entertainment value.

Friedrich Wilhelm Markull began his career as a child prodigy and was appointed to the post of organist at Danzig's magnificent St. Mary's Church when he was only twenty years old. At the time Danzig's music culture was completely decimated, but during the next fifty years of his active life as a musician he managed to revitalize it. Andrzej Szadejko's second album featuring compositions written by the industrious Baltic composer for himself and his Danzig pupils once again brings to light a previously virtually unknown chapter of music history. A good many of Markull's organ compositions must have been written for his own very practical performance goals and for the encouragement of his organ pupils. The organ in St. Mary's Church, an instrument with more than fifty stops on three manuals, offered ample opportunities for the realization of the romantic organ sound. Andrzej Szadejko has found an outstanding replacement for the early romantic Danzig instrument, which was completely destroyed during World War II, in the very expertly restored Buchholz organ in Stralsund's St. Nicholas Church.

When Friedrich Wilhelm Markull died at the age of seventy-one in 1887, posthumous tributes honored him as a “most highly knowledgeable musician and a most highly outstanding organist and composer for the church, school, and salon and of classical orchestral works.” For more than fifty years Markull had played a significant role in Danzig’s music culture. It was in a very dismal state when he began his activity there, but he built it up ex nihilo and brought it to a great flourishing. Andrzej Szadejko has chosen a first attractive selection from Markull’s countless organ compositions and recorded these works on the historic Bucholz organ at the Church of St. Nicholas in Stralsung- a welcome continuation of the very promisingly inaugurated Musica Baltica series. Markull made his musical debut as a child prodigy and was appointed to the post of principal organist at St. Mary’s Church in Danzig. Its organ with three manuals and over fifty stops offered everything that the Northern German romantic musical heart desired. In 1945 St. Mary’s Church was destroyed along with Danzig’s entire city center. Fortunately, however, the sound typical of early romanticism has been preserved for today’s listeners in the lavishly restored Stralsund organ. The many small-format compositions accounting for a large part of Markull’s oeuvre in particular profit from these circumstances. Many of them must have found use during religious services, and among them we find chorale preludes and settings, postludes, and trios. The interpretive markings ranging from “Slow without dragging” through “Lively with a very flowing recital” to “Fiery and animated” are typically romantic and make for a delightfully varied listening experience.