CELLO AMERICA 2 - 20TH CENTURY

I reviewed this when Music & Arts first issued it; now it is back, under the same catalog number... My comments remain the same. This disc is of interest mainly to Furtwängler specialists; while both performances are quite strong, neither matches other readings of the same works by this conductor. The Stockholm Philharmonic plays well, but cannot involve itself in Furtwängler's unique world with the abandon and comfort of both the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. Those interested in this coupling with Furtwängler would be better served by a pair of 1953 Berlin performances (DG 415 666 2, no longer available), or the 1954 Salzburg Festival performances with the Vienna Philharmonic, released in wonderful sound by Orfeo (C293921B). In all cases, be prepared for a particularly unusual Eighth, much more massive and weighty than you are used to, and with a few rhythmic quirks that might bring a smile of affection or derision, depending on your receptivity. One important bonus on this Stockholm CD is the rehearsal excerpt from the Leonore Overture No. 3, prepared for the same concert. It offers a fascinating view of Furtwängler's rehearsal technique, is well recorded, and is more substantial (about 11 minutes) than some previous issues. Good transfers, and an insightful (if oft reprinted by Music & Arts) essay on Furtwängler by Neville Cardus.

-- Henry Fogel, FANFARE

[This CD] contains markedly significant historical material that does credit to all the artists involved, especially Bruno Walter. The two concertos played by Myra Hess (both drawn in two releases from the same, generally good—though cough-ridden—tapes of FM broadcasts of New York Philharmonic concerts) are a study in contrasts. K. 449 (January 17, 1954), if more relaxed and less vibrant than, say, the magnificent Rudolf Serkin-Alexander Schneider collaboration, has an elegance, bubbly buoyancy, touching lyricism, and impish humor found in all too few performances of the work. Listen, for example, to Hess's projection of the finale and discover a pianist who understands the sublimity of Mozartean comedy. On the other hand, K. 466 is rather labored and excessively brooding, in many respects an echo of the studio recording of the work made by Walter in 1936 as pianist and conductor.

-- Mortimer H. Frank, FANFARE [3/1990]

All these pieces date from Liszt's austerer, later years when he had abandoned the life of a lionized itinerant virtuoso. Yet apart from To Petofi's Memory and Mosonyi's Funeral Procession—written to commemorate two cherished, late-lamented compatriots—Jeffrey Swann's chosen programme makes formidable enough technical demands for the disc to sell under the title of "The Virtuoso Liszt"... In so far as sheer prestidigitation is concerned, I would say that Swann's fingerwork is even swifter and sharper-cut than that of the mellower Katsaris (Teldec/ASV) or Howard (Hyperion). In much of the love music in the Waltzes he also shows himself capable of phrasing as poetic as it is intense... [I]n his own highly-strung, darting way, Swann certainly brings home [Liszt's] exploratory daring. As for the two valedictory Hungarian portraits (incidentally listed in the wrong order on the box) I would have preferred a slower tempo for both—and tauter, more inexorable rhythm in the main theme of To Petofi's Memory. Nevertheless, both bring reminders of the searching musician in Swann that won him first prize in Milan's Dino Ciani Competition in the early 1970s.

-- Gramophone [8/1989]

The Barber and Vaughn Williams are the familiar 1951 recordings for Concert Hall Society, frequently recoupled on Orion LPs and cassettes in the recent past, and sounding good here except for overload in the loudest passages and evidence of tape stretching in the opening of the Barber— really hardly needing Music & Arts's apologies about the sound. The Barber gets a warmly eloquent performance, with no effort to look for neoclassical roots; this is lush romanticism. The third movement is not the usual brainless perpetual motion, but amusingly eccentric and ever so slightly gimpy, an appropriate chaser to two movements of ardent song. The Vaughn Williams is infectiously enthusiastic, although Kaufman's hot vibrato and RVW's cool music make an interesting contrast. Lars-Erik Larsson's (1906-1986) concerto is from a very fine 1955 mono Swedish Radio broadcast tape—as usual for Kaufman (see Fanfare 9:4, p. 78 and 13:4, p. 422), with the active participation of the composer. It is melodically tonal yet with a Scandinavian aloofness and calm offset by repressed temperament. A bucolic opening very quickly gives way to passages of great difficulty; André Gertler first played this music in 1952 (and contributed a cadenza) but in my mind I hear Heifetz—the long, involved, webbed lines call for sophisticated phrasings, with intense passages needing the smoothest execution of virtuoso music. They get it here from Kaufman. The second movement opens with distant, tolling horns (Nielsen's Symphony No. 5 came to mind); Kaufman's intense sound never lets the music go slack in the waltz-like center of this Andante pastorale. The third movement is of extraordinary difficulty yet always melodic, and Kaufman is searingly accurate. The music is larger in scope than Larsson's well-known series of concertinos, which gives the conflicting elements time to develop. The sound of the solo instrument and the orchestra is quite good for era and origin. Kaufman's approach to the violin has the right sweep and concentration for what Music & Arts rightly calls ' ' 20th Century Romantic Violin Concertos. ' ' This really is the best kind of historic reissue: the artist is honored, the music is done justice, an important piece enters the CD catalog, and the listener (assuming a toleration for something other than the last word in sonic splendor) isn't asked to suffer for it.

-- David K. Nelson, FANFARE [9/1991]

ROBERT SCHUMANN: FANFARES AND

MOZART ON THE 1793 FORTEPIANO

This set is offered at a special price: 5 discs for the price of 4.

Farewell to New York

A staggeringly powerful reading, it represents one of the high points in Furtwängler’s entire discography. Like his two BPO accounts from 1949, this one with the VPO uses modified Haas—the latter’s insertion of 10 bars from the 1887’s Adagio is omitted—and there are elements from the 1892 Schalk (a cymbal clash is heard in the 1949 finales, but not in this one). This 1944 has greater passion and is more listenable than are either of the BPO 1949s.

-- Jeffrey J. Lipscomb, FANFARE [reviewing the box set of Bruckner symphonies conducted by Furtwängler, Music & Arts 1209]

Belgium-born composer and violinist Eugene Ysaÿe was known throughout his career as one of the last great artists of the romantic era. Though he was befriended and admired by other romantic giants like Franck, Debussy, and Chausson, he also had an affinity for the Baroque style. This album, which features world-renowned violinist Charles Castleman playing Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, celebrates Ysaÿe's dream of meshing the baroque and romantic cultures.
Definite J.S. Bach-inspired motives are sprinkled throughout the Sonata No. 2, where Ysaÿe actually inserts a few well-known melodies from Bach's Violin Partita No. 3. The Sonata No. 4 pays tribute to the style of Fritz Kreisler and uses the composer's Viennese rubato and parlando bowing style.
Castleman does an excellent job of imitating these historic figures as he plays the interesting phrases in the style they were meant to be played. Even though every note is played in its intended place, Castleman manages to make every phrase sound improvised, giving it the romantic flair Ysaÿe intended.

All selections, except the "Concerto for Amplified Violin" were originally issued on LP by Nonesuch recordings (1971 & 1974).

IN HONOR OF HIS 80TH BIRTHDAY

Sometimes when I get a disc for review, I play it through, ignoring the details, while attending to the dishes or other matters of domestic moment. With regard to the disc here reviewed, an early, kitchen-sink impression has clung through subsequent plays: Rachel Rudich is a remarkably fluent instrumentalist with a talent for involvement in first-rate music elsewhere neglected.

I won't drone on and on about seven composers' works; enough to say each holds the attention. To touch briefly on those pieces that seem to me significant additions to the recorded literature: Wuorinen's Second Trio: Piece for Stefan Wolpe of 1962 reminds us that a currently fruitful composer, no less one of the best on the "uptown" scene, has been at it for some while. This 30-odd-year-old trio fairly burst with Wuorinenisms—high-powered rhythmic entities from which leap, or saunter, those delightfully characteristic melodic shards, as if to say, "I could so easily go this route, had I chosen to." The more one hears of Wuorinen's music, the more one perceives a Romantic sensibility peeping through some rather large rents in those dread atonal "difficulties" (which are nothing of the kind).

Mario Davidovsky, another composer I very much admire, is somewhat more protean in character, at least here. A real gem, this 1993, single-movement Quartetto plays as a seductively languid piece, its in no way untoward exercised moments rather more erotic than formál in deportment; this despite the snap, crackle, and pop taking its cues from an earlier period's avant- garde in which, now that we mention it, Davidovsky played a part. The first of his remarkable Synchronisms dates from 63.

The present program's Powell is Mel. As you have already observed from the headnote, the composer Karl Kohn is, in his Ternaries for Flute and Piano, Rudich's accompanist. (Ternary: consisting of three parts; the quodlibet of Donald Martino's title offers more of challenge. It's a "light-hearted comp, comprising several popular tunes," etc., most notably in the finale of Bach's Goldberg Variations [The Oxford Dictionary of Music].)

Recorded sound good enough. A must-have for the new-music buff and a good bet for the merely curious.

-- Mike Silverton, FANFARE [7/1998]

An astonishingly intense and courageous program, brilliantly performed.

This is an astonishingly intense and courageous program, brilliantly performed. While I don't respond equally to every piece, I also must salute Todd Seelye from the outset for his deep musical intelligence and curiosity, qualities that have led him to present a full roster of pieces, any one of which would make ordinary musicians think twice in terms of the challenges presented.

Two works stand at the top of the pack. The first is Luciano Berio's Sequenza XI, which continues the landmark series of solo pieces the composer has written throughout his career. This is by far the work on the program that makes the most overt reference to traditional guitar literature, as Berio takes the idea of a simple strum over the open strings of the guitar as his "sonic icon," from which he spins the entire piece over its 17-minute span. The music is often evocative of flamenco with its figuration and flourishes, and it casts a hypnotic spell through its textures.

The other major work is Elliott Carter's Changes, yet another in the remarkable series of the composer's recent solo works. Carter has become a master of the miniature, and in this work's seven minutes he crams a wealth of detail. It could all become too cluttered were it not delivered with such a perfect feel for registration, such telling use of dramatic gesture, and such clear differentiation of contrapuntal elements (usually via timbral/articulational distinctions). In addition, though the harmonic language is the highly chromatic palette typical of Carter, the composer still manages to create chordal progressions that are quite rich, clear, and evocative, even lovely, at times. The work sounds like no guitar piece ever written before, yet it happily invents its own justification through its sheer imaginative force.

A third work that is highly idiomatic, albeit small in scope, is the Five Intermezzi of Ursula Mamlok. Each movement is a concisely chiseled bagatelle, combining extremely natural gestures for the instrument with clear motivic ideas. Two other works that are not as immediately ingratiating but that grew on repeated listenings are James Dillon's Shrouded Mirrors and Robert Morris's To the Nine. Dillon is one of the younger English composers associated with "The New Complexity," but I've always heard a clear expressive intent in every piece of his I've encountered. This work is striking for its texture: It projects a sense of an elaborate web being woven in real time, with several layers of tiny motives unfolding like layers of crystal, at first almost impenetrable. Over time I found it more and more engaging. Perhaps it's just the associational influence of the title, but it certainly sounds as though there are canonic, or at least imitative, elements in the counterpoint throughout. Morris's work is the only one on the program that is not for guitar alone, as it uses a computer-generated tape as accompaniment. In the tradition of Milton Babbitt's pieces for instrument and tape— with ideas angular and constantly mutating—Morris's piece sustains its interest in large part due to the kaleidoscopic recyling of timbres in the tape, which are constantly changing the context within which we hear the guitar line. It has a genuinely playful sound that belies the intense structuring that I'm sure has gone into it.

The remaining two works move me the least, although they are produced by composers with formidable reputations. Babbitt himself weighs in with Sheer Pluck, the work that gives the album its title (and continues the composer's run of the most outrageous title-puns ever seen in music history). Babbitt's music is concise, concentrated, and it does have a real wit. Nevertheless, it's just too severe for my taste. Unlike Carter's, it tends to eschew any overt drama, relying instead on the jeweled movement of its intensely wrought musical units for coherence and forward movement. Like Cage, it sounds like no one else, and as such seems quite resistant to whether one likes it or not. Wuorinen partakes more of the rhetoric of the grand tradition, and I respect his sober rigor. Nevertheless, this work seems curiously monochrome—literally, in terms of its very restricted timbrai range, and figuratively, in terms of a certain flatness of dramatic affect. As a result, the work flows meanderingly, and the sforzando climactic chords around 13:30 seem strangely unjustified. This is particularly curious, because Wuroinen is a composer who I know can whip things up to a frenzy through powerful musical architectures (take for example Arabia Felix, the Third Piano Concerto, the String Trio, or the Grand Bamboula, to name a few I enjoy). The work was written for Todd Seelye, and I suspect he is delivering it commandingly, so the fault lies either with my ears or the work. As usual, time will tell.

Both the Carter and the Berio have been recorded by their dedicatees—the former by David Starobin on an all-Carter Bridge disc, and the latter by Elliot Fisk on a Music Masters live concert recital. These are great artists, but Seelye's performances are quite polished, full of intense fantasy, and when linked with so much new repertoire, this disc stands out as a special event that can compete. All the remaining works beside Carter and Berio are premiere recordings (the Babbitt of a revised version of the score). This is a must for anyone interested in new guitar music. There are gems here; my only caveat is that each work is so dense with ideas, it is probably wise to listen to one at a time, rather than trying to take them all in at one sitting.

-- Robert Carl, FANFARE