COUPERIN: L'APOTHÉOSE A LA MÉM

SYMPHONY NO.9

LISZT GREAT HITS

IN MUSICA VIVARTE PAUL VAN NE

}Gramophone (1/97, p. 84) "...the performances are stylistically assured, full of deep insights and subtle expressive nuance...some beautifully sustained woodwind playing here, and on balance, it is this work (No. 41) which comes over with greatest conviction..."{

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 "Scottish" & Symphony No. 4 "Ita

BEETHOVEN: PIANO CONCERTO NO 5

That flute-loving/playing monarch, Frederick the Great (1712-86), inspired a considerable literature for flute by some fine composers of the post-Baroque era, and wrote a bit of it himself; several recordings take that repertoire as their focus. Bylsma's illuminating program sheds light on Frederick's nephew and successor, the cello-playing/loving Friedrich Wilhelm II (1744-97). In a sense, the final victory of cello over gamba can be attributed to Friedrich Wilhelm's personal preference as a player, to his hiring of great cellists and cellist-composers for his court, and to his encouragement for more prominent cello parts in the quartets of Mozart and Haydn. Friedrich's most important move in the evolution of the cello as a virtuoso solo instrument was his retention of the Duport brothers, virtuoso cellists, as court composers. Jean-Pierre (1741-1818) wrote a sonata for two cellos that, while conventionally Rococo/early-Classical from a musical standpoint, rises to heights of virtuosity more commonly found in isolated pockets of the early Baroque—the era of the gamba. Bylsma and Slowik are simply astounding in their rapid scales, arpeggios, string crossings, and other demonstrations of high velocity, all with ideal ensemble. The keyboard part for right hand alone is credited to Bylsma, but the notes are utterly silent as to what if anything Duport left out and what Bylsma did with it. This marvelous performance is the ideal way to begin the recital; once you've heard this you are prepared to go where Bylsma cares to lead you. The technical exercises by Jean-Louis Duport (1749-1819) are of a once-common sort: extreme technical display of one basic variety per piece for the "A" player; a simple harmonic line for "B," presumably the teacher. Bylsma flies around the fingerboard with the high metabolism rate of a small bird; ever so slight as music, true, but a rare opportunity for this cellist to really cut loose with pure flashiness.

Friedrich Wilhelm's "celebrity" court composer was Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805), who evidently never stayed at the court itself, but who kept his patron well supplied with music focusing on the cello(s). This Sonata is typically elegant; Boccherini manages to provide plenty of traded-off virtuoso opportunities for Bylsma and Slowik without ever sounding frenetic.

Beethoven visited the court to play his op. 5 Cello Sonatas with J.-L. Duport; they were dedicated to an appreciative Friedrich Wilhelm, and there is some speculation in Slowik's notes that Beethoven meant to further please the Handel-loving monarch with his Variations on the famous tune from Judas Maccabaeus. Bylsma's tone and attack taken on a greater virility for Beethoven, and Hoogland's own virtuosity makes for impressive versions of these two works. Beethoven also performed the op. 5 Sonatas with Bernhard Romberg (1767-1841), whose own relationship to Friedrich Wilhelm is indirect; he never played for the King but did perform with J.-L. Duport. It is the cello virtuosity and important cello literature that Friedrich Wilhelm encouraged that explain why Romberg belongs on this disc; his Sonata is a fascinating mix of high virtuosity for cello—way beyond what Beethoven calls for in op. 5—and a musical power and expressive scope that identify Romberg as a musician of Beethoven's time and influence. The entertainment value in the music of the Duport brothers is one thing, but Romberg is a potential source of active repertoire. The Sonata is a real find; Bylsma and Hoogland play it in early-period Beethoven style.

-- David K. Nelson, FANFARE [1/1999]

Tracks:
1. PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY - VIOLIN CONCERTO IN D MAJOR, OP.35
2. MAX BRUCH - VIOLIN CONCERTO NO.1 IN G MINOR, OP.26

SINFONIA DOMESTICA

GOULD PLAYS BACH: 6 PARTITAS

Bruno Walter was getting on in years when he made this classic recording of Barber's First Symphony, but it's the kind of piece that played to Walter's strengths--Romantic but with strongly Classical leanings--and it makes a curiously apt coupling to the two Strauss tone poems. Like the composer's own performances, Walter's are swift and light, which works wonderfully well in Don Juan, a bit less so in Death and Transfiguration, which could use more sheer intensity at the climaxes. Throughout, the playing is lively and comfortably at home in the music. The Dvorák encore is nice to have, but hardly necessary, and it's sonically inferior to the otherwise perfectly fine mono engineering in evidence elsewhere. Now available "on demand" from Arkivmusic.com, this is a disc of genuine historical significance for both Strauss and Barber collectors.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

dup

At first glance, it may seem odd to couple Mahler's most exalted work with one that ranks among his most personal and tragic. Sony could have issued the symphony alone on a single disc, but chose not to for a very good reason: This is an excellent Kindertonlieder with both Lenny and Janet Baker at their absolute best. Dame Janet recorded this work earlier with Barbirolli, but here she's far more detailed in her phrasing and declamation of the text. Bernstein is also at his best - underling all of the dark, grim noises in the lower registers of the orchestra. As for the symphony, this was always considered a great performance, but had been criticized for its less than stellar sonic qualities at the climaxes (read: distortion). Sony has gone a long way towards remedying things by transferring the work at a lower level. As a result, the huge endings for both Parts I and II have much greater bloom and expanse than previously. Although Bernstein's vocalists are not as great as those in the Solti recording on an individual basis, they do work better as an ensemble -- witness the passage for the three penitent women in Part II. This is a triumph for all concerned. --Barry Guerrero, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

They're still talking about Bernstein's "Espansiva" in Denmark, and with good reason. While better known for his Mahler, Bernstein's advocacy of Nielsen arguably achieved just as much, alerting music lovers beyond Denmark of a composer of international stature. Not all of Bernstein's Nielsen was equally good. His Second and Fourth symphonies are nowhere near as fine as these two, which are stunning. The "Espansiva" has all of the openhearted warmth that Nielsen requires. Bernstein's tempo in the finale is a touch slow, but grand and celebratory. The sonics were good for their day, and they still sound well.

Bernstein's reading of the Fifth is also magnificent. For sheer excitement it has never been surpassed, particularly in the second movement, which is wildly uninhibited and urgent. In the first movement, outstanding work from the solo clarinet meets a pretty terrifying snare drum cadenza at the climax. Only the sonics, which relegate the timpani to the rear of--somewhere--let the show down a bit, but the drive and communicativeness of the music-making ultimately win the day. This is a great recording, plain and simple, now available "on demand" from Arkivmusic.com.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

In an interview, the composer Sergej Newski remembered, "The voice was the ideal path for finding my own idiom. In the late 1990s I began to transfer expressive vocal sounds into syntactic systems that obstruct their expressivity. I set out to find the primordial element of the voice." This recording includes his works Blindenalphabet, Alles and J'etais d'accord performed by the Ensemble Mosaik and Arbeitsfle�che performed by the ensemble MusikFabrik.

This album draws on the original performance practices of Franz Schubert, as it is historically proven that the composer played the guitar and frequently accompanied his songs.; This album also features aus der Sammlung “Bardenklange” op. 13 by fellow composer Johann Kaspar Mertz.; These outstanding lieder are performed here by soprano Rosina Sonnenschmidt, baritone Thomas Pfeiffer, and guitarist Harald Knauss.

V7: COMPLETE WORKS FOR ORGAN

Classical Music

V5: COMPLETE WORKS FOR ORGAN

Classical Music

LUKASPASSION

The Harmonious Society of Tickle-Fiddle Gentlemen takes its name from the original ensemble that gave London’s first public concerts, from 1678, and which continued to meet well into the middle of the eighteenth century. The members of the group are leading figures on the period instrument scene in the UK and Europe, offering programmes that draw on recent and original research. They have been described on BBC Radio 3 as ‘purveyors of exhilarating and uplifting music.’ The baroque ensemble here commits to record unjustly neglected concertos by Josef Guretzky, rich in Italian-influenced virtuosity and dynamism, yet highly innovative in the contrast of rhythms and forms. The album features the premiere recording of four of Guretzky’s nine cello concertos as well as Guretzky’s only surviving Violin Concerto. They are complemented by a contemporaneous keyboard fugue by another Czech master of the baroque era, Bohuslav Matej Cernohorsky.

Both the piano work Hamamuth - Stadt der Engel and the piano concerto Wer sind diese Kinder are composer Rolf Riehm's attempts to substantially broaden the spectrum of political music. Hamamuth - Stadt der Engel focuses on the omnipresence of violence experienced during the Iraq War. Both works show that it would be insufficient to look for their political facets exclusively on a semantic level. The physical understanding of music appears to be almost equally important. These powerful works are performed by the SWR Sinfonie Orchester Baden-Baden conducted by Beat Furrer.