Weiss, S.L.: Lute Sonatas, Vol. 2 - Nos. 5, 25, 50

Silvius Leopold Weiss loved the lute. An exact contemporary of J.S. Bach, he worked in the Dresden court composing hundreds of lute pieces. This volume by American Robert Barto is the eighth in his Naxos series.

For a variety of reasons - including an interdict on their distribution by his patron and the fact that many survive only in tablature, not to mention their extreme difficulty - it’s a wonder that we’re able to hear them at all. The provenance, near destruction and geographical scattering - collections exist in London and Dresden - make teeth-chattering reading. Indeed a sonata on the already-published Volume 1 (Naxos 8.553773) was misidentified as Number 36: it should be Number 11. This is all the more unnerving when one remembers in what high esteem Weiss was held both in Germany as lutenist while still alive, and subsequently by musicologists aware of his gifts and tantalised by the wished-for prospect of his having written music other than for the lute.

Barto presents three sonatas on this CD: Numbers 36, 19 and 34. It can be said from the start that the playing is sharp and expressive and thus that the CD can be immediately recommended. It will be interesting to see how a ‘rival’ series by Yasunori Imamura on Claves - so far only Volume 1 has been released on 50-2613 - compares. Barto’s approach more earthy than Imamura’s with slightly more poise and a ‘stringier’ sound; perhaps even more downright accomplished. Each has its merits and each more than passes muster. Reviews of previous volumes in the Naxos/Barto series on MusicWeb have been enthusiastic. Volume 8 is no exception.

Sonata - we should probably call it a Suite - 36 is highly typical of Weiss’s later approach: a three-part texture in cantabile style. It’s a lovely, gentle, work with intricacies and simplicities in equal measure. At times redolent of Bach - listen to the development of the end of the allegro, tr. 6, for example - the six movements follow one another like a happy, dancing couple.

Number 19 is harmonically conservative and shies away from anything at all angular or extrovert, though the music is full of impact and makes special use of folk dances. After listening to the Sonata, one seems to have experienced as much as heard the tunes, the overt and hidden rhythms and the contrasts between movements. Barto is highly skilled at leading us through that experience.

Number 34 is one of Weiss’s most popular sonatas and evidently was used for teaching. But it’s no simplified exercise. With superb part-writing and luminous, improvisatory singing sequences, it contains arguably the most lovely music on this CD.

If you’ve been collecting Barto’s Naxos Weiss series until now, you’ll need no encouragement to buy this latest volume. If you haven’t come across it yet, this is as good a place to start as any. If it’s the sound of the lute you’re after, then Weiss’s expertise drawing out every nuance will thrill and reward.

-- Mark Sealey, MusicWeb International

The connection between Johann Sebastian Bach and Sylvius Leopold Weiss goes beyond their having virtually identical dates. The two men were friends and in his young adulthood, Bach admired the more famous Weiss very much and in my opinion wrote much of his music, if not for Weiss, at least with Weiss or someone like him in mind.

Weiss was the Paganini of his day, his virtuosity amazed and overwhelmed listeners and challenged composers. Bach re-wrote much of his music, probably more than we are aware of because we only have a small number of surviving manuscripts of earlier versions. As a young man, Bach would expect to hear his music played by lutenists and clavichordists, but as these instruments fell out of favor, he could see that this was less and less likely, so he rewrote pieces to make them more suitable for harpsichord, and finally fortepiano, performance. After poring through some German essays on the subject, I am convinced Bach probably did not play the lute himself, but was interested in achieving lute sonority on harpsichords, and had at least one such “lute-harpsichord*” [*Scholars are still unsure just what that instrument was.] in his possession when he died. Recently there have been recordings of the first book of the Well Tempered Klavier which used clavichord, harpsichord, organ, and fortepiano for the various preludes and fugues, but my feeling is that one should also include some performances on the lute as well. By the time of the second volume, it is my opinion that this is a fortepiano work, and that explains why Bach rewrote many of the earlier pieces for inclusion therein, not to make them “better” but to make them more suitable for performance on the fortepiano. Professor Richard Jones particularly needs to study this point. When Weiss died in the same year as Bach, the lute as a solo virtuoso instrument virtually died with him.

Bach wrote an astonishing quantity of the finest preludes and fugues ever done but he also wrote dance pieces for his keyboard suites and his works for solo instrument. Most Bach enthusiasts pay very little attention to these dance pieces, but what is interesting is that Weiss’ pieces in similar forms are very similar in style to Bach’s and heard on the lute they are delightful. Performance of these smaller works of Bach on the lute would probably make them much more comprehensible, and in fact we have just such an instance with Paul Galbraith’s performance of the Sonatas And Partitas for solo violin on his six string guitar. It is the smaller dance pieces which gain most from this arrangement — indeed they become interesting enough to be listened to all by themselves. And that is what we hear on this recording listening to similar dances by Weiss.

A recent biography of Bach by Martin Geck enlarges the spotlight, giving much information about the surrounding circumstances in which Bach lived, deepening our understand of Bach as a man who lived in a culture and reacted to it. Another crippling legacy of Victorian musicology falls; instead of seeing all the musicians around Bach as mere imitators, and hence safely to be ignored, we see instead that they formed a musical culture in which Bach was immersed and with which he interacted profitably. A familiarity with Weiss, who spent his professional life at Dresden, 60 miles from Leipzig, is valuable to an understanding of Bach. For a long time this has been all but impossible as the music of Weiss was unknown and unplayed, presumed lost; but now we have this excellent series.

Recording perspective on Volume 6 is closer than on Volume 2 and finger slide noises are more evident. The introduzione to Sonata No.45 has a fugato section that is somewhat reminiscent of Handel’s “Harmonious Blacksmith” followed by a very Bachian courante. The sprightly bourrée is more syncopated than most Bach. The sarabande is appropriately stately, touching but not sad. The menuet is, again, sprightly with musical leaps not usually heard in a menuet. The presto is just that, but not a fugue as it would be with Bach, but rather reminiscent of the allegro from Bach’s BWV 998, a lute work, likely influenced by Weiss. If someone told you this movement was by Bach — unusually playful Bach to be sure — you would have no reason to doubt it.

The suites are apparently numbered in order of composition, so following No.45, a late work, we come to No.7, a much earlier work, beginning not with a prelude or an introduzione, but directly with a stately and thoughtful allemande, followed by a fast and rather Bachian (but not fugal) courante. The gavotte is graceful, with typical leaps, the sarabande particularly lovely and affecting. The menuet is dramatic, the gigue is as rollicking and Bachian as it can get without being a fugue. Altogether this earlier work keeps its unique personality but is not in any sense lacking in quality. Suite No.23, a work from the middle years, begins with a arpeggiated chordal prelude which leads at once into an entrée, an embellished aria; and on with the usual set of dances, finishing with a swinging saltarella — which could pass for a hornpipe — and is probably the most interesting work on the disk, showing Barto’s skill in saving the best for last, which is also true of Volume 2, the last movement on which is possibly my single favorite work by Weiss.

Throughout Mr. Barto plays with lyricism, rhythmic integrity, expression, sweetness of tone and clarity of voice — that is, amazing skill. Overall he’s every bit as good as Lindberg, perhaps with a little more drama and softness, whereas Lindberg pushes the limit on dexterity and precision. I think I like Barto’s lute, which has many of the qualities of an alto guitar, more than Lindberg’s lute which tends to “run out of breath”, but that could have more to do with the recording engineer.

-- Paul Shoemaker, MusicWeb International

Weiss, S.L.: Lute Sonatas, Vol. 5 - Nos. 38, 43 / Tombeau

Though it has attracted less attention than some of the company’s other ventures, the Naxos series of sonatas for lute by Weiss, played by the American lutenist Robert Barto is one of which the company can rightly be very proud.

Weiss was the most significant lutenist of his age; born in what is now Wroc?aw in Poland, his family, who served at the local court, were already steeped in the traditions of lute-playing and he was first taught by his father. At the tender age of seven he was accomplished enough to play before Emperor Leopold I. Beginning his career in Wroc?aw (or Breslau as it then was), he went on to hold appointments in Düsseldorf and Rome – where he was part of the retinue of Prince Alexander Sobieski. After Sobieski’s death Weiss seems initially to have made a kind of musical tour of Europe, his playing being in such demand. In 1718 he chose to return to ‘fixed’ employment, accepting a well-paid post at the court in Dresden, where his colleagues included, at one time or another, Fux, Pisendel, Quantz and Zelenka. Dresden remained his base for the rest of his life, though the terms of his employment also allowed him to also to travel. He was unsuccessfully head-hunted by the Viennese court. He met Bach in Leipzig in 1739. Little of Weiss’s music was published during his lifetime.

In this latest volume of his series, Robert Barto plays on a thirteen-course lute, a design for which Weiss himself was probably responsible. It is a tribute to Barto’s virtuosity that he can handle so demanding an instrument with what sounds like ease; what is even more important is the beauty and subtlety of the music he makes upon it. Both of the sonatas – the term effectively meaning ‘suite’ - on this CD are in six movements. The B flat major sonata is made up of an allemande, a courante, a paisane, a sarabande, a menuet and a gigue; the sonata in F sharp minor consists of an allemande, a courante, a bourrée, a sarabande, a menuet and a presto. Though precise dates are hard to arrive at, sonata no.15 probably derives from the 1720s, no. 48 from late in Weiss’s career, perhaps as late as the 1740s.

Both are full of superb music, from the serious grandeur of the allemande which opens the earlier sonata to the dazzling presto which closes the later one. This is a disc for all lovers of the lute.

-- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by Johann Hoffmann. Soloists: Birgit Schwab, Daniel Ahlert.
Includes work(s) for lute by Silvius Leopold Weiss. Soloists: Birgit Schwab, Daniel Ahlert.

Leo Weiner taught at the Liszt academy in Budapest for over half a century. He taught continual generations of Hungary’s leading performers, and earned his country’s premier awards. Weiner’s composition career shot him into stardom with his creative use of tone colors, instrumentation, and intense emotion. He viewed Csongor and Tunde as his masterpiece and its incidental music later took independent form as a ballet, which is heard on this recording in its final 1959 version. The Ballad, Op 28, stems from an earlier piece for clarinet and piano.

Emotional Soviet solo cello. If that’s what you’re looking for, this is hard to beat.

Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s solo cello sonatas are considerably more interesting than his preludes for the same instrument, which I reviewed here a few months ago. They aren’t a direct response to Bach, but very much Weinberg himself, a voice not far removed from Shostakovich’s, but with occasional added flavors of Jewish melody and jazz.

These sonatas are all very much of their composer: recognizably Soviet, emotionally quite austere, harmonically bittersweet. But they are written fluently and there are terrific moments: the transition from slow movement to impassioned finale in Sonata No 2, the uncommonly charming allegretto in No 3, the ethereal muted presto of the same sonata, and the otherworldly original andante to No 4, in which cellist Josef Feigelson (who also wrote the excellent notes) points out traces of Hindemith.

On the other hand, this music won’t have mass appeal. The occasional grayness of the writing — we don’t quite have Shostakovich’s emotional range here — and the fact that Weinberg’s style appears not to have changed very much between 1964 and 1986 means that this is the kind of disc you only put on the stereo when you’re in a very specific mood, or if you’re a very specific listener. That isn’t true of Weinberg’s stunning cello concerto, a rich, generous masterwork which works through a series of lush tunes in one broad emotional circle, and I think that my slight bitterness here may be due to the fact that I was expecting something along those lines and didn’t get it. The cello concerto is currently only available on Brilliant, in its live Rostropovich box, though Chandos has recorded a similarly good cello fantasy so there may be hope.

Josef Feigelson recorded this disc, and its companion, as a compendium of Weinberg’s complete cello music in the 1990s, very shortly after the composer’s death - learning the sonatas from the original manuscripts. Certainly his playing here is not to be faulted, and, as was true of the first volume, a more impassioned advocate of the music is hard to imagine. The sound is not too close, the cello tone full and darkly rich. Weinberg’s masterwork for the instrument remains the astonishing Cello Concerto, but these sonatas are very good in their way too. If you’ve been waiting for moody Soviet solo cello work, your ship has come in.

-- Brian Reinhart, MusicWeb International

.Born in Warsaw but forced to flee to Minsk and then Tashkent before finally settling in Moscow, Mieczyslaw Weinberg was, as Shostakovich remarked, �one of the most outstanding composers of the present day� and a close friend of the older composer. His Cello Sonatas, the second of which was composed for Rostropovich, make masterful use of the cello�s expressive capabilities, while his sonatas for solo cello have been likened in importance to the suites of J.S. Bach. The first and third of these in particular, dedicated to Rostropovich, are significant contributions to the instrument�s repertoire.

While he left an extensive and significant output of stage-works, the contribution of Kurt Weill to orchestral and instrumental genres was largely restricted to his formative years.

WEIGL 6 Fantasies. Isle of the Dead. Pictures and Tales. Dance of the Furies. Night Fantasies • Joseph Banowetz (pn) • NAXOS 8.572423 (78: 49)

Josef Banowetz’s efforts on behalf of neglected music have not gone unnoticed by the recording industry. Two of his projects—Balakirev’s piano music for four-hands (with Alton Chung Ming Chan) and the Kletzki Piano Concerto (with the Russian Philharmonic of Moscow conducted by Thomas Sanderling)—have received Grammy nominations for outstanding performances. Whether his current disc of the complete piano music of Karl Weigl will be so honored remains to be seen, but connoisseurs of the rare don’t have to wait for the Grammy’s imprimatur to feel secure in acquiring the CD. Banowetz is an excellent pianist whose warm tone and expressive manner are stylistically well matched with Weigl’s Viennese aesthetic. It’s tempting to think that Banowetz’s years in Vienna sensitized him to the evanescent wisps of the turn-of-the-century zeitgeist that still hovered in the air even in the 1950s. Of course, Weigl, although born in 1881, lived until 1949, so he had ample opportunity to embrace new trends such as atonality or 12-tone composition had he been of a mind to. But for whatever reason he chose another path, preferring to extend the harmonic language of Mahler and his contemporaries while remaining true to their artistic ideals. Banowetz hears a dark undercurrent in much of Weigl’s music. Certainly that holds true for the Isle of the Dead, the Night Fantasies, and the Dance of the Furies, although the latter is more restrained, at least in Banowetz’s interpretation, than the title would suggest. However, Weigl has his lighter, even frolicsome moments: Witness several of the Six Fantasies and Pictures and Tales, although even the Pictures, ostensibly intended for children, touch on some disquieting ideas; Sleeping Beauty’s grave, for instance. Banowetz’s thoughtful interpretations emphasize the varied character of the music, and his touch delineates every nuance from delicate clarity to full-bodied resonance. Incidentally, his pedaling beautifully complements his incisive technique, adding luminous or ominous colors as required. This is a welcome release, showcasing the works of a formerly unsung composer who merits the attention of the listening public.

FANFARE: Robert Schulslaper

WEELKES: Anthems

WEBER: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 / Turandot Overture / Silvana

WEBER: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Polacca brillante

Click here for all of Robert Craft's recordings on Naxos