This is the second volume of our complete Scarlatti project - Volume I appeared on Music & Arts box set CD-1236 in April. New Classics [UK] wrote of that release: "Scarlatti's 555 keyboard sonatas are single movements, mostly in binary form.... Some of them display harmonic audacity in their use of discords, and also unconventional modulations to remote keys. They combine pure joyous sounds with the taut rhythms of Spanish dance and the harmonic brilliance of his Italian heritage to a degree that places him among the greatest musicians of all time. This first volume of the recordings of all of Scarlatti's sonatas, eloquently played on the Bösendorfer Imperial piano by Carlo Grante, is a splendid and fascinating undertaking: a journey through shared cultural experience, as well as one that explores the subtle thought processes of a highly influential musical genius." " "Sales Inventory

The visionary power, dramatic potency, and titanic flow of Furtwängler's wartime Beethoven symphony performances add up to listening experiences demanding as much as they reward. This is especially true in the 1944 Vienna "Eroica", the 1943 Berlin Fourth and Fifths, and a 1942 Berlin Ninth that pushes Beethoven's radical contours to their expressive limits. By contrast, this 1944 "Pastorale" paints a more foreboding, lugubrious outdoor landscape than the conductor's equally heavy-gaited, but more flowing post-war Vienna commercial recording. Maggi Payne's technical reconstructions appear to draw upon the same superior sources tapped for previous releases on Tahra and Deutsche Grammophon. The Ninth, though, resembles an earlier single-disc Music & Arts release in less impactive sound than Tahra's transfer. The booklet notes derive from John Ardoin's detailed and frank commentaries in his critical discography devoted to the conductor. Sonic reservations aside, these performances matter.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Live recordings, 1972-1882. Ervin Nyiregyházi (1903-87) is largely forgotten today, but he was one of the greatest and most idiosyncratic pianists of the twentieth century, and his eccentric personality and bizarre career have few parallels in the history of music. These late concert recordings, all but four released here for the first time, are representative of Nyiregyházi's art, and should help to rehabilitate a lost genius whose reputation has rarely matched his artistic stature.

The Galax Quartet (Elizabeth Blumenstock and David Wilson, Baroque violins; Roy Whelden, viola da gamba; and David Morris, Baroque cello) is equally at home performing works by 17th and 18th century composers as well as cutting edge, newly commissioned works. Their period instruments—with gut strings, low angle fingerboards, no chin rests or end pins, and lighter bows—offer a rich pallet of coloration and nuances to composers of new music. Joined by guest artist Karen R. Clark (contralto) the Galax Quartet takes us on a traversal of three vivid musical realms. Featured are two world premieres: Dream Drapery “Thoreau Songs” by Joseph Schwantner (Pulitzer Prize for Music, 1979), and Radif IV “Stars of Highest Magnitude” by Robert Morris. Also included is Marc Mellits’ popular String Quartet No. 2 “Revolution” in a new setting. Praise for Dream Drapery: “Three fantastical worlds debouch from this talismanic Galax release!...Canny contralto Karen R. Clark outdoes herself; her pace and diction are keyed to a higher logic of sound.” (Rudy Rucker, author of Infinity and the Mind and White Light) “Dream Drapery by the Galax Quartet and contralto Karen R. Clark is a bold and beautiful recording…the Galax Quartet and Karen R. Clark are locked sonically in a loving embrace.” (Hank Dutt, violist of the Kronos Quartet)

Dussek: Duos for 2 Fortepianos

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

BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY NO. 5 WILH

BUSONI: Works for Piano and Orchestra

Classical Music

Carlo Grante is among the most prolific recording pianists today. His recorded repertoire is broad in scope and includes everything from his critically acclaimed series The Complete Keyboard Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti to works by Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Busoni, Godowsky, Ravel, and contemporary composers. This release marks Grante’s first recording of the music of Johannes Brahms.

Carlo Grante has performed in numerous major venues worldwide, including Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center in the US. He gave the first live performance of all 53 of Godowsky’s Studies on the Études of Chopin at the Newport Festival. He has brought out over 60 albums devoted to the works of Scarlatti, Busoni, Schubert, Brahms, Godowsky, and Adolphe. He gave the world premiere of Bruce Adolphe’s piano concerto in Zurich in July 2016.

REVIEWS:

Carlo Grante knows how to treat them, and that’s no backhanded compliment. He plays these works with love and respect, instilling in the listener a profound feeling of emotional and even spiritual connection with this music. I have quite a few other recordings of these works and each of them gives me pleasure in different ways. Grante’s set will now join them for its remarkably insightful, thrilling, and moving performances, and for its superb recording which captures Grante’s Bösendorfer 280 VC piano in an aura of concert hall realism.

-- Fanfare (Jerry Dubins)

This is clearly a worthwhile set, particularly for those of you who, like me, have some of these pieces in my collection but not all of them. Even ignoring the couple of weak works here, it's definitely worth pursuing due to Grante's exceptional pianism.

-- The Art Music Lounge (Lynn René Bayley)

Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991) was one of the great Beethoven exponents of the 20th century. Donal Henahan wrote of a performance given by Serkin of the 'Diabelli' in the NY Times: 'Rudolk Serkin's...approach to music and his instrument is devout, all but priestly, and his audience attends to him with the seriousness of a congregation that expects nothing less than high revelation.'

Complete Symphonies and Selected Overtures, from the legendary October-December 1939 NBC cycle. CD 1: Symphony No 1 in C Major, Op. 21 & Symphony No 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 "Eroica" (Studio 8H, 28 Oct. 1939. CD 2: Symphony No 2 in D Major, Op. 36; Symphony No 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60 & Leonore Overture No. 3 (Studio 8H, 4 Nov. 1939). CD 3: Symphony No 6 in F Major, Op. 68 "Pastorale" & Symphony No 5 in C Minor, Op. 67 (Studio 8H, 11 Nov. 1939). CD 4: Egmont Overture & Symphony No 7 in A Major, Op. 92 (Studio 8H, 18 Nov. 1939); Leonore Overture No. 1 & Symphony No 8 in F Major, Op. 93 (Studio 8H, 25 Nov. 1939). CD 5: Leonore Overture No. 2 (Studio 8H, 25 Nov. 1939}; Symphony No 9 in D Minor, Op. 1(Jarmila Novotna, Kerstin Thorborg, Jan Peerce, Nicola Moscona, Westminster Choir, Carnegie Hall, 2 Dec. 1939). New 2013 digital transfers by Aaron Z. Snyder using the revolutionary harmonic balancing process. Notes: Christopher Dyment. Total time: 6 hrs 12 min. BUZZ: "With Chris Dyment's uncommonly informative notes, this release is essential for anyone who cares about Beethoven or Toscanini" --Mortimer H. Frank in Fanfare [on the previous edition] "a must for every experienced music lover... 5.0 out of 5 stars " --Peter Dietrich, amazon.com customer reviews [on the previous edition] "These are superb transfers... They give a great cycle its best sonic shout to date." --Rob Cowan, Gramophone [on the previous edition] "The NBC Orchestra is in fine form and the great conductor's sometimes controversial genius combines with that of Beethoven to produce dazzling and memorable performances." -- www.new-classics.co.uk [on the previous edition]

Includes son(s) for vln and pno by Ludwig van Beethoven. Soloists: Pamela Frank, Claude Frank.

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9 • Wilhelm Furtwängler, cond; Tilla Briem (sop); Elisabeth Höngen (alt); Peter Anders (ten); Rudolf Watzke (bs); Bruno Kittel Ch; Berlin PO • MUSIC & ARTS 1276, mono (73:12) Live: Berlin 3/22 & 24/1942


This is the most famous performance of the Beethoven Ninth ever given by a non-traditional, i.e. eccentric, conductor whose work lies mainly outside the musical mainstream. Furtwängler justified his brushing aside written tempos, tempo relationships, and other items within a score that one would perceive as musical by the belief—instilled in him as a young man and reiterated by his carefully-chosen circle of friends—that he was the most spiritual conductor of his time and the guardian of German Art, which he believed superior to all others. Thus in his mind, anything he did with a score was justified by his spirituality, which trumped all other considerations.


Within that set of rules, however, this performance has achieved an almost mythic status. Roughly 40 years ago, I was told (erroneously) that this performance was given in Hitler’s presence to celebrate his birthday, but that Furtwängler in essence hurled Beethoven’s message of joy and brotherhood down his throat with the ferocity of this performance. That, of course, is untrue, but it was true that by 1942 Furtwängler, who chose to remain in Nazi Germany to help preserve German Art in his own way (and help protect Jewish musicians in the Berlin Philharmonic), was not merely disillusioned but disgusted by the actions of his government and depressed by the fact that they went about purging Europe of Jews. Yet although Furtwängler never joined the Nazi Party, wore a swastika armband, or gave the Nazi salute, he tacitly supported the National Socialists because they constantly used his name and image to promote the very “Great German Art” of which he considered himself the high priest. And, according to Fred K. Prieberg’s remarkable book, Trial of Strength: Wilhelm Furtwängler in the Third Reich (Northeastern University Press, 1994), Furtwängler’s fluid and eccentric tempos were already falling out of favor with some German critics by the late 1930s. The conductor even petitioned Goebbels to “remove” certain critics who said negative things about his work because they obviously didn’t understand how great and holy he was. It was a dangerous high-wire act that he walked, and in the end it cost him a few years as Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic.


One of the problems of this recording was that it derived from Russian archival copies of RGG tapes, which contained peak and intermodular distortion. There were also small but discernible pitch fluctuations throughout. I recall a CD copy I once owned on the Price-less label (remember them?) that sounded as if the recording was made on a slab of granite by a stone cutting stylus, with blasting at all peaks of volume. In this pressing, taken from a digital copy newly remastered by Aaron Z. Snyder in 2012 (when Music & Arts issued it as part of 4-CD set 4049), pitch wavering and discernible surface noise have been corrected, but the top range still shows signs of blasting at peak volume and, by and large, the treble end is dull, not at all realistic-sounding—more like Furtwängler’s early Polydor recordings than the clear, translucent EMI recordings of the 1930s.


Within his own odd set of rules, however, it is primarily the first movement that comes off the worst. This seems to have been a constant for him: I’ve heard four Furtwängler Ninths (this one, the 1951 Bayreuth performance, and both of his 1954 performances), and none are convincing here. His intent seems to have been to depict the chaos of creation, or as he put it, “the primeval beginning of time, out of which everything evolved,” but in each performance those opening measures—and several minutes thereafter—sound logy and earthbound, more like something crawling back into the ocean that out of it. Of the four versions I’ve heard, this one is by far the most sluggish; it is not until just before the nine-minute mark that his tempo finally starts to come up to something approaching normal, albeit still slower than score. His second movement, however, is really splendid, and by contrast points out how unnaturally stiff and metronomic Toscanini’s tempo is in the December 1939 Ninth with the NBC Symphony. Furtwängler introduces some beautifully relaxed ritards here and there, and in the middle of the trio section (when the winds are playing) pulls back on the beat. The first time or two, it is exquisite; at the third and fourth points at which he does this, however, it is too slack, causing the music to lose momentum and almost collapse before the syncopated string figure that opened the movement returns, snapping the orchestra back to attention.


This is the slowest of his surviving accounts of the third movement (a little over 20 minutes), and like nearly all of his performances of the Symphony, it contains some of the most hauntingly beautiful playing within a consistently slow tempo, but here Furtwängler reveals his uncanny ability to make the music “float,” a quality much coveted in this movement by Toscanini, who only managed it a few times (oddly enough, one of them being the December 1939 Ninth previously mentioned). This is undoubtedly the one movement that most influenced younger German and Austrian conductors, from Schmidt-Isserstedt to Karajan, as they all emulated him in this regard. Then comes the fiery and electrifying final movement, in which the conductor’s whipping up of tempo is matched by his ability to draw the most astonishing playing out of his musicians—they respond as if possessed, as do the soloists and the Bruno Kittel Choir. Even if he was not really trying to hurl Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” in the face of Hitler, one definitely gets the feeling that, in his mind on that day, this Ode to Joy had become an act of defiance, almost distorting the music (and words) to produce an almost apocalyptic vision of the score. In short, one gets the feeling that Furtwängler was not certain whether he, or German art, would survive the Nazi horror, the war, and the Holocaust.


Despite my misgivings about tempos and phrasing here and there, this still remains a remarkable document. It is not my favorite Beethoven Ninth—that honor goes to Karajan’s 1975 (or 1976) recording with Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Agnes Baltsa, Peter Schreier, and José van Dam and the Berlin Philharmonic—but it is, on balance, Furtwängler’s best reading of the score. One might, in fact, replace the first movement of this version with the first movement of the August 1954 performance, which is not perfect but a little better, to get this conductor’s best approach to the Ninth. And one should remember that, in spite all of his loose tempos and fluctuations, Toscanini was greatly impressed by the feeling that Furtwängler was able to bring out in his performances, in certain works (Wagner, the Tchaikovsky Sixth, and the Mozart 40th symphonies) being influenced by the younger conductor. This, then, is certainly not a first choice Ninth in my view, but a necessary third or fourth recording to have around for the good things in it, which are many.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Bartok: Sonata for 2 Pianos & Percussion - Stockhausen: Kont