Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

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

The Art of Dimitri Mitropoulus Vol. 2 contains these gems! NYPO: Tragic Symphony #6 in a (Mahler), Live Performance, 10 April, 1955, Carnegie Hall; Symphony #4 in f (Vaughan Williams), Live Performance, 5 April, 1953, Carnegie Hall; w. Dorothy Dow: Erwartung (Sch�nberg), Live Performance, 18 Nov., 1951, Carnegie Hall; w. Zino Francescatti: Symphonie Espagnole (Lalo), Live Performance, 3 April, 1955, Carnegie Hall; w. Pietro Scarpini: Piano Concerto #2 in g (Prokofiev), Live Performance, 7 Nov., 1954, Carnegie Hall; Mitropoulos (Pf.) & Cond. NBC S. O. : Piano Concerto #3 in C (Prokofiev); w. Carmine Coppola (Fl) & Mischa Mischakoff (Vln): Brandenburg Concerto #5 in D (Bach), both Live Performances, 16 Dec., 1945; Mitropoulos Cond. Strings of the NBC S. O., w. Astrid Varnay (S): String Quartet #2 in f-sharp (Sch�nberg), Live Performance, 13 Dec., 1945. (E. U.) 4-Music & Arts 1214. Transfers by Lani Spahr.

If you're interested in Furtw�ngler's views on the German Requiem, this is the performance to hear. Furtw�ngler led a reading of unusual intensity on this date. It's not that he emphasizes the music's contrasts, although these are given their due. It's more a matter of how he makes the music flow from one measure, phrase, section, and movement to the next; this is a German Requiem as a broad, inexorable river taking the listener to the peace of the afterlife.

2009 release. The best of Bach's fugues on a single subject are contrasted with fugues likewise on a single subject by some of his prominent contemporaries and predecessors. This is Colin Tilney's third release on Music and Arts, following the widely acclaimed 1993 Bach English Suites, recorded on the same Italian harpsichord as Fugue, and the 1995 CD Scarlatti High and Low.

This 2010 collection presents a selection of the less frequently performed impromptus that span a period of nearly two centuries, starting with an 1821 work that was among the first ones to be published with this title and concluding with two that were written as recently as 2008. Among these pieces are four that have been recorded for the first time those by Godowsky, Bibalo, Volaj, and Mazhara. The impromptus by the two last-named composers were written in response to the artist's request so she could include the most recent such works for piano in this project.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music