Recently Composer-in-Residence with the New York Philharmonic, Magnus Lindberg has created works that deeply impress listeners. Acclaimed violinist Pekka Kuusisto performs the Violin Concerto as the composer conducts.

Classical Music

A most desirable addition to Tiensuu’s discography…magnificent.

REVIEW:

This brand new release from Ondine offers three recent works by Tiensuu. They help considerably in appreciating his evolution over the last few years. Incidentally a pair of Alba CDs (ABCD 224 and ABCD 258, both reviewed here by Rob Barnett and the present writer) also went in the same direction.

Tiensuu is a most secretive composer reluctant to comment on his music and preferring to leave it to the listener to make up his own mind about the music. Moreover the titles of his works are often quite enigmatic, which does not make the task any easier. This is the case with Vie composed in 2007 and subtitled “Concerto for Orchestra”. The title might probably mean “life” although it might also relate in some way or another to the English verb “to vie”. In fact this does not seem to matter a lot because the music speaks for itself and is brilliant enough to engage the mind and heart. It opens with a forceful, ostinato-based gesture that recurs at various points in one form or another as a unifying thread of sorts. At one point the music halts in a more static section in which the music almost disintegrates into isolated fragments; this before proceeding into a Scherzo-like section in turn leading into a rather forceful coda abruptly cut short. Vie is a real showpiece full of instrumental virtuosity, arresting textures and sometimes intricate rhythms.

Tiensuu has often claimed that he considered that “the ancient conception that music is the shortest path to higher spiritual spheres” was one of the most relevant premises of creative work for him. However, although Missa bears a definitely religious title, it is difficult to relate the work (Tiensuu’s second clarinet concerto) to anything religious. The only tenuous link is that the seven movements of the work refer to the different parts of a traditional Mass and that the music may reflect the character of those parts. The rather anguished mood of the Introitus spills into the sadly pleading Kyrie. The Gloria is an animated movement with intricate rhythms and allusions to Klezmer. The ensuing Credo opens hesitantly but then moves onwards with some assertiveness, at times verging on brutality before petering out unresolved. Sanctus is a fairly animated affair with capricious rhythms. The Agnus Dei opens calmly on high strings weaving a soft backcloth for the soloist’s song, sometimes echoed by the orchestral clarinets. The piece ends with a brief Ite.

The subtitle “Morphosis for Orchestra” might hint at what False Memories is about. A close analysis of the score - something beyond my skills - might show the way the variations evolve. The work is in three movements (Review, Nostalgy and Trauma). Again these titles may give an idea of the music itself. “Review” opens with strongly articulated, syncopated rhythms and, soon established, the capricious mood of the movement is maintained throughout. In its unsentimental way the music of the beautiful slow movement speaks for itself as does that of the troubled final movement that provides an unresolved conclusion.

Tiensuu’s recent music obviously takes a step further towards greater accessibility although it is still far from being easy, especially on the performers’ part. Even so, it clearly displays a new-found pleasure in music-making. Tiensuu obviously relishes the many textural possibilities of the orchestra. These three works undoubtedly demonstrate the composer’s enjoyment in his brilliant handling of large orchestral forces.

The performers clearly partake of that same delight with Storgårds conducting vital and immaculately prepared readings of these exacting and ultimately rewarding scores. Kari Kriikku is his own self in the demanding part of Missa which he handles with exemplary technique and remarkable musicality. The recording is just superb making the best of these often luxuriant scores.

This release might well be the best introduction possible to Tiensuu’s highly personal sound world.

-- Hubert Culot, MusicWeb International

Christopher Tyler Nickel's contemporary classical compositions pack a bracing and emotional punch. His award-winning works for the concert hall, stage and screen have been heard in over 160 countries by audiences in the tens of thousands. His experience as an oboist instills a confidence to compose with an exhilarating freedom to explore the vast expressive range of the instrument, from lyrical and plaintive to acerbic and brittle. The world-premiere recordings of these three concertos for oboe and it's lower-pitched siblings the oboe d'amore and bass oboe receive dazzling performances by Mary Lynch, principal oboe of the Seattle Symphony, and Harrison Linsey, oboist with the Washington D.C.-based National Symphony Orchestra. Grammy Award-winning David Sabee, a tireless advocate of contemporary classical music, conducts the Seattle-based Northwest Sinfonia.

Many young violinists' debut CDs come and go without making much of a mark, oftentimes less because the performers are untalented as because their repertoire failed to stand out in a crowded field. Another disc of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, or Kreisler has to be truly outstanding to stand out.
Daniel Hope scores on both of these points: he and his collaborators give excellent performances, and he (and, presumably, his teachers, managers, and label executives) chose a program which cannot help but stand out from the pack. The danger in such a program--lesser-known contemporary works--is failing to live up to the technical and interpretive challenges. Hope needn't worry.
A child prodigy, Hope was just 21 when this program was recorded, and he had already had the opportunity to discuss the Schnittke and Takemitsu works with their composers. The performances here are indeed excellent, and Hope has no difficulty distinguishing himself from his peers.
REVIEWS:
International Record Review (3/00, p.77) - "...cannily programmed and thoughtfully executed..."

Classical Music

Revenge/Zadek/Bayle/Hongen/Moralt/Orch. Staatsoper Wien.

This six-disc set of Tchaikovsky concert performances, recorded 1984-2009, features more than a dozen orchestral works, including the composer’s last three symphonies, the Manfred, The Tempest and other symphonic poems. Three of the recordings are first-time releases. The Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, founded 1930, is internationally recognized as one of Russia's most prestigious and versatile orchestras. Vladimir Fedoseyev has, since 1974, held the position of Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the orchestra, now known as the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra.

KOMPONISTINNEN-PORTRAIT

Includes symphony(-ies) by Franz Xaver Richter. Ensemble: Helsinki Baroque Orchestra. Conductor: Aapo Häkkinen.

DAVIDOFF Cello Concertos: No. 4 in e; No. 3 in D. TCHAIKOVSKY Nocturne, op. 19/4. Pezzo Capriccioso, op. 62. Andante cantabile • Wenn-Sinn Yang (vc); Terje Mikkelsen, cond; Shanghai SO • CPO 777432 (71:39)


This completes cpo’s survey of Carl Davidoff’s cello concertos; and, like the earlier recording from these same forces (777263), which paired Davidoff’s first and second concertos with Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme , this disc also mates the two composers. It’s a logical coupling since the two men knew each other professionally and held each other in high regard, despite rivalries that existed between their competing conservatories in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Tchaikovsky is in fact often quoted as having dubbed Davidoff “the tsar of cellists,” and I’ve often wondered, if not for the politics, how much better Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations might have fared had the composer entrusted the editing and revising to Davidoff instead of to a fellow professor at the Moscow Conservatory, Wilhelm Fitzenhagen.


In Fanfare 31:1 Tom Godell reviewed the previous release, declaring Davidoff’s concertos “of dubious value.” He did, however, heap praise on cellist Wenn-Sinn Yang. One issue later (31:2) that CD turned up on my 2007 Want List.


Born in what is now part of Latvia, Carl Davidoff (1838–89) completed a degree in mathematics at the St. Petersburg University before he enrolled at the Leipzig Conservatory to study composition. He had been playing cello, however, since he was 12; after renowned cellist Friedrich Wilhelm Grutzmacher departed his post, Davidoff, at 22, was offered his cello professorship at the Leipzig Conservatory. In 1876, after internal squabbling among the administrators of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Davidoff was appointed that institution’s director, no doubt to the displeasure of Tchaikovsky, who had been a candidate for the position. I suspect this was the irritant that caused Tchaikovsky to turn to Fitzenhagen instead of Davidoff for assistance with his Rococo Variations . The rest, as they say, is history. Davidoff, along with David Popper, became one of the most celebrated cellists of the second half of the 19th century, and was honored as the dedicatee of Dvo?ák’s famous concerto.


It’s not in the least far-fetched to draw parallels between Davidoff, the virtuoso cellist, and Wienawski (1835–80), the virtuoso violinist. Not only were they near contemporaries, but more significantly, at the invitation of Anton Rubinstein, Wieniawski moved to St. Petersburg, where he lived from 1860 to 1872, teaching violin in Rubinstein’s Russian Music Society. Davidoff had been teaching cello at the St. Petersburg Conservatory since 1863, so it’s almost certain that during Wieniawski’s years in the city the two men would have crossed paths.


The compositions written by both of them for their respective instruments represent a next phase in the development of the virtuoso concerto after Paganini. Hair-raising pyrotechnics and high-wire daredevil cadenzas still abound, but now there is at least some semblance of more serious, expansive concerted scores in which the orchestra plays more than a barrel-organ accompanimental role. Contrasting lyrical passages vie for attention more convincingly amid the miles of blistering runs up and down the fingerboard, joint-dislocating double-stops, bow-bending arpeggios, artificial harmonics, and flying staccato.


As music, I would tend to agree with Godell’s “of dubious value” judgment. But the technical innovations and challenges are not of dubious value, for they opened the door to works, like the cello concertos of Dvo?ák, Elgar, Shostakovich, Myaskovsky, and many others that would take those innovations for granted and make them an integral part of the composition.


Of such insignificance, apparently, are the three Tchaikovsky fillers on the disc that not a single word about them is to be found in eight pages of vanishingly small print by note author Eckhardt van den Hoogen who, nonetheless, finds it important to ramble on for a full page about Davidoff’s 1712 Stradivarius cello. So, to fill in the blank, Tchaikovsky’s Nocturne in C?-Minor has long been a favorite of cellists. It’s the fourth piece from the six Morceaux, op. 19, originally for solo piano. The Pezzo Capriccioso is an original piece for cello and orchestra written in 1887. Its title belies its depressive B-Minor mood, which is generally attributed to Tchaikovsky’s tending to a dying friend, Nikolay Kondratyev, who was nearing the end in his battle against syphilis. The Andante cantabile will of course be recognized as an arrangement for cello and orchestra of the second movement from Tchaikovsky’s D-Major String Quartet, op. 11.


At present, there does not appear to be any recorded competition for these two Davidoff concertos, so it’s good news that Wenn-Sinn Yang can be recommended without reservation to those who take pleasure in cello gymnastics of the most demanding kind. Yang never once loses composure, and even manages to play these extremely difficult works with a good deal of tonal beauty and, where the music allows it, with considerable emotional expressivity. Norwegian maestro Terje Mikkelsen, who studied under Mariss Jansons, and who has led the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since 2006, is a conductor who made quite an impression on me with a recent recording he made with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra for Sterling of two symphonies by Norwegian Romantic composer Eyvind Alnæs. I expect we will be hearing a lot more from Mikkelsen in the not-too-distant future.


In sum, this cpo release is an excellent recording, and one that may be strongly recommended to those with an appreciation for this type of repertoire.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

MARX Nature Trilogy: Spring Music; Idylle. Feasts in Autumn • Johannes Wildner, cond; Vienna RSO • cpo 777 320 (63:07)


“Imagine an Austrian composer with Bax’s mystical sensitivity to nature, Schrecker’s gift for orchestration, and Magnard’s subtle sense of architecture. Throw in a strong enthusiasm for Debussy and a distinctive melodic profile, and you have Joseph Marx (1882–1964).” I started a review of Marx’s orchestral music several years ago in this fashion, and I think it still serves to indicate the kind of music he wrote. Far from being the dried-up pedant portrayed by contemporary serialists, Marx was a strikingly imaginative composer who combined great lyrical gifts with an ability to manipulate large orchestral structures creatively.


A recording of his Nature Trilogy was released in 2003, with Steven Sloane leading the Bochum SO (ASV 1137). I was frankly wowed in Fanfare 27:1 by both the music and its performance, and added the disc to my Want List that year. That recording is still available, despite the subsequent sale of ASV and discontinuation of new releases. Wildner is up against this steep competition, and for several reasons, I don’t think cpo’s new recording quite measures up—though it has its ace in the hole.


First, there’s the orchestra. The Vienna RSO performs competently, but lacks “face” in this difficult music that demands a vivid orchestral palette of many shades. On ASV, the Bochum SO strings sound a bit anemic, but the brass and especially the winds have all the wealth of color one could wish. A good comparative moment occurs roughly five minutes into the “Idylle” and continues for half a minute, where Marx plays different winds off one another to invoke a Debussy-like forest pastorale. The effect is delicately arresting with the Bochum musicians, but easily passed by without notice by the Vienna players.


The conductors adopt similar tempos and proceed convincingly, but Sloane is more willing to pause as required rather than push ahead. I also find him more sensitive to matters of phrasing and dynamic levels in the score. There’s a point at roughly 8:40 in his recording of “Idylle,” where the solo trumpet plays softly over shimmering strings, for instance. Sloane catches this, softening magically, while Wildner doesn’t bother. This isn’t to say that Wildner is callous about this music. He conducts it convincingly, with plenty of energy and an obvious sense of commitment. Sloane simply finds more in these works, and does the job better.


The sound also plays its part. ASV’s is better defined, the sustained winds, pulsating strings, and horns that lead off “Spring Music” each being clear while contributing to the overall effect. The engineering on the cpo disc is slightly recessed, each strand of orchestration just a bit harder to pick out.


Then there’s the matter of completion. Sloane offers the three sections of the Nature Trilogy : “Symphonic Night Music,” “Idylle,” and “Spring Music,” The new release includes only the last two. Marx stated that he conceived of them as a single, coherent three-movement piece. Wildner instead removes the first movement, puts the concluding movement, “Spring Music,” first, and places the final movement of another work in third (final) place on the disc. This effectively wreaks havoc with Marx’s architectural intentions, though it could pragmatically be argued that each of these pieces stands well enough on its own, and any new Marx is better than none.


On the positive side, this is also the premiere recording of Feste im Herbst (“Feasts in Autumn”), a reorchestration by the composer of the fourth and concluding movement of his Autumn Symphony . Marx wanted to get public exposure for his works at a time when modern tonal music was being increasingly marginalized on the musical landscape, and thought that the best way to do so was to take this movement and launch it on a career of its own. Sadly, it received scant attention, because it is a fetching piece on its own, a demonstration of the late German Romantic symphonic form at its most imaginative and aurally seductive.


The liner notes are excellent. I would recommend the ASV recording as a first choice to anybody seeking to hear what Marx can do, but the Feste im Herbst is a rare charmer that’s worth the price of admission alone.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Classical Music

Bloch’s America may not be one of his greatest pieces, but then none of his “geographical works” (Israel, that Swiss thing) belongs in that category. Like the country itself, America the “musical” is big, ungainly, and lots of fun. It ends with an audience-participation sing-along, for those who are so inclined. This performance, originally released on Delos, is about as good as it gets, not that there’s much competition. Stokowski did it for Vanguard, and Naxos has another very good version featuring Dalia Atlas. Take your pick. If the couplings determine your choice, this release features an excellent version of the Concerto Grosso No. 1, one of Bloch’s best-known and most immediately attractive pieces

— David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

Sigismund Neukomm (b. 1778) is best known today as a footnote in Haydn biographies, as one of the composer’s students and associates in his last years. But he lived until 1858, traveling all over Europe, from France, to Russia, to London, and even residing for a number of years in Brazil. It was in Rio de Janeiro in 1817 that he composed his Grande Sinfonie heroïque. The music is faux Haydn: just about about the only thing “heroïque” about it is the drumroll at the start. Check out the tune that begins the finale; it’s as if Beethoven had never existed.

The remaining works on the program represent an interesting illustration of musical aesthetics in the early 1800s. They represent Neukomm’s response to the problem of writing orchestral music that does not sound like Haydn and that employs “free” forms. Indeed, the “Dramatic Fantasia on some passages of Milton’s Paradise Lost,” composed in 1833 for the London Philharmonic Society, might be deemed a symphonic poem, though its general pleasantness reveals a composer lacking true fire in his belly. Still, the music is enjoyable, and the two earlier fantasies composed in 1806-8 reveal a composer clearly trying to find an individual identity while working in Haydn’s (still living) shadow.

The performances are very successful. I have had some pretty harsh things to say about Die Kölner Academy and Michael Willens (and he has replied in kind), particularly on account of their lousy Mozart piano concerto recordings on BIS. This is probably their most successful disc to date. Yes, the “period” string playing still lacks timbral allure, but the winds play characterfully, especially in the Milton fantasia, and the passages for full orchestra sound lively and bold. The fact that the music has no competition on disc also helps, as does the excellent engineering. Interesting stuff, this.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The cpo label’s third release featuring orchestral works by August Klughardt (1847-1902) again “represents an impressive case on behalf of a composer to whom one cannot listen uninterestedly.” (klassik-heute). The Symphony No. 4 in c, op. 57 according to a review of an 1893 NYC performance, “is a thoroughly noble work, solidly constructed, clear and easy to grasp thematic structure, rich in its melodic invention… not a dusty product of pedantic erudition… Klughardt has astonishing contrapuntal skill”. Klughardt’s Three Pieces, op. 87, his last orchestral work, rounds off this CD.

Includes work(s) by Jacques Offenbach. Ensemble: Cologne West German Radio Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Gerhard Oskamp. Soloist: Guido Schiefen.

SCHACHT Symphonies: in C; in E?; in E?, “Echo” • Gernot Schmalfuss, cond; Evergreen SO • CPO 777 737-2 (79:33)

CPO’s liner notes for this release are typically long, but surprisingly focused entirely on music-making in the Perpetual Diet of Regensburg. Nothing about Schacht, and none of the musical analysis CPO typically offers. The latter is most surprising, given that two of the works on this record are truly imaginative examples of the Haydn symphony’s further development.

Let’s start with a brief note about the composer. Theodor von Schacht (1748–1823) was a pupil in Stuttgart of Jomelli, between 1766 and 1771. His subsequent career centered almost entirely around Regensburg: appointed musical intendant and creator of the Court’s Italian Opera in 1774, of its German Singspiel company in 1778, and of a renewed Italian Opera in 1784. He became musical director of the Court’s orchestra in 1786. Schacht was well regarded both at home and abroad, and decided in 1805 to try his luck in Vienna. There his sacred music proved very popular—popular enough, at any rate, for Napoleon in 1809 to commission six solemn Masses from Schacht. He moved to Württemberg in 1812, and back to Regensburg in 1819. I’ve found no indication as to when he was ennobled and acquired his von, but presumably it was achieved either from Prince Karl Anselm during Schacht’s first lengthy stay in Regensberg, or from Austria’s Archduke Rudolf, who gave Schacht his protection while the latter was in Vienna. (Rudolf was a great patron of Beethoven, and received many dedications from the latter. Yes, including the so-called “Archduke” Trio.)

The symphonies are remarkably inventive. While presenting a Haydn-like synthesis of Italian, German, and French traits, they display a richer chromatic harmonic and thematic vocabulary. (The Regensburg rulers had family ties with the Esterháza, and there was a lively exchange of musical materials over decades. One symphony of Schacht’s was actually credited for a while to Haydn.) The Andante of his Sinfonia in C jumps at one point directly from a passage in F Major to one in A? Major; and the trio in the same Sinfonia’s minuet explores a modulating chain from its home key of C Major—by way of delicately handled solo and paired winds—through B Minor, A Major, A? Minor, E? Major, D Major, etc. The effect in retrospect is Schubertian, and not merely here, for short bursts of wide-ranging harmonic progression occur in most of his movements. This isn’t to suggest that Schubert was influenced by Schacht, but that the latter was a composer with an ear to the latest musical developments, and the skill to capitalize on them in ingenious ways.

If these works are typical of his symphonic output, then Schacht, like Haydn, had a love of the theme and variations form. Both the undated symphonies on this album (the sinfonias in C Major and E? Major; the Sinfonia con Eco in E? Major is credited to 1775, and sounds earlier than the others) employ this for their slow movements. He not only varies the entire theme, but suddenly expands short motivic sections of it, either after a fashion that extends the theme when it returns, or moves it in an entirely new direction. Once again like Haydn, his rondo finales play games with meter, accent, rhythm, postponed cadences, false final cadences, and sudden expressive, harmonic shifts. Grove I notes that Schacht’s instrumental music was less notable for its contrapuntal interest, but in fact his two- and three-part writing is often striking, made more so by his sensitive orchestration. I shouldn’t be surprised if these works begin to make their ways into concerts.

Gernot Schmalfuss doesn’t lack energy, nor the Evergreen SO of Taiwan lack precision, discipline, and color. I would have preferred more attention spent on phrasing in the warmer galant material—Schacht has a gift for ravishing bel canto melody, which he rightly rations for a few special moments—and Schmalfuss takes the Andante movement of the C-Major Symphony at 114 bpm, which vitiates some of the composer’s sensuous writing. But overall, these are good readings, especially tight in the bustling finales, with careful attention paid to dynamics. CPO’s engineering is less distant than in some of their releases, and does a good job of catching Schacht’s bright, frequently shifting orchestral palette.

As charming as Weber’s symphonies, Schacht’s are considerably more substantial than his. And since this is labeled “volume one,” we can look forward to future installments. Meanwhile, don’t miss this.

FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Classical Music

Fedoseyev/Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra.

Fedoseyev/Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra/Vedernikov/Mikhailova/Pluzhnikov/Pisarenko/Terentyeva/Grand Choir of the USSR Radio & TV.

Fedoseyev/Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra/Shestakov.

Classical Music

Fedoseyev/Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra.