Liszt: Transcendental Études, S. 139

Sonatas for Viola & Piano, Vol. 2

HINDEMITH Der Schwanendreher. Trauermusik. Kammermusik No. 5 for Solo Viola and Large Chamber Orchestra. Concert Music for Solo Viola and Large Chamber Orchestra (early version) • Tabea Zimmermann (va); Hans Graf, cond; Deutsches SO Berlin • MYRIOS 010 (SACD: 79:59)


As all Hindemithians know, the viola was the composer’s very own instrument of choice, even though he learned to play all the others in the modern orchestra. And during the 1920s and 1930s he often appeared as either soloist and/or conductor, performing the three large-scale concertante works he wrote for his favorite instrument, as well as his various sonatas for it. This brilliant young woman musician, Tabea Zimmermann, has been recording all of this music for the first-class new German label, Myrios Classics. The major discographical interest of this release comes in the form of a premiere recording of Hindemith’s original six-movement version of the 1939 Concert Music , reconstructed from manuscripts and performance editions which the composer had apparently revised and rejected in the interest of making the piece both shorter and practicable.


Here, for the first time, we get a chance to hear two movements of the initial six—a relatively brief but lovely slow fourth movement containing a ravishing oboe solo theme, and an altogether different Finale that is more substantial and distinctive than the shorter and rather throwaway movement heard in all previous recordings. However, in the revised version it is interesting to notice how every movement is permeated by the insistently busy, bustling, motto-theme heard at the very opening of the score, while this initial attempt has more thematic diversity and less of an organic integration. Perhaps Hindemith could have made the suite-like Concert Music even longer by inserting the variations somewhere between earlier movements, since it seems he remained forever undecided about the over-all form of the work, having originally conceived of it as consisting of two separate sections of either two or three movements each. In any case, this is a recording of a work poised on the cusp of the composer’s gradual evolution from the precedent-shattering, nose-thumbing defiance of the 1920s Kammermusik set—whose prickly concerto grosso incarnation for viola is superbly realized here—to the somewhat mellower, more magisterial yet genially neo-Baroque manner of his later years.


This program opens with perhaps one of the most perceptively precise and idiomatic recording of Hindemith’s popular Schwanendreher Concerto, in which the composer discovered and exploited the down-to-earth idiom of the German medieval folk universe. One would have to go back to the old Primrose recording to find an equal to this rendition.


Also included here is the ethereal Trauermusik for viola and string orchestra, composed at the last minute in memory of King George V—a work which Hindemith is quoted in the booklet as describing as a “minor effort”—hardly an accurate evaluation, to say the least. The booklet also offers a number of deliciously evocative photos of Hindemith and the dedicatees of the Schwanendreher , Darius and Madeleine Milhaud, as well as other illustrious musicians of the era.


Conductor Hans Graf and his musicians have these scores in their bloodstreams and, as for Ms. Zimmermann and the Myrios engineering team, words of praise fail me. In short, this CD belongs on everybody’s shelf.


FANFARE: Paul A. Snook

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

“Perhaps the most striking aspect of Gerstein's interpretation is his ability to make the piano writing sound much lighter and more transparent than usual...Instead of the conventional barnstorming bravura, Gerstein brings poetry, balletic grace and an infinitely wide range of timbres. Yet in no sense does the performance seem understated.” - BBC Music Magazine, March, 2015

“Once upon a time…” Like many other composers of the Romantic era, Robert Schumann found inspiration in the power of fantasy. This program includes his depictions of classic fairy tales in Märchenbilder, the Fantasy Pieces Op. 73, and Märchenerzählungen, as well as a contemporary take on the subject by Jörg Widmann, included in this album as a world premiere recording. The clarinetist and composer is joined by Tabea Zimmermann and Dénes Várjon. Clarinetist, composer and conductor Jörg Widmann is one of the most versatile and intriguing artists of his generation. Widmann’s compositions are performed regularly by conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Daniel Harding, Kent Nagano, Christian Thielemann, Mariss Jansons, Andris Nelsons and Simon Rattle and premiered by orchestras such as the Wiener and Berliner Philharmoniker, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, BBC Philharmonic and many others.

“We need Bach’s music, regardless of the instrument” (Tabea Zimmermann) Ten years after her acclaimed album “Solo” with the first two cello suites of Johann Sebastian Bach, violist Tabea Zimmermann now sets her sights on Suites Nos. 3 and 4. She pairs them with excerpts from György Kurtág’s cycle “Games, Signs & Messages”, selecting six numbers to form her own personal homage to Bach. For what kind of instruments did Bach write his solo suites BWV 1007-1012? How did they sound, what did they look like? This subject still gives rise to much speculation. Johann Peter Kellner’s manuscript copy from the early 1700s is one of the two main sources for the six solo suites, and it indicates a viola basso. The violoncello had not yet become standardized in terms of size, construction, and playing technique; Bach probably had instruments in mind such as the violoncello piccolo or the viola da spalla. The latter was a viola attached in front of the body by a strap: Bach performed the viola da spalla in public himself – possibly these suites. Tabea Zimmermann has not switched her musical hardware for this recording: here she plays her 1980 Vatelot viola with a classical bow. In 2009, the album “Solo” (MYR003) launched Tabea Zimmermann’s collaboration with the myrios classics label. The release was crowned with a multitude of international awards: Gramophone Editor’s Choice, “Stern des Monats” in Fono Forum, 4f in Télérama and 5 Stars in the Italian magazine Musica; moreover, in response to that groundbreaking recording, the jury of the coveted German ECHO Klassik Prize selected Tabea Zimmermann as “2010 Instrumentalist of the Year”.

ROMA

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

"...The playing is insightful, probing, masterly. Any resemblance between the Hagen – founded in 1981, with a female viola player and certain inter-quartet family connections – and the quartet in the film [A Late Quartet] is purely coincidental." - Fiona Maddocks, The Observer, April 2013

This album marks a milestone in the extensive discography of the Hagen Quartett – myrios classics is honoured to present their first recording of a Brahms string quartet. The quartet op. 67 is paired with Brahms’ piano quintet op. 34. Here, the Hagen Quartett is joined by their regular collaborator, pianist Kirill Gerstein. The unprecedented three-decade career of the Hagen Quartet began in 1981. Its early years, marked by a series of prizes in chamber music competitions and an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon that was to produce around forty-five albums over the following twenty years, enabled the group to work its way through the virtually un- limited quartet repertoire from which the distinctive profile of the Hagens has emerged. Collaborations with artistic personalities such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt and György Kurtág are as important to the Hagen Quartet as its concert appearances with performers including Maurizio Pollini, Mitsuko Uchida, Sabine Meyer, Krystian Zimerman, Heinrich Schiff and Jörg Widmann. The group’s concert repertoire and discography feature attractive and intelligently arranged programmes embracing the entire history of the string quartet, from its pre-Haydn beginnings right through to Kurtág. The Hagen Quartet also works closely with composers of its own generation, whether by reviving existing works or by commissioning and premiering new pieces.

BRAHMS Clarinet Quintet. GRIEG String Quartet in g • Jörg Widmann (cl); Hagen Qrt • MYRIOS MYR007 (SACD: 75:44)


This is the Hagen Quartet’s second CD for Myrios after a long association with Deutsche Grammophon. It features an unusual juxtaposition, pairing Brahms’s quintessentially autumnal Clarinet Quintet with Grieg’s volatile G-Minor Quartet, composed a dozen or so years earlier. It turns out, according to the notes, that the Hagens simply wanted to record both works. This CD also commemorates the Hagens’ 30th anniversary, making it dubious that the quartet was formed in 1987, as one Fanfare reviewer wrote recently.


Clarinetist Widmann and the Hagen Quartet present a highly individual reading of the Brahms, making a fascinating comparison with the Oslo Philharmonic Chamber Group’s recording, received simultaneously and probably reviewed in this issue. The current version offers a good deal more rhythmic and tonal inflection, while the Norwegians have a more opulent sound overall. This is a reading of considerable rhythmic flexibility, especially in the second movement, with a great deal of give-and-take among the musicians. Pianissimos are lovely—scarcely audible, in fact—and in general the ensemble is outstanding, with near-ideal instrumental balances. Widmann has a darker sound than most German clarinetists, but this sound is not as perfectly smooth as Leif Arne Pedersen’s is on the Oslo version, and it becomes a bit strident in fortissimo ; overall, however, it’s very fine playing. The other unusual feature of this reading is the very deliberate tempo of the first movement, which lasts more than 14 minutes with exposition repeat.


The Grieg performance emphasizes the score’s contrasts and discontinuities; it’s a reading of great drama, not inappropriate for this work. In some passages it sounds almost avant-garde. The Hagens’ exploitation of tone color is particularly effective here.


The question this disc poses is, for whom is it intended? The Brahms, interesting though it may be, is not on the level of the two versions by David Shifrin or the DG recording by Karl Leister; the Grieg is much less frequently recorded, so that some repertoire collectors may wish to buy this SACD for it—in which case, the Brahms will likely be a duplication at least. Some listeners will likely want the multichannel sound. But ultimately, I suspect the audience for this disc will be fans of the Hagen Quartet, to whom it is warmly recommended.


FANFARE: Richard A. Kaplan

Kirill Gerstein’s decade long relationship with British composer and pianist Thomas Adès is reflected through this latest release from myrios classics. Recorded in the luxurious acoustics of the Symphony Hall in Boston, the three Mazurkas for solo piano feature alongside the world premiere recordings of Berceuse from "The Exterminating Angel" and the concert paraphrase on "Powder Her Face" for two pianos performed with the composer. Together with these works is "In Seven Days" for piano and orchestra which anticipated Adès’s recent piano concerto written, like Berceuse, especially for Kirill. The live performance was captured in the Seiji Ozawa Hall as part of the 2018 Tanglewood Music Festival, with Adès conducting the Tanglewood Music Centre Orchestra.

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REVIEW:

How often is it that a piano disc comes along consisting entirely of new music as technically exhilarating in its modern way as any disc of Chopin or Liszt? There is life in the virtuoso concert pianist yet. Gerstein is a virtuoso and his brilliance pays dividends here...The story of the seven days of creation has never been told in music of more earth-shaking exuberance.

– Financial Times

Imaginary Pictures

SOLO

Highly communicative and agile … played with great commitment and authority.

The programming of this disc reminds me of Barbara Westphal and Jeffrey Swann’s Bridge disc [9109] which included both the Rebecca Clarke and Vieuxtemps but also included some Enescu, whereas the Zimmermann-Gerstein duo offers Brahms’s sonata in E flat major Op.120/2.

Clarke’s sonata is now deservedly quite popular and there are a number of recordings from which to choose with a variety of couplings. Zimmerman and Gerstein don’t catch the opening folkloric inflexions with quite as much immediacy as some duos but they do move from moments of agitated intensity to ruminative reflection with commendable surety. Zimmermann’s tone is finely equalized as ever, maintaining body at both ends of the range, and the ensemble is well nigh rock tight. The witty badinage of the central movement works well at this chosen tempo, with the duo avoiding the motoric speed that impelled Paul Coletti and Leslie Howard, who are lightning fast here [Hyperion CDH55085]. In the finale they’re a touch brisker than some duos, but that’s possibly because they prefer not to make too big an adjustment between the introductory Adagio section and the ensuing Allegro. Zimmerman’s tone is richer than Westphal’s, who also plays extremely well. Except for the finale where they’re quicker, the proportions of this new performance remind one of the Garfield Jackson/Martin Roscoe traversal on ASV CDDCA 932, coupled with Clarke’s Trio, and Amy Beach’s Piano Quintet. Helen Callus and Robert McDonald have also recorded it for ASV [1130] in a mixed recital and they’re slower than Zimmermann and Gerstein but not as slow as Philip Dukes and Sophia Rahman, whose first movement unfortunately rules them out of contention [Naxos 8.557934].

As noted, Zimmermann and Westphal both turn to the Vieuxtemps sonata and its expansive and expressive profile. Both offer highly laudable performances though the former has a wider range of tone colours and a greater sense of panache. That said Westphal, a no-nonsense player, ensures that the central Barcarolle laps that bit more incisively and insistently, whilst Zimmermann prefers a warmer tone but a slower, gentler tempo. The Brahms sonata is so much a staple that comparisons are numerous. I will note however that whilst she’s slower in the outer movements she’s even quicker than the young William Primrose (with Gerald Moore) in the central Allegro appassionato; quite some feat and very exciting. In fact this is a highly communicative and agile performance played with great commitment and authority.

The recording is very well judged, the notes good but printed in an unhelpful colour scheme (the track listing is unreadable unless you’re standing under a 100 watt bulb).

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

FANTASIA UND FUGE