A strong contender as an introduction to some wonderful music.

There are two ways to obtain the complete Haydn symphonies: a third set on Sony, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies seems no longer to be generally available in the UK, even as a download.

One was made some time ago by Antal Doráti with the Philharmonia Hungarica (Decca 448 5312, 33 CDs). From this set only the Paris Symphonies seem currently to be separately available (Decca E473 8102) and, at prices ranging from around £165 to £195 – even more, £352.15, for the download from hmvdigital.com – buying the whole thing may be something of a daunting proposition. Even as a download, only that Paris set, two Double Decca sets of the London Symphonies and a Decca Eloquence recording of Nos. 94, 100 and 101 remain available separately. These are fine performances of which I can speak from personal experience, having owned several of them on LP; I still have and regularly play some of the smaller CD sets from the series which were once available.

There is, however, a far less expensive way to obtain the symphonies complete, from the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra under Adam Fischer; the whole set comes on just 8 CDs in mp3 format (NI1722) and can be purchased from MusicWeb International for £23.00 post free. The discs can be played directly from any CD, SACD or blu-ray player which offers mp3 playback, but it’s better to drop and drag the files onto a computer hard drive and play them from there.

Dominy Clements in recommending the set went so far as to include graphic print-outs of the same segment of Symphony No.1 from the normal CD and the mp3 version, demonstrating not only that they sound identical but that there is objective evidence to support the point.

The selection listed above comes from that complete set and, although I don’t have access to that mp3 edition on disc, I’ve been listening to some of the symphonies in mp3 sound from the Naxos Music Library and I’m blessed if I can hear any difference between the versions on CD and the mp3 equivalents.

I’ve reviewed the classicsonline.com downloads of Symphonies Nos.1-20 – July 2012/2 Download Roundup – and Symphonies 21-39 and ‘107’-‘108’ (also known as ‘A’ and ‘B’) – July 2009 Download Roundup. Though I could hardly recommend the downloads when they are more expensive (£39.95) than their physical equivalents on 5 CDs (NI5426-30 and NI5683-7 respectively, £23.00 each post free from MusicWeb International), I was able to confirm the high quality of the mp3 sound. So if you are looking for a complete set of the Haydn symphonies that mp3 set, NI1722, looks to me like the best. If, however, you would like to ease yourself into this wonderful music gradually, the ‘Great Haydn Symphonies’ pair of CDs, obtainable from MusicWeb International for £12 post paid, would be an excellent way to dip your toe into the water.

By no means all the Haydn symphonies with a nickname received their nomenclature from Haydn himself, and by no means all of them are accurate. In this case, however, the set of six nicknamed works provides a very useful peg on which to hang a 2-CD set of works from all periods of Haydn’s long productive life. Not only that, but these are six of my own favourites among the composer’s huge symphonic output.

No.6 comes from the earliest period of his tenure with the Esterházy family. It’s one of a series of three linked works, depicting Morning, Noon and Evening, though it stands well enough on its own. Early it may be, but Haydn never really had a period when his music didn’t sound fully accomplished and its appeal is enhanced by the excellent performance which it receives.

Symphony No.45 is the most famous of the Sturm und Drang symphonies from Haydn’s middle period, around 1770. The name Sturm und Drang or storm and stress refers properly to the pre-romantic literature of the period, notably to a series of works by Goethe and Schiller. The story behind the last movement, with the musicians leaving one by one as a hint to their employer that they needed a break, is well known but that doesn’t diminish the power of the music; it remains unhackneyed no matter how many times I must have heard it. Perhaps the performance here doesn’t quite match the power of a Vanguard recording with Antonio Janigro at the helm, which used to be available, but it comes pretty close.

No.48 also comes from the Sturm und Drang period. Its nickname refers to the belief formerly held that it was composed specially for a visit from the empress, Maria Theresa. For some reason she always seems to develop an spurious extra ‘i’ in the name of this symphony, perhaps by false association with the German name Mariatheresien-symphonie. As with No.45, it’s easy to see why the symphonies of this period came to be linked with the literature of the period. My only reservation about Fischer’s performance of this symphony may sound irrational, but the modern horns hit their notes just slightly too comfortably in comparison with period-instrument performances.

It’s not that I didn’t enjoy Fischer’s account of this work, but compare the period-instrument performance from Roy Goodman and the Hanover Band on an inexpensive Hyperion recording (Helios CDH55119, with Nos. 49 and 50, £6.99 or less; £5.99 for mp3 or lossless download: see March 2012/2 Download Roundup) and the extra adventure involved in hitting the right notes adds an extra touch of zest to the performance, as does the inclusion of a just-audible harpsichord. Any one of the budget-price discs from this series might make a useful addition to the Nimbus ‘Great Symphonies’ set; it’s a series that was never quite completed, though it contains recordings from all periods of Haydn’s symphonic output.

If you’ve fallen for the appeal of Haydn in Sturm und Drang mode, Nimbus offer another 2-CD set of Nos. 43, 44, 49, 52, 59 and 64 (here).

Symphony No.82 moves us on several years to Haydn’s visit to Paris in 1785/7. Fischer’s performances of the six symphonies from this period are available on a pair of Nimbus CDs (NI5419-20 - £16.00 post free from MusicWeb International here). The only reservation that I have about recommending the ‘Great Symphonies’ set is that you may well fall for the charms of No.82 and want the whole set. If you doubt the validity of the ‘bear’ nickname for this symphony, Fischer’s growly finale makes it seem thoroughly appropriate, even though it isn’t one of Haydn’s own devising. Here again, only a preference for a period-instrument performance such as Harnoncourt’s Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 3-CD set (82876606022, all repeats observed) or Roy Goodman’s on Hyperion (Nos. 82-4, CDH55123) would be reason to look elsewhere – I’m happy with either approach.

The Oxford Symphony was performed at Haydn’s award of an honorary doctorate by the university, so the title has some validity even though in the end he failed to compose the new work he had intended for the occasion and substituted one that was already well known in England. Simon Rattle’s account of this and other symphonies from the period between the Paris visit and Haydn’s first to London has received critical praise (Nos.88-92 and Sinfonia Concertante, EMI 3942372: Recording of the Month, but I find it too heavy by comparison with the best period performances. You don’t need period instruments, however, to make the symphonies of this period sound well, as Eugen Jochum demonstrated in his BPO recordings of Nos. 88 and 98 and his later LPO set of the ‘London’ Symphonies and as Fischer demonstrates in his version of the Oxford. This is modern-instrument Haydn without the ‘big band’ effect that I find from Rattle and I found it an excellent complement to Roy Goodman’s period-band on Hyperion Helios CDH55125.

The nicknames of Haydn’s symphonies don’t always translate from one language to another. In German No. 94 is known as the Drum Stroke Symphony (mit dem Paukenschlag), so easily confused with what is known in English as the Drum Roll Symphony, No.103. The English nickname, Surprise, like the German, refers to the loud stroke in the slow movement, designed to wake the ladies. I first got to know this symphony from Beecham’s early-1950s Columbia (CBS) performance, once available on the Philips Classical Favourites label – no longer available but his later 1950s remake, still in mono, is on the first of two EMI Gemini 2-CD sets: details below. If Fischer and his team don’t quite recapture the magic of that version – could anyone? – I can’t think of any better recent version.

Hungarian orchestras and conductors seem to have a particularly strong rapport with Haydn – surely it can’t just be due to the fact that he composed for the Esterházy family whose palaces spanned what is now the international border. There used to be several CDs of his music on the Hungaroton White Label which, if reissued at budget price, would still be well worth considering. David Blum recorded several of the symphonies with the Esterházy Orchestra for Vanguard which, like those Hungarotons, I still listen to with pleasure. Intermittently available on CD, there’s a very strong case for the latter especially to be reissued. Despite their Eastern European name, the Esterházy Orchestra are American. Still available, however, and of genuine Hungarian provenance, are the successful recordings which Naxos has made of Haydn symphonies with the Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia and Béla Drahos.

Good as all these are, the Austro-Hungarian Orchestra, drawn from top-flight Austrian and Hungarian players, is best of all. These recordings were made over a period of seven years, during which time the orchestra had three Konzertmeister, or leaders: Rainer Küchl, Erich Binder and Wolfgang Redik. The quality of performance over that period is remarkably consistent.

I’m not suggesting that these are perfect – even if such a thing were possible. I would have liked a little more generosity in the matter of first movement repeats, for example. Without necessarily wishing for every repeat to be observed, as Harnoncourt does in his most recent recording of the Paris Symphonies for Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, I do feel that there’s imbalance in Fischer’s No.82 – Doráti’s, too, for that matter – where the first and second movements are almost exactly the same length and the finale is shorter than either. Goodman strikes a neat compromise by observing the first-movement repeats but not those in the finale (Hyperion Helios CDH55123, with Nos.83 and 84).

Just occasionally, too, I felt that some of Fischer’s ritardandi were slightly artificial, but that’s only if one judges them against those of Thomas Beecham, who somehow manages to make everything he does seem thoroughly natural and Haydnesque, even though he clung to outdated editions which he knew to be erroneous when better texts were already available. See the review of his EMI recordings of the London Symphonies – Bargain of the Month – and my November 2011/1 Download Roundup. Beulah have reissued Beecham’s Symphonies Nos. 101 and 103 – see April 2012/1 Download Roundup.

The recordings are excellent throughout. Even the two earliest here, of Nos. 45 and 94 from 1988, are not at all bad but the later recordings sound even better. With short but valuable notes this inexpensive set is a strong contender.

-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

"Martin Jones’s recordings of Percy Grainger have been gathered together into a 5-CD box set of the Complete Works, NI1767, in which form they were reviewed by Jonathan Woolf in March 2011 but we don’t seem to have reviewed this generous selection. It’s all that many potential listeners will want and I see that it’s advertised as available again. My copy of the CD dates from 1994. It’s not a reissue of a single CD from the set but a compendium of Grainger’s best-known works.

Let me deal with the least attractive part first: as Jonathan Woolf noted, the recording is not to everyone’s taste – it’s certainly too reverberant for my liking, but it didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment too much. Subscribers to the Naxos Music Library might wish to try it there first but give it a chance: after a few tracks you’ll hardly notice any problem.

Just about all the likely suspects are included in the programme, together with several pieces that I would hardly have described as well-known: track 4, for example, offers Grainger’s take on Dowland’s Now, O now, I needs must part. It’s in a style far removed from the madly dancing Percy Grainger that viewers of a certain age will retain from Ken Russell’s film about Delius – that’s Grainger, that was – and, though I hardly recognised Dowland’s original tune from Grainger’s treatment, he does retain the gravity and melancholy spirit of the original.

Much the same is true of My Robin is to the Greenwood gone (track 7) – the original tune is submerged in Grainger’s arrangement of what emerges as a fine piece in its own right. Nor is a folk tune such as Near Woodstock Town (track 15) quite the same after Grainger’s treatment. Mock Morris on the following track makes no pretentions to be other than Grainger’s own take on folk music – it only sounds as if it were based on a folk tune. In many respects it’s more quintessentially Grainger than anything else and it’s brought off to perfection here.

There are several arrangements here: the next track after Dowland (tr.5) contains Blithe Bells, Grainger’s arrangement of Schafe können sicher weiden (Sheep may safely graze), though, again, Bach’s original is almost lost in the latter part of the arrangement – it’s much more Grainger’s ‘own’ than Walton’s take on the same piece in The Wise Virgins. Other tracks contain arrangements of Stanford, Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss – a characteristic Ramble on the final love-duet of Rosenkavalier.

The pop items are skilfully interwoven in the programme, starting with Handel in the Strand (track 1). Memories of George Malcolm playing this on the harpsichord are not erased but Martin Jones offers idiomatic and dextrous performances of the well-known and lesser-known works alike. Getting your fingers around the notes in a piece like the Stanford March-jig (track 9) is only half the story; the other half, which Jones contrives beautifully, is summoning an image of Grainger himself dancing to it around Delius’s garden.

On the following track we’re on Irish territory again in very different mood for the Tune from County Derry (alias Danny Boy). Does Jones milk the sentiment here slightly too much in the manner of those Irish tenors such as Josef Locke whom my father and grandfather worshipped? I think so, but perhaps my great-grandfather’s Irish blood was simply running a little too thin by the time it reached my generation. In any case, Marc-André Hamelin on Hyperion is faster and less sentimental here (see below). John Pickard’s observation in the booklet that ‘Grainger’s music shares with Bach’s the fact that, no matter how slowly one plays it, it always sounds satisfying’ looks as if it might have been written in defence of Jones’s tempo for this piece.

On track 11 Grainger and Jones take on the opening of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto single-handed, and do so surprisingly effectively. No question of too slow a tempo here.

Only if you are likely to be put off by the recording should you need to look elsewhere. If you do, you are likely to find a 1996 recording by Marc-André Hamelin on Hyperion your best choice – a very similar selection to that on Nimbus, on CDA66884 (CD or download in mp3 or lossless). If anything, Hamelin is even more fleet-fingered than Jones, but there’s not much to choose between them. If it’s the orchestral arrangements that you’re looking for, look no further than the inexpensive Introduction to Percy Grainger (Chandos CHAN2029: Bargain of the Month – see review), a sampler for their excellent complete series (see review), or another budget-price Chandos selection (CHAN6542, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Kenneth Montgomery).

With first-class performances and excellent notes there’s a lot to be said in favour of this single-CD selection. Don’t blame me if it leads you to purchase the complete box, or if the Chandos sampler tempts you to buy some of the recordings in that series."

-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International

Energetic and entertaining; a must for Gottschalk groupies.

CD 1*
Réponds-moi, Danse Cubaine, Op. 50 (1859) [2:37]
Printemps d'Amour, Mazurka, Caprice de Concert, Op. 40 (1855) [4:31]
Marche de Nuit, Op. 17 (1855) [5:07]
Ses Yeux, Célèbre Polka de Concert, Op. 66 (1865) [4:32]
La Jota Aragonesa, Caprice Espagnol, Op. 14 (?1853) [4:14]
Le Bananier, Chanson nègre, Op. 5 (?1848) [3:03]
Ojos Criollos, Danse Cubaine, Caprice Brillante, Op. 37 (1859) [2:46]
Orfa, Grande Polka, Op. 71 (?1863/64) [2:39]
La Scintilla (L'Énticelle), Mazurka Sentimentale, Op. 20 (1848/53) [3:18]
Marche Funèbre, Op. 61/64 (1853/54) [5:46]
La Gallina, Danse Cubaine, Op. 53 (1859/63) [2:24]
Radieuse, Grande Valse de Concert, Op. 72 (?1863/64) [5:35]
Grande Tarantelle, Op. 67 (?1865) [5:01]
CD 2**
Souvenirs d'Andalousie, Caprice de Concert sur La Caña. Le Fandango et Le Jaleo de Jerez (1851) [4:17]
Le Banjo, Grotesque Fantasie, Caprice Américain (?1854/55) [4:03]
Grand Scherzo (1869) [4:56]
Pasquinade, Caprice (1863) [3:40]
Berceuse, Cradle Song (1861) [4:47]
Tournament Galop (?1850/51) [3:13]
Mazurk [3:47]
'Union' Paraphrase de Concert on the National Airs, The Star Spangled Banner, Yankee Doodle and Hail Columbia (1852/62) [8:41]
The Last Hope, Méditation Réligeuse (1854) [6:01]
Scherzo Romantique (1851) [3:50]
Le Mancenillier, West Indian Serenade (?1849/50) [5:22]
The Dying Poet, Meditation (?1863) [6:43]

 
I count M. Louis Moreau Gottschalk among my most joyful and refreshing musical discoveries of recent years. It all started with a second-hand CD of the Irish pianist Philip Martin playing, among other things, Le Banjo, Le Bananier and the jaw-dropping Tremolo. That was followed by a Naxos recording of the orchestral music – review – and, most recently, by Martin’s set of the complete piano music ( review). In a spirit of discovery I was only too keen to hear this Nimbus collection, from two pianists who are new to me. It’s been around for a while, but what makes this set rather special is that CD 1 is devoted to four-handed versions of these showpieces; and that promises to be very entertaining indeed.
 
So it proves. The Chicago-born Alan Marks and British partner Nerine Barrett get off to a terrific start with Réponds-moi, a now sparkling, now seductive little Cuban number. Anyone who knows the two-hander will be astonished by the ebullience and invention on display here. The piano sound is clear and unfettered, making it ideal for such spontaneous writing and playing. The music-box tinkle of Printemps d’Amour is especially attractive, that quicksilver treble a real delight. What a marvellous sense of collective music-making, and how well these players get to the open, easeful heart of these works.
 
Rhythms are always impeccable, those in the early Marche de Nuit and Le Bananier superbly sprung. I’m delighted at how the oft winsome character of Gottschalk’s creations is so well caught and characterised. Dances – whether central American or central European – trip off the keyboard in a most disarming way. The imperious mien and Mediterranean warmth of that Spanish caprice are brought out in full. Occasionally, in Orfa for instance, I miss Martin’s more thoughtful, introspective playing style, in which rhythms and textures are more subtly done. Really that’s a minor caveat when Marks and Barrett’s musicianship is otherwise so polished and pleasing.
 
The first CD ends with a triple flourish. After the Cuban smokiness of La Gallina – simply breathtaking in its quick-fire delivery – and that giddy little Radieuse waltz, comes a crowning tarantella. Marks faces formidable competition in disc two which, recorded several years earlier, sounds a little brighter than the first. Make no mistake, the playing here is very assured, and Marks only yields to Martin in pieces such as Le Banjo. Here the Irishman’s control of touch and dynamics is unrivalled. The American is rather less nuanced or revealing. Then again, he just melts one’s heart with the charming Pasquinade – shades of Tremolo, surely – and the cradle song.
 
It’s an invidious task comparing these two pianists in this repertoire. I wouldn’t want to be without either of them. Just listen to Marks’s runaway rendition of the Tournament Galop and that medley of American patriotic tunes and you’ll hear what I mean. Yes, Martin has the better, fuller recording and a surer, more intuitive way with this music, but Marks certainly captures the generous, larger-than-life nature of these pieces very well indeed. In spite of some lovely touches neither pianist can save the rather maudlin Last Hope and Dying Poet; still they’re hardly dross, and both pianists’ versions are feelingly done.
 
I see from the rather skimpy liner-notes that Alan Marks died in 1995, which is a pity as I’d have liked to hear more Gottschalk from him. That said, it’s the four-handers that offer the greatest and most consistent musical rewards; the solos are somewhat intermittent in their appeal. Fine, atmospheric recordings though.
 
Energetic and entertaining; a must for Gottschalk groupies.
 
-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

A fine recording and superhuman performances.

This is an intriguing and worthwhile organ programme for the open-minded collector.
 
Philip Glass’s music quite often has a fairly small-scale, more intimate quality, and at first I wondered how the grand and magnificent gestures which fly out of your speakers with the opening Dance 2 were going to sustain nearly 25 minutes worth of composition with limited amounts of notes and a single rhythmic ostinato. This version of the music may inspire or infuriate you, but the irrepressible Kevin Bowyer’s powerful wrists survive the ordeal somehow. Glass’s Dance Pieces were written in the early 1970s in collaboration with choreographer Lucinda Childs and artist Sol Lewitt. If you think you know these pieces from the Philip Glass Ensemble’s recording you may find them hard to recognise in this more extrovert setting, but there is no taking away from the single-minded and purposeful nature of the music and this performance. Dance 4 is if anything more convincing than Dance 2, the greater harmonic variation creating a more impressive effect. Like Widor’s famous Toccata on some kind of high-octane mind-fuel, this has a heavy ‘wow’ factor if not a great deal more sophistication than the theme from ‘The Magic Roundabout’, and I love playing it really loud and winding up the cat.
 
There is something very physical about the directness of effect which the two Dance pieces have on this recording, and you may find your body has changed shape by the end of Dance 4. The arrangement Michael Riesman made of Satyagraha Act III Finale, the closing section of Philip Glass’s 1980 opera about the life of Ghandi or ‘the good bit’ as some critics of the opera might have described it, is an altogether gentler and more lyrical affair. A rising ostinato accompaniment creates a harmonic bed for the simple melodic phrases which exist above. Bowyer’s tempo is a little faster than I remember from the CBS recording of the opera, and the music might have had a more meditative or reflective quality, but it still works very well on organ.
 
Organist and composer Christopher Bowers-Broadbent has written the booklet notes for this release, and the explanation of Duets and Canons, here in a world premiere recording is therefore direct from the source. Bowers-Broadbent describes the nine movements as being based on the plainsong of the Mass, and makes an important point about the organ’s lack of percussive quality, the organist therefore relying on “subtle nuance of rhythm and relative length of note to achieve his expression.” This music is quite sparing and transparent, more often than not with just a few voices intertwining or sparring with each other in a context which joins the ancient feel of plainsong scales and harmonic relationships with contemporary sensibilities of a less vocal abstraction of line. This is a remarkable piece which, while perhaps not easy to grasp at first, does get under your skin in a strange way. The cadences of the opening Kyrie are relatively straightforward, with Tippett-like melodic variations and ornamented lines, but the buffeting elbows of the Credo are like a disturbing short-story, nagging at the imagination and taking up more brain-space than you would expect. The disjointed notes of the Sanctus are like a section of Messiaen’s Livre d’orgue entering the idiom of and emanating from a medieval ritual. Indeed, the entire piece has quite a ‘ritualistic’ feel to it: actions controlled and fixed by traditions and time, but with meanings forgotten and lost among the mouldering rafters of a cathedral hidden within the walls of Gormenghast.
 
This is by no means a conventional choice for an organ recital recording, but if you are up for a horizon-widening challenge then this is for you. Dance 2 is perhaps a little thin in compositional terms to take on the full weight of an entire performance on the magnificent Marcussen Organ in Tonbridge School, but the other pieces more than make up for this, and Dance 4 is my organ anthem of the moment and no doubt many more moments to come. A fine recording and superhuman performance from Kevin Bowyer certainly sell this CD for me.
 
-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

“Written on Skin” is a psychologically gripping, emotionally heart-pounding and viscerally satisfying drama that throws up moral questions that linger long after its 90-minute run. -- NEW YORK TIMES

Remarkable, challenging music in outstanding performances - highly recommended.

I first became acquainted with the music of George Benjamin through another Nimbus disc, NI5505. Sudden Time features on that disc too, but it was a vocal piece from 1990 that particularly struck me, Upon Silence. For mezzo-soprano and ensemble of viols, and composed for the group Fretwork, this is a remarkable setting of W. B. Yeats’ poem Long-Legged Fly. The work achieves what might be thought impossible, setting a near-perfect text in a totally unexpected and apparently unsuited musical idiom, whilst not only complementing it, but extending and transforming it in such a way that the musical setting becomes quite another work of art, leaving the original poem intact and undisturbed, available to the reader just as before. Fretwork play wonderfully – and the disc includes a second performance of the same work in an adaptation for seven strings – but I was especially in awe, and am still, at the astonishing, stunning performance by Susan Bickley.
 
The rest of that disc is taken up by instrumental and orchestral music, and it took me much longer to come to terms with these. Vocal music, in any event, given the presence of text, is probably easier to appreciate than purely instrumental music, and the other works certainly revealed their secrets more slowly, and required more effort on my part. But the effort was more than justified, as it also was with the present disc. George Benjamin’s music is exquisite, perfectly fashioned, like jewels, but not always easy on the ear, and not always easy to fathom.
 
The earliest work here, At First Light, is written for an ensemble of fourteen players. Such is the acuity of the composer’s ear, however, that the listener is amazed at the variety of colour achieved. The work begins in near-inaudibility, and the tiny first movement is composed of fragments, scraps of ideas, long held notes and twitters, that never really blend into anything tangible. The other movements are longer, the second more dramatic, the third calm, with fragments of melody and ravishing instrumental sonorities. But this is music with few audible signposts. Sudden Time confirms that impression. This is a work for large orchestra, but there is very little in the way of melodic writing, little to latch on to, being composed instead of fragments once again, moments of harmony and ever-changing sonorities. There’s not much sense of pulse or tempo either, the overall feeling being of music which is slow, though emphatically not static. On the other hand there is certainly a sense of progression – in terms of time – in the last third of the piece, and it closes with an extended melodic passage for solo violin, though I think it would take a little while to learn to whistle it. The ending is very abrupt. The music simply stops.
 
Palimpsests, of which this is the first recording, opens with what the notes refer to as “an antique-sounding canzonetta” played by a choir of clarinets, antique-sounding in the sense that Berg’s harmonisation of the Bach choral in his Violin Concerto is antique sounding. This work features rather more surface drama than the earlier two, with considerably more louder and faster-moving music and a general feeling that the writing is more extended, less fragmentary. The ending, uniquely of the four pieces, is loud. The final work on the disc, Olicantus, was written as a “surprise fiftieth birthday present for composer-conductor Oliver Knussen”, though any idea of levity that might be encouraged by the pun in the title is dashed when one hears this sombre piece, composed for fifteen players of low-pitched instruments, anything but celebratory, but of a striking, grave beauty.
 
Oliver Knussen conducts the short piece dedicated to him, the composer the others, and it is difficult to imagine how the performances could be any finer. These musicians are, in short, perfect advocates for this remarkable repertoire. The recorded sound is excellent, and although these are live performances the disc is not marred by applause. The booklet notes, by Stephen Walsh, are very erudite and deal extensively with what might be termed the philosophical aspects of the music. As such they are not much help as a listening guide, but it is difficult to imagine how any words might be. But don’t be put off. Try this disc for yourself, with open ears and an open mind.
 
-- William Hedley, MusicWeb International  

It’s fantastic!

George Antheil was, probably, his own worst enemy. Having taken Paris by storm, both as composer and virtuoso pianist, he failed, unlike Stravinsky, to moderate his language and adopt the neo–classical style which came into vogue during his stay. However, when Copland arrived in France, to study, he said that “… George had all Paris by the ear". It was probably Ezra Pound’s call that Antheil was "possibly the first American–born musician to be taken seriously" and regarding him as the great Messiah of a 'New Music' which coloured the composer’s attitude. From our historical position, the fact that he failed to move with the times is no longer seen as a problem. True, some still find it difficult to equate Antheil’s early works with the more sober works he wrote after his return to the USA, but a man has to eat, and with a wife and son to support he had to work. The later works are, certainly, more conventional than the pieces from his Paris years, but there are still many fine pieces to be found, both in his concert music and operas as well as his music for film. I particularly like his score for Edward Dmytryk’s The Sniper (1952) and Ben Hecht’s Angels Over Broadway (1940). I cannot help but mention that before returning permanently to America, Antheil wrote a detective story, Death In the Dark, which was edited and published T.S. Eliot. The plot concerns the murder of a concert agent!
 
Antheil visited America in 1927 to display his musical wares to an unsuspecting American public and this is what it heard! He wrote the Jazz Symphony for Paul Whiteman’s second Experiment in Modern Music concert of December 1925 – the first, held on 12 February 1924, had introduced Rhapsody in Blue to the world. For some reason it wasn’t given in that show and the Carnegie Hall concert of 1927 was its premiere, when it was done by W.C. Handy’s Orchestra with the composer as piano soloist. Antheil revised the score of the Jazz Symphony in 1955 and made it a much less spectacular and exciting work. Hearing it in its original form is a revelation, for it is wild and exuberant, great fun and it’s easy to understand that it received an ovation when it was given in Carnegie Hall, at this concert. This is an excellent performance, hard-driven, up-front and in-yer-face, hysterical and brilliantly realised. It’s worth buying the disk for this piece alone.
 
Antheil’s two Violin Sonatas were written for Ezra Pound’s mistress, Olga Rudge. The second is fascinating for it contains a part for drum, supposedly written for Pound to play. As it stands, it starts as a wild ride for the two instruments, then the piano launches into an almost insane cadenza. After this the drum takes over the accompaniment for the rest of the work. As with most of the other music recorded on this disk, it’s a wild, typical 1920s piece, but the performance here is a bit too polite. I once turned pages for a performance of this work given by Thomas Halpern and Yvar Mikhashoff and they threw all caution to the wind, giving a marvellously showy and fantastically over-the-top performance – just what the work needs. All that kind of extrovert display is missing here. A real shame, given the music-making of the couplings.
 
The short 1 ^st String Quartet is a very compelling work, cogently written, well laid out for the instruments, and it’s much more mainstream European music than the other works recorded here. The performance, by the Mendelssohn Quartet, is strong and forthright.
 
The Ballet Mécanique made Antheil’s name and confirmed his status as ‘The Bad Boy of Music’ - the title of his autobiography which is well worth a read. It caused a riot at its premiere in Paris and Aaron Copland wrote to Israel Citkowitz, “… the boy is a genius. Need I add that he has yet to write a work which shows it.” At Carnegie Hall, Copland, together with Colin McPhee, was one of the pianists in the performance of the Ballet where, again, it caused a riot. In 1952 Antheil revised the score, but all this did was to water down a fascinating score into a less-than-interesting one. Here it is, in all its 1920s gaudy splendour, colossal, noisy, outrageous, a tough listen – without a doubt – but a rewarding one. Anyone who heard, either in the hall, or on the radio, the weak performance given at the 2009 BBC Proms won’t know what’s hit them when they hear this! It’s fantastic!
 
Great performances, in general, brilliantly bright sound, good notes all go to making this indispensable to anyone interested in American music and the musical experiments of the 1920s.
 
-- Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International

Baritone Simon Wallfisch is also a renowned cellist. He studied cello and voice at the Royal College of music from 2000-2006, and was awarded multiple prizes from the Royal Overseas League and the English Speaking Union. For this release, Wallfisch has chosen works by French composers Honegger, Caplet, Milhaud, and Ravel. Wallfisch is accompanied here by pianist Edward Rushton.

David Ponsford’s excellent series of organ music from the French Golden Age reaches volume 3 with substantial works performed on a stunning instrument by Jean Boizard (c. 1675-1717). This organ is a remarkable survivor of two fires, the French Revolution and two world wars, and has remained essentially unmodified from its early 18th century origins.

André Raison is the less familiar of the two names represented here. He was one of the highest ranking organists in Paris in his day, and composed five organ masses. These are not always based on plainchant melodies and many of the movements have a secular connection to harpsichord dance forms of the time. This results in quite a lively feel for much of the piece, though there is a nice balance between these and the more stately music essential for the appropriate ecclesiastical atmosphere of certain parts of the service. Raison’s Messe du premier ton is something of a compendium of organ styles and moods, and perfect for demonstrating the qualities of the instrument played. The Offerte du 5me ton, Le vivre le roy des Parisiens celebrates the recovery of Louis XIV from a nasty operation, and is an exuberant work full of dance sections. The often spectacular registrations follow those specified by the composer.

Louis-Nicolas Clérambault was a pupil of Raison, and the two suites on this recording are dedicated to him. Clérambault was organist by royal appointment and a natural successor to Raison, composing in the same French Baroque tradition but showing a development in terms of scale and ever richer harmonic treatments. The two suites each have seven movements which would have been the requirement for an alternatim Magnificat: the organ couplets alternating with sung plainchant. Explorations of tonal contrast and dialogue as well as counterpoint and other aspects of French and Italian styles all join to create the kind of superb sequence in which you can just lie back and lose yourself, confident of inhabiting the sounds of the time in which these pieces were written.

The Clérambault works in particular are fairly popular on recordings, and there is even a version made using the same instrument in an otherwise vocal programme from the Virgin Veritas label (see review). David Ponsford’s superb series deserves support however, and truly rewards investment. A review of volume 1 can be found, and [of] volume 2. This third volume is something of a highlight but each has its own special character and they all belong together on your shelf of organ treasures.

- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

French organ music from the period of Louis XIV to the Revolution has always held fascination for performers and listeners alike. The kaleidoscope of colors, the rich and varied styles and the sheer exuberance of the music never fail to captivate. Yet, performance practice of this music has never been fully understood. David Ponsford has spent much of his career studying this repertoire, resulting in his book French Organ Music in the Reign of Louis XIV (Cambridge University Press, 2011). This series of recordings, on the most important historical organs in France, is therefore the fruit of many years of research by a seasoned performer whose aim is to combine technical brilliance with intellectual understanding, to bring the music alive with authority and meaning.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Franz Schreker. Ensemble: AML Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: John Axelrod.

FRANÇAIX Scherzo. 5 Portraits de jeunes filles. Eloge de la danse. Piano Sonata. 5 Encores. Danse des 3 Arlequins. 8 Variations. Nocturne. 3 Equisses sur les touches blanches. La Promenade d’un Musicologue Eclectique. De la Musique avant tout chose. Pour Jacqueline. Si Versailles m’etait conté. Scuola di Ballo. 1 8 Danses exotiques. 1 15 Portraits d’enfants d’Auguste Renoir. 2 Napoléon 2 • Martin Jones, 1 Richard McMahon, 2 Adrian Farmer (pn) • NIMBUS NI 5880/2 (3 CDs: 19:05)


Had Jean Françaix been born a decade or so earlier, we would be referring to Les Sept rather than Les Six. As it was, the French-polished and long-lived composer (1912–97) followed in the footsteps of his slightly older confrères, particularly Poulenc, in typifying the French style of his era: witty, light-hearted, and insouciant. Françaix’s music derives from the bouncy rhythms and diatonic melodies of French folk music, but mixes in the vulgarity of the boulevard, the harmonic asperity of Stravinsky, and an occasional hint of 1920s jazz, all done with assured craftsmanship. While many of his concertos have been recorded—the best-known are the sprightly Piano Concertino (1932) and the Clarinet Concerto—Françaix’s output for solo piano has not. The only previous recordings I discovered are by Annette Middlebeek on a hard-to-find Koch disc from 2001, and another from 2008 by Nicole Narboni on the obscure label CDBY, which I have never heard of. (The latter recital is intriguingly promoted as “Narboni on Food, Felines, Fathers, and Jean Françaix.”) I did not manage to do any comparative listening—my order of the Koch disc failed to materialize by deadline— but in any case this new Nimbus set trumps both in terms of completeness alone.


Although Françaix was an expert orchestrator, probably more skilled than Poulenc, whose Story of Babar the Elephant he arranged for orchestra, the younger composer first made his mark as a pianist. He continued to play throughout his life, not only his own works but also music by other composers, often teaming with the cellist Maurice Gendron. Many of his compositions involve piano, and I notice a three-disc set of chamber music with the composer at the piano is scheduled to be released late in 2012 (this being the year of Françaix’s centenary, of course).


Meanwhile, we have the indefatigable Martin Jones to bring us up to speed on the keyboard works. The set opens with the early, mostly staccato Scherzo, a favorite of the composer that he played often, and it shows him at his most deft in its clarity and harmonic sleight of hand. The Scherzo sets the tone for the rest of the program and is tossed off with perfect élan here by Jones. Françaix preferred miniatures, and many of the larger works are in fact suites made up of several short movements. Some, such as the oddly titled Promenade d’un Musicologue Eclectique , are composed of tributes to other composers such as Chopin, Ravel, and Adam. Françaix always sounds like himself, but Ravel was clearly a major influence along with Chabrier and, to some extent, Satie. We might expect a work titled Piano Sonata to be more serious in tone but that expectation is quickly dashed; the first movement scampers off like a French poodle. (The same thing happens in the composer’s one symphony.) The sonata’s second movement (Elégie) features an Impressionistic bell-like accompaniment. Timing is one of the composer’s finest assets: Nothing outstays its welcome, and just as one might be tiring of high spirits a pensive moment of lyricism comes along, like the lovely “La Tendre” in the Five Portraits of Young Girls suite. The gentle Nocturne’s arpeggiated left hand registers like updated Fauré, and it is this piece, the composer’s final composition for solo piano (1994), that brings the first disc to a close.


In the duo and two-piano works Jones is joined by Richard McMahon or Adrian Farmer. The Eight Exotic Dances of 1957 draw on popular Latin and jazz forms. The final movement is titled Rock’n’roll but it is far more jazz than rock, a musical genre too earthy for the fastidious Françaix, I suspect. Napoléon and Si Versailles m’etait conté are two-piano arrangements of music from films, while Scuola di ballo is a ballet score from 1933, which, 30 years later, the composer reworked for himself and his daughter Claude to play. The resulting score is more elaborate than a mere reduction, as you will hear if you compare it to the orchestral version recorded by Thierry Fischer and the Ulster Orchestra (Hyperion). It draws on music by Boccherini in much the same way as Stravinsky reinterpreted Pergolesi in Pulcinella , and forms a joyous finale to the program.


Devotees of piano music and avowed completists owe a lot to Martin Jones, truly one of the finest of British pianists. For Nimbus he has recorded a good deal of Spanish music (including multiple discs of Mompou), a Czerny series, Szymanowski, and several others. He is a sparkling technician, but beyond that he always manages to sound utterly sympathetic in the music he chooses to record. His partners in this enterprise are equally at home; McMahon, for one, has a formidable reputation in duet work. Nimbus’s recording strikes me as perfect; as usual, there is air around the sound but it is never muddy, always crisp, and suits the piano to a T. While it may be asking too much to listen to the three discs straight through (though I did so without any ill effect, several times), this is undoubtedly a delightful set to dip into and certainly a significant addition to the catalog.


FANFARE: Phillip Scott