Déodat de Sévérac was a pupil of Vincent d’Indy in Paris, who approved of the characteristically French early Sonate, which includes a moving Elégie reflecting on recent family deaths. Le Chant de la Terre describes Virgil’s tense rural epic, the Georgics. The French Baroque is revived in the nostalgic Stances à Madame de Pompadour, and Pippermint-Get is a lighthearted waltz which takes its name from a mint liqueur. American Record Guide has praised Jordi Masó for his “prismatic colour and understated musicality” (Vol. 2: 8572428).

DUOS FOR CELLO AND VIOLIN • Alexander Hülshoff (vc); Friedemann Eichhorn (vn) • NAXOS 8.572188 (68:20)


GHYS AND SERVAIS Variations brillantes et concertants sur l’air “God Save the King.” LÉONARD AND SERVAIS Grand Duo de Concert No. 4 sur des motifs de l’opéra “L’Africaine.” Grand Duo de Concert No. 3. Grand Duo de Concert No. 2 sur des thèmes de Beethoven. Grand Duo de Concert No. 1 sur des airs nationaux anglais. VIEUXTEMPS AND SERVAIS Grand Duo sur des motifs de l’opéra “Les Huguenots de Meyerbeer”


The first duo in Alexander Hülshoff and Friedemann Eichhorn’s collection of fantasies written in collaboration by Adrien François Servais and violinists Joseph Ghys, Hubert Léonard, and Henri Vieuxtemps seems, in comparison to the others, almost like a warhorse; it’s been recorded twice before, by Gidon Kremer on Nonesuch 79657, Fanfare 26:5, and by Rudens Turku and Wen-Sinn Yang on Avie 2124, 31:6. After a brilliant and rather long introduction, the familiar theme appears in stately double-stops. Bruce R. Scheuneman’s booklet notes make a great deal of the equal partnership of the violin and cello, not only melodically and thematically but in virtuosity as well. In Ghys’s and Servais’s variations, in fact, both instruments engage in Paganini-like hypervirtuosic exchanges. If it’s a competition, it’s not clear who wins. Perhaps that’s because it’s not clear whether Hülshoff or Eichhorn makes the stronger impression: Just when one has done something that seemingly can’t be topped, the other tops it. Both possess electrifying staccatos, crackling with bracing energy; and both revel in the passages assigned to them. Both play with the kind of panache that undoubtedly put it across at the time of its composition. I remember the impression Ruggiero Ricci made in Bottesini’s Gran Duo Concertante, and as brilliant as that might have been, it couldn’t compare to the effect of these performances—in fact, Ricci and Francesco Petracchi (reissued on CD as CBS 72995) seemed to be punching the clock in comparison to Hülshoff and Eichhorn in this kind of repertoire. And if Rudens Turku and Wen-Sinn Yang don’t quite match the boldness of Hülshoff’s and Eichhorn’s virtuosic gestures, Kremer does, in perhaps richer recorded sound. But the collection’s the thing, and those seeking Servais’s duos get them in full force in Naxos’s collection.


The Grand Duo de Concert on L’Africaine , composed in cooperation with Léonard, sounds, if anything, even more amazing. When Eichhorn’s violin sings, it’s clear that he’s not just a shallow virtuoso, in the mold of early quasi-charlatans like Lolli and Woldemar. And the music, despite sounding like a revolving door of effects on steroids, doesn’t actually sound so circus-like as the descriptions above might suggest. Léonard’s and Servais’s Grand Duo No. 3, including two variations on what must have been an original theme, still breathes the atmosphere of the operatic fantasy.


Vieuxtemps’s and Servais’s Grand Duo opens with a surreal version of A Mighty Fortress before taking off into the main theme (from Meyerbeer). Anyone who might expect from Vieuxtemps’s contribution the same noble restraint so evident in his concertos will find that here, but whipped to a frenzied pitch of virtuoso excitement (remember that Servais took a hand in all these pieces). Still, some of Vieuxtemps’s chromatic mannerisms can be discerned through the tracery.


Léonard’s and Servais’s Second Grand Duo, this time on themes by Beethoven, returns to an excitement undampened by any obstructive view of the composer of the music being varied (or parodied). In this case, I won’t spoil the plot by mentioning some of the themes that flit by in an intoxicating phantasmagoria, but it’s as much fun as listening to a quodlibet must have been for listeners in the know centuries ago. Let’s just say that when the variations come, Léonard and Servais try, with tongues in cheeks, I’d suspect, to outdo Beethoven in a set he’d previously attempted—and there’s a hint for you. Violinists might find that these few minutes alone make the CD worth acquiring—and there’s another.


The program concludes with Léonard’s and Servais’s First Grand Duo, this time featuring variations on God Save the King (again) and Yankee Doodle (with some other familiar things thrown in for good measure). Paganini wrote a set of variations on the first and Vieuxtemps on the second. But again, here the power of two creates more than double the fun.


So consider the effect of a set of Paganini’s variations and raise that to the second or third or even fourth power (anyway, think of more than a simple addition of two parts), and you have the magnitude of the payload these pieces deliver. The engineers have … but with playing like this, who really cares, so long as you can hear the soloists reasonably well? (Actually, you can hear them very well in Naxos’s clear recorded sound, but that’s almost beside the point; would you mind sitting in the highest loge to hear Paganini?) Urgently recommended as a great deal of fun for listeners not too tightly buttoned down to enjoy it on its own terms. I don’t think there’s anything else quite like it.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

This programme has been nurtured from a selection of pieces inspired by English gardens, including Vaughan Williams’ lovely ‘Fantasia on Greensleeves,’ spreading out towards French and Italian repertoire that evokes pastoral settings of birdsong, fountains and springs, and topped with a light-hearted musical picnic dessert. Along the way we are treated to the exquisite melody of Elgar’s Chanson de matin and the nostalgic atmosphere of William Alwyn’s ‘Naiades.’ Nino Rota’s film music credits include The Godfather, and his sublime and festive Sonata adds a celebratory touch to the personal joy of these performers’ many years of musical friendship. The combination of flute and harp always creates an atmosphere of beauty, with contrasting but complementary sonorities that have been exploited by a multitude of composers over the years. The pastoral theme of this program has been carefully chosen to include music from the Baroque and Romantic eras right up to the contemporary.

You certainly cannot pigeonhole the music of José Serebrier, if this survey is any guide. It does cover a broad period, from the youthful Symphony No. 1 of 1956 to the movie music for a film that was never made, in 2009. As related by the composer in the extensive program notes, all of these pieces have an interesting story behind them, none more so than the symphony. Serebrier was still a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in 1957 when, as he says, he literally bumped into a cello student on the street and spilled the pages of his manuscript onto the sidewalk. The cellist, Harvey Wolf, was on his way to join the Houston Symphony, then led by Leopold Stokowski, and suggested that he show the music to the great old man. Against all odds, Stokowski agreed to read the score, and liked it well enough to put it in the place of the Ives Fourth Symphony, which was giving his players trouble. Serebrier actually ignored the Curtis operator’s messages to return Stokowski’s phone calls, thinking it a student prank. Finally, Curtis director Efrem Zimbalist summoned the fledgling composer to his office; “What are you doing? Maestro Stokowski called me to say he’s been trying to reach you urgently for two days!”

It is not too hard to imagine what drew Stokowski to the music. It is a good showpiece, full of the kind of sweeping dramatic gestures that the wizard reveled in, as well as flashy writing for instrumentalists, especially in the brass. The rumbling opening has the flavor of Mahler as well.

The Violin Concerto...is subtitled “Winter,” an allusion to a dark, even bleak character, especially as the one-movement work begins, with a slow solo cadenza at the low end of the violin’s range. As if to signal the changes of the seasons, the work brightens as it proceeds, with subtly integrated quotes from Haydn, Glazunov, and Tchaikovsky, all of whom also wrote musical odes to winter. The conclusion is the emotional reverse of the beginning, a bright, raucous fanfare. This is an impressive, compact concerto, easily the best work on this program.

The performance is excellent; the Bournemouth band gives us rich and precise playing, and we can assume that the leadership is authoritative.

--Fanfare (Peter Burwasser)

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José Serebrier is obviously a very talented composer, and it's good that Naxos is giving him the opportunity to record his music under optimal conditions. The First Symphony is an impressive piece of work, especially for a Uruguayan teenage musician of just 18. Like most of Serebrier's work, there's a lyrical side to much of the material that's quite winning, but the style and "feel" of the music, its single-movement form, and its alternation of melodic episodes with powerfully rhythmic outbursts are quite modern as well as personal.

However, perhaps the two most enjoyable large works here are the Violin Concerto "Winter" (another single-movement piece lasting a bit more than 15 minutes, and wonderfully played by Philippe Quint) and the Music for an Imaginary Film (2009). Actually the film was real; it just became imaginary when a strike forced its cancellation and Serebrier got stuck with the music he had already written. It's extremely colorful and fun.

The two short "tango" pieces have obvious appeal as encores or musical "calling cards"...given Serebrier's gifts as a conductor there's nothing to criticize here regarding the performances, and the engineering is very good also. Recommended wholeheartedly.

--ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

SEIXAS Harpsichord Sonatas, Vol. 1 ? Débora Halász (hpd) ? NAXOS 8.557459 (71:02)


Domenico Scarlatti, mestre du capella to the Infanta Maria Barbara, accompanied his pupil when she moved temporarily to Lisbon in 1723. While there, the Portuguese Infanta Don Antonio supposedly sent a promising young composer, Carlos de Seixas, to study with Scarlatti, who was 19 years his senior. The story goes that the latter reported back to Don Antonio, stating Seixas was one of the best musicians he had ever heard, and scarcely in need of further instruction.


It?s a nice tale, and possibly even true. I for one would have liked to witness a first meeting between two such highly talented composers whose keyboard work reflects considerable similarities, despite their differences of age and upbringing. The issue of influence and the direction it ran has never been settled, and is likely never to be, given that Seixas died young, and his original manuscripts perished during the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. Out of some 700 ?keyboard toccatas? he is known to have composed, roughly 95 survive, of which 80 were collected, edited, and published by the late Macario Santiago Kastner. Although it?s never made clear in the liner notes to this release, presumably that edition is the one used by Débora Halász in what has been announced as a complete traversal. This leaves approximately 15 pieces unaccounted for, if my arithmetical skills are still functioning. Kastner presumably found them of dubious authenticity, or they appeared after his death. I?d personally like to hear them regardless, whether authentic or not, as there is an inordinate amount of formerly attributed music that is quite good and never gets recorded. Not that I?m about to turn up my nose at any attempt to issue multiple volumes of Seixas, whose treatment thus far on CD has been sporadic at best.


The last release of Seixas that I reviewed in these pages appeared roughly a year ago, and featured Christian Brembeck (Musicaphon M 55867). There?s little to choose, technically speaking, between Brembeck and Halász. Both have fingers to spare, and easily manage the more virtuosic pieces without any loss of flow or control. Sound quality on both albums, too, is excellent, and to make matters more confusing, the harpsichordists adapt similar, judiciously chosen tempos in the few works they both perform.


However, there are significant differences between the two, and unfortunately they don?t make choosing a single disc any easier. Halász, for one, employs grace notes with frequency and usually in a way that seems both natural and appropriate to the music. She is willing to stretch the beat a bit even in rhythmically driven passages, though, when it can have a detrimental result. As an example, part of the powerful effect of the Sonata No. 50 in G Minor derives from its headlong impetus and strong first beat. This is impeded when the beat in question is lengthened and weakened, as Halász routinely does. When the harpsichordist resorts to this, he/she invariably draws attention to the strategy, interfering with our enjoyment of the music.


Brembeck is more straightforward. His beat is firm, and when he uses ornamentation it appears within existing rhythms. He also offers a pair of instruments, a rich sounding modern model based on a 1746 Blanchet, and a sweeter one that imitates characteristics of Merzdorf harpsichords of the early 1700s. Halász offers one harpsichord, a copy of a 1734 Haas, though on evidence of this album, it has a pair of manuals that are used with discretion.


But on the aforementioned Sonata No. 50, Brembeck only repeats the first section, and gives the second section a single performance. This he does more often than not, whereas Halász plays both sections twice?relatively standard practice today. In the Sonata No. 10 in C Major, the second section is of appreciable length, and the difference between the two recorded versions is, as well: 13:06 for Halász, 8:13 for Brembeck. The shape of the result is substantially different, depending upon which version you hear.


This puts a different complexion upon matters, and inclines me slightly towards Halász?who also holds the trump card in the form of a complete, forthcoming recorded edition. But you really can?t go wrong with either of these two releases that, in their differing approaches to this music, offer a selection of fine music discerningly performed.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

The German violinist Friedrich Seitz was born in Günthersleben near Gotha in 1848 and died in Dessau in 1918. He served as a conductor in Sondershausen, where he had studied, as concert-master in Magdeburg and from 1884 as Court Concert-Master in Dessau. He was particularly active as a teacher, and is remembered for his Schülerkonzerte, teaching concertos, which introduce pupils to something of nineteenth-century concerto technique and remain a part of teaching repertoire. On this new release, violinist Hyejin Chung and pianist Warren Lee explore his five Concertos for Violin and Piano- by far his most successful works. Hyejin Chung studied with Takako Nishizaki at the Academy for Performing Arts in Hong Kong and graduated with an Advanced Certificate in violin performance. Subsequently she went to Russia and studied with S.I. Kravchenko, a student and assistant of Leonid Kogan, at the Moscow State Conservatory. After settling in Hong Kong, she focused on playing chamber music and teaching advanced students at the Takako Nishizaki Violin Studio. This is her second recording for Naxos.

Check the Sc section on the shelf, there. Probably quite a large section. If Peter Sculthorpe occupies little or no space before D kicks in, then this disc is the solution (or the addition) you need, though Sculthorpe collectors should get it anyway, because it’s so good. His orchestral world has always been rich, dark, strange, intense, colorful, and somewhat cinematic, but immediately appealing. So it goes in all five works recorded here by Naxos, in refined sound (Wellington Town Hall has a great acoustic) and superbly conducted performances by James Judd. Everyone on the day was on top of his or her game, and this is a high-quality, no-compromise product.

Typically, with Sculthorpe, a work grows into something big through varied repetition, starting from an atmosphere, a rhythm, and a brief, memorable melodic figure. Full-cry Sculthorpe (like everyone else) owes something (though less than most) to Stravinsky, but the brief From Oceania (1970/2003) adopts Sculthorpe’s Sun-Music style, often making the whole orchestra seem percussive, before dying away. Kakadu (1988) surrounds a sensuous English-horn melody with a fine, drum-driven pandemonium in the outer sections. No one does the big, rhythmic, orchestral noise better than Sculthorpe.

By contrast, Memento mori (1986) makes extended use in the strings of the Dies irae, the most overexposed plainchant melody in musical history. Sculthorpe’s rhymical rocking of the tune (a touch of Honegger) is convincing, and moving, against the odds, marvelously built by Judd and the players to a Mahlerish end.

D is for didgeridoo, too. I’m not qualified to assess William Barton’s playing, but he gets things off to a glorious, croaking, rotating start in Earth Cry (1986), and stays with the orchestra for most of its excursions. Nothing “novelty” about the effect: this is deeply affecting, serious, and apt, like Rautavaara’s use of birds in Cantus arcticus.

The Piano Concerto of 1983 is reason enough alone to buy the disc, if any excuse were still needed. A serious 20th-century collection does need to contain this fine work. The rival version on ABC Classics is not wholly outclassed, and the excellent Ross Edwards concerto makes for a tempting coupling there, but the Naxos sounds better. Cislowska plays with some lovely soft tones, and breezes through the bell-chiming difficult bits, projecting all the poetry of Sculthorpe’s sensual, dusky inspiration.

To read Sculthorpe’s lucid notes is to hear a voice as refreshingly honest and intelligent as the music itself: a perfect model. Concerns and inspirations range, of course, across Australia and the environment, and out into the ideas of Kepler and the portrayal of true, married love. As he says, the serious tone of his work reflects a world not entirely free of problems. Sculthorpe’s music is, nonetheless, a modern miracle, and this is simply the most enjoyable CD of recent orchestral music to have come my way in some time.

Paul Ingram, FANFARE

SCRIABIN: Symphony No. 1 / Reverie, Op. 24 / 2 Poems, Op. 32

As Scriabin's Preludes progressively leave their Chopin models behind and dig deeper into sensuous abstraction, Evgeny Zarafiants' probing, dark toned interpretations truly hit home. No skating over Scriabin's increasingly troubled waters for this pianist, whose wide dynamic range and multi-tiered palette of articulations add dramatic dimension and heft to these elusive scores. The real eye-openers, though, are four preludes written by Scriabin's eleven-year-old son Julian. They're quite extraordinary in their confident, fluent piano writing and harmonic sophistication, bearing hints of early Schoenberg alongside the elder Scriabin's musical style. Julian drowned at age 11 in 1919. We will never know if he would have grown up to take over the family business, so to speak, yet these remarkable pieces are no doubt worthy of the Scriabin name. --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

"Here is a beautiful young pianist with a superb Scriabin recital... Her performances are warm and intuitive and logical and completely non-rhetorical. The result is an extraordinary disclong journey into Scriabin’s increasingly sulfurous and mad world." -- Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News

"Wang manages to cut a diagonal path across Scriabin's output, largely drawing from lesser known pieces, including the waltzes, poems, and pieces in genres he visited no more than once or a couple of times. These are often treated as afterthoughts by pianists in the course recording of comprehensive Scriabin packages, in several cases that's all you'll ever find of such works on disc. However, Wang treats each as a distinct and separate case, and she spins the neglected Polonaise in B flat minor, Op. 21, into gold, relating it to the Russian tradition of the polonaise with its darker hues and more lumbering, rhythmic profile. She finds what's truly "satanic" about the Poème satanique, Op. 36, a work that often doesn't get very good performances because its uncharacteristically bright, major-key sound seems at odds with the title; however, in Wang's version it is clear that this piece comes from the dark side of Scriabin's musical universe. Speaking of which, her rendition of Vers la flamme — a piece Wang often plays in recital and is included on her debut — is everything one would want it to be: muted and gradually emergent at the start, white hot and ecstatic at the end." -- Dave Lewis, All Music Guide

"The booklet notes that Xiayin Wang provides for her Naxos Scriabin recital are as intelligent and insightful as her interpretations. The pianist's urbane, witty treatment of such Chopin-influenced fare as the D-flat and F minor Waltzes and the B-flat minor Polonaise convincingly transforms the younger composer into the ironist he never was and never would be. It makes me wonder how she'd enliven Scriabin's Mazurkas. Her taut, harmonically aware renditions of the Op. 32, Op. 34, Op. 36, and Op. 52 Poèmes fall agreeably on the ear, notwithstanding more drawn out, subjective, and sexy accounts to be savored (Pascal Amoyel on Calliope, for example). Appropriately fiery climaxes rivet attention in Flammes sombres and Vers la flamme, although much of the diffuse B minor Fantasie grows too loud too soon when compared to Alexander Melnikov's more diverse pacing and wider dynamic range. Overall, a fine disc that bodes well for future releases from this talented pianist." --Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

"Having listened to this new release from pianist Xiayin Wang, I simply cannot imagine how or why I have managed to avoid Scriabin’s solo piano œuvre for so long. The music here, and Wang’s playing of it are of an exquisite beauty beyond description...Xiayin Wang seems to have a very special affinity for Scriabin’s music....A beautiful recital by an up-and-coming young artist, captured in excellent sound by Naxos’s recording team. Highly recommended." -- Jerry Dubins, Fanfare

Scriabin: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 1

Expressive allure and refined originality are the hallmarks of much of Alexander Scriabin's piano music. Miniatures such as teh Feuillets d'album and the Impromptus, draw on examples by composers including Chopin, Schumann and Tchaikovsky. The Fantaisie, Op. 28 is notable for its brooding opening, melodic abundance and virtuoso style, while the Opus 51 and 56 collections create a multiplicity of moods. The great Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter regarded Scriabin's music as "a poetical drug", and contemporary commentators described it as "full of fancy, delight and beauty".

Tolstoy described Alexander Scriabin’s music as “a sincere expression of genius” while Scriabin described himself as “all impulse, all desire...” His virtuosity rivalling that of Rachmaninov, the young and colorful musician and composer found inspiration in his idol, Chopin, while still touching his compositions with Russian darkness and sensuous passion. This album of his less-popular compositions also includes the child prodigy’s Canon in D Minor, composed when Scriabin was only 11 years old.

Scriabin seems to be an "in" composer all of a sudden, what with numerous new recordings of his youthful Piano Concerto and late tone poems/symphonies. In the past few months, we've had new recordings by some real "heavyweights", including Boulez and Pletnev on Deutsche Grammophon, Rozdestvensky on Chandos, and Ashkenazy on Decca. This budget-priced production from the composer's compatriots certainly holds its own against all comers. Konstantin Scherbakov plays the concerto with steel and sensitivity in equal measure, and he's particularly successful in knitting together the loose architecture of the outer movements, while at the same time making the filigreed piano writing sound like real Scriabin, rather than Chopin on steroids. The performance of Prometheus is predictably less smooth than the recent Boulez/Chicago, and not as sumptuously recorded. But despite the slower overall tempo, the performance is much more physically exciting and has a naturalness of flow that Boulez doesn't quite match. The couplings, orchestrations of various short piano pieces, are also captivating and unique. In all, the disc is definitely worth a listen, even if you think you've had enough of this music.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

SCRIABIN: Etudes (Complete)