Friedrich Gulda was born in Vienna on May 16, 1930. He began his musical education at the Grossmann Conservatory and subsequently took private lessons from Felix Pazofsky. From 1942 to 1947 he studied piano at the Vienna Academy of Music under Bruno Seidlhofer and Music Theory and Composition under Joseph Marx. He gave his first public performance in 1944 and, two years later when just 16 years old, won the Geneva International Music Competition. Starting after the Second World War, as a 20-year-old, Gulda established himself as a piano soloist with an excellent international reputation and even performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1950. In the 1950s he was celebrated and considered the leading interpreter of Beethoven in his generation. He founded his own Klassische Orchester Gulda for chamber music with members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to Beethoven, Gulda’s repertoire encompasses works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss, whose Burleske in D minor and lieder are included in this release, with Gulda accompanying soprano Hilde Güden. Gulda was essentially an out-and-out contrarian who showed that a great genius can sometimes be only a step away from a certain madness. While Karl Böhm or Rubinstein admired him as a magnificently talented interpreter of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, Gulda could also be provocative – including inciting his fellow concert pianists. Asked about Vladimir Horowitz, Gulda once responded: “Horowitz is a master. Because he is able to do – whatever he wants,” but also added: “But what he is after doesn’t interest me” (Joachim Kaiser).

REVIEW:
Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000) was certainly never a conformist pianist. But he was less flamboyant in his youth than in his later years, and he did present new perspectives at the beginning of his career, which helped to provoke a change in thinking. The recordings in this CD box set date from this period.

He recorded the freshly perky Mozart Sonata K. 576 in 1948, and both Concertos K. 503 and 537 in 1955 with the New Symphony Orchestra under Anthony Collins. Gulda’s fresh yet nuanced playing compensates for the weak orchestra’s playing. The Beethoven sonatas Nos. 4, 7, 8 and 19 show the still searching Gulda of 1955 on his way to the 1967 complete recording. The 3rd CD includes the concerto piece by Carl Maria von Weber and the Strauss Burlesque, as well as a set of Strauss songs that Gulda recorded with Hilde Güden in 1956. These are wonderful interpretations of rare freshness and suppleness. Güden’s silvery timbre and her confidently controlled, light vocal line coupled with Gulda’s spontaneous and sensitive playing make for an uncommonly natural performance.

Recorded in 1954, Chopin’s compositions, the 4 Ballades and the 1st Piano Concerto, are among Gulda’s ‘immortal’ recordings. In the 1st Piano Concerto, Gulda collaborates with the more traditional Adrian Boult, but it is precisely the contrast in temperament that leads to special tension and dynamics. This recording has been available several times on various labels, but here it definitely sounds in the best quality so far. Also very exciting are the four ballads, which he plays dramatically and narratively.

Debussy and Ravel, the composers represented on CDs Nos. 5 and 6 of this box, have been Gulda’s recurring preoccupation. The early recordings from 1953 and 1955 may not yet be as stylistically tested on the hard, sharp and pithy of jazz as the late recordings, but their analytically modern style, with clear, precise lines and contours and good transparency, shows the intellectual brilliance of these interpretations.

The bottom line is that this encounter with the young Gulda is a very important one that should help one understand the older musician and could help bring respect to Gulda among those who did not appreciate his later work as much.

-- Pizzicato

"The München Rundfunkorchester, its principal conductor Marcello Viotti, and the archdiocese of Munich and Freising are to be commended for their vision in supporting and performing twentieth-century sacred music, performing it so very well, and for presenting the listener with such fine recordings of these performances. ...excellent performances of neglected sacred choral treasures."
-- OPeraToday.com

The twentieth century brought forth many examples of the suppression of works by certain composers and even of whole categories of music. Numerous composers' works, for example, were banned as "degenerate" by the Nazis. Even so, Vsevolod Zaderatsky's fate was exceptional. It remains unprecedented that a composer of Zaderatsky's rank should spend his whole life under such political suppression and that he had absolutely no opportunity to present his music to the public in any way at all. Not a single work of his was published during his lifetime and there were no performances worth mentioning. It is a marvel that he even survived Stalinism; many of his compositions did not survive, having either been deliberately destroyed or fallen victim to circumstances. Zaderatsky's life seems to have been a hopeless, unequal battle: a musician against all-powerful state machinery intent on destroying his works and even threatening his life. The background to the 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano marks a particularly dramatic chapter of his struggle during detention in the Gulag. Here, his 24 Preludes are presented in their entirety by pianist and musicologist Jascha Nemtsov.

These recordings reissued on the Hänssler Profil label feature the playing of eminent Leipzig born pianist Wilhelm Backhaus (1884-1969). He was admired as a great Brahms interpreter and the two piano concertos were mainstays of Backhaus’s repertoire. He played them regularly throughout this career. A real inspiration for Backhaus occurred in 1895 when aged ten he met Brahms who was conducting a concert of his two piano concertos with soloist Eugen d’Albert. Backhaus toured extensively and left a considerable legacy of recordings. These accounts of the Brahms piano concertos were recorded by the sixty-nine year old Backhaus in 1953 at the Grosser Musikvereinssaal in Vienna. We are given the date of 1959 and the Vienna Festival as the venue for the three live Haydn recordings for solo piano. The re-mastering has been carried out by Holger Siedler at the THS Studio in Dormagen, Germany. Over time my ears managed to adjust to the fifty year old sound which certainly isn’t perfect. It contains some distortion and considerable brightness in the forte passages but is generally satisfactory for its age. An improvement over the Brahms the sound quality of the Haydn scores was well detailed and extremely agreeable.
 
Brahms commenced his three movement Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1854 around the time of the suicide attempt by his friend and mentor Robert Schumann. I was impressed with the sheer dramatic sweep of Backhaus’s playing. Demonstrating considerable power and passion in the outside movements Backhaus conveys a heartbreaking feeling in the Adagio playing with a blend of poetry and tenderness. I felt an authentic sense of drama in the stormy Rondo - Finale. It was some twenty-four years later when Brahms commenced his Piano Concerto No. 2. Cast in four movements it was completed in 1881. In this 1953 interpretation Backhaus combines grandeur with telling sensitivity. I loved the bravura ending of the towering opening movement and the fire and drama of the Scherzo. Opening with a glorious cello melody the heart of the work is the reverential Andante with Backhaus laying bare a calm and haunting introspection. I enjoyed the exuberant and energetic playing in the Finale with uplifting urgency well to the fore. Across both concertos the playing of the orchestra offers sensitive support.
 
These performances are most impressive with a distinct sense of effortless virtuosity. However, my benchmark recordings of these Brahms concertos remain those from soloists Leon Fleisher and Emil Gilels. Best of all is Fleisher’s commanding and highly dramatic accounts with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra under Georg Szell pleasingly recorded in 1958 and 1962 at Cleveland’s Severance Hall on Sony Classical ‘Masterworks Heritage’ MH2K 63225. Gilels accounts are strong, poetic and thoughtful. They were made with the Berlin Philharmonic under Eugen Jochum and were extremely well recorded in 1972 at the Jesus Christ Church, Berlin on Deutsche Grammophon 447 446-2.
 
The three Haydn scores, recorded live in concert, make for appealing listening. The first score is the Andante con Variazioni in F minor from 1793 and was possibly intended as the first movement of a sonata. It was later renamed as Sonata - Un piccolo Divertimento. Generally regarded as Haydn’s greatest piano work for piano the Andante con variazioni is seen as a highpoint of his entire output. In 1789 Haydn wrote to his publisher about his Fantasia ‘Capriccio’in C major, “In a moment of most excellent good humour I have written a quite new Capriccio for the pianoforte whose tastefulness, singularity and special construction cannot fail to win applause from connoisseurs and amateurs alike.” Completed in 1794 Haydn’s Sonata No. 52 was his final piano sonata and is often acknowledged as his finest in the genre.The score was composed for Therese Jansen, a leading London pianist. These performances are both lucid and sensitive with light and shade adding to the allure. Declining to inflate the emotions Backhaus follows a middle course that really pays dividends.
 
-- Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

The contrast, many years went by before Wagner’s opus summum gained a place in the recording repertoire. The first attempt to record part of the “Ring” produced 122 shellac disc sides between 1926 and 1932. The first complete studio recording under Georg Solti had to wait until the invention of long-playing records and extended over a period of several years, from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. The present recording, originally a coproduction of the German “Polyband” company and the Italian “Fratelli Fabbri” publishing house was the first to feature the same singers for the principal figures who appear a number of times in various parts of the tetralogy: Wotan, Brünnhilde, Siegfried, Alberich, Mime, Fricka, Erda, Fafner, and the Rheinmaidens. The artistic unity of the production was a factor of its tight recording schedule – but was nonetheless a small miracle. In August 1968, in the midst of the Nuremberg recording sessions, Soviet troops marched into Czechoslovakia. The borders were closed, and the musicians of the Czech Philharmonic were faced with the frightening prospect of not being able to return home. Heinz Schürer, production head, sound engineer, and director in one, recalls that orchestra members would fail to turn up at rehearsals and recording sessions whenever it was reported that the borders had been opened up for a short time. Thanks to the cooperation of members of the local Nuremberg orchestras, the gaps could always be filled on short notice. The ensemble that came about during this course of musical and political events was named the “Großes Symphonieorchester”.

Another remarkable fact about this “Ring” production was that it was immediately followed by a complete recording of “Lohengrin”, also under the musical direction of Hans Swarowsky and with the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the “Großes Symphonieorchester” but for most part with different vocal soloists. No more than four weeks were available for both recordings. The “Götterdämmerung” and “Lohengrin” choruses had to be recorded in the short space of three days. The Vienna State Opera Chorus had come to Nuremberg from Salzburg Festival for the recording and did not have more time then those three days. For reasons of time and money, the recordings could not be made with modern stereo technique, and the dual-track procedure employed presented enormous technical problems, especially when it came to echo effects. Last but not least, the “deluxe packaging” of the “Ring” or “Anello del Nibelungo” by the Fratelli Fabbri also deserves special mention. The recording was released on no less than thirty-two 25cm discs in dark-blue velvet sleeves with gold lettering. The inserts contained lavish illustrations and explanatory texts. “Westminster”, an American label, rereleased the recording in the 1970s, this time on normal long-playing records.

Recorded 1968.

The first piece to be decided was Box Balaenae by George Crumb. This composition, embellished with theatrical elements that break down the boundaries between genres, has for some time now been part of Trio Wiek's repertoire and has therefore been made the cornerstone of this program. It is around this piece that all the other recordings are centered. As pianist Florian Wiek reports, it would be futile to search for a universal musicological term to sum up this selection. Indeed, "the repertoire for flute trio is limited" and - from an audience perspective, at least - there are few classics written for this highly unusual formation.

The focus of this impressive release is not only the stunning performance by the Staatskapelle Dresden, but the audiophile-quality sound engineering: “Real live recording – without a safety net, so to speak, without sound engineers in dark horn-rimmed glasses and white coats – belongs to the days of direct cutting to cylinder in the early days of sound recording up to the introduction of magnetic tape after World War II. From that moment on, editing and manipulation became the order of the day – indeed, it is clearly audible on many LPs and may often cause some amusement ... In the short period during which the Direct-to-Disc process was in use, in the 1970s, the aim was to transfer purist recordings to LP without tape noise – mainly in the area of jazz – and this produced some recordings that are hailed even today as ground-breaking and legendary. Made using just one single microphone, these Electrola shellac recordings remain, after a process of careful and time-consuming restoration, a benchmark to this day when it comes to motivation, joy of musicmaking and a determination to give the best performance possible on the part of the musicians, the orchestra, the conductor and the sound engineers. This is perceptible on nearly all the tracks on this album. And the conductor Karl Böhm was surely seldom in such good spirits, so carefree – brisk in his tempi – and yet simultaneously so sensitive in imparting subtle messages. All in the hope that the crackling needle will leave some of the sound for the restoration process ...“ (Sound engineer Holger Siedler)

José Luis Turina writes of this release: “As is often the way, a seemingly insignificant event can have unexpected consequences in the long run. In this case, the trigger was a casual conversation with the members of Azahar Ensemble, only a few minutes after the second of two concerts commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Spanish National Youth Orchestra, held in the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid in autumn 2014. ‘We play more and more concerts abroad and we are always asked to include a Spanish piece from Falla, Albéniz, Turina and Granados' generation in our repertoire and… we have none!’, I recall them saying. Successful work, as I said, but above all satisfactory for various reasons: because it is my grandfather's music that I have enjoyed since my early years – first as a listener, and eventually as a pianist – and, moreover, because of the opportunity to work so closely with Azahar Ensemble, with whom I have maintained a close bond, beyond a merely professional relationship, right from the very moment of its foundation within the Spanish National Youth Orchestra. Chamber music cannot be performed at a higher level, nor can you bring together a group of people with as much magic, personality and camaraderie as Azahar Ensemble. It is a true privilege to work with them and for them.”

“In 2018, the music of Ozu's films has been revived by the Japanese pianist Miki Aoki. Spending most of her life abroad, she told me that Japanese composers and their works were not so familiar to her, but that she was very drawn to my father’s music. My father’s vintage works have been revived in this new era by a talented artist: Miki Aoki. These piano works are absolute gems in every sense. I hope you enjoy the music of my father, Takanobu Saito, works which transcend into this new era. The beginning of the story of this album goes back to 2015. I was sorting through my father’s belongings when I came across an old cassette tape. The label on it said “Ozu Yasujiro memorial piano album composed and played by Takanobu Saito”. I had no idea what this could be, and since I did not own a cassette tape player I could not listen to it. But the curiosity stayed in my head and I could not stop thinking about what might be on this cassette tape. I finally went out and purchased a new cassette tape player. On this tape was my own father playing the music from Yasujiro Ozu’s films. There were main themes and polkas from the films “Tokyo Story”, “Early Spring”, “Tokyo Twilight”, “Equinox Flower”, “Floating Weeds”, “Late Autumn” and “An Autumn Afternoon” for all of which my father composed the music.” (Tamio Saito, son of Takanobu Saito)

Just a few repeat listening sessions leave me with the indelible impression that we are dealing with some of the most agreeable music of its kind and of its time—all the more notable given the truly great string quartets that have been written and published by his much more famous contemporaries. -- Jens F. Laurson, FANFARE [reviewing Volume 2 of this series]

A memento of what must have been a very moving occasion.

As far as I know, this is Sir Colin Davis’s second recording of Tippett’s oratorio; his first, made for Philips in 1975 and featuring such luminaries as Jessye Norman, Janet Baker and John Shirley-Quirk, has always been one of the top choices. There are also valuable performances from Pritchard (1957, the pioneering recording), Rozhdestvensky (a live BBC relay on Carlton Classics) and, not least, the composer himself (a technically fallible but nevertheless overwhelming performance with the CBSO on Naxos). Davis also performed A Child of our Time at the Barbican last December and this was recorded for LSO Live.

Sir Colin has performed a number of works by British composers during his appearances in Dresden. His acclaimed reading of Elgar’s First Symphony has already appeared in this edition and he also performed Britten’s War Requiem in 2000 in commemoration of the destruction of Dresden. Performances of A Child of our Time in Germany carry a particular charge, bringing as they do associations of atonement and reparation. This is further confirmed by the lavishly illustrated CD booklet, which provides a detailed background to the events in Europe that inspired Tippett’s oratorio. There is also some fascinating information on Dresden’s synagogue, designed, like its famous opera house, by Gottfried Semper and destroyed during the Kristallnacht of 1938. No texts are provided.

Davis, aided by the spacious acoustic of the Semper Opera House, sets a steady pace for the most part, emphasising the dramatic weight and power of his conception. The chorus is backwardly placed but such is the excellence of their diction that this is not a problem. The oratorio is paced unerringly, the chorus providing rich tone in “Steal Away” vivid characterisation of persecutors and persecuted in “Burn down their houses” followed by a sombre reading of “Go Down Moses”. The sequence of Handel-inspired recitatives and arias in the central part of the oratorio move from fear, terror, anger and, finally, acceptance. At the end Davis draws the threads together with complete mastery for the final “Deep River”.

The soloists all characterise their roles extremely vividly, and although occasionally some idiosyncratic pronunciation can make for disconcerting listening this is a relatively small blemish when we are faced with such obvious involvement. Ute Selbig possesses a bright, full soprano - she sang Sibelius’s Luonnotar in the first half of the concert at which this recording was made - and soars effortlessly over the other forces in the spirituals and elsewhere. The late Jerry Hadley sings with passionate although somewhat plaintive tone, and Robert Holl is a tower of strength in the important bass part.

Sir Colin’s reading is undoubtedly authoritative and moving, with a powerful and responsive chorus and a team of soloists who are extremely involved dramatically, although vocally more fallible than some of their counterparts on disc. I wouldn’t say this new disc superseded any of the versions listed above, but it does provide a memento of what must have been a very moving occasion in the Semperoper, and occasionally surpasses its predecessors in terms of sheer emotional commitment.

-- Ewan McCormick, MusicWeb International

Joseph Keilberth (1908-1968) belongs to that generation of conductors who continued after Furtwangler’s death to hold the musical heritage of German and Austrian composers in particularly high regard. Furthermore, Keilberth exhibited a very special love for the works of Max Reger and Hans Pfitzner. It is to that predilection of his that we owe a number of outstanding recordings released here for the first time in this release. Keilberth began his career at the age of seventeen in his native city of Karlsruhe as a rehearsal pianist at the municipal theatre, going on to be conductor and finally, in 1935, General Music Director there. In 1940 he assumed the direction of the German Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague. After 1945 he successfully applied himself in Dresden- under the most arduous of conditions- to renewing the great musical tradition of this war-ravaged city. He brought in Rudolf Kempe, who succeeded him in the position of overall musical director. Keilberth went to Hamburg in 1951 as head of the Hanseatic city’s Philharmonic State Orchestra, with which he remained closely associated for many years. It was at this time that he joined former members of his Prague orchestra in founding the Bamberger Symphoniker, remaining that orchestra’s principal conductor until his death. He died doing what he loved, suffering a heart attack while conducting a performance of “Tristan” in Munich in 1968.

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REVIEW:

The Brahms Second and Bruckner Ninth are both solid, taken at normal tempos, nothing exaggerated or mannered. He is careful to allow for detail and avoid rushing little notes; the Bruckner, done in concert with the Berlin Philharmonic (1960 in Salzburg), shows the orchestra at its best, and the Schubert Eighth is warm and relaxed. Of all the symphonies, though, the best is the Schumann Fourth, which is fast and exciting. Unfortunately it has the worst sound (1952 concert with Cologne Radio), and the brass are too prominent.

The concertos are no less fine. Kulenkampff was a major violinist of the earlier 20th Century, and his Bruch concerto is beautifully done, though definitely in an older style. Annie Fischer is terrific in the Schumann. Her playing is impetuous, almost unpredictable, but her phrasing and touch are wonderful. Rosl Schmid has plenty of technique with which to handle the difficulties of Pfitzner's piano concerto very well.

Keilberth felt an attraction to Reger’s music, and we find four substantial works here. We also have some 82 minutes of Wagner excerpts. The selections are uneven. The two preludes from Siegfried are not very interesting out of context. The music from Tannhäuser goes nearly half an hour, while the Valkyrie Ride is less than three minutes, up through the arrival of only three Valkyries, and then is cut off. All of that aside, there is a lot of exciting Wagner here, and the best is the Lohengrin preludes, recorded not in Bayreuth, where the sound is murky, but in studio with the Hamburg Philharmonic. Everything here is instrumental, except for the three (unidentified) Valkyries.

The other bits and pieces tend to be very good, largely because they are studio recordings from the later 50s. In general I find his conducting bracing and energetic, more direct than contemplative.

– American Record Guide

World Premiere Recordings! The Bach family is not the only one to have produced several major composers. The Russian Jewish Krein family is almost unknown outside Russia. Abram Krein, father of the family, had seven sons; all became successful professional musicians. Works of four of his sons are represented on this disc. Pianist and musicologist Jascha Nemtsov started his international career in 1992. He has recorded almost 30 CDs, featuring many world premieres amidst a vast spectrum of works.