Ransom Wilson and theOrpheus Chamber Ensemble present this new release of works for flute and chamber ensemble by composers Jean-Michel Damase (1928-2013) and Jean Francaix (1912-1997). The music of Jean-Michel Damase combines wit with gentility. His simplistic writing caused him to be frequently overlooked in favor of the avant-garde, thus little of his music is performed outside of France. The works chosen for this recording cover five decades of his oeuvre. Jean Francaix began composing at the young age of six. A child prodigy, he had already established a reputation during the 1930s for his ability to write for a wide range of genres. For this album, his Suite for solo flute and Divertimento for flute and chamber orchestra have been chosen. Ransom Wilson is recognized as one of the finest flutists of our day. He studied at the Julliard School, in Paris as a private student of Jean-Pierre Rampal, and has appeared on concert stages across the United States and Europe.

This is a superb addition to Martin Jones's marvelous one-man attempt to record everything unjustly neglected by other pianists.

This is the third and final two-disc volume in Martin Jones and Nimbus's valuable Czerny survey. It is pretty much in every way an excellent survey of the piano sonatas of this scandalously neglected Czech-Austrian composer. Previous volumes have been warmly received - see reviews here and here.

Note that Nimbus are not claiming the 'complete' piano sonatas - there are still two or three unpublished works awaiting discovery, as well as six sonatas for piano four hands, twenty-six more sonatinas for solo piano (a further one was recorded for volume 2), and eight sonatinas for piano four hands. And if it seems from that that Czerny was a Chopin-style piano specialist, well, he was indeed, but given that he wrote more than ten times the amount of music Chopin did, he was still able to find time for seven symphonies, six piano concertos and over 300 choral works. This Nimbus series is only the beginning.

It will, nevertheless, be a long haul before Czerny is remembered for anything other his massive contributions to piano pedagogy, eternalised in his published treatises and exercises, still familiar today to all piano teachers and pupils. But now, with Jones's completed recordings of the published sonatas, the idea no longer stands up that Czerny's genius stopped at teaching, a view promulgated to his discredit by Robert Schumann in the Neue Zeitschrift Für Musik and perpetuated in the 20th century by bigoted criticism basing its precepts on received wisdom or Czerny's countless learner pieces rather than on his major works.

This CD is almost worth the asking price for Calum MacDonald's notes alone. Sixteen sides of detailed description of Czerny's music, so well written in non-technical, yet intelligent language, that the reader cannot wait to get the CD on and start listening for the myriad points of interest that MacDonald explains with obvious appreciation of Czerny's talents.

MacDonald's notes do such a fine job of describing the music in lay terms that there is no need to duplicate them in this review. But it is important to stress that all the music comes from Czerny's maturity and is of commensurately high quality. Despite - or perhaps because of - Czerny's phenomenal technique and encyclopaedic knowledge of the piano, his music does not rely on showy bravura for effect, but no pianist will get very far with the three substantial, significant Sonatas - or the majority of the other pieces, for that matter - without an abundance of virtuosic technique. Jones has shown repeatedly over a long career, and a massive discography, that he has that, and even though he is now into his eighth decade he shows no sign of faltering or slowing down. Indeed, the speed and agility of his fingers are tested repeatedly by Czerny, as in the two-handed crescendo-decrescendo tremolando towards the end of the Rondino in E flat, which has to be heard to be believed.

The three Sonatas are real finds, all quite original in different ways: exciting, intelligent, varied, unpretentious and some of the finest of their period. The B flat Sonata has a stunningly beautiful, intense slow movement that Calum MacDonald suggests might even "stand on its own in a recital programme", and a scherzo third that is "a kind of salon bonbon raised to an almost ridiculous state of virtuosity."

The hugely imaginative finale of the equally compelling F minor Sonata is worthy of Beethoven. Beethoven - Piano Sonata in F minor, op.57? Czerny did give consideration to the opus numbers he assigned to his works, so it is unlikely that the aping of Beethoven's so-called "Appassionata" is coincidental, particularly in light of the fact that Beethoven had been his teacher and was still his friend. The booklet notes have nothing to say on the subject, and in truth the work is nothing like Beethoven's, aside from its dark-hued tonality and general pianistic brilliance.

The Sonatina in G might as well be called a Sonata too - it may be diminutive, but several of Beethoven's masterpieces are as short, and the Sonatina has everything one would expect from a sonata in one concise package. Curiously perhaps, the Gran Capriccio also has the feeling of a sonata, albeit now in three movements. The title is a little misleading, in any case: this full-blooded Romantic work teems with passion and pathos.

Jones's marvellous recital is brought to a fittingly lustrous conclusion with the Sonata in G, yet another showcase for Czerny's seemingly boundless imagination. It overflows in every movement with feeling and breathtaking originality, right down to the amazing light-hearted virtuosity of the finale.

The CD booklet itself is a paragon of clarity and information. One tiny point: in both the track-listing and the notes, the subtitle of the Rondino in E flat is given an additional and ungrammatical 'e' in 'Les Jours Passées', which should be 'Les Jours Passés' ('The Olden Days'). The error may well have been Czerny's or his publishers', but the extra 'e' is still bad French.

Sound quality and general production values are very high. This is a superb addition to Martin Jones's marvellous one-man attempt to record everything unjustly neglected by other pianists.

- Byzantion, MusicWeb International

CZERNY Piano Sonatas: No. 5; No. 6; No. 8; No. 9. Nocturne in E? • Martin Jones (pn) • NIMBUS 5832 (2 CDs: 150:56)


The name Carl Czerny is hardly an unknown one, but for most he exists as a sideline figure and program-note reference, one of a tight circle of Beethoven’s younger friends and pupils (including Ferdinand Ries and Ignaz Moscheles) who formed a critical core of early Romantic keyboard composers. Their music isn’t often performed, although most piano students have fond (or not so fond) memories of Czerny’s technical exercises.



Pianist Martin Jones has already given us complete accounts of the works of Granados, Szymanowski, Grainger, Mendelssohn, Debussy, and others, and is now embarking on a thorough examination of the sonatas of Czerny. Nimbus has released Volume 1 of the set, and while there is much to admire here (most noticeably the composer’s workmanlike consistency), we will have to wait for future volumes to determine if there are any hidden masterpieces in this corner of his vast repertoire.



This double-disc set contains four of his 13 sonatas as well as an attractive filler piece, the Nocturne in E?. The opus number 647 (!) of this work gives an indication of the protean task a cycle of his complete piano works might provide for a future devotee of this Viennese composer of Czech extraction. For reasons that remain unclear, his sonatas largely date from an eight-year span beginning in 1820 at the age of 29. Though he was a dedicated disciple of Beethoven, he appears not to have emulated the older master’s compositional style to any significant degree. While his mentor preferred to construct works from smaller motives and their subsequent exhaustive development, in these sonatas, at least, Czerny prefers more expansive melodies and extended key sections. This is evidence of a kinship with such close contemporaries as Hummel, Schubert, and especially Mendelssohn. This latter composer seems particularly relevant when Czerny reaches back to resuscitate fugues and chorales from earlier times. When trying to summon dramatic stress in minor keys, such as the opening to Sonata No. 9, the resemblance to Schubert can be uncanny, but only for short stretches. The same composer’s lyricism is evoked in the slow movement of this and other sonatas, although Czerny’s melodic gifts are decidedly inferior. There is one superficial resemblance to some of Beethoven’s late piano sonatas and string quartets, and that is a disinterest in maintaining the traditional four-movement structure of a sonata on a consistent basis. All four of these sonatas have between five and seven movements, with a duration in this recording of 32 to 50 minutes each. Calum MacDonald’s excellent notes don’t suggest the possibility, but could this predilection for length reflect the influence of the classical divertimento? While it’s possible that their duration could be one factor in their lack of acceptance into the canon, that explanation doesn’t account for the hundreds of his shorter pieces that posterity has also been unkind to.


Sonata No. 6 is the one work that suggests a composer not entirely satisfied with the status quo. With six movements and clocking in at over 50 minutes, it surely ranks as one of the most ambitious piano works from any era, a status underlined by the fast tempos in nearly every movement (in fact, slow movements are quite rare in all four of these sonatas). It boasts far more than mere length; there are sections that foreshadow titans from later in the century, most notably Brahms and Liszt. This seems to be the only sonata with some notable parallels to the music of late Beethoven (especially the quartets), more in the outward structure of some movements than the inner mechanics.


There is a smattering of music (piano and otherwise) by Czerny on disc, but only Daniel Blumenthal (on Et’Cetera) and Anton Kuerti (for Analekta) have tackled the sonatas. Martin Jones, as usual, is embarking on this latest project with admirable aplomb and gusto. One can’t expect the same level of finish on projects of this type as with recordings of works in a pianist’s regular concert repertoire, but the playing is solid and engaging throughout. Jones plays with enough color and flexibility to give shape to the melodic content while avoiding impediments to the classical architecture favored by Czerny. On rare occasions, he overpedals and compromises clarity, normally one of his strong suits. Development sections in minor key sonata form movements in particular seem to cause him some difficulty, as do a few thorny passages in the scherzos and the treacherous variations of Sonata No. 5. The recorded sound is clear and present, fairly close but not overbearing.


FANFARE: Michael Cameron


Important, intelligently conceived and very rewarding.

This looks set fair to be a valuable corrective to the partial, more generally held view of Czerny as a composer of an exhaustive number of pedagogic studies. In the first volume of a promised complete run we have four sonatas written between 1824 and 1827 and a single Nocturne, dated provisionally to around 1840.

Czerny certainly proves to have operated on a wide canvas – his Sixth sonata, in D minor, lasts over fifty minutes in Martin Jones’s impressive sounding performance. It might be as well to start there because here we feel his striving for a heroic canvas at its most palatial, its most extended. It was written in the year of Beethoven’s death and its six movements might be seen as an analogue of the older man’s own multi-movement writing in the late quartets. After an opening Adagio sostenuto ed espressivo and a correspondingly fast capriccio, Czerny unleashes an Allegretto, a Scherzo and trio, a Bohemian Chorale, a Presto and finally an Allegro con fuoco. The indications alone give some idea as to the sweep and drama enshrined in the work. From a tense almost crepuscular opening we are launched on the driving excitement of the Capriccio Appassionata; from there an alternately stately and lyric Scherzo and Trio; and from there to the heart of the work, a noble unfolding of the theme and five variations. Extensive, finely laid out and warmly played this is a particular high point of the two discs. It shouldn’t be forgotten that, despite his Viennese birth, and as his name so obviously suggests, Czerny’s first language was Czech.

The Fifth sonata is a more concise work though in five movements which again features a penultimate Theme and variation device. Despite the proximity of Beethoven and Hummel stylistically – or at least in terms of potential influence this is the sonata that sounds most completely Schubertian. Although Schubert is often quoted as one of the strongest influences on Czerny’s more extended compositions, its influence is not always direct; here, one feels, it is, and unashamedly too. The placid theme that launches the variations is a genial case in point. The whole work in fact though hardly small scaled is very amiable, though not especially personal.

The Eighth sonata was another product of 1827 and again is cast in six movements, this time ending with a Fuga. Here we find Czerny serious, even at points rather gruff, though it’s a gruffness matched by a perky march theme. The Scherzo sports abrupt injunctions and phrases and alternates them with a lyric Trio. Even the Adagio is unsettled with volatile moments. There’s a second Scherzo and – my favourite and I think the most admirable movement – a forward-looking and quite complex Rondo before the final fugue. The Eighth sonata opens in standard sonata form and does rather flirt with salon sentiment in its not-terribly-serious Adagio; marked con sentimento to reinforce the point. The agitato mutterings that later emerge in this movement seem out of place in respect of the thematic material – but never mind, there’s a pert and witty Scherzo to enjoy. So too the later Nocturne.

Over a decade ago Anton Kuerti recorded the First and Third sonatas for Analekta [FL23141] and Daniel Blumenthal has recorded the first four for Etcetera [KTC2023]. Other than that things have been pretty quiet. So Jones’s splendid playing, the good Nimbus sound and extensive booklet notes stamp this out as an important, intelligently conceived and very rewarding start to the series.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

A winner.

This is, in race horse parlance, another Nimbus ex MusicMasters production. The recordings are now, amazingly, over twenty years old but they certainly bear the new and somewhat austere, though evocative, livery well.

Music for the Theatre dates from 1925 and owed its genesis to a Koussevitzky commission. The composer took incidental music for a projected play and utilised it for the new work. There are five movements with the Prologue, and its brisk quasi-reveille calls, setting the scene with its quiescent material that leads inexorably to a jazzy and luminous coda. The muted trumpet and clarinet that haunt the Dance suggest a post-Ragtime sensibility and Hot Dance music rather than the Jazz that Copland suggested. It certainly has more of a tightly rhythmic New York feel than the more curvaceous insinuation of a Chicago beat. In the warmly lyric Interlude the cor anglais is the star and this ushers in a cheeky Burlesque where the trombone's cocky call over a walking bass adds greatly to the fun. The finale revisits the first and third movements and adds some restful stasis to end a happy, snappy work, tautly and sympathetically played by the forces of the Orchestra of St. Luke's under Dennis Russell Davies.

Quiet City is naturally better known but again trumpet and cor anglais are to the fore. Stephen Taylor is the cor anglais player here and I assume he was in Music for the Theatre as well. He and trumpeter Chris Gekker play with fine tone and measured cantilena. The strings turn lush when needed; no astringent aspersions are cast. Music for Movies dates from 1942 - the quartet of compositions is presented chronologically. This is a vital, energising piece of work, one of his breeziest and zestiest. It flies kites for serious composers and film music, whilst ensuring that colour, rhythmic flair, localised characterisation, and convincing orchestration are all surely realised. To end we have the Clarinet Concerto. It's not such an odd bedfellow as it may seem, especially when the playing is so consonant and William Blount so highly effective a soloist.

Of course you will have your own Numero Uno to play against each of these four recordings. Probably you'd go for Bernstein, Levi or Litton in Music for Theatre, or Copland himself (or Marriner - excellent) in Quiet City. The composer or Slatkin are probably best for Music for Movies and you have a whole Appalachia full of choices with the Concerto, according to how jazzy or straight you want it - Goodman, Meyer, Stoltzman - best with Tilson Thomas on the rostrum - or maybe Drucker - and there are plenty more.

As a single disc however this one, excellently recorded, finely played, and well annotated (by Vivian Perlis) is a winner.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Dennis Russell Davies clearly has an affinity for Copland's iconically American music. This disc features Copland's most famous work, Appalachian Spring, as well as comparatively unknown compositions from both the beginning and the end of his career.

Classical Music

Classical Music

From the contrapuntal rigours of Bach, to the coruscating soul-searching of Rachmaninov, to the perfumed velleities of Chopin, Vladimir Feltsman seems to be sovereign over every idiom he plays and records. Of modern pianists vying for the meaningless title of World No. 1, Feltsman must be up there with the likes of Sokolov, Volodos, Kissin, Pollini, Zimerman, Perahia, and, so as not to be sexist, Pires and Argerich. Every piano maven from here to Carnegie Hall will want to dispute, correct and modify that fairly random and doubtless incomplete roll of honour, but I hope that I may at least be allowed to observe that Feltsman is now surely in his mature prime, having a string of critically lauded recordings for Nimbus to his credit and performing to acclaim worldwide.
 
Coming to this recital having already very positively reviewed his “Tribute to Rachmaninov” and Bach English Suites for Nimbus, I was predisposed to like what I heard and was immediately struck by the ease and naturalness of his treatment of the celebrated E-flat major waltz which opens this recording. My enjoyment of the playing, already intrinsically great owing to the quality of Feltsman’s pianism, was greatly enhanced by reading the highly intelligent, informative and stimulating essay provided in the booklet by the pianist himself.
 
As with previous Nimbus issues, the sound is simply lovely: bright yet warm, as utterly beguiling as Feltsman’s playing. His command of rubato and rallentando is subtle and deeply satisfying, never “applied” but always cognisant of the need for a degree of Schwung to recall the origins of the music in dance. This elasticity, grounded in the dominant figure of one long and two short notes, is key to our enjoyment of these most cheerful of Chopin’s generally melancholy output. His choices of tempi are generally as airy as his playing yet there is no sense of hurry, just an insouciant propulsiveness.
 
I have remarked while listening to his Bach at the fleetness and lightness of touch Feltsman can command; he is the most deft of practitioners yet the left hand is always weighty and sonorous when required. In my experience only Vasary and perhaps Freire are as ethereal yet soulful; I listened to the whole disc straight through with unalloyed delight.
 
The four Impromptus forming the coda to the sequence are delicate and rhapsodic by turns. They are evidently a little more serious and quizzical in tone, posing some questions more searching than the generally reassuring waltzes.
 
This goes straight to the top of my list of favourite Chopin CDs; I begin to wonder if there is any mode or composer in which this magnificent artist cannot excel.



-- Ralph Moore, MusicWeb International

Performances alive with vitality in well defined recordings.

Clara Rodríguez has been recognised for some time now as an ideal pianist to perform missionary work on behalf of Latin American composers. She has performed the works of Venezuelan Federico Ruiz with fidelity and has earned the dedication of some of them; Tropical Triptych and Nocturne were written for her.
 
The music in this recital reflects an interesting range of influences, dance patterns and stylistic affinities. Merengue, composed in 1994, establishes Ruiz’s penchant for rhythmic vitality and romantic refinement. There is a long cycle of small character pieces called Pieces for children under 100 years of age, written between 1982 and 1994. Droll as the title is, it wouldn’t matter much were the music dull. That, assuredly, is not the case. There are hints of a Latin Chopin in the opening Prelude, whilst he summons up the spirit of Chaplin ( Charlot) in the second piece of the set. This turns out to be a touch of Ragtime, so it’s not properly Chaplin that’s being evoked, it seems to me, more the piano accompaniment provided in cinemas and movie theatres to some scenes from his films. Our Lady of Sorrow is properly wistful whilst there’s great charm to Magic Dream. It’s important that he establishes mood quickly in these pieces as they are all so short – none is longer than three minutes. The Dictator rides a moped is amusing for its out of control sequence; Dictators clearly can’t ride them. Debussy haunts the Encounter of Antonio and Florentino and there’s a laconic Cha cha cha further on in the sequence. Altogether this is a lively, imaginative and witty set.
 
The Three Venezuelan Waltzes, composed during the 1980s, are disparate but bound together by their origin in the waltz. The Nocturne is somewhat different, being rather chromatic and obviously effusive, and it’s played by its dedicatee with aplomb. Very different again, indeed the work of a much earlier Ruiz, is the Micro-Suite of 1971. The five succinct movements, more succinct indeed than the children’s pieces, are decidedly Webern-like, and suggest the journey Ruiz has undertaken from this rather formalised use of twelve-tone, to his later absorption of local models and rhythms.
 
We return, finally, to a more recent Ruiz in the shape of Tropical Triptych composed in 1993. When Ruiz conjoins rhythmic brio with lyrical intensity, as here, the results are idiomatic and exciting. His propensity for Ragtime, and a bit of Gottschalk, Ginastera and Milhaud certainly doesn’t hinder him either.
 
To these qualities and affiliations one can add that he writes, so it seems, with considerable pianistic affinity. The performances manage to get across this vitality in well defined recordings.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

CHOPIN Piano Sonata No. 3. Preludes Nos. 1–24 • Nick van Bloss (pn) • NIMBUS 6215 (70:21)

Nick van Bloss is an excellent Chopin pianist. The first thing you recognize about his Chopin playing is his sound. He has a big, rounded tone, with an especially prominent left hand. His Chopin therefore is darker sounding than most other pianists’. The overall mood is saturated in deep passion without ever being precious, and the colorings derive from a particularly rich palette. Vladimir Horowitz said of Chopin, “He never weighed more than 90-odd pounds. Imagine!...But on paper he was never 90-odd pounds.” In a nutshell, this gives us the scope of emotion Nick van Bloss exploits in Chopin. His sense of structure is very much his own. Van Bloss is comfortable with making adjustments to his tempo within a harmonic framework that he never disturbs. He provides drama, reverie, and passion without sacrificing the architecture of the music. This is true in both the longest sonata movement and the briefest prelude. Van Bloss gave up the concert stage for 15 years, but he appears to have the capacity to think deeply about music without ever touching the keyboard. As a result, there never is the sense of routine in his performances that sometimes creeps into the renditions of more prolific Chopinists. Van Bloss is a literary man, too, having published an acclaimed autobiography. It is not too fanciful to suggest than Chopin gives him an outlet for his literary bent, finding story lines and lyric poetry throughout this recital. I think van Bloss’s Chopin will wear very well. It is the product of an insightful and penetrating mind and a refined keyboard artist.


In the Third Sonata, the opening movement has an unhurried nobility, both in tempo and texture. The exposition repeat adds to this effect. The second subject appears simple, but is rendered with great art. Unlike some pianists, van Bloss does not play the last three movements without a break. The Scherzo’s second subject possesses an unusual restlessness. The Largo has striking effects of light and shadow. Van Bloss pedals its second subject to create a rich and beautiful legato. He presents the Finale with splendid rhythmic subtlety. This is a valuable Third Sonata, and the Preludes are no less intriguing. No. 2 is a kind of Dies Irae , while No. 3 is a Spring song. A restrained passion characterizes No. 4. No. 6 is like an Egyptian statue in its inscrutability. No. 8 is a virtuoso tour de force . A limpid and summertime atmosphere pervades No. 13. No. 15, the “Raindrop,” constitutes a meditation on life’s fragility. No. 17 is a bold Romantic statement. Van Bloss makes No. 21 into a beautifully shaped exercise in harmonic daring. No. 23 is wistful, with a kind of Vince Guaraldi resonance. The last Prelude in van Bloss’s hands becomes a study in dark colors. His Preludes may not be the most varied statement of these works, but they are emotionally rich and technically unimpeachable.


The sound engineering is very fine, just slightly metallic. It is good to hear the patina of Nimbus’s Wyastone Leys studio, where so many fine piano recordings have been made. My favorite versions of the Sonata are by Cécile Ousset and Van Cliburn. I prefer Daniel Barenboim and Lincoln Mayorga in the Preludes. I think any Chopin collector would be happy to add Nick van Bloss’s renditions to his or her library. This is very classy Chopin playing, with the emotional and technical elements blended into a well-considered whole.

FANFARE: Dave Saemann

This set contains both ADD and DDD recordings.

CHOPIN Cello Sonata. Etude in e? , op. 10/6. LAKS Cello Sonata. SZYMANOWSKI Violin Sonata in d • Raphael Wallfisch (vc); John York (pn) • NIMBUS 5862 (75:53)


Instrumental virtuosos often inspire composers to write great works. Thus it was that Chopin, a composer who wrote almost exclusively for piano, came to write his G-Minor Cello Sonata, one of his very last completed works. The virtuoso who inspired it was the French cellist Auguste Franchomme, and the two men premiered the piece at Chopin’s final public appearance, on February 16, 1848. The sonata remains, alongside Beethoven’s and Mendelssohn’s contributions to the genre, one of the finest works of its type from the first half of the 19th century, and perhaps the most important before Brahms. If you didn’t know the sonata was by Chopin, my guess is you wouldn’t guess. It’s really quite like nothing else he wrote, and for a composer whose genius lay in the perfection of smaller forms, the structural discipline he brought to bear on his vast sonata-allegro first movement (16 and a half minutes) exhibits a new mastery, which, had he lived longer, might have taken his art in a new direction.


As magnificent as the Chopin sonata is, and as beautifully played as it is here by Raphael Wallfisch and John York, there are so many excellent recordings of it—Alban Gerhardt with Stephen Osborne on Hyperion and Truls Mørk with Kathryn Stott on Virgin Classics, to name just two relatively recent entries—that it’s hard to single this one out as special. What does make this recording special, though, is a real rarity, a cello sonata by 20th-century Jewish Polish composer Simon (Szymon) Laks (1901–83).


During the interwar years, Laks moved to Paris, joining other Polish expatriates to form the Association of Young Polish Composers. His works gained a bit of a foothold in the French capital, his Cello Sonata receiving its premiere there by Maurice Maréchal and Vlado Perlemuter. But in 1941, Laks was arrested by the German occupying forces and deported first to Auschwitz and then to Dachau. He was one of the survivors, claiming in a book he published in 1948, Musique d’un autre monde, that his organizing and participating in musical events at the camps were instrumental in keeping him alive. After the war, Laks resettled in Paris and resumed composition, writing some works— Huit chants populaires juifs (1947) and Elégie pour les villages juifs (1961)—that focused on Jewish themes, along with film music under a pseudonym. In his final years, he cultivated an interest in linguistics and translation, as well as publishing polemic views on music, politics, and social issues. Laks’s musical allegiances are said to have been to the École de Paris, which included composers like Honegger, Martin?, and fellow Polish Jew Alexander Tansman. Honegger was of course also a member of the noisier Les Six crowd, there being at this time in Paris a heady mix of avant-garde clubs that welcomed all comers, regardless of other affiliations.


I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone about Laks’s Cello Sonata by calling it a work of irresistible comeliness. It’s a crabby, crusty thing in three fairly short movements that yield little in the way of comprehensibility, even on repeated hearings. Only in the 6/8 concluding Presto movement did I find myself, admittedly in a rather perverted way, enjoying what sounds like a Mendelssohn scherzo throwing a temper tantrum. This is the first and only piece by Laks I’ve ever heard, so I can’t comment on what his other music might sound like. The Cello Sonata may grow on me after a few more hearings, but for now I will reserve judgment. Wallfisch and York’s playing of it, though, sounds thoroughly committed, and they are to be commended for ferreting out this fairly obscure composer and work for this program.


Though certainly better known than Laks, Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937) is, to me, almost as unfamiliar. Yet recordings of his works have amassed enough entries in the Fanfare Archive to place his name on the primary page of major composers. So it would seem I have some catching up to do. The Violin Sonata in D Minor, op. 9—here transcribed for cello by Kazimierz Wi?komirski, 20th-century cellist, composer, conductor, and brother of Wanda Wi?komirska—was written in 1904. Other than informing us that the work is an early effort from Szymanowski’s pen and a favorite of many violinists—I count a baker’s dozen currently listed recordings—John York’s booklet note doesn’t say much about the music, but does note that inexplicable cuts made by Wi?komirski in his cello version have been restored, and that “We have made our own minor improvements along the way.”


Different sources claim to hear different influences in Szymanowski’s sonata—Brahms, Franck, Chopin, Scriabin, and even Grieg are mentioned. None, I suppose, are that far-fetched. The work is infused with the dramatic flourishes and intense romantic yearnings common to much late 19th- and early 20th-century music. “Improvements” notwithstanding, it’s a beautiful score and gorgeously played by Wallfisch and York. I really must explore more Szymanowski.


This, by the way, is not the first recording of Wi?komirski’s cello version of the sonata. Jan-Erik Gustafsson and Heini Kärkkäinen play it in a 1994 performance on Ondine, though I can’t tell you if they also restore the cuts or make “improvements.”


Wallfisch and York get an A+ for programming ingenuity and performing excellence; and Nimbus gets an A+ for superb recording. That adds up to a strong recommendation.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

"Feltsman’s nocturnes seem to have been available twice before, first on Urtext Records and then on Camerata. This apparently is their first review in Fanfare. They were recorded as far back as 2000 in the Moscow Conservatory’s Great Hall, with superb sound engineering. Feltsman gives us one of the great sets of the nocturnes. This is music of suggestions and inferences, and Feltsman absolutely nails them. The First Nocturne sounds like a cradle song. For No. 2, Feltsman writes that Chopin provided embellishments to it for his students, so Feltsman has added ornaments following Chopin’s lead. The results are charming. No. 3 seems pensive. A childhood reminiscence with a dark side appears in 4, with a resemblance to Schumann’s Kinderszenen. No. 5 offers a story told among friends. A walk at nighttime occurs in 6. One watches a sunset in 7. No. 8 presents a reverie along with a sip of wine. For 9, we may think of someone writing a diary entry. No. 10 seems about thinking of the beloved. No. 11, on the other hand, is about love lost, with a sense of resignation.

No. 12 could take place by a stream. In 13, we contemplate death—there is a resemblance here to the funeral march of the Second Sonata. No. 14 perhaps takes place on a summer evening. An important question is posed during 15. No. 16 apparently contains the recollection of a dance. An intimate conversation is related during 17. No. 18 may portray a dinner between two lovers. No. 19 is about a lover’s despair. The sentiment in 20 is of the poignancy of young love. No. 21 sounds mazurka-like. I can think of two digital recordings of the nocturnes in Feltsman’s league, by Daniel Barenboim and François Chaplin, but Feltsman’s may prove the most satisfying on a regular basis.

Feltsman’s Barcarolle is fluid and majestic. His Berceuse is a pianistic kaleidoscope, with shifting textures and colors.

It’s perhaps worth remembering that the first recording by Feltsman issued on a U.S. label was Chopin’s preludes. He really is a Chopin player to the manner born. His sense of line is infallible, and no detail is so small as to escape his attention. Plus, he has the rare ability to convey an atmosphere, which is essential to a great Chopin style. That Feltsman has made a considerable career playing Bach may not be coincidental, given Chopin’s love for Bach and the subtlety of the Pole’s harmony. What’s more, Feltsman’s love for Chopin absolutely comes across in these recordings. You really can’t fake the excitement and affection that suffuse these readings. Feltsman here matches the greatest Chopin performances preserved in recorded sound. These [recordings] are likely to remain touchstones for decades to come."

FANFARE: Dave Saemann