Vivaldi: Cello Concerti, Vol. 2

VIVALDI: Cello Concertos, Vol. 1

VIVALDI Bassoon Concertos: in a, RV 497; in C, RV 473; in F, RV 491; in C, RV 466; in C, RV 469; in g, RV 496 • Tamás Benkócs (bn); Béla Drahos, cond; Nicolaus Esterházy Snf • NAXOS 8.570798 (65:04)


For anyone wishing recordings of all 37 completed bassoon concertos by the Red Priest, there is currently only one choice: Daniel Smith on five ASV CDs (552). While this is hardly a bad deal—Smith and his two conductors and orchestras present the works with great energy and dazzling virtuosity—there have always been nagging irritations. Smith is an amazing performer, but every concerto seems like an Olympic event; faster is better—faster and louder better still. If, in the process, he produced a hollow tone—made coarse when overblown, barking low notes here and there, occasional dicey intonation, intermittent fudged figurations where the tempo was set faster than the fingers could fly, it was all in the name of the race. He and the orchestra always got to the end, together, and by golly it was exciting. And yet—and yet—!As much as it seems like ungrateful nit-picking and as much as one is thrilled just to have all of these inventive works so well played, or played at all, in the end one feels that there should be something more than mere pyrotechnics, however breathtaking they might be.


Enter the extraordinary Hungarian bassoonist Tamás Benkócs, principal of the superb Budapest Festival Orchestra. Here at last is the poetry, not the race. Here is elegance and wit and wistfulness and moments of repose to go along with the amazing technical virtuosity. Benkócs doesn’t have us on the edge of our seats, wondering if he is going to make it through a passage; rather he tackles the sometimes-staggering technical challenges with deceptive ease. The tempos are generally a bit slower than are Smith’s, but with that slight relaxation one starts hearing the extraordinary music instead of just the amazing rush of notes. The middle slow movements benefit the most—Benkócs plays them as if he were singing an aria—but the variety that he finds in the fast movements, not to mention the warm solid tone, impeccable intonation, seamlessly blended tenor and bass registers, and precise articulation of even the most demanding passages, is well worth a little loss in raw excitement. I like his playing as well as that of Klaus Thunemann on Philips, and that is high praise indeed. Béla Drahos and his excellent modern-instrument band provide sympathetic accompaniment: buoyant, transparent, restrained in use of vibrato, harpsichord dominated, but with attractive depth. I would have liked them a bit farther forward on the sound stage, but that is a minor quibble. Collectors who have a wider interest in this repertoire will want to sample some of the colorful period-instrument performances on Naïve 30379 and 30409, but there is still a great deal of vitality in these traditional modern-instrument performances, as well.


With this volume, Mr. Benkócs has finished five CDs and 31 concertos. Assumedly, he will complete the series in one more volume. Two other Fanfare critics have weighed in on the series; David L. Kirk warmly welcomed Volume 2 (8.555938) in 28:6; but in 30:2, Laura Rónai found Volume 3 (8.557556) too polite by half, and non-descript to boot. I certainly side with Mr. Kirk, but obviously opinions vary. The nice thing about Naxos recordings is that one can experiment for a relatively small investment. That’s what I recommend. Then you can buy the other four, as I did.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames

Here, offering a further six concertos, is the latest instalment in Naxos’s recording of Vivaldi’s 37 bassoon concertos; 39 if one counts two incomplete specimens. Those who have invested in earlier volumes in the series (see below), all recorded by the same forces, will know to expect the enjoyable, fluent performances that are to be heard here.

The Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia use modern instruments but, under the direction of Béla Drahos they play with a crisp articulation that is, for the most part, stylistically convincing. Benkócs is a very fine bassoonist indeed, both technically extremely accomplished and musically imaginative. The outer movements – all six are in three movements, fast-slow-fast – frequently call for considerable fleetness of finger and certainty of breath control and Benkócs is never found wanting. There is rapid-fire virtuosity when needed and many delightfully dancing passages. In the slow movements Benkócs plays with lyrical expressivity, elegantly poignant and reflective in music which, as so often in the slow movements of Vivaldi’s concertos has a distinctly operatic feel about it.

Every one of these concertos offers things of real interest – Vivaldi’s musical imagination seems unflagging. There’s the way, for example, in which the opening allegro of RV 477 contrasts the tenor and bass registers of the solo instrument; or the dotted rhythms of the bassoon in the largo of RV 499. Or, particularly pleasant, the final allegro of RV 494 which is full of ingenious twists and turns.

It is puzzling that Vivaldi should have written quite so many concertos for the bassoon – the bassoon wasn’t generally a fashionable solo instrument in this period. Perhaps he wrote them for a specific instrumentalist; if so the identity of that musician remains unknown; certainly Vivaldi demonstrates a thorough understanding of the instrument’s possibilities. Whatever the circumstances which prompted the composition of these concertos, they certainly constitute a rewarding body of music and one of the many demonstrations of Vivaldi’s remarkable ability to produce seemingly infinite variations (and there really is variety here) on a basically simple formula.

A graduate of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Tamás Benkócs is a member of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. I haven’t encountered any other recordings by him outside this Naxos series of the Vivaldi concertos. He is such a fine player that it is to be hoped that he will go onto record more of the bassoon repertoire.

The one reservation – though it is not one that spoils my pleasure in the CDs – that I about this series concerns the rather understated penny-plain continuo, where the concertos would certainly benefit from greater embellishment. Very decent as the contribution of the Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia and Béla Drahos is, I would love to hear Benkócs playing these works with one of the best specialist baroque ensembles.

On balance though, this is an eminently worthwhile and enjoyable series, and this latest volume continues the good work begun by its predecessors. The recorded sound is pleasingly clear and well balanced.

-- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International

Vivaldi: Bassoon Concertos (Complete), Vol. 3

The son of the famous Bologna composer Giovanni Battista Vitali, Tomaso Antonio moved with his father to Modena in 1674, joining the court orchestra of Duke Francesco II d'Este, which he was later to lead, in the following year.

Includes work(s) by David Popper, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Jacques Offenbach. Soloists: Maria Kliegel, Raimund Havenith.
Includes work(s) for cel and pno by Sergei Rachmaninov. Soloists: Maria Kliegel, Raimund Havenith.

VIOTTI: Violin Concerto No. 23 / Sinfonie Concertanti

Heitor Villa-Lobos’s mother dismissed the guitar as “an instrument played by scoundrels”, but his earliest surviving work, Dime perché, comes from a time when he was composing almost exclusively on this instrument. +By completing his unfinished Valsa Concerto No. 2, Andrea Bissoli brings to life the subject of a notorious anecdote between Segovia and Miguel Llobet, and the Sexteto místico echoes Brazilian street band sounds, anticipating Villa-Lobos’s “new form” of the mystical Choros. +The intimate serenade Canção do Amor is from his soundtrack for the film Green Mansions.

This is the first of three volumes including rare and recently discovered works by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Guitarist Andrea Bissoli’s researches have revealed new sources for lost manuscripts, and these recordings of the Valsa, the Motivos Gregos and Canção do poeta do século XVIII represent the revival of music thought to have vanished forever. These works are joined by transcriptions which include one of Villa-Lobos’ best loved melodies, the Ária from Bachianas Brasileiras No 5, as well as the Concerto he wrote for the legendary Segovia.

Heitor Villa-Lobos was instrumental in developing a national Brazilian musical culture, writing in a wide variety of forms. Composed in 1954 for the 400th anniversary of the founding of São Paulo, Ameríndia is the composer’s largest symphony. Effectively a hybrid symphony and oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra, it is memorable for its stylistic variety and breadth, drawing on many different sources of Brazilian music. This recording is based on a newly revised edition made by Editora Criadores do Brasil (the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra’s publishing house) in collaboration with the Academia Brasileira de Música.

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

By the 1940s Heitor Villa-Lobos was widely recognized as Latin America’s greatest composer. Working in the United States gave him new perspectives, and his later symphonies move away from the folk influences and exotic effects of works written in the 1920s and 30s, such as the Bachianas Brasileiras, towards more concise, sometimes neo-classical, models. The Eighth and Nineth share a transparent lightness of touch while the Eleventh, described as a work of ‘immediate charm,’ is the perfect introduction to the later work of Villa-Lobos. Since its first concert in 1954 the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra has developed into one of today’s leading orchestras. An indispensable part of Sao Paulo and Brazillian culture that promotes deep cultural and social transformation, the orchestra has released over 60 recordings and has toured throughout Brazil, Latin Aerica, the United States, and Europe. In 2012 Marin Alsop was engaged as principal conductor, and in 2013 she was appointed music director. That same year the orchestra went on a fourth European tour, performing to great acclaim at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the PHilharmonie in Berlin, and at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

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REVIEW:

Isaac Karabtchevsky's sure-footed pacing conveys a deep understanding of these scores. The orchestra is wonderfully on point, which makes an enormous difference in music as finely shaded as this. An absolutely essential release.

– Gramophone

Villa-Lobos’ War and Victory Symphonies were commissioned by the Brazilian government following the end of the country’s involvement in World War I. Using very large orchestral forces, and conveying the composer’s feelings about the conflict with no sense of triumphalism, the two Symphonies display a confident use of unusual and evocative effects, such as the collage of fragments of the Brazilian national anthem and La Marseillaise in the ‘Battle’ movement of the Third Symphony. Villa-Lobos’s Symphonies Nos 6 and 7 can be found on Naxos 8.573043 in “superb...full-blooded” performances. (ClassicalCDReview.com)

Villa-Lobos’ 11 symphonies (numbered 1-12, No. 5 is lost) are the least known of all of his orchestral works, for the simple reason that they largely avoid folkloric elements. This doesn’t mean that they are austere; check out the opening of No. 7 (sound sample). The textures are as lush and exotic as anything in his output, but the melodic material is often elusive, and the form less than clearly articulated. Repeated listening confirms that the composer knew what he was doing, and both of the symphonies offered here feature slow movements of truly striking beauty and atmosphere. In other words, they are well worth getting to know, and ideal for concentrated attention at home.

The Sixth Symphony features a gimmick: its principal thematic ideas were supposedly derived from superimposing a topographical map of Brazil on music paper and reducing the mountainous outline to musical ideas. The result, as you might guess, has a certain unmelodic rise and fall, but Villa-Lobos doesn’t worry too much about that, and after making his initial point the rest of the music sounds, well, normal (for him). Symphony No. 7 is one of his most impressive large works, scored for a huge orchestra and loaded with those characteristic gestures—divided violins, low trombone chords, chattering wind ostinatos—that will be instantly familiar to anyone who knows and loves his music.

CPO has a fine complete symphony cycle available featuring Carl St. Clair and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. You might think that having native players, as here, constitutes an advantage, but that’s not necessarily the case. Isaac Karabtchevsky recorded the least compelling version of the complete Bachianas Brasileiras, but that was a few decades ago with a very inferior Brazil Symphony Orchestra. The São Paulo Symphony is a much finer ensemble, and Karabtchevsky’s performances are far more persuasive here. He’s different enough from St. Clair, marginally slower but arguably to the music’s advantage in the numerous thickly textured passages, that there’s no reason not to collect this new series. The sonics are rich, full, and remarkably clear given the music’s density. This is going to be fun.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Villa-Lobos compiled 137 traditional Brazilian songs into an anthology entitled Guia Prático that later served as the basis for 11 short volumes of piano miniatures under the same title. A pedagogic agenda governs these piano pieces, but not to the rigorous, progressive specifications of, say, Bartók's Mikrokosmos. In fact, the churning rhythms and chordal complexities of Villa-Lobos' piano textures are anything but child's play; yet no matter how sophisticated the pianism, the infectious spirit of the original tunes always remains fresh and vibrant.


Almost every one of the 48 selections included here (books Ten and Eleven are slated for a future release) is a delightful, unpretentious bauble. Sample Espanha, the third piece from Book Two, and you'll get generous helpings of upbeat white-key Petrouchka harmonies, while Book Three No. 5 (Oh, Whirligig!) is pure South American Schumann. Book Five No. 4 (The Stick or Cat Miaow) makes its succinct, lyrical point with simple chromatic chords that remind me of Duke Ellington's intimate keyboard noodling. Either listen in order, or give your random play function a workout, and you'll marvel at Villa-Lobos' unflagging invention from one number to another. It helps, of course, that Sonia Rubinsky's colorful and technically shipshape interpretations are as lovingly nuanced and thoroughly idiomatic as we can desire, and they're beautifully recorded as well. In sum, this valuable addition to the Villa-Lobos discography deserves no less than the highest rating and warmest recommendation. [8/7/2006]
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com