The four previous Alwyn volumes from Naxos have done well and here the standard has not slipped.

Not content with generosity and higher bargain price Naxos offer us two more pieces of Alwyn not previously recorded. These make this disc an essential purchase.

The tangily-titled overture The Innumerable Dance derives its name from fragrantly verdant verse in Blake’s ‘Milton’. You need to remember that between 1933 and 1938 he wrote a massive work for soli, chorus and orchestra on Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell; something we need to hear. The music of the overture has some kinship with Delius and Moeran; you must remember that this is very early Alwyn. Its fly-away delicacy is also redolent of Holst. It is most transparently orchestrated and its triumphant celebration of Spring places it with two more complex works: Bridge’s Enter Spring and John Foulds’ April-England.

Aphrodite in Aulis is referred to as an Eclogue inspired by the George Moore novel of the same name. Moore is now desperately unfashionable and his writing is pretty indigestible. In Alwyn’s dreamily Delian music summer breathes easily; indeed the whole piece communicates as a single sweetly arched sigh.

The Oboe Concerto was premiered by Evelyn Barbirolli on 12 April 1949 in London. It’s a two movement work of meditative and dreamily contented Delian inclination. Its kinship is with the much later Arnold Oboe Concerto written for Leon Goossens.

Alwyn put aside these moods as the years passed and so we come to a piece that music-lovers who discovered Alwyn in the LP age will already know. The Magic Island Prelude appeared on an early Lyrita (SRCS63 still available in a new coupling as SRCD229) with the Third Symphony. Here the manner we know from the symphonies is apparent but cross-cut with ‘exotic’ Hispanic voices from Ravel. If Alwyn’s vision of the magical island is more grandiose and less enchantingly delicate than I would have expected this piece remains atmospheric.

The dance theme continues with the Elizabethan Dances which start with courtly echoes from the Court of the First Elizabeth to which we return for the allegro scherzando which is splashed with the sort of playfulness to be found in Bridge’s Roger de Coverley. This contrasts with rapturous and even exotic dances (trs. 2, 4, 6) with the psychological reach of a Prokofiev waltz or the tension-charged dances from Barber’s Souvenirs. These dances were preceded in 1946 by a Suite of Scottish Dances.

The disc ends with the Festival March premiered by Sargent conducting the LPO on 21 May 1951. This is an inspired and dignified but not very personal piece of jobbery assuming the loose-fitting panoply of Elgar and Walton in much the same way as Howard Ferguson did for his 1953 Overture for an Occasion.

Alwyn’s short orchestral works can be heard on both Chandos (conducted by Hickox) and Lyrita (Alwyn). These are full price items and the couplings differ from the present one so there is little point in comparison. All I need say is that the recording is natural without being distanced and that the performances evince commitment and a sympathy for the composer’s varying styles. Clearly if you have already launched out on the Naxos route for the Alwyn symphonies you will need to have this. In any event Alwynites will want this for the unique experience of hearing more than sixteen minutes of previously unrecorded orchestral Alwyn.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Recording information: Studio 5, Russian State TV & Radio Company KULTURA, Mos (05/02/2007-05/03/2007); Studio 5, Russian State TV & Radio Company KULTURA, Mos (05/06/2007); Studio 5, Russian State TV & Radio Company KULTURA, Mos (09/13/2007).

Spritely performances of real winners.

Perhaps it’s a terrible admission to make, but much as I love Haydn, I have never really warmed to his concertos. Here, I thought, was the father of the Symphony as we know it today, the String Quartet as we know it today, and the foundation of opera. OK, I know that Mozart had an hand in the development of all these forms but it was Haydn who got things going. Sure enough, there’s drama and poetry aplenty in the pieces mentioned but concertos? Where’s the dramatic interplay between soloist and orchestra? Where’s the element of man standing alone against the crowd?

Then along comes this disk and I suddenly have to re–think my position. It had never dawned on me that the concept of protagonist and lynch mob hadn’t been invented at the time Haydn was writing his concerted works. So now I can see them in a different light for what they are – wonderful entertainment music with prominent parts for solo instruments.

I’m glad that I’ve been able to change my views and can now enjoy these works for they are delightful. The Horn Concerto which opens the disk is full of good things, the writing for horn is certainly virtuosic – the range which Haydn demands of his performer is phenomenal – and here Babanov is quite happy whether he plays in the highest or lowest registers. Haydn goes to both extremes and exploits the full range of the instrument. The work also includes two quite taxing cadenzas. It is thought that the work was written for Joseph Leutgeb, the recipient of Mozart’s four Horn Concertos - he must have been some player! And what a lucky man to have five such magnificent works created for him!

The Harpsichord Concerto is full of great jokes. I especially love the jumping frog impression which the keyboard undertakes at 1:37 in the first movement. There’s lots of interplay between soloist and orchestra, more than in the wind concertos, but this is probably because Haydn knew that his soloist wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the accompaniment as easily as in the other works. The slow movement contains many little jokes with grace notes cheekily sticking their noses into the serious business of tunefulness. The finale is simply a fast romp.

The Double Concerto is thought to have started life as a work for organ. It is considered to have been performed for the solemn profession of Therese Keller, Haydn’ future sister–in–law, as a nun in 1756 – the proof being that the range used by the fortepiano is restricted to the range of the contemporary Viennese organ. Certainly, this is a more serious work, more stately, than the others contained herein. The two soloists never engage in overt display and more often than not they connect in harmonious duet. Rather lovely it is, too. The finale is fast and joyful, but there’s still a serious undertone to the music.

Thanks to the solo trumpet repertoire being quite small, until contemporary composers started writing for it, Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto has become very well known. It’s a true virtuoso work with a gorgeous slow movement and a racy finale.

The performances here are first class, with lots of life and a real period feel. There’s nothing prissy or restrained about them - they’re really very alive. Thoroughly enjoyable.

I must make two points. First of all, in almost every movement, for reasons best known to himself, Müller–Brühl insists on making huge rallentandi at the ends of movements. This ruins the flow of what has gone before. It is a blemish on the performances.

My second point is rather more important. The sound is in Naxos’s best manner – bright and clear. In the Trumpet Concerto the balance between soloist and orchestra is perfect. The whole sound is well focused and there is a good relationship between listener and performer. However, in the other three works the recording is very close which slightly distorts the sound-picture as everything comes across as being overblown. The obviously small string orchestra ends up sounding like a small orchestra which has been over–amplified. This is most noticeable in the slow movements where a more intimate atmosphere is required than in the faster pieces. If you turn the volume down in the hope of taming the sound you lose some of the presence of the performances. This is a shame for these are spritely performances which are real winners and will do much to make these works better known to the public.

This is well worth having, despite my reservations about the sound. If you can tame it ever so slightly – it doesn’t need much – you’ll have a really good time listening to very pleasurable music.

-- Bob Briggs, MusicWeb International

Growing up as I did in the New England prep-school tradition, I had the opportunity to sing in some half-dozen Gilbert and Sullivan operettas (we did one every year), and saw many more in local productions in and around Connecticut. I remember particularly memorable productions of Iolanthe and Patience (dragoons on motorcycles), but at one time or another I had the good fortune to see or act in most of these pieces, some on multiple occasions. Although Gilbert's verbal wit does not export well, at least according to my friends on the continent, Sullivan's tunes remain some of the finest and most memorable ever to grace operetta. I'll take him over those Viennese schlockmeisters any day, though Offenbach is another story entirely.

All of which is a long way of saying that Pineapple Poll, Charles Mackerras' balletic answer to Gaîté Parisienne, is a masterpiece of musical pastiche, and a delicious treat for anyone who just wants to relax and revel in delicious melodies, dressed up in "bright as a shiny new penny" orchestration.

Mackerras himself recorded "Poll" at least twice, for EMI and later for Decca in the early digital days, and both performances are splendid, as might be expected. But so is this one. It's every bit as rhythmically infectious, exceptionally well played, and brilliantly recorded. David Lloyd-Jones' vivacious take on the Irish Symphony provides a very substantial bonus, making this new release a prime recommendation if you want to hear Sullivan's major orchestral work alongside many of his best tunes, but without the voices. Marvellous!

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Includes work(s) by Joseph Martin Kraus. Ensemble: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Uwe Grodd.

The music of Deborah Drattell is saturated in vivid colour and neo-Romantic vitality, and this selection reflects both it's warmth and also it's dynamism. In Sorrow is not Melancholy gentleness co-exists with pervasive melancholy and tenser sonorities, whereas the Clarinet Concerto is a very different work, embracing dance patterns that pulsate with excitement. Both Lilith and the Fire Within share Middle Eastern influences. The first is a sensual, sinuous evocation of 'the female demon' whilst the latter is imbued with drones, drums and tambourine, all exotically spiced. Syzygy brilliantly explores nature in all it's elemental power.

The sixteenth-century Leipzig organist Elias Nicolaus Ammerbach is remembered above all for his Tabulaturbuch, a collection of keyboard arrangements of songs, dances and other works.

As previous issues in this series have shown, when Antoni Wit and his forces are in top form in the music of Szymanowski, they're pretty much unbeatable. At last, we have a complete symphony cycle in performances that will serve as the reference for all newcomers. Szymanowski repudiated his First Symphony on stylistic grounds (too Wagnerian), and it certainly does not represent the direction he ultimately took. But it's still great fun: a big, bold, scant 20 minutes of colorful scoring and exuberant musical ideas. The Concert Overture is even more so. It's pure Richard Strauss, only better in some respects--packing all the ebullience of Don Juan or Ein Heldenleben (or both!) into a relatively concise curtain-raiser.

The performance of the Symphonie Concertante, one of Szymanowski's greatest works, is superb. Pianist Jan Krzysztof Broja plays the solo part beautifully. He's got the chops for the big moments in the outer movements, but it's his delicacy at the start of the central andante that's most memorable. Wit, typically, directs the orchestra with remarkable clarity as well as power. The finale in particular never has sounded less "clogged" texturally, while the very natural engineering always leaves plenty of room for the sound to expand and fill the hall at those ecstatic climaxes that are such a hallmark of this composer. A splendid release!

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This recording was previously available as Conifer 177.

The composer's love of exotic colours is exploited to the full by 'home' forces

As he reveals in an interview in this issue, Antoni Wit is one of the world’s best-selling conductors, and yet he is very far from the celebrity of an Abbado or a Haitink. Less charismatic than either of those, perhaps, but as he shows here once again he has a exceptional talent for inhabiting a composer’s sound world. These are performances of great affection and, typically for Wit, sound totally idiomatic.

-- Gramophone [5/2008]

Antoni Wit almost always can be relied on to deliver very thoughtful, beautifully musical, even inspired results, and there's no question that he conducts these works extremely well. The performances of both symphonies have a confidence and warmth about them that bespeaks a thorough understanding of Szymanowski's richly textured idiom. The Song of the Night (a.k.a. Symphony No. 3) has many of the same qualities that made Wit's Mahler Eighth so special: terrific choral singing, a bigness of conception that never precludes physical excitement, and very natural balances between vocal and instrumental forces.

The Straussian Second Symphony is a much tougher work conceptually, and here it seems to me that Wit could have asked for a sharper rhythmic edge to the string playing in the first movement, and perhaps a bit more contrast between the variations of the finale. The large acoustic that so benefits the Third Symphony also blunts the edge of this purely instrumental piece, but the fact is that a good deal of the problem lies with the work itself--its not quite resolved conflict between structure and musical idiom--and Wit's performance remains as fine as any currently available. Certainly this very enjoyable (and very inexpensive) disc should satisfy any fan of this splendid but still underrated composer.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The most important Danish composer of the first part of the twentieth century, Carl Nielsen was prolific in almost all genres. Dissociating himself strongly from Late Romanticism.

Walter Braunfels (1882-1954) was applauded as a pioneering representative of New Music. Leading conductors such as Hans Pfitzner, Ernst von Schuch, Bruno Walter, Arthur Nikisch and Wilhelm Furtwängler performed his orchestral works in major cities. But following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, as a 'half-Jew', even Braunfels lost all of his positions and was banned from either performing or having his works performed; his name was systematically deleted from musical literature and reference works. Written in a classicromantic style, Braunfels' 7-movement phantasmagoria “Don Juan” incorporates variations on themes and motifs from Mozart's opera “Don Giovanni”, which was premièred in 1787. He thus deliberately placed himself in the German classical-romantic traditions, which he sought to transfer to his 20th-century resources in compositional style. The work was premièred in 1924, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. - Naxos

Nearly twenty years after their acclaimed Beethoven Symphonies recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique returned to this repertoire for the first time last year, in a tour that took them to London, Philadelphia, Washington and New York. The concert in Carnegie Hall was broadcast live by WQXR, who kindly agreed to make the recording available to us to release on our label.

Sir John Eliot’s Gardiner’s reading of these familiar pieces highlights their revolutionary origin. Performing on period instruments, the ORR brings light, clarity and brisk energy, as well as a warm and genuinely thrilling sound.

The album contains a 36 pages booklet with original notes by BBC presenter and music journalist Stephen Johnson.

"The Allegretto was sinuous and haunting, the finale joyously visceral. And from fate’s knock at the onset of the Fifth Symphony, Mr. Gardiner wrought Beethoven fresh and strange, with gutsy, brash and rasping instrumental voices united in triumph." – The New York Times

I can see significant interest and many converts to brass band music being generated by this disc from the Black Dyke Band.

This Naxos release consists of eleven popular works in arrangements for brass band. I hope that it heralds a continuing Brass Band Classics series. Here the term ‘arrangement’ is used in its broadest sense, not differentiating between those scores that strive to stay faithful to the original in the way of a transcription and those that make freer use of the material. Eight different arrangers, mainly celebrated figures in the brass band movement, have been at work here. Notable is Alan Fernie, a Royal Academy of Music student who is represented by four separate pieces.

The compass of brass band music has been significantly augmented by this activity. In addition to original brass band works it was in the 1930s that the fashion developed for making popular works of the standard repertoire available for brass bands to play. Around the mid-twentieth-century the popularly of banding was given the strongest possible advocacy when distinguished conductors, knights, Malcolm Sargent; Adrian Boult and John Barbirolli all directed concerts of massed brass bands.

The performers here are the Black Dyke Band, formerly the Black Dyke Mills Band, under their Principal Conductor and Director of Music, Nicholas Childs. Arguably the best known brass band on the world stage the Black Dyke Band has been voted ‘Champion Band of Great Britain’ on twenty occasions as well as receiving a large number of other prestigious awards. From Queensbury, Bradford the Black Dyke Band were founded over one hundred and fifty years ago in a town where a tradition of brass band music can be traced back to 1816.

Instantly recognisable to virtually all listeners is the opening work, the magnificent Grand March from Verdi’s opera Aida. This stunning arrangement by Alan Fernie seems especially suited to the martial, fanfare-like quality of the considerable brass elements that Verdi designed in his score. Black Dyke impress and entertain and the solo passage between 2:01-2:41 is especially effective.

Brahms composed his Academic Festival Overture (1880) to thank the University of Breslau for conferring on him an honorary doctorate. The composer caused a stir amongst the University hierarchy by including several popular melodies from student drinking songs and this 1936 brass arrangement by Denis Wright highlights them to great effect.

Bizet is represented by three scores. The first is Goff Richards’s brass arrangement of Au fond du temple saint (Deep inside the sacred temple) universally known as the Pearl Fisher Duet from the 1863 opera The Pearl Fishers. I was bowled over by the beautiful rich timbre of Black Dyke’s two euphonium soloists David Thornton and John French in this splendid Pearl Fisher Duet that has been polled more than once as the nation's favourite tune.

Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen is an acknowledged masterpiece. Here Alan Fernie has arranged five popular extracts into a well designed and contrasting suite for brass containing the essence of Spain. I especially enjoyed the confident swagger given to the portrayal of the bullfighter’s life by Black Dyke in the colourful Toreador’s Song.

Howard Lorriman has made a brass arrangement of the Farandole from the Second Suite from Bizet’s 1872 incidental music to Alphonse Daudet’s play L'arlesienne (The Woman from Arles). The Farandole, a lively traditional Provençal chain dance, is represented here by proud and effervescent music that Black Dyke develop into a thrilling and almost frenzied conclusion.

Stephen Roberts in 1996 produced an arrangement of Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity from Holst’s most popular work. The perpetually heard central melody was subsequently arranged to the words “I vow to thee, my country.” Ably supported by the impeccable quality of ensemble the arrangement sounds especially effective in its brass guise.

A perennial favourite: the ubiquitous Nimrod from Elgar’s Variations on an Original Theme, ‘Enigma’ (1899) is the ninth variation and a musical representation of his friend A.J. Jaeger; the publishing manager at Novello. This performance of Eric Ball’s 1983 version of this easygoing and cheerful variation sounds highly impressive with an agreeable glow.

Achieving recognition as a stand-alone work the Prelude and Fugue: The Spitfire is extracted from Walton’s 1942 film score The First of the Few. It starred Leslie Howard who also directed. This marvellously played Alan Fernie arrangement just loses too much orchestral colour from Walton’s original.

Gershwin based his folk opera Porgy and Bess (1934-35) on Porgy the novel by DuBose Heyward. This successful arrangement by Alan Fernie uses four popular songs from the opera: the brash It ain't necessarily so; the joyous I got plenty o' nuttin'; the tender and poignant Bess, you is my woman now and the uplifting hymn I'm on my way.

Prolific arranger Dutchman Klaas van der Woude has prepared for brass the Hymn to the Fallen from John Williams’s score to Steven Spielberg’s 1998 film Saving Private Ryan. The Hymn to the Fallen is the highlight of the score and serves as a fitting requiem to all the soldiers who gave their lives during the World War II, Normandy landings in 1944. Superbly played by Black Dyke the heart-rending arrangement is defined by the distinctive plea of the fanfare-like theme that opens the piece.

The release concludes with Tchaikovsky’s celebrated 1812 Overture (1880) in a version by Robert Childs; the brother of Nicholas Childs the conductor. The myriad moods are superbly captured in this adroit arrangement. The build-up to the powerful and triumphant conclusion is especially successful.

Throughout this exciting release the outstanding feature is the security of ensemble. The excellence of the vivid and well balanced sound from Morley Town Hall together with the helpful essay from Roy Newsome contributes to the desirability of the disc.

With the wide appeal of these popular scores and the exceptional standard of the performances from the Black Dyke Band I can see significant interest and many subsequent converts to brass band music being generated by this disc. I sincerely hope that this is the first of many volumes from Naxos of Symphonic Brass.

-- Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International

Karol Szymanowski' Stabat Mater, set to a Polish translation of the medieval poem, makes extensive use of traditional Polish musical ideas. His setting of the Veni Creator was composed for the opening of the Warsaw Academy of Music, of which he was t.

For this outstanding two-disc set, the RSO Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Cornelius Meister, brings us two works by Anton Bruckner (1824-1896): his Symphony No. 9 in D minor WAB 109, and his Mass No. 3 in F minor WAB 28. One of the more popular choral works of late Romanticism, the Mass in F minor is said to have been a work of gratitude for the composer’s recovery from a persistent nervous illness. Soloists featured here are soprano Ruth Ziesak, alto Janina Baechle, tenor Benjamin Bruns, and bass Gunther Groissbock.

STEINER (recons. Morgan) The Son of Kong. The Most Dangerous Game • William Stromberg, cond; Moscow SO • NAXOS 8.570183 (77:19)


The informative program notes for this album present a vigorous case for these scores being as good as King Kong , and therefore ranking with Steiner’s best music. There is no doubt about the resemblance to King Kong. The Most Dangerous Game and The Son of Kong immediately preceded and followed that landmark picture and score. The music is typical of Steiner’s RKO years, but it certainly does not rank with his best scores. To be truthful, there are numerous Steiner scores worthier of being recorded, even to the extent that it is almost a shame that so much effort was devoted to the recording of this music. That said, The Son of Kong and The Most Dangerous Game will still be a feast for Steiner zealots.


This is another Naxos reissue from the “Marco Polo Golden Age Film Classics” series with identical sound but less snazzy program notes. For The Son of Kong , Steiner utilized much of the thematic material from King Kong in a fairly subtle way, but most of the score consists of new music in the same style. If you like King Kong , there is no reason why you won’t enjoy The Son of Kong. The Most Dangerous Game is stylistically similar with just as much rambunctious brass, but it doesn’t have the hook of being the offspring of a bona fide film classic. In both scores, there are plenty of stock Steiner suspense cues and braying brass that don’t quite reach the sense-numbing level of King Kong. The Son of Kong contains some luscious bluesy music that anticipates some of the thematic material for the 1950s Gone with the Wind wannabe that also starred Clark Gable, Band of Angels (which contains a remarkably good Steiner score for a really bad film).


For budgetary reasons, The Son of Kong employed a 28-piece orchestra including the grand total of six violins! In comparison, King Kong used 46 musicians on the original soundtrack, many of them playing multiple instruments. As in many other releases in this extremely valuable series, the importance of the work of John Morgan cannot be overstated. He fully reconstructed and orchestrated the music from Steiner’s original sketches. The result is a perfect reproduction of the well-known, full orchestral Steiner sound that is treasured by so many film music fans. Conducting the music is clearly a labor of love for William Stromberg, and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra is magnificent. It never fails to amaze me how this team manages to come so close to reproducing the authentic music of the Golden Age emanating from the legendary studio orchestras of Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and to a lesser extent, MGM and RKO. The sound is big, fat, juicy, and refulgent. It perfectly suits Steiner’s style with an up-front aural perspective. There is plenty of inner detail, including the many instrumental doublings. Despite the volume of the brass instruments, they always remain focused in the back of the orchestra with a soundstage that doesn’t collapse at the massive climaxes. There is no chance that these scores will ever be better recorded or played. If you are a Steiner fan, nothing more needs to be said. If not, the relentless onslaught of decibels may wear you out despite the high quality of every aspect of the production.


FANFARE: Arthur Lintgen

BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONIES NO 1, 2,

Spanish and Portuguese Orchestral Music

Praise for Chloë Hanslip's confident excursion into unfamiliar territory

-- Gramophone [4/2008]

-----

Benjamin Louis Paul Godard, the son of a businessman, was born in Paris on 18th August, 1849. A child prodigy on the violin, Godard studied with Richard Hammer and later Henri Vieuxtemps. At the age of fourteen (some sources say when he was ten) Godard was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire and studied composition under Henri Reber. His first published work was a violin sonata written when he was sixteen. In the mid-1860s he twice competed unsuccessfully for the Prix de Rome. From this time forward Godard dedicated himself to composition, first writing chamber music (he played viola in several chamber music societies), and numerous piano pieces. He was especially inspired by the music of Robert Schumann, and orchestrated Schumann’s Kinderscenen in 1876. In 1878 his Le Tasse was a joint winner of the prize for musical composition given by the city of Paris. Le Tasse is a three-part dramatic symphony with soli and chorus based on a poem of Charles Grandmougins, which was in turn based on The Damnation of Faust. In succeeding years Godard composed an enormous amount of music, including three programme symphonies (Symphonie Gothique, Symphonie Orientale, and Symphonie Légendaire), three string quartets, four violin sonatas, a cello sonata, two piano trios, numerous piano pieces, violin and piano concertos, various orchestral works, and over a hundred songs. Godard is chiefly remembered for his operas. His first opera, Les bijoux de Jeanette, was produced in 1878; Pedro de Zalamea followed in 1884. His next opera, Jocelyn, based on a poem of Lamartine, appeared in 1888. Its fame rests mainly on the well-known Berceuse, which has been arranged for numerous combinations of instruments and/or voices and remains Godard’s most familiar work. It has been performed by Jussi Björling, John McCormack (in English translation as “Angels Guard Thee” and with the violin accompaniment of Fritz Kreisler), Alma Gluck, Pablo Casals, the Eroica Trio, and many others. Godard’s operatic output also included Dante et Béatrice (1890), Jeanne d’Arc (1891), and La Vivandière (1895; unfinished at his death and completed by Paul Vidal). The conductor Jules Étienne Pasdeloup admired Godard’s music and allowed Godard to conduct many of his own premières. After Pasdeloup’s retirement, Godard created theConcerts Modernes in an attempt to continue Pasdeloup’s Concerts Populaires , but this lasted only one season (October 1885 – April 1886). In 1887 he was appointed a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and in 1889 was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur. Godard died of tuberculosis at Cannes on 10th January, 1895.

Godard’s was unquestionably a romantic temperament, though more closely aligned with the romanticism of the mid-nineteenth century than with Wagner and Tchaikovsky; his talent has been compared with the facility and manner of Saint-Saëns. His respect and admiration for Robert Schumann has already been noted, as has his tutelage under Henri Vieuxtemps, one of the great romantic violinist-composers of the nineteenth century. Godard’s music has sometimes been criticized for superficiality and “over-hastiness”, and truly he composed at a prodigious pace, reaching Opus 100 in 1886 while still in his thirties. In romantic fashion his symphonies are “named”, and his operas contain the soaring melody and romantic sensibility expected of romantic opera, though his stage works quickly fell out of favour. Among his operas, the unfinished opéra comique La Vivandière had the greatest success. Godard’s music follows the traditions of Mendelssohn and Schumann, and he had little sympathy for the overblown rhetoric of Wagner, especially since, being of Jewish extraction, he disliked Wagner’s anti- Semitism. Like the early romantics Godard excelled in small forms. The nineteenth-century scholar Hervey wrote that “Godard is perhaps greater in small things than he is in large. There is an exquisite charm in some of his songs … whilst many of his piano pieces have a savour all their own.” A new appreciation for Godard’s achievement in small pieces, once dismissed as salon music, has grown in recent years. Godard’s achievement is best summed up as “traditional romantic”.

While focusing much of his compositional career on other forms and instruments such as opera, songs, and piano pieces, Godard did not neglect the instrument on which he had excelled as a youth. His violin concertos are among his very best works and display both inventiveness and élan. The Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 131, is in the traditional three movements. The opening Allegro moderato features alternating chords by soloist and orchestra from the first measure; this gesture is fleshed out with scale runs by the soloist and snatches of a motif consisting of a half note and triplets. The main lyric theme enters after a ritardando; this is worked to a climax and repeated forte. After a brief orchestral statement, the soloist launches into a cadenza featuring double, triple, and quadruple stops as well as a glissando run. The thematic materials are reworked and the movement ends with the usual flourish. The following Adagio quasi andante features a steady triplet orchestral accompaniment underneath the main lyric melody, at first alluded to by solo horn, and then taken up fully by solo violinist. The contrasting midsection, in 6/8 time rather than the 4/4 of the movement’s beginning, contains double-stopping and short runs, then slowly returns to the 4/4 main lyric material and the steady triplet accompaniment, which accompaniment is finally discarded in the coda. The final Allegro non troppo is a bouncy movement in 2/4 time, a delightful rondo romp from beginning to end.

The Concerto Romantique, Op. 35, is a much earlier work and in some ways more experimental. Hervey wrote that in the Concerto Romantique Godard’s talent found “its true expression. The composer of these works is in the full force of his powers, and it is not too much to state the belief that he has yet much to say”. Unfortunately Hervey’s book was published in 1894, just months before Godard’s untimely death. The first unorthodox feature of this concerto is that it has four movements instead of the usual three. The first movement, marked Allegro moderato, while of a more dramatic character than the other movements, is relatively brief for an opening movement, which tend to be the “heaviest” and longest movement. After a sixteen-measure orchestral introduction, the soloist enters fortissimo with a highly accented martial theme in double stops. After an orchestral interlude, the violin sings a lyric theme; these materials eventually lead to a section marked Recitativo, which is in the nature of an accompanied cadenza. A coda brings the movement to a close. The graceful Adagio non troppo is connected to the following Canzonetta, marked Allegro moderato, by a short improvisatory section. This is Godard’s most famous concerto movement, and until the mid-twentieth-century was often published by itself or in collections in violin and piano arrangement. It is a delicate and highly accented song, only briefly discarding its gossamer character for more sustained lyricism. The final Allegro molto opens with a dramatic statement in the orchestra; the soloist enters with a theme marked Agitato ed appassionato molto. This theme is interspersed with passage-work, some of scherzo-like character. The soloist’s final peroration features double-stops and the movement ends with appropriate high spirits.

The atmospheric Scènes Poétiques for Orchestra, Op. 46, contains four short bucolic pieces depicting various outdoor scenes: Dans les bois (In the woods), Dans les champs (In the fields), Sur la montagne (On the mountain), and the bustling Au village (In the village).

Bruce R. Schueneman

Leopold Mozart' reputation has suffered more than that of most of his professional contemporaries, due in no small measure to the fame of his peerless son and to much spiteful and ill-informed criticism over the past 200 years.

Although Liszt's solo-piano arrangement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony certainly is a virtuosic tour-de-force, his two-piano transcription more successfully addresses the score's large dimensions in terms of textures, dynamics, color, and, in the finale, more audible distinction between choral and orchestral forces. Leon McCawley and Ashley Wass team up for its finest recording to date. Their headlong drive in the first movement evokes Toscanini's archetonic ferocity. The pianists underline harmonic clashes and contrapuntal felicities by way of color shifts, accentuation, and nuance rather than tempo fluctuation. The same goes for their soaring Scherzo (with both repeats intact), where the obsessive dotted rhythms are consistently supple and accurate.

While the duo maintains rigorous tempo relationships over the Adagio's brisk course, they avoid rigidity by way of discreet rubatos and tasteful lyrical inflections. It is not easy for two-piano teams to sustain long, loud episodes without forcing tone or losing rhythmic steam, yet McCawley and Wass wield the proverbial iron hands in mink gloves in their tightly knit, unified Finale. The sonics are slightly too resonant and bass shy, but the instruments are as well matched and balanced as the pianists. I hope Naxos already has enlisted these artists for Liszt's two-piano version of A Faust Symphony. Highly recommended.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

A contemporary of Toru Takemitsu, Teizo Matsumura combined European influences with Asian musical traditions. His tautly-constructed Symphony No. 1, a work of genuine power and intense sonic splendour, evokes the image of innumerable locusts swarming over the earth. Symphony No. 2, written over 30 years later and inspired by a poster of a pair of sumo-wrestler-like statues standing at the entrance to a famous Buddhist temple in Nara, Japan, is a soulful monologue of alternating sorrow and hope. The richly expressive symphonic poem To the Night of Gethsemane, inspired by Giotto�s fresco The Kiss of Judas, was Matsumura�s last orchestral work.

The Twelfth is not Shostakovich's best symphony, but it's not as bad as its detractors would have us believe. The first two movements in particular are effectively structured and, respectively, cinematically exciting and quite atmospheric. The finale, especially its coda, is so telling an example of Socialist Realist triumph that it can only be accepted as a parody; and played without apology, as here, it works very well. Indeed, Vasily Petrenko leads a first movement that beats just about everyone in terms of sheer excitement, and the same holds true of the transitional third movement, "Aurora". As for that problematic finale, it has an appealing lightness (before the coda) that avoids any impression of facile note-spinning. If you don't like this symphony, give this performance a shot. It may change your mind.

The Sixth is far less troublesome, but Petrenko's vision is no less probing. At nearly 20 minutes the first movement is very slow, but wholly gripping. Petrenko takes the scherzo dazzlingly fast, but paces the finale moderately to give it the necessary weight (without sacrificing the music's irony and wit). Through it all the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic plays splendidly, and is excellently recorded. This Shostakovich series is shaping up as one of the best, make no mistake.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com