The Graffman/Szell recordings of Prokofiev's First and Third Piano Concertos gained "classic" status almost from their original release, and they still hold up very well. While the First Concerto may not have quite the glittering edge that Martha Argerich brings to it, there is certainly no want of virtuosity on Graffman's part, and it practically goes without saying that Szell and Cleveland are terrific. They are particularly wonderful in the Third Concerto's central variations, whose dry wit seems tailor-made for these performers. The two sonatas are equally impressive, with Graffman's unfailingly intelligent shaping of the Second Sonata's big opening movement and his romp through the single-movement Third Sonata obstinately memorable. The sonics have dated a bit in the four decades since original release, but hardly so as to distract from the interpretive excellence on hand, with the DSD remastering very sensitively accomplished.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

This is the kind of release that is fully worthy of a major label like RCA: two of today's top artists working at peak form, delivering the goods in a serious program of worthy repertoire. Schubert is one of the few composers whose range is wide enough to allow the creation of a rewarding evening devoted just to him, and his piano duos (here played on two pianos rather than by two pianists at one keyboard) live in a world all their own. Evgeny Kissin has done some of his best work in Schubert (the "Wanderer" Fantasy, for example), and James Levine, no slouch as a pianist himself, clearly loves this music as much as anyone. The program includes three of Schubert's very greatest works in the medium, all of them dating from the end of his brief life.


The earliest is the Grand Duo, really a symphony that Schubert never got around to scoring (the most famous orchestral arrangement is Joachim's, and it deserves to be a repertory piece). Much of the writing is extremely orchestral in conception, which means unpianistic, and the trick here lies not so much in making the piece sound like piano music (who cares, really?), but simply in focusing the listener's attention on the ongoing symphonic musical process. Key to this is timing, and here Kissin and Levine don't set a foot wrong. The first movement perfectly balances "allegro" with "moderato" in an unbroken arc of sustained tension, perhaps inspired by the presence of the very well-behaved Carnegie Hall audience. A beautifully shaped andante leads to a boisterous scherzo, its interesting harmonic underpinning unobtrusively highlighted where necessary (using two pianos probably helps here). You only need listen to the closing bars of the finale, music that often sounds too thin on the keyboard, to understand just how perfectly timed this performance is.


The Grand Duo occupies the second half of this concert. The program begins with a subtle, fluid account of the haunting Fantasie in F minor. It's interesting how performers who can seem affected when playing solo (as Kissin sometimes does) behave themselves when working in an ensemble situation. Here, the lovely opening theme has the right elegiac simplicity, the final fugue great clarity and rhythmic point. I'm not giving up such favorites as Perahia/Lupu in this music, but Kissin/Levine offer an interpretation that's really very affecting. And their ferocious take on the "Lebensstürme" Allegro D. 947 is just plain thrilling--a turbulent, clenched fist of a performance that brings the first half of the program to a grandly passionate conclusion. Indeed, taken as a whole, the first part minor/second part major cast of the whole evening works extremely well as an emotional sequence for continuous listening.


The two encores, Characteristic March No. 1 D. 968b and the inevitable March Militaire No. 1 D. 733, are played much more quickly than the music requires, but then the point here is simply to wow the audience, and I'd be the last person to deny Kissin and Levine a bit of fun after such a long and tiring program. RCA's engineers also deserve credit not just for leaving out the audience (even though there's a good bit of applause around and between works), but also for finding a sonic framework that minimizes clatter while maximizing clarity. The two-piano (or piano duo) medium can come across as overly thick and unpleasantly dense, but the slight dryness of the acoustic seems just the ticket in this case. In short, what must have been a splendid live event has been captured for posterity with total success. You might prefer this or that version of individual works, but taken as whole this is pretty special.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Time stands still for Bernadette Peters, a LEGEND OF BROADWAY whose delicate beauty, inimitable voice and powerful range are as they were when she burst on the scene, a Broadway baby barely out of her teens.

SYMPHONY NO.9

ROVEN The Runaway Bunny. 1,3 CHAPPELL Paddington Bear’s First Concert. 2 KLEINSINGER Tubby the Tuba 2 • Barry Wordsworth, cond; Brooke Shields (nar); 1 Stephen Fry (nar); 2 Ittai Shapira (vn); 3 Royal PO • SONY 22855 (66:42)


What follows may disqualify me as a reviewer of the above. First, I never grew up, and at age 62, I have no intention of doing so. Second, I still occasionally watch an episode Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood solely on the grounds that he likes me just the way I am—one of the most empowering benedictions ever bestowed upon a child of any age. As the father of two grown and quite accomplished daughters who were daily regaled during their formative years by the choicest examples of children’s lit that my late wife, a children’s librarian, could obtain, I am well acquainted with the texts that so eloquently inform this release. The Runaway Bunny is from Margaret Brown’s classic 1942 children’s book of the same title; Paddington Bear’s First Concert is based on Michael Bond’s series of children’s books about a marmalade eating bear “from Darkest Peru”; and Tubby the Tuba is the word-half of the 1941–1945 collaboration between author/actor Michael Tripp and composer George Kleinsinger, which over the years has been successfully disseminated via multiple recordings and film animations, and which has been cited by the Library of Congress in 2006 as a landmark in audio history.


The Runaway Bunny was originally conceived by composer Glen Roven as a piece for solo violin, singer, and orchestra—designed as a vehicle for Israeli violinist Ittai Shapira. In the course of the project’s development, Shapira suggested substituting a narrator for the singer. Given the results, it was an excellent choice that spotlights the powerful eloquence of the seemingly modestly unpoetic words. I found the music coupled with Brooke Shields’s narration deeply moving.


Most of the “audio product” aimed at children which has come across my desk over the years has been plagued by mawkishness, condescension, terminal cuteness—afflictions that most children I know find inherently repulsive. On that topic I recently had a conversation with my eldest daughter, who is currently continuing her anthropological studies of Central Asia on a Fulbright grant in Helsinki. I asked her if she, like me, ever felt embarrassed when adults spoke to us, when we were children, in baby talk. Her answer, “I felt more sorry and embarrassed for the adults than for myself.”


The texts on this release are self-recommending and are delivered by Brooke Shields and Stephen Fry as one ageless human being speaking to another, and in ways that uncannily convey the metaphorically richness of the words. The music is witty, urbane, often ironic, and as sophisticated as all children inherently are until our adult-controlled world succeeds in dumbing them down. The music to The Runaway Bunny proves to be a fine ad hoc violin concerto that highlights Ittai Shapira’s estimable skills.


One of this offering’s agendas is to introduce children to the joys and richness of the symphony orchestra. To put this into a larger perspective, this offering is, in its own way, on the exalted level of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf , or Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.


The sound is up to the highest of current standards, and the performances by the Royal Philharmonic conducted by Barry Wordsworth show them in fine fettle, as have so many others by him that currently grace my library.


In searching for a way to close this piece, I was tempted to say something to the effect of “recommended to the child in all of us.” Instead I will take my leave by saying that it helps us to respect the child in all of us, especially that which resides in our children.


FANFARE: William Zagorski

Her nickname "La Superba" can be comprehended by any non-Spanish speaker, and the passion of this Spanish soprano translates into every language. Her talent for shifting from power to delicacy is on display all across these 2 CDs as she performs pieces from Verdi's La Traviata and Rigoletto ; Puccini's La Boheme ; Wagner's Tristan Und Isolde ; Verdi's Requiem Mass (CD debut), and more!

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (Original Motion Picture

MAGIC LAND

With this release Canizares has for the first time arranged the piano masterpiece by Albeniz for two guitars. Playing both guitar parts himself, Canizares' interpretations transports listeners to a world of Spanish tradition and culture.

Sony Masterworks BEE MOVIE: MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE - Rupert Gregson-Williams.

A selection of excerpts from larger concerto, chamber, and solo works of Beethoven, Brahms, Ravel, and others, as recorded by this exceptional American pianist.

From the hero of Werther to the villain of Carmen, Carreras has shined in a wide range of operatic roles. His membership in the Three Tenors increased his fame yet more; now, he's the star of his own 2-CD anthology: Nussun Dorma from Turandot; E Lucevan Le Stelle from Tosca; C'est Toi! Ce'st Moi from Carmen plus everything from Grieg and Strauss to Rodgers & Hammerstein!

Here on one disc for the first time are nince extraordinary performances of the aria by tenors ranging from Jussi Bjorling and Mario Lanza to Ben Heppner and Marcelo Alvarez - plus surprising crossover versions by Michael Bolton and Amici Forever. This disc is an absolute afor of "Puccini's greatest hit."

MY TUNES

Wonderfully warm, committed and utterly convincing. A fascinating disc.

If you are puzzled, as I was, by the title of this CD then there is a logical explanation which is given at the beginning of the booklet notes. It was Julius’s cousin Conrad Röntgen (1845-1923) who discovered X-Rays, who won the Nobel Prize in 1901 and who ultimately transformed medical science. Knowledge of Conrad however led Grieg to say, after hearing a piece by Julius, that the music “went right to the bone”, hence the CD title. Although it seems to be just a clever remark it has more than a ray of truth!

The music of Julius Röntgen is just beginning to be noticed again after years of lying forgotten on dusty shelves. “Oh no,” you say, “Not another mediocre worthy dug out by musicians with nothing else to do.” Well if you think that then read on - indeed listen on - because I can tell you that this is very fine music indeed. The revival which is just beginning is worth every penny and every column inch spent on it. So let’s forget that this music was written when Bartók, Schoenberg and Ives were at their heights and take it with an innocent ear just as it comes. Indeed it may be more helpful to remember that Röntgen is almost an exact contemporary of Elgar.

A few words of biography first. In 1924 Röntgen retired from public life to concentrate on composing. Although already quite prolific, many more works started to flow from him. He had studied in Leipzig, meeting Liszt and Franz Lachner, Carl Reinecke and Heinrich von Herzogenberg, but he made the surprising decision to live and work in Amsterdam. There, amongst other activities, he was one of the founders of the Concertgebouw and even more significantly he was instrumental in establishing the Amsterdam Conservatoire. He worked there not as a Director but as an accompanist and so he had time to compose. He also had influence as Director of an organization with the snappy title ‘The Society for the Promotion of Musical Arts’ which meant at that time much new music.

You may fear that Brahms might have been a strong influence. Röntgen was the soloist in the first Dutch performance in 1884 of the master’s 2nd Piano Concerto under Brahms’s direction. After that Röntgen saw Brahms socially as it were for many years. Also Röntgen liked to work on quite large canvases, yet he is no clone of Brahms indeed there is much originality here. The ghostly and eerie second movement of the Viola Sonata’s outer section is like nothing else I can describe, and the finale has an occasional touch of Debussy about it. The initial impassioned Allegro has an opening idea which has remained with me for some days. The excellent booklet notes by Simon Wynberg mentions César Franck as an influence.

The CD begins with a fine and arresting work: the Quintet for piano and strings. In its opening movement there is a restless and memorable idea, sextuplets or quadruplets in the piano and cello with the violins above singing a lovely melody canonically in the minor key. The melting sequences also give the music an unforgettable character. The compound time second movement, marked Allegro, is rhythmically memorable with a wonderful passage towards the end over an ostinato pedal building to the final bars. The slow movement is questing and exploratory at first until a cello melody answered by violin takes over with a melody which Borodin would have been proud of. At the end of the contrapuntal and at times fugal Con moto finale Röntgen quotes briefly his first movement opening and ends the piece in a questing atmosphere.

The Clarinet Trio falls into three movements with an especially sunny initial movement. Brahms did come to my mind during this piece but none the worse for that. The main weight of the work rests on the finale with its memorable ‘Sostenuto’ opening suddenly transforming into a friendly Allegro commodo. It is the earliest work (1921) here and has the occasional Mendelssohnian touch in its lightness and sophistication.

The String Sextet really has little in common with the two by Brahms although it is in a late-Romantic style. The first movement may remind one more of Max Reger; the booklet writer mentions Max Bruch. With the grace and ease of the second movement Andante we step gently into the world of Dvo?ák, except that the middle section is unexpectedly storm-tossed before subsiding again. Curiously it’s followed by another Andante which is a set of variations and then an Allegro of great vigour, especially for the cellos.

The performances are wonderfully warm, committed and utterly convincing. These are young performers who, one assumes, have not come across Röntgen before. The booklet pictures them and gives some biographical details. I remember reading a sensational review of their debut in New York in 2003. This is, in my view, top quality musicianship and even if the music was not that interesting I would still be praising the music-making. The recording only serves to enhance all that they achieve.

This then is a fascinating disc and I urge you to look into it. From there you might join me in a search for more music by this, as yet, little known but true master of the early twentieth century.

-- Gary Higginson, MusicWeb International