WAGNER: ORCHESTRAL HIGHLIGHTS

MENDELSSOHN: SCOTTISH & ITALIA

This is one of the most exciting "New World"s I've ever heard... [C]laims were made that it was a 1941 recording made by Wilhelm Furtwängler... It wasn't until the 1990s and detective work by German discophiles that the truth came out... The "Romantic" is remarkable for the flexibility that Kabasta builds into his brisk tempos; his Bruckner breathes... In short, this is a fascinating issue, and one well worth exploring for anyone who admires Furtwängler's athleticism.

-- Raymond Tuttle, www.classical.net

THE HEIFETZ COLLECTION VOL 38

Track Listing

Disc 1:
1. Sweetie Dear
2. I Want You Tonight
3. I've Found a New Baby
4. Lay Your Racket
5. Maple Leaf Rag
6. Shag
7. Ja-Da
8. Really the Blues
9. When You and I Were Young, Maggie
10. Weary Blues
11. Indian Summer
12. One O'Clock Jump
13. Preachin' the Blues
14. Preachin' the Blues
15. Sidney's Blues
16. Sidney's Blues
17. Shake It and Break It

Disc 2:
1. Shake It and Break It
2. Old Man Blues
3. Old Man Blues
4. Wild Man Blues
5. Wild Man Blues
6. Nobody Knows the Way I Feel Dis Mornin'
7. Make Me a Pallet on the Floor
8. Shake It and Break It
9. Saint Louis Blues
10. Blues in Thirds
11. Blues For You, Johnny
12. Blues For You, Johnny
13. Ain't Misbehavin'
14. Ain't Misbehavin'
15. Save It, Pretty Mama
16. Stompy Jones
17. Muskrat Ramble
18. Coal Black Shine

Personnel includes: Sidney Bechet (vocals, soprano saxophone, clarinet), Rudolph Adler (tenor saxophone), Henry "Red" Allen, Tommy Ladnier (trumpet), Sandy Williams, Teddy Nixon (trombone), Mario Janarro, Sonny White, Henry "Hank" Duncan, Cliff Jackson, James Tolliver, Earl Hines (piano), Bernard Addison, Teddy Bunn (guitar), Wilson "Serious" Myers (bass, vocals), John Lindsay, Harry Patent, Elmer James, Wellman Braud (bass), Kenny Clarke, Morris Morand, J.C. Heard, Manzie Johnson (drums).

Recorded in New York between 1932-1940 and Chicago in 1940. Includes liner notes by Don Waterhouse.

This is part of RCA's Jazz Tribune series.

Of all the overlapping Bechet reissue series, this series of two-LP sets released by French RCA is easily the best, with all of the Victor sides by the great soprano-saxophonist and clarinetist (including the valuable alternate takes) being issued complete and in chronological order. The first two-fer is highlighted by the blazing session by The New Orleans Feetwarmers from 1932, four selections from the "Really the Blues" date with trumpeter Tommy Ladnier and clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow, and such Bechet classics as "Indian Summer," "Old Man Blues" and "Nobody Knows The Way I Feel 'Dis Mornin'." ~ Scott Yanow, AllMusic.com

RIGHT AS THE RAIN - LEONTYNE P

Giulini goes his own sweet way, showing masterly judgement and control. Top honors go to Ruth Ziesak, faultless throughout.

More than most works regularly cited as pinnacles of western music, the B minor Mass is open to vagaries of interpretation. The vogue is for playing fast and flat, reducing forces and stripping the opulence and opaqueness that used to characterise Bach performance.

Giulini goes his own sweet way, which is not quite like anyone else’s. His choir is big – a far cry from the Joshua Rifkin approach of using solo voices in multipart choral writing – and his tempi slow. At least on paper they are slow: this B minor Mass is such a well-measured, coherent vision that even a Sanctus nearly a third longer than other recorded versions makes perfect sense. After all, Giulini is keeping time, not the clock. Indeed, frequently slowness is strength, as the masterly judgement and control of a gradually unwinding ‘Dona nobis pacem’ and a perfectly plotted ‘Qui tollis’ bear witness.

Among the soloists, Roberta Alexander sounds uneasy in a laboured ‘Laudamus te’ where the solo violin’s hesitancy is transmitted to the singer. Top honours go to Ruth Ziesak, faultless throughout. The live recording from Munich’s Herkulessaal is a shade reticent, but chorus and orchestra nonetheless come across as highly responsive and a credit to their maestro.

-- Christopher Wood, BBC Music Magazine

Poised and patrician interpretations that concentrate on lyricism, warmth, and spacious breadth rather than incipient tension.

Walter’s 1960 B flat recording hasn’t Beecham’s geniality or élan but it does have an unhurried and patrician affection that is hard to gainsay. The generosity of the phrasing never descends to Casals’s rather heavy-handed loving kindness; the sectional balance is fine, the direction remains crisply understated but affectionate. The wind and horn principals distinguish themselves in the slow movement where Walter brings out detail with candour but without any kind of finicky over-scrupulousness. Genial and leisurely – and without any crunching tutti weight – the finale is of a piece with Walter’s mature perception of the symphony. It’s a young man’s work but seen somewhat through avuncular and retrospective eyes.

The Unfinished was recorded two years earlier, this time in New York. Poised and patrician once more this is a reading that concentrates on lyricism rather than incipient tension or internal dynamic contrasts. The orchestra sounds notably fine and Walter’s direction retains a grand seigniorial approach, one that will perhaps disappoint those who might have missed the spirit of his fiery wartime performances with this orchestra, a time when he seemed on occasion hell bent on recreating Toscanini’s sweeping dynamism. Nevertheless his later approach certainly makes up in warmth and spacious breadth – especially the second movement – what it lacks in velocity and power.

-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International [reviewing Sony 78741]

The well-known painting of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach reproduced on the cover of this CD must be one of the most immediately attractive composer portraits ever made. The wide-brimmed hat, the fur-lined coat, the wisp of steely hair and, above all, the reddened but unmistakably genial face (displaying, if I’m not mistaken, his father’s nose) suggest a man one would want to accompany straightaway to the nearest coffee-house. But Friedemann was actually a little more complex than that, both as a person who could be lazy and argumentative and as a talented musician torn between the styles of the late baroque and early classical periods, so it is perhaps no surprise to find that there is considerable variety in the music on this disc. The opening Sinfonia in D major is one of those sunnily optimistic works that revel in the splendid new sound of the classical orchestra, but the D minor Sinfonia which follows is a highly serious piece for church use, containing a solemnly drooping fugue. There is also an Ouverture-Suite once attributed (pretty implausibly) to Johann Sebastian which, though undeniably attractive and individual, is now thought unlikely to be by Friedemann either; a quirkily expressive but perhaps rather rambling harpsichord concerto; and a by-now familiarly protean and surprise-filled Sinfonia in F major.

Tafelmusik are the perfect ensemble to perform this music. Like much of it, they delight in sheer orchestral sound, enjoying the advantage themselves of being able to turn it out in particularly pleasing and well-finished form. I would not hesitate to recommend this disc to any lover of eighteenth-century orchestral music.

-- Lindsay Kemp, Gramophone [2/1998]

PIERRE MONTEUX EDITION VOL 6 -

Track Listing
1. Soul Station
2. Speak No Evil
3. Winelight
4. After the Rain
5. Dust Kicker, The
6. Monk's Hat
7. Cozy
8. Face I Love, The
9. Point of Many Returns
10. Voice of the Saxphone, The

Personnel includes: Don Braden (tenor saxophone); Vincent Herring (alto saxophone, flute); Hamiet Bluiett (baritone saxophone, clarinet, contra-bass clarinet); Randy Brecker (trumpet, flugelhorn); Frank Lacy (trombone); Darrell Grant, George Colligan (piano); Cecil Brooks III (drums); Jimmy Delgado (congas); Bill Cosby (percussion).

Includes liner notes by Benny Golson.

Personnel: Don Braden (flute, tenor saxophone); Vincent Herring (flute, alto saxophone); Hamiet Bluiett (clarinet, contrabass clarinet, baritone saxophone); Randy Brecker (trumpet, flugelhorn); Frank Lacy (trombone); Darrell Grant (piano); Dwayne Burno (acoustic bass); Cecil Brooks III (drums).

Audio Mixers: Richard Clarke; James Nichols.

Recording information: Systems Two Studios, Brooklyn, NY (02/15/1997-03/04/1997).

Arranger: Don Braden.

Don Braden's The Voice of the Saxophone is, for the most part, impressive. His quartet arrangements of "After the Rain" and the title track should turn heads. His big-toned tenor sax carries the octet in covers of hard bop gems like "Soul Station" and "Speak No Evil." He's also making headway as a composer, especially on "Cozy," which features both him and Vincent Herring on flutes. Less successful is the pseudo-Monk TV theme from The Cosby Show, which is called "Monk's Hat." ~ Ken Dryden

Legendary for his accomplishments, musical, scholarly and beyond, Camille Saint-Saëns created an astounding collection of compositions. These pieces for cello and accompaniment must surely rank among his finest achievements.
The composer wrote more than mere pleasant melodies. The demands of Cello Concerto No. 2 are extraordinary, and yield results quite profound. Baroque lyricism and a penchant for drama make Saint-Saëns' orchestral work a delight. The more intimate Cello Sonata No. 2 takes advantage of the rich tonal power of both instrument and soloist.
Renown cellist Steven Isserlis performs with panache befitting his reputation as one of the world's leading cellists. His technique, both technically precise and deeply passionate, brings out the most of Saint-Saëns difficult works.

Debussy: La mer, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Danse &

CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO: GUITAR CO

TOSCANINI COLLECTION VOL 28 -

SCHUBERT: ARPEGGIONE SONATA, P

VIOLIN SHOWPIECES ERICK FRIED

Recorded at Lübeck Cathedral on August 22-23, 1987 as the final concerts of the 1987 Schleswig Holstein Music Festival.

VIVALDI, CARULLI, GULIANI: GUI

BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONY NO 7, CORI

Selections recorded June 1-3 and November 29, 1991.

PUCCINI: MANON LESCAUT PERLEA

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: SYMPHONIES N

Live recordings, 1972-1882. Ervin Nyiregyházi (1903-87) is largely forgotten today, but he was one of the greatest and most idiosyncratic pianists of the twentieth century, and his eccentric personality and bizarre career have few parallels in the history of music. These late concert recordings, all but four released here for the first time, are representative of Nyiregyházi's art, and should help to rehabilitate a lost genius whose reputation has rarely matched his artistic stature.

Born in Long Beach, California, on August 9, 1928, Camilla Wicks led a stellar career in the dozen years after World War Two; one of a select group whose achievements helped to establish women violinistsí prominence on the concert stage. It is worth considering that around that golden time, the likes of Heifetz, Milstein, Menuhin, Francescatti reigned supreme; the veterans Szigeti, Elman and Thibaud were still active and beloved; Stern was a firm favorite, Rabin a prodigious sensation, and Oistrakh and Kogan were just resoundingly breaking through the Iron Curtain. In this illustrious company, Wicks was considered one of the great soloists on both sides of the Atlantic, upheld by many as a queen among violinists. At the peak of her fame and subsequently, she retired more than once to devote herself to her family, but remained an outstanding if intermittent performer for many more decades. While her vinyl records have long been revered by collectors, this CD release of early live performances offers a vital opportunity for a more widespread audience to discover this astonishing artist. Wicks was recently featured in a long article in Strad magazine which mentioned this upcoming CD.