Romantic Era
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Emil Gilels Plays Tchaikovsky (1959)
Beethoven: Complete Works For Piano And Cello / Pressler, Meneses
The joy of hearing two master musicians getting Beethoven absolutely right
Admirers of the Beaux Arts Trio may be distraught at the news that Menahem Pressler is to disband the group he founded. Yet he here serves notice, one hopes, of a slew of fascinating projects to follow. There is much of the art that conceals art in these simply lovely, gentle yet probing performances. It's an album to live with, and one looks forward to Pressler's next venture.
-- Gramophone [7/2008]
Rossini: Torvaldo E Dorliska / De Marchi, Cigna, Et Al
The opera is not in the top 10 of Rossini's great output--it breaks no new ground--but it's quite enjoyable despite being neither serious nor comic. Torvaldo has a couple of fine arias, as does Dorliska, the first-act finale is excellent, and even the basses and baritones have some good, if not altogether memorable, music.
This performance is very good indeed. Taped live in Bad Wildbad in July, 2003, stage noises do not interfere and there are precious few problems with ensembles, missed notes, etc., perhaps because there were patch-up sessions. Paolo Cigna and Huw Rhys-Evans are our heroine and hero and they're both up to the task. The former has plenty of high-flying and florid music and she sings it all accurately and with the right emphasis, while Rhys-Evans' very light, sweet voice copes well enough without the word "virtuoso" (or "Blake" or "Florez") coming to mind.
Michele Bianchini as the Duke exhibits a good-sized voice that may lack heft in the middle but that otherwise is a pleasure to hear. Mauro Utzeri, as the villain-turned-good guy Giorgio, sings with great character and a light tone (he's billed as a baritone); his duet with the Duke is a high spot. The rest of the cast is just fine.
Alessandro de Marchi leads a tight performance, one in which neither recitatives nor slower passages drag, and he keeps up with the singers nicely. Even a superb conductor would be unable to make the music of our villain, the Duke, sound villainous (this is Rossini's shortcoming in this opera), but he gives the work a respectable amount of drama nonetheless and his orchestra and chorus are excellent. No libretto is supplied but the track-by-track synopsis is very helpful.
There is another live recording of this opera, from Radio Switzerland in 1992 and starring tenor Ernesto Palacio (on Arkadia), but I haven't seen it in years--and at any rate, this Naxos set is better. Calling all Rossinians--who will also enjoy spotting bits and pieces of some of the composer's other operas sprinkled throughout.
--Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com
Rachmaninov: Piano Concertos 1-4, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini / Luisi, De La Salle, Philharmonia Zurich
– Forbes (Jens F. Laurson)
Ries: Nocturnes Nos. 1 & 2 - Mozart: Serenade No. 10 / Schweizer Blaeserensemble
cpo continues their exploration with Ries’ Notturni for Winds, works exemplifying his great compositional talent. Although set for the same instruments, the works are very different in ambition and dimension. The recording also includes Mozart’s Partita in B flat–better known as the Gran Partita–in the version for wind octet. This release is most highly recommended to all fans of good chamber music!
Arensky: Five Suites For Two Pianos / Genova & Dimitrov Piano Duo
Brahms: Piano Trios / Eskar Trio
The Eskar Trio have established themselves as one of Denmark’s leading chamber music ensembles and Cpo are proud to present their interpretation of Johann Brahms’s Piano Trios.
In addition to the three well-known trios is the Piano Trio in A major, a work whose authorship continues to be a matter of controversy. The anonymous score from a Bonn manuscript collection of the nineteenth century was discovered in 1924 (now extant), and it is thought to be a sole survivor from collection of piano trios the self-critical composer withheld from publication.
Franck: Piano Works / Michael Korstick
César Franck’s great Violin Sonata in A, arranged for piano by Alfred Cortot, forms the focus on our new solo album featuring the gifted and successful pianist Michael Korstick. “The version without disturbing scratching noises does indeed have its appeal,” Korstick ironically opines and then explains, “I know that I’m now making myself extremely unpopular with all violinists, but some things come across even better in the version for piano alone. One doesn’t miss the violin.” This is of course a controversial statement, especially since it refers to the embodiment of the sensuous romantic violin sonata. “The fact is that Franck almost always thinks starting from the organ,” thus Korstick’s argument continues, “and Cortot so genially distributed the voices of the octaves that the polyphonic structure becomes clearer.” The audience at its premiere in Paris in 1885 was immediately enthused, and most pianists continue to be so even today. Michael Korstick regards this work as Franck’s “most important, central solo piece,” and the Franck expert Jörg Demus views the Prélude, Aria et Final as one of the few “lucid” compositions of the late romantic period and pardons it for its difficulty in playing technique: “But what do difficulties mean when the emotional content compensates one for it in such a rich way!”
Liszt: Années De Pèlerinage Iii - Venezia E Napoli / Korstick
Weber: Complete Overtures / Griffiths, WDR Sinfonieorchester

It might be easy to overlook this new CPO disc of all Weber’s overtures. But it would be a mistake to do so, for what we have here is a recording that will have you tapping your toe along to this glorious music afresh. What makes the disc so enjoyable, perhaps, is the fact that each overture feels carefully characterized.
British conductor Howard Griffiths brings thrillingly vibrant and lucid playing from Cologne’s WDR Sinfonieorchester, which is captured in brilliantly clear and realistic sound by West German Radio’s engineers.
Griffiths imbues each work with real urgency, which the orchestra match with virtuosity across the board. Nor is he ever afraid to broaden the tempo and take his time when it’s required. The wind-playing is characterful, with a twinkle in the eye of the oboe solos and a mixture of liveliness and mellifluousness from the principal clarinet. The brass-playing is also especially fine throughout.
– Gramophone
Raff: String Quartets Nos. 2, 3, 4 & 8 / Mannheim String Quartet
Schubert, F.: String Quartets Nos. 12-15 / String Quintet, O
Rossini: Eduardo e Cristina / Gelmetti, Virtuosi Brunensis
Rossini’s Eduardo e Cristina was a huge success in its day, but as perhaps the last centone opera (one assembled from previously existing material) by a major composer, it became forgotten under the subsequent tide of Romantic idealism. Today we can put these prejudices aside and enjoy this masterful creation for what it is: a hugely entertaining parade of beautiful and spectacular musical ‘hits’ set to a familiar story of secret love, dramatic crisis and triumphant resolution. This 2017 Bad Wildbad revival was summed up as “an evening of pure bel canto pleasure!” by Operagazet.
Saverio Mercadante: Don Chisciotte Alle Nozze Di Gamaccio
A contemporary of Rossini and Donizetti, Saverio Mercadante was one of Italy’s most productive 19th-century operatic composers. Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamaccio was written during the composer’s stay in Spain, and is based on a chapter of Cervante’s Don Quixote in which the hero prevents the forced marriage of a poor farm girl to the wealthy Camacho. Magnificently entertaining and dramatically innovative, Don Chisciotte combines fashionable Neapolitan style with Spanish folk music elements in an unforgettable melodramma giocoso. It is heard on this recording in its first modern performance.
PIANO TRANSCRIPTIONS
Bruckner: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 6
Ries: Piano Concertos Vol 5 / Christopher Hinterhuber
The fourteen works for piano and orchestra of Ferdinand Ries stand alongside those of Hummel as the finest and most important of their kind from the early decades of the 19th century. Intensely lyrical and yet displaying at times a rugged Beethovenian grandeur, Ries’s eight concertos are works of impressive musical stature. In this fifth and final recording we encounter the first and last of his published concertos and the virtuosic Rondeau brillant, Op. 144. “Sparkling performances... the recording is first rate.” (Penguin Guide on Vol. 3, 8.570440).
COMPLETE SONGS
Brahms: Serenade No. 1 / Weber: Clarinet Concerto No. 2
Verdi: Complete Ballet Music From The Operas / Serebrier, Bournemouth Symphony

The only other serious competition in this repertoire, and it’s not as complete as this release (the Aida items are missing), is an old Philips Due mostly conducted by the late Antonio de Almeida. Those are good performances, but they don’t outclass these, either interpretively or sonically. You might say that it doesn’t take much interpretive insight to conduct Italian ballet music, but ultimately the goal is always the same: to avoid boredom. This may be even harder in music whose purpose is largely decorative and expressively limited. It’s to Serebrier’s (and Verdi’s) credit that there isn’t a bar here that fails to entertain, or that doesn’t make an excellent case for believing that this music is of much higher quality than its reputation suggests.
The ballet from Aida is well known, of course, but that from Otello is a minor masterpiece in a strikingly similar vein. “The Four Seasons” ballet from I vespri siciliani is Verdi’s largest, lasting a solid half an hour, and it’s wonderfully performed here. It has moments that you might mistake for Delibes or Tchaikovsky. Don Carlos is also fully mature Verdi, while the ballet in Macbeth is pretty well known as it’s often included in modern performances of the opera (the witches’ waltz at the end is particularly fun). The two big “finds” for most listeners will be the extensive ballet music from Jérusalem (a.k.a. I lombardi), and the similarly large-scale (20 minutes) dance episodes from Il trovatore. This last item quotes the “gypsy” tunes from the opera’s first act, including the Anvil Chorus, and it’s really delightful. The sonics are clear and vivid, and with a playing time of nearly two hours, this set easily becomes the modern reference for this undervalued repertoire.
-- ClassicsToday.com
Rossini: Complete Overtures Vol 4 / Benda
Ricciardo e Zoraide, for example, has an unconventional form, ending quietly with a lengthy aria for solo flute, preceded by a romantic horn solo. Torvaldo e Dorliska reveals that Rossini was always ready with a new and interesting take on his signature “crescendo.” This one ends, not with the conventional climactic tutti, but with a series of more lyrical phrases for the violins. Armida’s opening march leads to another insanely difficult horn solo (the MET’s player blew it horribly at the performance of the opera that I saw). Rossini must have worked with some astoundingly fine individual players.
The performances, as with the other volumes in this series, are crisp, fleet, and shapely, with excellent solo winds nicely balanced against well-coordinated strings. Conductor Christian Benda also takes care to handle the percussion with good taste and common sense. For example, he reserves the cymbals for the very end of The Barber of Seville, an effective decision.
If you’re looking for the complete Rossini overtures, the only other option you have is Marriner’s set on Philips. These performances, on the whole, have just that much more more character and sparkle. They deserve your consideration.
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
SAINT-SAENS: Violin Concerto No. 3 / BERLIOZ: Roman Carnival
Franck: String Quartet & Piano Quintet / Jumppanen, Quatuor Danel

With the present release the gifted Belgian Quatuor Danel ensemble turn to two masterpieces by Cesar Franck: his passionate Piano Quintet and the String Quartet. The three-movement Quintet, like Brahms’s op. 34 an expansion of the Schumannian model, is one of Franck’s most infamous works. It immediately established itself, and a second performance with the pianist Marie Poitevin, the later dedicatee of the Prelude, Choral et Fugue, convinced the members of the Societe Nationale. Franck’s String Quartet, his last major work, was similarly acclaimed by its first listeners. After its first performance in April 1890, with tears in his eyes, Cesar Franck is said to have told his pupil Vincent d’Indy, "Now you see: at long last the public is beginning to understand me."
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REVIEW:
Both of these works have been admirably served on disc, but this new recording is the most gripping yet - and by a long shot. Urgently recommended.
– Gramophone
Schubert: Winterreise, Op. 89, D. 911
Rimsky-Korsakov: Romances / Prudenskaya, Garben
Still, one has to concede that Professor van den Hoogen always gives good value for money, and he clearly values Rimsky-Korsakov’s output of songs highly. And the performances here do much to justify his enthusiasm. Maria Prudenskaya has spent most of the last ten years working in German opera houses and specialising in Wagner and Verdi, and she fully comprehends the dramatic demands that high romantic music demands of its singers. She was a superbly responsive mezzo soloist in a live Bavarian Radio recording of Verdi’s Requiem under Mariss Jansons a couple of years ago, which I reviewed enthusiastically for this site. Her Waltraute in the 2016 Bayreuth Ring was a towering highlight in an admittedly generally execrable production, and her absolute steadiness of tonal production and gleaming higher register are a real pleasure to hear – not a suspicion of Slavonic wobble here. She also displays a plentiful employment of reflective half-tone, as well as an unexpected (and beautifully floated) upper range in the oriental-sounding Op.2/2 (track 30). Her accompanist Cord Garben is a stalwart contributor to many recitals of song, and as always he relishes the challenge of unfamiliar repertoire. Rimsky-Korsakov was not himself a pianist, and his writing for the instrument was condemned during his lifetime as unidiomatic; but he always gets the effects that he wants to convey. The recording was made some three years before the aforementioned Verdi Requiem – it is not clear why it has waited so long for release – and the recorded sound is fine, even if a little more reverberation might have been welcome.
The disc assembles a whole collection of ‘romances’ identified solely by opus numbers on the CD box, and by transliterated Russian titles at the front of the booklet. They vary in length from just under a minute to a maximum of four minutes; there are thirty individual items here. As might be expected they are all highly proficient settings, generally reflective rather than dramatic, and all have an immediate melodic appeal. Rimsky’s choice of poetic texts is admirable, with Tolstoy, Lermontov, Pushkin and Heine (in Russian translation) featured. They are not assembled in order of composition, which robs the listener of a chance to hear how the composer’s style developed over the years; but Rimsky’s opus numbers are often misleading, with earlier pieces subjected to later revision – it is a pity that the extensive booklet note did not find room to explore this development, including indeed references to songs not actually included on this disc! There are moments which occasion surprise: the clear echo of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata in Op.39/1 (track 5), for example, is an unusual reference to non-Russian material. The treatment of the theme quoted by Stravinsky in The Firebird at the outset of Op.8/2 (track 23) is totally different from that of Rimsky’s pupil.
The songs are generally grouped by the poet whose verses are set, although Rimsky does not seem to make any real stylistic discrimination between his lyrics. Most will I suspect be totally unfamiliar to listeners, although some may have crossed the hearer’s path in miscellaneous recitals of Russian song. But since titles (let alone translations) may differ between one recording and another, there seems to be little point in itemising them here.
So far as I can see this is the only current available single disc devoted entirely to the composer’s output in the field, although Brilliant Classics do have a three-disc compendium of his ‘complete songs’ although there appear to be some individual items omitted (77 songs are included out of some 80 apparently given in published editions), and they are distributed between a whole raft of different singers and pianists. This set suffers also from the fact that no sung texts or translations were provided, even in its original issue on Chant du Monde in 1993. Rimsky-Korsakov enthusiasts will obviously have to own the ‘complete’ set; but for lesser mortals this CD, with its judicious selection complete with transliterated text and translations into both German and English, will be more readily approachable. The music itself will certainly prove enjoyable.
– MusicWeb International (Paul Corfield Godfrey)
Arensky: Piano Quintet
P. TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 - Uppsala Chamber Orchestra
Ries, F.: Konige in Israel (Die)
Oxford Church Anthems / Darlington, Christ Church Cathedral
Strauss: Eine Nacht In Venedig / Clear, Singer, Schorkhuber, Irosch
Live performance from 1999
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Run Time: 126 minutes
