Antoine Dornel' imaginative and dynamic compositional style was perfectly suited to the lively and ever-changing musical environment of Paris in the first decades of the eighteenth century.

Excellent program serves as recording debut of a new wind band.

The excellent Wind Band Classics series from Naxos continues here with the recording debut of the Lone Star Wind Orchestra, under the baton of Eugene Corporon, best known for his work at the University of North Texas. This recording could have been titled “American Optimist” or something similar, as the excellent program is dominated by cheery major-key music, balancing shorter and longer works in an excellent flow. Indeed, the selection and pacing of repertoire is one of the highlights of the disc.

Among the older pieces, the Hanson is the least likely to be familiar to band aficionados, and the band’s performance of this work is possibly the finest on the disc. It’s thoroughly convincing, and rewards repeated listens.

Donald Hunsberger’s arrangement of the Gershwin is excellent, and the piece is a natural for winds. There weren’t many places where I really missed the strings, though the arrangement does highlight some aspects of the score which tend to get buried in other recordings, lending the performance a unique sound. Overall, the interpretation is slower and more leisurely than other performances I’m familiar with. In the light of so many other excellent available recordings, I can’t see myself returning to this performance too often – it’s more of a curiosity than anything else, though not without merit.

Steven Bryant’s “Radiant Joy” struck me as the most successful of the newer repertoire; an accessible piece in the post-John Adams mold which somehow manages to feature the hi-hat cymbals without sounding inane. The appeal of the piece is primarily rhythmic, as it owes a clear debt to the complex syncopations of funk or jazz fusion. Catchy melodic ideas and extensive use of some less-common colors (piano, vibraphone, and soprano and baritone saxophones) add to the interest as well.

There are points where I wish the recorded sound was just a bit closer. Some of the vigor of the playing sometimes gets lost, as if the band is coming from a bit too far of a distance, especially on the Bennett. However it’s a subtle complaint, and the overall balance is excellent, including on the Gershwin.

The occasional discrepancies in intonation or ensemble are so minimal that only the most critical ear would know from the aural evidence that this is an all-volunteer ensemble. Their accomplishment is completely stunning when you keep that in mind. I look forward to hearing more from this group, which had only been together for a year when this recording was made.

Benn Martin, MusicWeb International

TELEMANN: Double Concertos / (Overture) Suite in A minor

TARTINI, G.: Violin Concertos, Vol. 8 (L'Arte dell'Arco) -

The most important Danish composer of the first third of the twentieth century, Carl Nielsen was prolific in almost all genres. The six Symphonies are essentially tonal, emotionally direct works, which alternate long lines of melody with passages of blazing energy. The idea of writing a symphony based on the Four Temperaments � The Choleric, The Sanguine, The Melancholic, and The Phlegmatic, came to Nielsen when he saw a primitive peasant painting in a village inn. The title of the Third Symphony, Sinfonie espansiva, an afterthought, has been explained as an expansion of the scope of the mind and of the life that comes with it.

Antoine Brumel was among the most distinguished composers of his time, the first great French rather than Flemish Renaissance composer.

A perennial outsider in French music, Albert Roussel was the tutor of a whole generation of composers, including such diverse figures as Eric Satie and Edgard Varese.

Arensky’s early Piano Concerto in F minor is delightful, and astonishingly well put together for a student piece. The first movement in particular has such attractive thematic material that it never hangs fire, though it surely benefits from this propulsive and dynamic performance, with both Yablonsky and Sherbakov putting a full measure of romantic fire into their interpretation. The Fantasia on Russian Folk Songs is more Tchaikovsky-like (the concerto is Chopin/Liszt with mellower scoring), while the other two works are attractive fluff. The engineering is the only minor disappointment—overly bright and somewhat studio-bound—but such is the interest of the piano and orchestra works in these passionate performances that it doesn’t preclude a recommendation.

-- David Hurwitz,ClassicsToday.com [4/2011]

This release follows the album containing Robert Fuchs’ Piano Concerto, Op. 27, and includes two symphonies. After reaching fame after his first serenade, Fuchs was held in high regard by Brahms, and taught composers such as Mahler, Sibelius, and Strauss. This recording features the WDR Sinfonieorchester Koln, conducted by Karl-Heinz Steffens.

DOUBLE BASS CONCERTOS GRAN DU

THREE STRING QUARTETS

A pleasant sampler of Giuseppe Sammartini.

We shouldn’t forget that the British have something of a share in the music of Giuseppe Sammartini, in much the same sense that we have a share in that of Handel. It was in London that Sammartini died in November 1750. The Whitehall Evening Post of Saturday 24 November 1750 reported that “Last week died at his Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, Signior S. Martini, Musick Master to her Royal Highness and thought to be the finest performer on the hautboy in Europe”. Sammartini had lived and worked in London since the summer of 1728. His greatest fame, as this brief obituary implies, was as a performer, in which capacity he was recorded – and praised – as a member of the orchestra in works by both Bononcini and Handel. He was appointed music master to the family of Frederick, Prince of Wales in 1736 and held the post until his death. During his years in London his chamber music was quite well known; his concertos were, for the most part, published after his death.

Of the concertos to be heard on this disc, it appears that the two flute concertos were probably relatively early works, written before Sammartini’s departure for London. The harpsichord concerto and the oboe concertos - which latter certainly speak of the composer’s own mastery and understanding of the instrument - belong to his years in London and, indeed, suggest how attentively he had listened to Handel.

Of the two concertos for flute, that in A major turns out, after a promising start, to be a relatively dull affair. The initial allegro contains some pleasant melodies and has a charming gracefulness; however, the ensuing andante (especially) and allegro are somewhat pedestrian. Invention is better sustained in the D major concerto, not least in the central siciliano which, though short, sings out delightfully. In the outer movements the music could surely benefit from a good deal more vivacity and punch than the present performers bring to it.

The harpsichord concerto was one of four published posthumously in London in 1754 ( Concertos for the Harpsicord or Organ with the Instrumental Parts for Violins, etc. Opera Nona, Printed for I. Walsh). It is an impressive piece, made up of a stately opening movement (marked andante spiritoso), an allegro assai which has some attractive writing for the harpsichord, an andante which has an attractive sense of spaciousness and contains much attractive interplay between orchestra and soloist, as does the closing allegro assai, characterised by an unfussy playfulness. The whole is well-played by Donatella Bianchi - an assured soloist I don’t remember encountering before - and I Musici Ambrosiani.

The two oboe concertos which close the disc are preserved in a manuscript ( RM23b8) in the British Library. The manuscript contains twelve concertos, only the last four of which make use of the oboe. The first of the two heard here has some striking writing for the oboe in its first movement, but the following andante and allegro grab the listener’s attention rather less than forcefully; there is a degree of ponderous stolidity in the way the andante is played - though the marking is andante ma non tanto - and the closing movement (tempo di menuetto) is a bit short on ideas. The second of these concertos is altogether more successful. Again in three movements, Sammartini’s writing is far more than merely well-crafted - the sense one has in listening to the first of these concertos; here there is consistent panache, expressed in solo writing of some virtuosity. Sammartini doubtless had his own abilities in mind when writing it, and he presumably performed it during his years in London. The brief central andante is richly expressive and the closing allegro is infectiously lilting. Francesco Quaranta is heard at his best here – and so is Sammartini.

Not all the music here is completely persuasive – but the best is very much so. The performances are always decent – sometimes much more than that.

-- Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International

PAGANINI Violin and Orchestra Works • Massimo Quarta (vn, cond); 1 Salvatore Accardo (vn); 2 Yehudi Menuhin (vn); 5 Franco Mazzena (vn); 6,7 Ruggiero Ricci (vn); 8 Luigi Alberto Bianchi (va); 9 Franco Traverso (hn); 10 Rino Vernizzi (bn); 10 Genova Teatro del Carlo Felice O; 1 Charles Dutoit, cond; 3 London SO; 3 Franco Tamponi, cond; 4 Europe CO; 4 Pierre Monteux, cond; 5 Paris SO; 5 Luigi Porro, cond; 7 Coro Januensis; 7 Piero Mordini, cond; 8 I Virtuosi di Assisi; 8 Jacques Delacôte, cond; 9 RIAS O Berlin; 9 Antonio Plotino, cond; 6,7,10 Genova CO 6, 7,10 • DYNAMIC 622 (8 CDs: 516:01)


Violin Concertos: No. 1 in E?; 1 No. 1 in D; 5 No. 2 in b; 1 No. 3 in E; 1 No. 4 in d; 1 No. 4 in d; 8 No. 5 in a. 1 Grand Concerto in e. 1 Adagio in E. 1 La primavera. 2,3 Maestosa sonata sentimentale. 2,3 Sonata con variazioni. 2,3 Introduction and Variations on “Non più mesta.” 2,3 Le streghe. 2,3 Sonata Varsavia. 2 Sonata Maria Luisa. 2 Pollaca con variazioni. 2 Balletto campestre. 2 Il carnevale de Venezia. 2 Sonata movimento perpetuo. 2,3 Sonata a preghiera. 2 Sonata Napoléon. 2,3 I palpiti. 2,3 Tarantella. 6 Le couvent du Mont St. Bernard. 7 Sonata per Grand Viola. 9 Niccolò Paganini a Mr. Henry 10


Dynamic has collected its recordings of Paganini’s works for violin and orchestra into an eight-CD set. Since everything has been previously released (and most of it reviewed in the pages of Fanfare ), the principal advantage to potential collectors should lie in the convenience of having everything in one place, in generally idiomatic performances and excellently detailed recorded sound.


I reviewed Massimo Quarta’s performances on Paganini’s Cannon of the First and Second Concertos (the First, played in the original key of E? Major, with the violin part scordatura) in 24:3 (these two concertos appear on the first disc of the current set), noting the historical importance of the appearance in recordings of the First Concerto in its original key (involving tuning the violin a half-step higher and thereby increasing the tension of the strings, brightening the instrument’s timbre). My original impression of Quarta’s brilliance in these works (listen to his crackling version of his own edited version of Sauret’s cadenza to the First Concerto or his own dazzling, though somewhat long, cadenza for the Second) has never faded; I’ve carried this recording around with me in my van since regular listening and familiarity haven’t yet bred contempt. Quarta made the original recordings in July 1999 in Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice, utilizing transcriptions by Matiaresa Dellaborra and scores revised by Quarta himself and Giulio Odero.


The second disc brings the Third and Fifth Concertos, which have been previously available in Dynamic’s set of Paganini’s concertos played by Quarta on the Cannon (Dynamic 450, which included a multimedia CD featuring the Cannon and a performance of the Adagio in E Major). He recorded these concertos in September 2001 and 2002, again in Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice, making use of a new orchestration by Francesco Fiore for the Fifth Concerto (collectors will remember the somewhat anachronistic earlier orchestration by Federico Mompellio that made its recording debut in Franco Gulli’s premiere recording of the work on LP—Decca (7)10081. Once again, Quarta revised the scores of the works for the performances. The Third Concerto has come a long way since Henryk Szeryng’s technically brilliant though rhetorically less convincing first recorded performance. Quarta imparts to the score the kind of brilliance with which Paganini’s name has become associated—if not the sense of macabre fantasy that his name conjured for his contemporaries. Fiore’s orchestration for the Fifth Concerto creates an impression of greater stylistic appropriateness that doesn’t distract from the Concerto’s overall effect as Mompellio’s score must have for many listeners. Besides, it enhances the effect of the exceptionally expressive slow movement. Salvatore Accardo, like Quarta, another winner of the Paganini competition, recorded all the Paganini concertos (the ones he recorded in the 1970s with Dutoit and the London Symphony Orchestra now appear in a six-CD set issued by Deutsche Grammophon—also available through the Musical Heritage Society on 5661921—there’s another set with Accardo and the Italian Chamber Orchestra on EMI); but Accardo never quite projected, at least to me, the almost startling command that nowadays substitutes for Paganini’s eldritch violinistic imagination (I’ve mentioned before that Alexander Markov manages to capture some of that fantasy in his recordings of Paganini, such as those of the first two concertos and the caprices, reissued on Apex 699872, 32:1, which I included in last year’s Want List). And Accardo made use of Szeryng’s versions of the Third and Fourth Concertos and of Mompellio’s accompaniment to the Fifth.


The set’s third disc brings performances by Quarta on Paganini’s Cannon of the “Grand Concerto” in E Minor, which has elsewhere been billed as the Sixth Concerto and which first surfaced in a version for violin and guitar. Again, the scores have been revised by Quarta, who also wrote cadenzas for them; and Francesco Fiore provided accompaniments for the “Grand Concerto” and for the Adagio in E Major that tops off the disc. The performances, again, took place in Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice. The “Grand Concerto,” which Danilo Prefumo’s notes suggest comes from Paganini’s early years, seems more akin in its passagework to Viotti’s models (Viotti-like figuration, for example, rubs shoulders in the last movement with motives that could have come directly from Paganini’s own Second Concerto). Again, the work first appeared with an orchestration by Mompellio. Fiore’s seems to make more frequent use of obbligato woodwinds than Paganini’s own arrangements seemingly do. Although Paganini’s characteristic double-stopping appears to have been thrust into the background (had it yet developed as a stroke in his signature?), Quarta makes this Concerto sound nearly as striking in its effect as do the others. The Fourth Concerto received an early recording by Arthur Grumiaux (on LP—Epic LC-3143) and Ruggiero Ricci also became an early champion. But it’s bracing to hear this work played in a fully digital format by Quarta. The Adagio, which Prefumo’s note suggests took form about the same time as did the Second Concerto (with the pages of which it seems to have been entangled), shares a great deal with the slow movements of the other concertos, including the typical quasi-recitative outburst of drama. Fiore realized its very sketchy accompaniment.


The fourth disc comprises five shorter works played by Salvatore Accardo, who recorded the Primavera, Non più mesta , and Le streghe in April 1975 and the Maestosa sonata sentimentale and the Sonata con variazioni in January 1976, all for Deutsche Grammophon, and they’ve been issued in various formats. (The Maestosa sonata sentimentale and the Sonata con variazioni appeared on LP as Deutsche Grammophon 2536 376 PSI—reviewed by John Bauman in 7:3—along with the Napoléon Sonata , the Palpiti , and the Perpetuela , which appear elsewhere in Dynamic’s collection.) Accardo plays these pieces stylishly, with perhaps a less aggressive articulation than Quarta’s in the concertos, but with a thorough command of their technical fireworks and a highly ingratiating manner. La primavera sports an accompaniment that hardly seems to fit the violin part’s period, but Danilo Prefumo notes that only the violin part had been available (he conjectures that the work might have been one mentioned in 1838). Its effects include a series of arpeggios like those that bring the cadenza to Mendelssohn’s Concerto to a close, in this case under the thematic material that enters before the finale. Prefumo assigns the Maestosa sonata sentimentale to 1828, as a tribute to the Emperor Franz I in gratitude for his bestowing upon him the title of “Chamber Virtuoso”—the work consists, after an introduction, of variations for the G string on the Austrian national anthem, which Wieniawski would later take for a set of variations of his own. The difficulties of intonation and tone production on the G string must have been staggering (I’ve read that Paganini’s pupil, Camillo Sivori, played the “Moses” variations only by cutting all the other strings and placing the G string in the middle of a small violin!), so it’s little wonder if Accardo occasionally misses a note. Once again, the orchestral accompaniment hardly seems entirely idiomatic. The Sonata con variazioni , often billed as Variations on a Theme of Joseph Weigl , also poses problems in intonation that Accardo struggles to master (Ruggiero Ricci made a dashing recording of this piece with piano, included in his LP album, “Bravura,” Decca DL 710172, that tames its difficulties, although Accardo’s double harmonics at the end sound especially confident and rotund). The Variations on “Non più mesta” from Rossini’s La cenerentola comes, according to Prefumo, from about 1819. If they sound somewhat scrappy in this performance, it should be remembered that the best recordings of Paganini (even perhaps Rabin’s of the caprices) contain imperfectly polished moments. The Witches’ Dance may be one of the most familiar of Paganini’s compositions—even budding violinists play the theme in one of many arrangements. Accardo plays the introductory passages with a suavity that characterizes most of the performances on the disc. Once again, the technical passages cause him some trouble, but he maintains his composure. The violin sounds sweeter in the performances of this fourth disc than the Cannon does in the three that open the set.


The fifth disc includes four works that Salvatore Accardo recorded for EMI in 1983: the Sonata Varsavia, Sonata Maria Luisa, Polacca con variazioni , and Balletto campestre . John Bauman reviewed the re-release of this recording on LP (Angel DS 38128) in 8:3. The lighthearted Sonata Varsavia showcases Accardo in a jovial mood, with a spotlight on his bag of tricks (staccatos of various kinds, harmonics, and some brilliant pizzicatos). Danilo Prefumo points out that Paganini transferred the opening to the Fifth Concerto. Bauman mentions that Edward Neill’s original notes explain that Accardo had played, in the Sonata Maria Luisa , a five-string controviola that he had constructed for the purpose in 1982. Prefumo identifies the Polacca con variazioni , a showpiece of easy elegance with an ingratiating double-stopped variation at its center, with a work mentioned in 1810. The concerto-length Balletto campestre , its tema comico reminiscent of the “Solfeggio” familiar from performances by the “Nairobi Trio” on Ernie Kovacs’s television show, fills almost half the program. According to Bauman’s notes, Paganini scholar Edward Neill composed the orchestral accompaniment to the violin part, to which Accardo imparts an almost jazzy twang at times. In this work and in the Sonata Varsavia , Accardo displays some of the dash and verve required to spice Paganini’s sometimes somewhat skeletal parts. In fact, the entire fifth disc seems like a joy ride through the violin’s upper regions, both on the fingerboard and technically in general.


The sixth disc includes the famous Carnival of Venice variations, the Sonata movimento perpetuo, Sonata a preghiera, Sonata Napoléon , and I palpiti . Some of these works (but not entirely) appeared on another LP, Angel DS 38127 (again, reviewed by John Bauman in 8:3) and others on the Deutsche Grammophon LP mentioned above, 7:3. Salvatore Accardo recorded the Carnival of Venice and the first two movements of the Sonata movimento perpetuo (according to Dynamic’s booklet) and the Sonata a preghiera digitally with Tamponi and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in December 1983, but the final movement of the Sonata movimento perpetuo, Sonata Napoléon , and I palpiti in January 1976 with Dutoit and the London Philharmonic. Bauman’s headnote lists a moto perpetuo from the Angel collection, but checking the disc reveals it’s the familiar one in C Major, not the movement on this sixth disc. The set of variations, which Prefumo attributes to 1829 on the familiar tune “The Carnival of Venice,” sounds like a barn burner in this orchestral setting (Francescatti made it harder edged and flintier—but hardly more brilliant or more fun—in his evening of Paganini at the Library of Congress in 1954, Bridge 9125, 26:4). The Sonata movimento perpetuo ought to be a welcome addition to recital programs, with its winning Andante amoroso and its sparkling final perpetual motion (this one in A Major). (Prefumo relates that Paganini must have been unhappy with the first version of the work and provided the Andante amoroso as a substitute for the introductory Larghetto con passione, which appears just before it in this collection and almost composes a sort of three-movement suite or concertino.) Accardo plays with rock-like security in the Sonata a preghiera , which strains a performer’s left hand, partly because of the extreme tension of the string (Prefumo doesn’t mention that the violinist must tune the G string up a minor third to B?). Prefumo suggests that the Sonata Napoléon , like the Sonata Maria Luisa , hails from 1810, perhaps both wedding presents for Napoleon and his bride. This work contains a similar mix of harmonics and acrobatics on the G string as does its more popular cousin, and Accardo displays the reliability of his technique in a similar way. Only I palpiti sounds less than rollicking, but Accardo’s always in command.


The seventh disc brings perhaps the least familiar repertoire: the Tarantella, Le couvent du Mont St. Bernard, Niccolò Paganini a Mr. Henry , and the Sonata per Grand Viola . Dynamic recorded the first three of these pieces with Franco Mazzena and the Orchestra da Camera di Genova (the Coro Januensis appears in the first and fourth movements of the five-movement Couvent ) in September 1983; and Luigi Alberto Bianchi recorded the viola work in 1973. John Bauman reviewed the first three works when they appeared on CD (CDS 27) in 13:3, and I reviewed a later reissue of Bianchi’s performance of the Viola Sonata in 23:4. Franco Mazzena plays with a leaner and perhaps a bit more pliable tone than those of either Quarta or Accardo, but he spits the double-stops with equal impudence, though perhaps without a similar security of intonation in the Tarantella. Couvent strikes Prefumo as a hint of what Paganini might have achieved had he devoted himself to composition. It’s a five-movement fantasy, two of which include chant-like parts for male chorus. No ordinary showpiece, the work nevertheless shows off Paganini’s penchant for the unusual and perhaps the histrionic, though Prefumo’s mention of Berlioz seems appropriate, because, as in much of that composer’s Requiem, Paganini makes use of his forces mostly (except near the end of the maestosa at the end of the fourth movement, which sounds uncannily like Prokofiev’s “Alexander Nevsky”) to achieve timbral nuance rather than to create the big bow-wow. The work ends with the “Rondo del campanello,” familiar from its inclusion in the Second Concerto, which brings the work back to the sound of bells with which it opened. Mazzena sounds particularly crisp and engaging in this virtuoso romp. Just as the three duets for violin and bassoon, discovered in Camillo Sivori’s archives (and recorded by Salvatore Accardo and Claudio Gonella on Dynamic CDS 194, 21:3), demonstrate Paganini’s ear for instrumental sonorities, the two movements of Niccolò Paganini a Mr. Henry show how ably Paganini could adapt his highly individual style to the necessities of the occasion. Paganini may not have found Berlioz’s Harold in Italy an ample enough stage for his talents, but the Sonata he wrote for viola, while featuring some of his signature effects, hardly eschews his typically Rossinian operatic lyricism. As I noted in my earlier review, Bianchi doesn’t approach the viola as an oversized violin, but exploits its darker side.


The eighth disc brings historic versions of two of the concertos: the First Concerto in a historic recording of the entire work (the first, I believe) by Yehudi Menuhin in 1934 and one by Ruggiero Ricci from the 1970s of the Fourth Concerto. Writing of this performance by Menuhin, Henry Roth remarked that while Francescatti played like a lyric soprano in this work, Menuhin played like a dramatic one. However that may be, Menuhin’s performance stands alongside those of Rabin, Kogan, and Francescatti. If Ricci’s reading of the Fourth Concerto doesn’t have similarly documentary value, his life of service to Paganini certainly merits mention anywhere the composer is represented, and this live recording testifies to his stupendous if occasionally erratic virtuosity.


The question remains: would/did Paganini himself sound like any of these violinists? Listen to Alexander Markov, then imagine Markov’s eccentricities magnified a thousandfold. That’s how many of us would like to imagine Paganini himself. But since we can’t hear him, we’ll have to settle for collections like this one. Urgently recommended as the next thing, nowadays, to a time machine.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Brodsgaard: Galaxy

ALBINONI: Oboe Concertos, Vol. 1

Naxos has very intelligently included the spoken superscriptions for each movement of the "Antartica" at the end of the disc, so those who want them (a minority, to be sure) can program them in. Kees Bakels and his Bournemouth forces lead excellent performances of both works, and it's particularly gratifying to be able to report that both the conductor and the recording engineers seems to have taken pains to ensure that the special percussion effects in both symphonies are well caught. Of course, the music itself is splendid. The Sinfonia antartica (a.k.a. the film score to Scott of the Antarctic) takes up where Holst's Planets left off, and fans of that work will love this icy-sounding sequel. The Eighth Symphony, with its fabulous finale employing "all the 'phones and 'spiels known to the composer," deserves to be much more popular than it is. That last movement is a humdinger! So while you're waiting to hear these two masterworks of the composer's old age in a live concert, why not shell out a few bucks and enjoy them at home? --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Zhou Long, born 1953 in Beijing, came to the US in the 1980s and studied at Columbia University with composers Chou Wen-Chung and Mario Davidovsky, among others. Prior to this release, two collections of his chamber music have been reviewed in Fanfare—one by myself in 22:5, and one by Peter Burwasser in 19:1. Both of us were attracted to the composer’s ability to blend the sonorities of Chinese and Western instruments and devise convincing formal designs that drew from both musical cultures. In “limiting” himself to a Western orchestra (except for additional and varied percussion) in this program, he has in a sense set himself a greater challenge, and succeeds admirably.

What impresses most about these four works are the breadth of orchestral colors Zhou manipulates, and how the musical drama grows directly out of those colors. The four Poems from Tang, for example, are purely instrumental evocations of Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907) poems (printed in English translation in the booklet), where sounds of nature as well as intimations of mist, clouds, flames, and dreams emerge within fugitive rustling, burbling, and murmuring timbres, in contrast with full ensemble passages reminiscent of Stravinsky’s orchestral palette in The Firebird. Moreover, the rhythmic insistence of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring appears to have influenced Zhou in the remaining works; in The Rhyme of Taigu an expanded percussion section not only adds haunting colors and textures but provides an energetic, repetitious rhythmic impetus, and Da Qu, which isolates Jonathan Fox’s bells, vibraphone, and gongs against an orchestra that threatens to erupt from tranquil to volatile, near chaotic, expression in the blink of an eye, is even more exotic and vibrant. (Note to solo percussionists and adventurous orchestras: this work has great audience-wowing potential.) Even the brief transformation of a Shaanxi love song, mixed with Zhou’s recollection of farmers burning their fields, in The Future of Fire builds to thunderous Rite-like climaxes.

BIS’s engineering captures the wide dynamic range of the music vividly, and conductor Lan Shui and the Singapore musicians present everything in the best possible light.

Art Lange, FANFARE

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

Gradually and fortunately, for some years now the extensive and highly significant oeuvre of the Polish-Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg has also been discovered and recognized in the West – a process also documented on our internationally highly regarded cpo recordings. During the 1960s Weinberg’s reputation was not only restored but also soared on high – at least in the Soviet Union. Interpreters of the rank of Rostropovich, Gilels, Kondrashin, Leonid Kogan, and the Borodin Quartet joined David Oistrach in his enthusiastic propagation of Weinberg’s music. The Symphony No. 10 is the most stylistically advanced and experimental composition among his purely instrumental works. In conjunction with her research on Dmitri Shostakovich’s life, the Polish violinist and composer Evelina Novicka’s attention was also drawn to the composer Weinberg. Impressed by his compositions, she has recorded several premieres of his works, including the Concertino op. 42 and Rhapsody op. 47 heard on this most recent CD. She herself has arranged the lost version of the Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes for violin and orchestra. - cpo (Translated from German text.)

Classical Music

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

Under the musical direction of their chief conductor designate, Christian Thielemann, the Staatskapelle Dresden performed this special concert to celebrate Franz Liszt and his bicentenary. At its home, the prestigious Semperoper in Dresden, the orchestra presented a Faust-themed concert with two works by Wagner and Liszt inspired by Goethe’s drama. “Fired up by inspiration, the Dresden musicians and their leader offer a superb demonstration of their ability, their precision and their feeling for colour and temperament … A top orchestra and a top conductor have found each other” (Die Welt).

THIELEMANN CONDUCTS FAUST

Richard Wagner: A Faust Overture

Franz Liszt: A Faust Symphony, S108/R425
Endrik Wottrich, tenor
Dresden State Opera Chorus
Dresden Staatskapelle
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Recorded live from the Semperoper Dresden, 2011.

Picture format: 1080p High Definition
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Subtitles: German, English, French, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese
Running time: 90 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 25)

A serious sense of purpose without dourness, harmonic variety without abstruseness, rhythmic vitality without being overly complex and immediate impact yet worthy of greater study.

It’s especially interesting for me to be listening to and reviewing this disc as I have just been ‘doing’ Egon Wellesz who, like Gál was an émigré as a result of World War II. Gál’s situation was, if anything, even worse as in March 1933, at a time when he had a role of some eminence in German musical life and also a little in Austria, he was forced out of his position on account of his Jewish background. He fled to England. After many vicissitudes he ended up working and living for the rest of his life in Edinburgh.
 
The Violin Concerto comes from the period 1931-2 when Gál was at his most successful in Germany. It is in many ways quite an untroubled work. Throughout it I kept pinching myself that this was not a British concerto as it seems to bear little relationship with the Austro-Germanic tradition of the late Romantics or early moderns prevalent at the time. The ‘Fantasia’ opening movement and the second movement marked ‘Arioso’ begin with a very English-sounding pastoral melody on the oboe. The only vicious and angry writing comes in the cadenzas which Gál himself wrote. The piece was written for Georg Kulenkampff and Fritz Busch and is in three movements. The finale, a Rondo, is quite lively and the brightest of the three but the opening is a Fantasia with four or five contrasting ideas. The work as a whole hangs together in a most satisfactory manner. Annette-Barbara Vogel tells us in a brief essay that recording this work and indeed the entire disc has been her dream for many years. She can be triply proud of her efforts, those of the orchestra and of Kenneth Woods who enables the orchestration to breath with such clarity. The recording engineers must also take a bow.
 
It’s interesting that despite all of the difficulties thrown at Gál and his family in 1934 he wrote the genial, easy-going yet masterful ‘Improvisation, Variations and Finale on a Theme of Mozart’ for string quartet (Meridian CDE84557 - Edinburgh Quartet). In 1939 he wrote an equally lyrical ‘Concertino’ which, ironically is, if anything, more virtuosic than the concerto. Its opening Andante tranquillo is fecund with ideas, almost Fantasia-like. Its melody on cellos is almost Korngold and even more so when the soloist takes it up. But the second subject is strident and dotted. The work is in just two movements linked by a challenging bridge-cadenza before hustling in a ‘Rigaudon’. This was a melody which Gál noted down, apparently from a British Museum Manuscript dated 1716; in contrast there is a more romantic second subject. A nice touch is created by this idea melting away into another, briefer cadenza before the opening melody of the first movement returns with a sense of sadness and nostalgia. The dance tune is suddenly re-invigorated for a final fling in the orchestral strings and then by all, leading to a light-hearted ending.
 
The CD places ‘Triptych’ between these two concertante works. It dates from around Gál’s 80 ^th year when he was experiencing a late burst of creative activity. The excellent booklet notes by Eva Gál tell us that this was the time of Third Quartet in 1969, the Fourth of 1971, the Fourth Symphony of 1973 and a Clarinet Quintet of 1977. One is therefore reminded of late-flowering composers such as Berthold Goldschmidt and Havergal Brian. The Triptych is intractably conservative for its time. Indeed in the clarinet writing of the slow, middle movement - called a ‘Lament’ - and in the lyrical second subject of the third movement marked ‘Comedy’, one may well be reminded of autumnal Brahms. There are times anywhere in the work when other composers might come to mind. My wife, who really took to this “warm-hearted old man”, at one moment shouted out ‘Glazunov’ in the first movement (marked romantically, ‘Impromptu’). There’s even a hint of Elgar at one point. But this music is not shackled to any particular time and like its composer is related to no particular place. It has a serious sense of purpose without dourness. It has harmonic variety without abstruseness. It has rhythmic vitality without being overly complex. It has an immediate impact but is worthy of greater study.
 
The presentation is exemplary with photos and examples of Gál’s neat manuscript work and wonderful performances. If from my descriptions the music seems to have an appeal then search out this CD out because if successful then I suspect more Gál might appear in the next few years.
 

-- Gary Higginson, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by Francesco Antoni Rosetti. Ensembles: Bavarian Chamber Philharmonic, German Chamber Academy Neuss. Soloist: Lajos Lencsés.

This disc received the 1999 Cannes Classical Award for "Best Orchestral Recording - 18th Century."