Charm and entertainment in the company of humanity, skill and craftsmanship.

Apart from a two disc set from the Nash Ensemble on Hyperion there is surprisingly little competition for recordings of all three of the wind Sonatas that Saint-Saëns wrote in 1921. Players of the oboe, clarinet and bassoon have included the works for their own instruments on recital discs but they make a greater impact when heard as a set. The word “impact” may be misleading as they are not in any way aggressive or assertive. Rather listening to them is like being with an elderly gentleman of impeccable manners and taste, and hearing him talk in a wonderfully cultivated way of times past. Perhaps there is nothing here of enormous depth but for me at least there is the feeling of being in the company of a man of immense compositional skill and distinction who is aware that he has nothing more to prove and no obvious regrets but whose mere company still gives great pleasure.

You may think that I am basing all of this on the composer’s age when he wrote them, but these Sonatas do surely have a ripe and autumnal feel. The various players here are all excellent in giving them just the right weight and manner. Any technical difficulties are succumbed without obvious effort and the balance between wind instruments and piano is just right. I hope that the artists would take it as a compliment that throughout this disc my focus was allowed to be entirely on the music rather than on any interpretative whims.

The other pieces on the disc are also worth hearing, although they are earlier and more concerned with the display possibilities of the various instruments. The Romance is a particularly lovely work, making it a matter of regret that the earlier Romance in F Op. 36 was not also included when these fine players were available.

This may not be a disc of music to challenge or surprise the listener, but it does charm and entertain, and the Sonatas go further in making the listener aware of the composer’s humanity as well as his skill and craftsmanship.

– John Sheppard, MusicWeb International

SAINT-SAËNS Cello Sonatas: No. 1 in c; No. 2 in F. Suite for Cello and Piano • Maria Kliegel (vc); François-Joël Thiollier (pn) • NAXOS 8.557880 (77:32)


It has been previously noted that Saint-Saëns’s four major works for cello were composed more or less in tandem pairs. 1872–73 saw the twin births of the C-Minor Sonata, op. 32, and the A-Minor Concerto, op. 33. The composer was approaching 40 at the time; yet for a man who lived to 86, these may still be regarded as fairly early works. Not until nearly 30 years later did Saint-Saëns turn again to the cello, this time composing in reverse order the D-Minor Concerto, op. 119, in 1902, followed in 1905 by the Sonata in F Major, op. 123.


My only grumble about Jamie Walton’s Saint-Saëns CD (reviewed in 29:6) was that had he omitted “The Swan” movement from The Carnival of the Animals , there would have been just enough room on the disc to include the Second Sonata, thereby giving us all four of the composer’s major works for cello on a single disc. It turns out that in writing that review, I overlooked the even earlier, but hardly insignificant, 1862 Suite for Cello and Piano, op. 16, which, at 23 minutes’ duration, is even longer than the First Sonata and certainly qualifies as a “major” work.


With the current release, cellist Maria Kliegel and pianist François-Joël Thiollier fill in the blanks, offering us, along with the C-Minor Sonata, the earlier Suite and the later F-Major Sonata, both of which were absent from Walton’s entry. The juxtaposition of these works on the same disc affords us the opportunity to hear for ourselves the evolution, both professional and personal, of a man whose interior life may have been more complex than received opinion about him has otherwise led us to believe.


The five-movement Suite makes no pretense to a refracted antique or neo-Baroque style—as some of the composer’s early works do—despite note writer Keith Anderson’s assertion that its Prelude loosely resembles the arpeggio Praeludium of Bach’s G-Major Solo Cello Suite. Saint-Saëns’s Suite is an ardent, effusive romantic outpouring that has more in common with the young, though never youthful, Brahms than it has with anything from an earlier time.


The C-Minor Sonata, though coming 10 years after the Suite, is all surface Sturm und Drang somewhat reminiscent of Mendelssohn. It was works such as this that earned Saint-Saëns his reputation as an arch-conservative in thrall to German models and aesthetics.


The F-Major Sonata, written when he was 70, has clearly evolved away from the composer’s earlier, more immediately recognizable profile. Though still adhering to the principles of sonata form, the piece has about it a more through-composed feeling that is carried forward by a gorgeous rippling piano part rather in the manner of the composer’s own student, Fauré. More significant, however, is the genuine expressiveness and depth of the music, which clearly belie the notion that Saint-Saëns was but an extremely gifted tunesmith and facile craftsman with an uncanny instinct for writing music devoid of any meaningful substance.


Maria Kliegel can be heard in a wide range of repertoire that she has recorded for Naxos; with over 50 entries in their catalog, she is perhaps the company’s leading “stable” cellist, a term that unfortunately carries certain uncomplimentary connotations. Be assured that in Kliegel’s case they are not deserved, for she is a fantastic player with solid technique, spot-on intonation, and robust tone, which she projects with a great deal of confidence and authority. If her delivery is not quite as smooth and refined as that of the aforementioned Jamie Walton, my sense is that she wants us to perceive Saint-Saëns as both more serious and more substantive than he is often taken to be.


François-Joël Thiollier has also recorded extensively for Naxos, having made a specialty of the French piano repertoire. His partnering with Kliegel is a natural. For the excellent performances, fine sound, budget price, and smart programming, I’m inclined to call this disc indispensable for lovers of chamber music for cello and piano.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

SAINT-LUBIN Grand duo concertant. 1 Fantaisie sur un thème de Lucia di Lammermoor. Thème original et Etude de S. Thalberg. Adagio religioso. 1 Potpourri on Themes from Auber’s “La fiancée.” 1 Salonstücke: Nocturne and Rondino; 1 Nocturne and Polonaise 1 • Anastasia Khitruk (vn); Elizaveta Kopelman (pn) 1 • NAXOS 8.572019 (75:16)


Ludwig Spohr’s student, Léon de Saint-Lubin (1805–50), may not be a household name to general listeners, but violinists should recognize him as the author of six fairly difficult studies, op. 42, and of the brilliant Fantaisie on the sextet from Donizetti’s Lucia , a virtuoso showpiece that Ruggiero Ricci recorded (issued on the CD label 111 as URS-91010). The rest of the program, consisting of virtually unknown pieces like the genial, extended Grand duo concertant (nearly 28 minutes in length), nevertheless holds its own. Klaus Martin Kopitz’s notes point out the occasionally Schubertian quality of this work, most apparent perhaps in the first and third movements, though in the agitated passages and conclusion of the more flamboyant finale as well, while the Scherzo sounds more Beethovenian (although Schubert may be seen to reappear in the central section). Anastasia Khitruk and Elizaveta Kopelman both play this work with great authority and with technical and tonal command.


The Fantaisie , written for solo violin, mines the instrument’s technical resources in as comprehensive a way as do works by Wieniawski ( Variations on the Austrian National Anthem ) or Ernst ( Variations on “The Last Rose of Summer” )—if not exploring the extreme ranges and combinations of techniques that these test, impressive enough in their own way. Khitruk plays the work with a more sumptuous tone than Ricci did, making more of its melodiousness than of its hair-raising difficulties, which Ricci emphasized in his performance. If Nathan Milstein developed his ability to play unviolinistic passages by reading Chopin on the violin, Saint-Lubin may have achieved similar results by working through piano studies, and he wrote out his daunting transcription of this one by Sigismund Thalberg. It shares the same general style as the Fantaisie : a rather slow-moving foundation encrusted with layers of technically stunning, fast-moving figuration of various kinds. Khitruk displays a more lyrical side not only of Saint-Lubin’s muse but of her own as well in the Adagio religioso , a piece that showcases the power of her tone on the G string and her affinity for its more Romantic sensibilities. The piano joins the violin in closer partnership in the Potpourri on Themes from Auber’s “La fiancée,” an elegant confection, but not nearly so sweet as the Nocturne and Rondino and the Nocturne and Polonaise. In these, Khitruk affects a manner generally more elegant than probing, dazzling, or daunting, though the Rondino ends dashingly, the second Nocturne contains its moments of impassioned declamation, and the Polonaise opens with considerable verve.


Those who wish to hear violinistic fireworks may be disappointed in the program: except for the two solo pieces, Saint-Lubin emerges in it more as a composer seeking general recognition in the serious and salon repertoire than as a composer seeking to stun audiences with virtuoso barnburners. But the Fantaisie and Thalberg paraphrase should satisfy anyone; and everything has been accorded first-rate, revealing recorded sound. Recommended.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham


Virtuosity with elegance throughout

Naxos continues its exploration of the byways of the violinistically arcane with this disc devoted to Saint-Lubin. Rather like Rode, his is a name more honoured in the breach than in concert performance these days. Saint-Lubin was born in Turin in 1805 to a French family that had fled the Revolution (he was actually christened Napoléon-Antoine-Eugène). At the age of about four the family moved to Hamburg and subsequently he studied with Spohr, and then gravitated to Vienna. Here he met Beethoven, who wrote a small cadenza for him to play in 1822. Having then heard Paganini he withdrew to an estate in Hungary, that of an aristocratic patron, to work on his technique, but by 1830 he was back in the public eye as concertmaster of the Royal Municipal Theatre in Berlin, where he died at an early age in 1850.

The major work in this first volume is the Grand Duo Concertant, published in 1847. It's a curious hybrid, with the piano writing often sounding decidedly Beethovenian whilst the violin spins a lyric line that sounds part derived from Schubert. It's very well written for both instruments and extremely well paced. There's grace and also a touch of drollery, maybe even frivolity in the opening movement, whilst the second has a strong Beethovenian cast to it, and is full of verve. There's a warm slow movement, nothing too fulsome to over balance the schema, which sports a perky and extrovert B section. A bright, keen Allegretto finishes the work in style.

The other works fall into well established genres of writing - the operatic variations, the salon charmers, and the mildly lachrymose sweetmeat. The Fantaisie sur un thème de Lucia di Lammermoor obviously falls into the first category, a display piece of considerable virtuosity, calling for a battery of resources and majoring on left hand pizzicato and tremolandi to fan the flames; clearly a post-Paganinian confection, which Anastasia Khitruk digs into with chewy vibrato and great panache. The Potpourri on themes from Auber's La Fiancée is another paraphrase, just as demanding, but also exuding veritable whiffs of stage paint. The Thème Original et Etude de S. Thalberg, Op. 45a is cleverly wrought - an arrangement for violin of a piano etude it transfers to the new medium extremely convincingly, even exuding as it does considerable bowing difficulties. It was dedicated jointly to Bazzini and Sivori so Saint-Lubin was reaching out to the best. As one would expect the Adagio Religioso is warmly textured but fortunately not too religiose. And the salon morceaux that end the disc are full of lightweight charm and rather generic dance patterns.

With fine recorded sound and notes this first volume gets off to a cracking start. Khitruk and Elizaveta Kopelman are first class ambassadors for this kind of music and marry virtuosity with elegance throughout.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Tonus Peregrinus.

Antonio Sacchini is one of those highly talented musicians who hover at the periphery of music history but were greatly successful in their lifetime. In the case of Sacchini an echo of his fame can be heard through the present work which has some claims to be his masterpiece. It was performed regularly at the Paris Opéra between 1787 and 1830, which is remarkable indeed and then was revived in 1843.

He was born in Florence but was taken to Naples at the age of four where he was admitted to the Conservatorio when he was ten. His teacher was Francesco Durante, who is probably more well-known today. He obviously moved about within Italy and gained recognition both as opera composer and singing teacher. One of his pupils was Nancy Storace, who among other things was Mozart’s first Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro - “The Julie Andrews of the 18th Century” as one source nicely puts it.

He then went to Stuttgart and Munich and came to London in 1772 where he remained for ten years. At first successful, he later ran into financial trouble and moved to Paris in 1781. There he became a favourite with the Queen but met opposition from parts of the musical establishment. His opera Dardanus was staged at Fontainebleau in 1785 but to his grief Œdipe lay unperformed during his lifetime. The disappointment is said to have contributed to his death. In 1787 Œdipe reached the Opéra; too late for the composer.

Listening to this recording it is easy to understand the longevity of the work. It is a highly accomplished piece of music drama, pointing forward beyond Gluck, who is the closest contemporary comparison. In fact there is a Gluckian nobility in the more reflective moments. Sacchini also has a dramatic integrity and power in the long and often intense accompanied recitatives. At his best, as in the long scene with Œdipe and Antigone in act two (CD1 tr. 14-16), he tends to overshadow even Mozart for dramatic acuity, though he can’t compete with the Salzburg master when it comes to musical invention and melodic memorability. Still he writes expressive and grateful music, as for example the singing part for Polynice in the first scene (CD1 tr. 3) and at the beginning of scene 4 (CD1 tr. 10). Antigone’s aria in act three (CD2 tr. 2), is heroic and tragic to match the text. This is a fairly long aria; mostly they are very short but his flexible style allows him to move more or less imperceptibly from recitative to aria with the orchestra a very active part, not just accompanying. In this respect he might almost be likened to late period Verdi. The writing creates a feeling of unity and cohesion, underlined here by Ryan Brown’s eager conducting. Just as in his recording of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice (see review) he opts for swift tempos and had at least this reviewer sitting on the edge of his chair. There is such vitality and thrust in his reading that the work stands out as perhaps better than it actually is, but for my money this is an opera to set beside Gluck, Haydn and Mozart as a superb example of late 18th century music theatre. Readers should be warned though that, this being a French opera, there are some decorative elements, like scene 3 of the first act with choruses and dances. The whole opera ends in a kind of anti-climax with an eight-minute ballet sequence. All of this is superbly performed; good music but more or less superfluous.

The Opera Lafayette perform with enthusiasm and flair and Brown and producer Max Wilcox have gathered a fine line-up of soloists. Some of the smaller parts are taken by members of the chorus and among the main characters the experienced François Loup is a deeply involved Œdipe, expressive and with a rich pallet of vocal colours. His daughter Antigone is the dramatically vibrant Nathalie Paulin who is also able to express the nobility of her character. The two tenors, Tony Boutté and Robert Getchell, are excellent; especially the latter who is a model of lyric tenor singing of music from this period. He should be a likewise excellent Don Ottavio or Tamino.

The booklet gives, in the usual Naxos manner, all the information one could possibly expect within the space available and besides a good track-related synopsis we also get the French libretto. The English translation can be downloaded.

This is one of the more thrilling “finds” within the operatic genre.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

RYBA: Czech Christmas Mass / Missa Pastoralis

John Rutter's Mass of the Children was recorded by the composer and his Cambridge Singers shortly after the work's premiere in 2003. That version, for soprano and baritone soloists, children's choir, adult choir, and orchestra, appeared on Collegium Records and was strongly recommended here; for the review, which includes a discussion of the Mass itself, type Q6863 in Search Reviews. The version recorded here by the Clare College Choir (Rutter's former choir) and Timothy Brown (for whom Rutter wrote the Wedding Canticle that concludes the disc) replaces the orchestra with chamber ensemble and organ with no loss of the original's exuberant spirit or essential texture and color. These choirs are every bit as competent and confident as Rutter's own forces, but with a decided edge going to Rutter's more appealing soloists, whose voices are warmer and more technically solid.


Hearing this work again, I was struck by little reminders of other composers and works, such as Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms (Gloria), Fauré's Requiem (Sanctus), and even in the baritone/soprano duet in the Kyrie, a bit of (gurk!) Andrew Lloyd Webber. But these are tiny, endearing moments in a grand and often enchanting work that contains some very clever, catchy, and masterfully written sections for adult and children's choir. Rutter's setting of Blake's poem The Lamb (appropriately part of the Agnus Dei) could stand alone as a concert piece. I also love how Rutter works the tune of Tallis' famous "Canon", sung to Thomas Ken's "Glory to thee, my God, this night", into the closing Dona nobis pacem.


I found it difficult, however, to warm up to Rutter's song cycle Shadows, for baritone and guitar. It has its moments of artful melodic writing and interesting guitar figures, but it often seems as if the two parts are at odds, not comfortable in each other's company. And Jeremy Huw Williams isn't the best advocate: his wide vibrato often obscures pitch, and his phrasing can be inelegant and doesn't always coincide with the musical line. The Wedding Canticle, for the unusual combination of choir, flute, and guitar, is a gentle, lovely piece that has all the marks of Rutter's most beloved style--flowing, inviting melody and a natural rhythmic feel that ideally captures the sense and structure of the text. [4/27/2006]
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Acclaimed British composer John Rutter’s Gloria was a milestone in his career and remains an evergreen favourite with choirs worldwide for its freshness, drama and sheer beauty. His joyous setting of the Magnificat was conceived, in the composer’s words, as ‘a bright Latin-flavoured fiesta’ and is performed here in its version for choir, organ and chamber orchestra. This delightful choral album concludes with Rutter’s setting of the Te Deum, one of the church’s most ebullient hymns of praise to the Almighty.

Guided by Tchaikovsky’s influence, Anton Arensky’s neglected Violin Concerto is notable for its rich vein of melody and delicacy of orchestration. Julius Conus was a notable student of Arensky, and his virtuoso Violin Concerto, romantic in its variety of moods and expression, was once equal in popularity with that of Tchaikovsky. Mieczysław Weinberg, whose powerful Violin Concerto is available on Naxos 8.557194, was highly regarded by Shostakovich. The recently revived Violin Concertino, which predates the Violin Concerto by over a decade, is an arrestingly scored and often bittersweet work which here receives its world première recording. Multi-award-winning violinist Sergey Ostrovsky has been praised for his ‘marvellous tone’. (The Strad)

When the Russian art historian and critic Vladimir Stasov declared in 1867 ‘how much poetry, feeling, talent, and intelligence are possessed by the small but already mighty handful of Russian musicians’, the five nationalist composers to whom he referred adopted the nickname with pride. Though each developed his own personal style, they remained committed to forging a truly Russian musical tradition, not least through pieces such as these songs. Russian bass Mikhail Svetlov is a winner of the Viotti International Competition and has been principal soloist of the legendary Bolshoy Theatre of Moscow for more than a decade.

A recording to treasure!

Track 10 of this compilation (it has the rather saccharine title "Russian Romance") purports to be an arrangement for violin and orchestra of the Song of the Volga Boatmen. In a gesture of what seems like unbelievably cavalier plagiarism, Peter Breiner's version begins--unaltered and note for note--with a quite substantial chunk (the dark-toned "fate" clarinet theme) lifted from the slow preface to the main exposition section of the opening movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5. What follows, a remarkably sensitive conjunction between the folk-song theme itself and the Tchaikovsky motif, almost makes such audacious thematic abuse seem justified, and this, like many a Peter Breiner transcription, is very effective indeed. And if it seems initially hard to know why something as benignly titled as Lev Knipper's Meadowland opens in Breiner's version with stabbing fortissimo unison chords that could have come out of Kaschei's infernal dance in The Firebird, again question not the reasons why, just enjoy the music! The balalaika-band favorite Moscow Nights (aka Midnight in Moscow) starts with a curtain-raising orchestral flourish that could grace the opening credits of any 1950s Hollywood blockbuster, but the ingenuity and wealth of incident in these Breiner orchestrations is never less engaging than in the cultivated solo violin playing of Takako Nishizaki, wife of Naxos boss Klaus Heymann. Orchestral contributions from the Queensland Symphony under Breiner are more than acceptable, as is the well-balanced recording, made at ABC's Brisbane studios in 1994. Enjoy!

--Michael Jameson, ClassicsToday.com

RUSSIAN FESTIVAL

Includes chant(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Novospassky Monastery Choir Moscow.

Russian composers have made a significant contribution to the repertoire of music for cello and orchestra. Tchaikovsky’s ‘Variations on a Rococo Theme,’ deftly scored for an 18th-century orchestra, reveals his admiration for Mozart whereas the ‘Pezzo capriccioso’ is full of ripe charm. In the year of Tchaikovsky’s death, Rimsky-Korsakov composed the attractive ‘Serenade, Op. 37’ and his student Glazunov, both absorbed and continued the great Romantic lineage with his own sonorous and beautiful ‘Concerto balata,’ the poignant ‘Chant du menestrel,’ and the Iberian evocations of the ‘Serenade espagnole’ from ‘Deux Morceaux.’ Li-Wei Qin is one of the most renowned Chinese cellists of his generation. After achieving great success at the eleventh Tchaikovsky’ International Competition where he was awarded the Silver Medal, Qin has since won First Prize in the prestigious Naumburg Competition in New York. Li-Wei Qin is currently a professor of cello at the YST Conservatorium, National University of Singapore.