Glenn Gould: The Composer

BERLITZ PASSPORT - THE MUSIC O

BARTOK: CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA

A decade or so ago, a recital of Franck and Liszt from Murray Perahia might have caused some surprise. But one of the most refreshing things about this artist is his growing refusal to be typecast. The Franck (like all but two of the Liszt pieces) was recorded at The Maltings in Snape, a venue he knows and likes so well. This I enjoyed for its stylish reminders of the composer's long devotion to the Church—i.e. for a strain of simple devoutness, free from all heart-on-sleeve emotionalism, with which he invests the first two movements. The central choral is allowed an easy flow, and I liked his dynamic restraint in the first two statements of the chorale theme itself so as to leave plenty in reserve for the characteristically Franckian emergence from darkness into light as the work progresses. Discreet pedalling ensures that texture never clots in the fugue, and the homecoming is truly joyous.

The rest of the 60 minutes go to Liszt, and here my only slight (but only very slight) disappointment came in the Mephisto Waltz, recorded in UCLA's Royce Hall in Los Angeles. Needless to say it is played with all Perahia's customary command, finesse and what I can only describe as aristocratic musical discernment. Yet I still felt that just that last touch of devilry was missing on the dance-floor (even more piquant accentuation might perhaps have helped), and likewise the ultimate in lingering sensuous seduction in Liszt's "lascivious, caressing dreams of love". For the rest I have nothing but praise—starting with the cutting intensity Perahia brings to the melodic line in Petrarch's tale of unrequited love ("Sonetto 104"). By comparison, Louis Lortie on Chandos (in a less forward and less sharp-cut sounding recent Maltings recording) seems to shrink from this sonnet's acutest disquiet and pain—such as in the passage marked agitato, and then crescendo and rinforzando from about 3'46"-4'17" in track 5 of Perahia's disc. Perahia's liquidity in "Au bard d'une source" and shimmering whispers in the first Concert Study, "Waldesrauschen" (as spacious as Arrau's—now part of the Philips Arrau Edition) are wholly ravishing as sound per se, while "Gnomenreigen" in its turn brings reminders of that delicately scintillating brilliance that always gave him a place apart when gambol ling with Mendelssohn in concerto finales. His range of keyboard colour in the concluding Rhapsodic espagnole (the second and finer of Liszt's pair) is as ear-catching as are his rhythmic spring, his teasing caprice and his exuberant climaxes.

Full marks to his engineers for so faithfully capturing so wide a dynamic range—and, incidentally, to Sony for including so generously spacious a booklet (with full quotations from Lenau, Petrarch and Schiller).

-- Joan Chissell, Gramophone [10/1991]

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 8 SWEET,

BERLITZ PASSPORT - THE MUSIC O

MOZART: PIANO SONATAS, ETC AN

This thoroughly recommendable issue is most welcome on CD, where its appreciable attributes can be even more clearly heard. Each singer has been carefully chosen for his or her task, and the contrast in timbres is, for the most part, illuminating. My single reservation concerns Heather Harper whom I now find a little cool for Sheherazade, in spite of the obvious distinction of her phrasing, but then this cycle isn't that well suited to Boulez's talents for stereoscopic precision and minute calculation. The other three singers have hardly been bettered as interpreters of their songs, and Boulez and his BBC and Parisian colleagues play throughout with delicacy combined with pinpoint accuracy. The recordings, made at different times in the 1970s and 1980s, are finely balanced. So I am as enthusiastic about the disc as I was back in 1984, if not more so.

-- Gramophone [4/1987]

I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues

NEW YEAR'S CONCERT 1990 MEHTA

The cassette version of this recording is no longer available.

A thoughtful performance of Mussorgsky's masterpiece, with Ghiaurov conveying a dignified and reflective portrait of Tsar Boris.

Mussorgsky's original Boris Godunov, without benefit of Rimsky-Korsakov, has become more or less accepted now, for recordings as well as on the stage; though that begs the question of what is the original. David Lloyd-Jones, in his authoritative edition, uses the word "initial" for the 1869 version which was turned down by the St Petersburg Imperial Theatres, and "definitive" for the work's enlargement by the Polish act and Revolutionary scene (with the St Basil's scene dropped) for the 1874 production. As is now common, this new recording includes both the Revolutionary and the St Basil's scenes. The scoring is the original, of course, though the singers generally take (insignificant) variants which suggest they are using the 1874 Bessel vocal score.

The performance is a thoughtful one, sometimes with rather too much thought with Tchakarov, and not enough raw energy. Fortunately the best is at the centre, with Ghiaurov's reflective, melancholy Tsar Boris. His first words, "Skorbit dusha" ("My soul is sad"), suggest the burdened sinner, much as Boris Christoff does but with a deeper tinge of sorrow; and this note runs through his performance. He is very tender with his son Fyodor (sympathetically sung by Rossitza Troeva-Mircheva), and plays the histrionics of the hallucination scene down. The death scene, too, is sung simply and well, with few extra effects (a sob early on before the word "umyrayu"—"I am dying"—and a final groan). The music does not need them: there is no greater demonstration of what all that 'realism' meant to the Russians than the melodic line as it steadily loses its human warmth and disintegrates into oblivion. It is not a performance that attempts the rugged majesty of Boris Christoff, and if it loses something in dramatic impetus by that much, it conveys musically and with much dignity a portrait of Mussorgsky's bowed Tsar. Ghiaurov is in places a little free with the rhythm, which does not matter much, and changes the odd word (not surprisingly substituting "k nam" for "vsye" on the high F where Mussorgsky inconsiderately placed it).

Christoff, on his EMI recording under Clutyens, sang both Pimen and Boris; but though it was an impressive tour de force, the idea is not really advisable. Here, there is a good contrast with the graver voice of Nicola Ghiuselev, who is a sombre but by no means ascetic Pimen, remembering his youthful indiscretions with penitence but, for once, as if they could actually have happened. He delivers the final address to the Boyars superbly.

The remainder of the cast give varying performances. Stefka Mineva is an unseductive Marina, her powerful tone and pronounced wobble standing up better to the tense exchanges with Boris Martinovich's alarming Rangoni than to the love duet with Grigory, or the False Dmitry; he is sung, with a skilful sense of a man possessed, by Mikhail Svetlev, giving a well-sustained performance. There is a plausible villain of Shuisky from Josef Frank. But the more extrovert scenes suffer from a lack of exuberance. The crowd at the start is hustled along by a policeman of implausible gentleness; Stefka Popangelova's Nurse does not sound as if she is enjoying her romps with the children very much; Penka Dilova's Hostess is rather tame with her song about the grey drake; and as Varlaam, Dimiter Petkov has clearly been sustaining himself with nothing stronger than lemonade as he clambers up to sing his boastful song about service under Ivan the Terrible. The Holy Simpleton, as "yurodivy" is here translated, sounds too knowledgeable in Mincho Popov's performance. The chorus are rather well-behaved for a Russian crowd under pressure; they are also too often behind the beat, and tend to swallow their final syllables (which affects the phrasing). The recording, good with the orchestra, is less than kind to the chorus. With the discs comes a well-produced booklet containing rather short background essays, and a transliteration of the text plus English, French and German translation.

-- Gramophone [4/1992]

...The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra play with tremendous collective virtuosity in the Venusburg music, while the resplendent grandeur of the brass in the Pilgrims' hymn is quite magnificent... The recording, made at the orchestra's home, Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh, is certainly less overwhelming in its effect than the earlier Telarc disc, but if anything, its resourceful stage-management of spatial effects offers much more to interest the ear than mere bombast! This quality is readily apparent with the thrilling entry of the off-stage trumpets as they summon the nobles into the Hall of Song at the Wartburg in readiness for the great contest in Act 2. All the majesty of the playing is brilliantly captured on this recording, and the Pittsburgh orchestra can certainly stand comparison with the great Wagnerian orchestras in the sumptuous Teutonic nobility of their playing. Wolfram's famous aria from the Third Act, "Oh star of Eve", has been recast for solo cello, and the principal player of the Pittsburgh Symphony deserves credit for a liquid and touching evocation of this memorable passage...

-- Gramophone [4/1992]

Includes work(s) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Soloist: Friedrich Gulda.

Mozart: Divertimento, K. 334, Al desio di chi t'adora, K. 57