This is playing of distinction. With all 13 players being of the highest quality and Mehta at his sympathetic best, everything unfolds impressively, with a sense of joy in the music-making.

A big work, this, written for the kind of wind ensemble that became popular during the 1780s at the Austrian imperial court and its aristocratic imitators. In fact, the usual combination was of pairs of oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoons, but here Mozart adds two more horns, a pair of bassett horns and a double-bass; the effect is thus even more massive, although his mastery of texture is such that it never feels overblown and a contemporary described this piece as "herrlich und gross, trefflich und her", which the insert-note here translates as "glorious and grand, excellent and sublime".

Since the 13 players here are of the highest quality and Mehta is a sympathetic conductor, everything unfolds impressively, and there is a sense of joy in the music-making. Over and over, I find this playing natural, easy without slickness and expressive (sometimes even passionate) without mannerism. To experience the blend of weight and grace that the music and performance offer, listen to the first Minuet, the second of the five movements. The tempo is just right and the shaping of phrases (not least in the delicately scored first trio and the bouncy secondone) elegant. Altogether, this is playing of distinction. As for the sound of the Adagio which follows, the music which awed Salieri in Shaffer's play Amadeus, this is no less poised. Indeed, here is an excellent performance that is complemented by a clear and atmospheric recording made in the Berlin Philharmonie. Strongly recommended and earning first place among current versions.

-- Gramophone [9/1995]

Franck: Symphony in D Minor, M. 48, Symphonic Variations, M.

SCHUBERT: SYMPHONY NO 9 GIULI

I'd quite forgotten what a marvellous performance this is—even though, when it comes to Bartok's speech-derived vocal inflexions, native Hungarians have the edge (and in that respect, Ferencsik's 1956 team is probably the best). Still, the crux of the drama, its emotional thrust and potent symbolic allusions, all are unequivocally realized by Siegmund Nimsgern, Tatiana Troyanos and Pierre Boulez. Troyanos's Judith has more credibility than most. For example, that wonderful passage 3'21'' into the ''First Door'', when Bluebeard asks Judith why she must open all the doors, and she responds with a confession of love—is seethingly intense, although the frenzied string writing that tails her candid ''because I love you'' rather loses focus in all the steam. Yet Boulez captures to perfection the ambiguous nature of Bartok's heated response, whether Judith really is in love—or just plain curious. Again, at the ''Third Door'' (''Now behold my spacious kingdom''), the impact is colossal, even though digital technology would have stretched the dynamic curve even further. Judith's triumphant, heroically sustained C sounds more genuinely wonder-struck than any other on record, while Boulez's pacing is ideally judged—in fact, throughout this memorable performance, he balances the constituent parts of Bartok's rich tonal palette with a meticulous ear, patiently scaling the score's many texturally complex climaxes. Nimsgern is a tortured, yet commanding Bluebeard, vocally excellent and interpretatively compelling, although the recording does sometimes lend his voice an untypically cavernous quality.

As to CD competition, I would single out the Bluebeards of Sawallisch, Dorati and Kertesz as the best alternative interpretations; and yet if pressured into choosing, I would probably opt for this latest reissue—not only because it seems to me the best sung, but also on account of Boulez's dramatic, psychological and musical perceptiveness. It is one of his finest recordings and if he ever decides to re-record it (say, as part of his current Bartok series for DG), then this Sony production will certainly prove a very hard act to follow. The actual recording is hugely accommodating within the sonic limitations of the period (there are occasional traces of over-modulation), and the CD comes complete with texts and translations. Very strongly recommended.

-- The Gramophone

LEONARD BERNSTEIN - THE ROYAL

Dvorak's three concertos were written in 1876 (piano), 1883 (violin) and 1894 (cello). Like Gerald Finzi, another transcendental national lyric composer, Dvo?ák's last orchestral work was a cello concerto.

Both works are given the customary weight by the Philadelphian strings. In fact Ormandy encourages a strong symphonic approach to these two works. This is the orchestral equivalent of a sleek Bentley. The Cello Concerto emerges best of the two works. However first to the Violin Concerto. This is a work I have always felt affectionate towards. My reference set is the Supraphon recording with Josef Suk. The Sony has Stern in place of Suk. Stern's touch of schmaltz and flashiness sometimes jars in such a cleanly rustic nationalist work. However there is much to take pleasure in too. At 10.12 in the first movement no-one, not even Suk, achieves that moment of pulse-stilling calm. Another example is the needle-fragile crystal glass dance Stern evokes at the start of the Allegro giocoso. This is a good interpretation but the age of the recording tells against it marginally but noticeably.

Leonard Rose is ripe, noble, brilliant, edgy, resinous of tone and exciting and he brings all the strengths that we know from his Sony recording of the Brahms Double Concerto. The sound quality is a notch or two above that for the other Dvo?ák work on this disc but still grainy in texture.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

Of Gods and Demons

One can share in a more carefree expression of joy here. Many fine conductors have presided over these traditional Strauss tributes, but none with such élan as the late Carlos Kleiber. The music swings and sways in terpsichorean ecstasy. Kleiber appears blissful as he inscribes elegant arcs with his baton, and the players beam.

-- Gramophone [4/2008]

Caprice Viennois: Music of Fritz Kreisler

Music composed by Richard Rodgers. Lyrics written by Oscar Hammerstein II.
Principal cast: John Raitt (Curly); Florence Henderson (Laurey); Phyllis Newman (Ado Annie Carnes); Jack Elliott (Will Parker); Irene Carroll (Aunt Eller); Ara Berberian (Jud Fry); Leonard Stokes (Andrew Carnes).
Recorded at Columbia 30th St. Studios, New York, New York between March 16 & 24, 1964. Originally released on Columbia (2610). Includes liner notes by Richard Ridge.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.

...A must-have... I implied earlier that very little of Agricola’s sacred music has hitherto been available. In fact, this is the first ever recording to include his Mass music. Under the invented title Missa Guazzabuglio (a word meaning hotchpotch or mishmash) van Nevel has assembled individual movements from different Masses, after the fashion of his ‘La Dissection d’un Homme Arme’...

Van Nevel is easily as eccentric as Agricola ever was, and while the singers of the Huelgas Ensemble cope admirably with even his most bizarre directions, some ideas seem to be almost beyond the pale. He claims that fully vocal performance of the instrumental music is at least plausible. In the case of the six-voice Fortuna desperata (now, with at least four recordings, a staple of the Agricola repertoire) one can hardly disagree, but to hear the soprano clambering up two-and-a-half octaves in semiquavers (Dung aultre amet) forces admiration and disbelief in equal measure... The amazing thing is that the singers’ sheer athleticism and musicality lends such dotty notions an air of plausibility. More than that, they confirm the growing perception of Agricola as a composer of the very first rank. I have no hesitation in singling out [this recording] among this year’s high points.

-- Fabrice Fitch, Gramophone [9/1999}

This selection is also available in Super Audio CD format.

It's not just technical achievements that Rodarmer has to offer; he also makes a beautiful sound, at once lustrous and warm, and has an impressive sense of style.

Turning to what Sony bills as a world premiere transcription of the Goldberg Variations for guitar, I was incredulous. Maybe the Goldbergs could be cogently presented, I thought, on the lute, which is an instrument well suited to polyphonic writing, but how could its complex textures be clearly rendered on the essentially harmony-oriented guitar?

Fortunately, it turns out that Kurt Rodarmer (about whom Sony vouchsafes no biographical information) agrees with me. Combining the roles of arranger, performer, and producer, he has made his version for multiple guitars, anything from two to four of them, "recording each part separately and later mixing them down." Naturally there is a certain loss where the virtuoso conquest of technical demands is concerned, but this, as many may feel and as Glenn Gould used to argue passionately, is by no means necessarily a bad thing.

In any case, Rodarmer's dazzling finger skills still make a tremendous impression, especially by virtue of the combination of speed, steadiness, and clarity with which he dispatches such variations as No. 23, with its rapid parallel thirds and whirlwind cadential scales. In variations like Nos. 6, 21, and 24 Bach's canonic writing emerges with unusual lucidity. Nor are such technical achievements all Rodarmer has to offer. He makes a beautiful sound, at once lustrous and warm, that is vividly captured by the very clear sound. He realizes textures like those of the two-manual Variation 20 with a sure feeling for their drama. And he has an impressive sense of style, which is given expression by some elegant long grace notes in the Aria itself and in the 9/8 meter of Variation 24, and also by some well-conceived changes of articulation in the repeats.

These latter, by the way, are omitted in the Aria but included in the variations, with only a few exceptions. The decision to omit the first of the two repeats in Variation 16 but to include the second one seems perverse, since this variation is designed in the form of a French overture, with stately introduction and dancelike fast section, and that is a genre where the tradition of repeating the introduction was surely invariable in Bach's time.

Aside from one or two such minutiae, and from a slightly mechanical feeling in the treatment of the minor-mode Variation 25 (where, perhaps symptomatically, both repeats are ignored), I found both the conception of Rodarmer's arrangement—a refreshing blend of artistic respect with absence of pomposity—highly persuasive. Like Bach on the accordion, I wouldn't want to hear Goldberg on the guitar every time. But I am glad to have both in my collection to indulge in as an occasional and artistically worthwhile treat.

-- Bernard Jacobson, FANFARE [5/1998]

Bach: Concertos for 2 & 3 Pianos

This is surely the greatest, certainly the richest, of all Murray Perahia's many and exemplary recordings.

This Chopin recital represents Murray Perahia's return to the Sony studios after a two-year absence due to serious injury. So may I start by saying that this is surely the greatest, certainly the richest, of all his many and exemplary recordings. Once again his performances are graced with rare and classic attributes and now, to supreme clarity, tonal elegance and musical perspective, he adds an even stronger poetic profile, a surer sense of the inflammatory rhetoric underpinning Chopin's surface equilibrium. In other words the vividness and immediacy are as remarkable as the finesse. And here, arguably, is the oblique but telling influence of Horowitz who Perahia befriended during the last months of the old wizard's life. Listen to the First Ballade's second subject and you will hear rubato like the most subtle pulsing or musical breathing. Try the opening of the Third and you will note an ideal poise and lucidity, something rarely achieved in these outwardly insouciant pages.

Then there is the glorious Fourth and final Ballade in a performance as subtly gauged as any on record. Here Perahia achieves a fluidity of line and impetus that never compromise or sacrifice his sense of superfine and exploratory detail; and what other pianist possesses such an acute aural and rhythmic sensitivity? From Perahia the waltzes are marvels of liquid brilliance and urbanity. You would have to return to 1950 and Lipatti (EMI, 7/89) for a comparable quality though, frankly, even he hardly achieved such an enchanting lilt or buoyancy, such a beguiling sense of light and shade. In the mazurkas, too, Perahia's tiptoe delicacy and tonal irridescence (particularly in Op. 7 No. 3 in F minor) make the music dance and spin as if caught in some magical hallucinatory haze.

Finally, two contrasting Etudes, and whether in ardent lyricism (Op. 10 No. 3) or shot-from-guns virtuosity (Op. 10 No. 4) Perahia's playing is sheer perfection. The recording beautifully captures his instantly recognizable, glistening sound world as well as the immense grandeur of his conceptions. Rarely in my experience has such a truly transcendental pianism (he has every tint and colour of the spectrum at his fingertips) and such innate poetry been so unforgettably combined. Welcome back Murray Perahia; you have been sorely missed.

-- Bryce Morrison, Gramophone [12/1994]

SYMPHONY FOR RICHARD III ENNI

LIGETI: CELLO CONCERTO, PIANO

Like Ravel's piano originals that he subsequently orchestrated, Rachmaninov's two-piano version of Symphonic Dances sounds like a note-exact replica of the later symphonic score. Essentially the only thing missing is the chance to marvel at the composer's remarkable powers of orchestration. However, in compensation you get the enhanced clarity of textures that allows for fine delineation of all the intricate inner voices, especially as realized by Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman, who beautifully elucidate Rachmaninov's winding, winsome, and wondrous tunes. However, if you're like me, you can't help but pine for the missing percussion in the outer movements, and no piano ever could imitate the snarling brass crescendos that open movement II. Nonetheless, Ax and Bronfman make this Symphonic Dances a refreshingly alternative listening experience--as do Martha Argerich and Nelson Freire, though their faster speeds and self-conscious bravura make their performance more of a virtuoso showcase, something that also can be said for their Suite No. 2 with its breathless Waltz. Ax and Bronfman at least allow you to clearly discern all the notes in their noticeably less-excited rendition. But no need to worry: you get just as caught up in their potent projection of Rachmaninov's lush harmonies.


Later, Ax and Bronfman conjure up a startlingly vivid impression of church bells in the joyfully clangorous finale of the disc-ending Suite No. 1. All of this is faithfully and powerfully rendered by Sony's recording, which leaves adequate space around the instruments to make a cohesive, three-dimensional sound image (though not enough for satisfyingly deep bass). In sum, a gorgeously played and generous program (it would have filled two LPs in the '70s). Recommended for Rachmaninov lovers and piano fans alike.
--Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com

Abbado’s Mendelssohn is as fresh and vivacious as ever. The Italian Symphony positively crackles with energy, and the collaboration with Branagh passes with flying colors.

It’s good to be able to report that Abbado’s Mendelssohn is as fresh and vivacious as ever. His LSO recordings of the symphonies (on DG) were very fine, but this new Berlin account of the Italian Symphony – recorded live at the Berlin Philharmonic’s 1995 New Year’s Eve Concert – positively crackles with energy, especially in the whirlwind finale. The second movement’s procession is beguilingly phrased and Abbado even convinces me that the weak Minuet is worth its place in this otherwise utterly marvellous work. The performance of Mendelssohn’s equally delightful incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is taken from the same concert, though Kenneth Branagh’s narration was added later (he projects well and the acoustics are well matched, so the result feels perfectly natural). The extracts Branagh uses fit well with Mendelssohn’s music (of which we hear all the important numbers) and concentrate on the central tussle between Titania and Oberon and the latter’s confused conspiracy with Puck to untangle the love lives of the young Athenians. It’s a heroic attempt to capture some of the magic of the play, and Branagh passes with flying colours (though I’m not totally convinced by Puck as a leprechaun). A delightful disc, then, beautifully packaged – though, curiously, without programme notes.

Performance: 5 (out of 5), Sound: 5 (out of 5)

-- Stephen Maddock, BBC Music Magazine

Chopin, Debiles & Tchaikovsky: Ballet Music

I didn't at all take to Fleisher's account of Beethoven No. 3, but I must say that this is a most impressive and exciting account of the Emperor, aided and abetted by a wonderful accompaniment from Szell and his orchestra—and, I mustn't forget, by a most intelligently balanced recording.

Fleisher plays the first movement with splendid brio and the dash with which he gives out the opening flourishes is equalled by the orchestra's attack and energy when it starts the tutti. In one passage of brilliant semiquavers he tends to hurry very slightly, both times it comes, but in general his rhythm is excellent. There are, too, passages of most lovely liquid playing, a kind of brush of quiet sound, beautiful not only as sound but admirable in that they let woodwind solos come through without any forcing by the players. Fleisher is obviously always aware of what's going on in the orchestra and knows when he should be taking part in chamber music, rather than always holding the front of the stage. He does indulge in a wide range of speeds but not, I suppose, more than is usually done. The slow movement is played simply by both soloist and orchestra, as it should be— yet it's a difficult thing to play something so apparently simply but make it as moving as it is here.

At the very end of the movement (bar 80) you may be surprised to hear the strings play a long crotchet, arco, instead of the pizzicato to which we are all so used (which starts only at the last quaver of the bar). I asked Denis Matthews (always a mine of Beethoven information) about this and he told me he had played the concerto with Szell and was quite astonished at rehearsal when the expected 'plonk' from the strings didn't happen. Szell told him that Beethoven's autograph has the `pizz' written over the rests in the middle of the bar: and I now see that the preface in the Eulenburg miniature score states the same thing (despite which, the word is printed at the start of the bar!). This is not a trivial point, for it occurs, of course, at just about the most magical moment of the whole concerto and I do think that the long, grave, B flat from the strings is far more apt than the rather disturbing 'plonk' which emphasizes Beethoven's change from B to B flat in the wrong way.

The finale goes splendidly all through and I only don't like Fleisher's mannered playing of part of the main theme each time. I refer to the bars marked espressivo, which would appear to suggest something other than his jerky delivery of the right hand phrases. But this is a small point and there is no doubt that this is the sort of performance that will make you enjoy the music afresh, for the playing all through the concerto is both zestful and perceptive; Szell's contribution is an added source of pleasure—and the admirable engineering complements the players' artistry.

-- Gramophone [1/1966, reviewing the original LP release of the Emperor Concerto]

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The apologies invariably made for Beethoven's Triple Concerto seem to have an effect on performances. I have rarely, if ever, known one which did not in some respect carry an apology with it, and I have rarely, if ever, known one which treated the work in the strong bravura way which makes for success in the Emperor or violin concertos. But here is just such a performance, and it makes one glory in what Beethoven did achieve in the work.

The scale of the work as conceived by Stern, Rose and Istomin is quite different from that of the rival performances on record, however enjoyable. The precision and stylishness of Schneiderhan, Fournier and Anda on DGG make for an eighteenthcentury manner in the outer movements, particularly the first. Some may well continue to prefer it, and technically the balance with the orchestra is better than on the new CBS disc, but the newly roused echoes of other Beethoven concertos place the Stern/ Rose/Istomin performance in the right period. It is after all a produce of the Fidelio years, the years which also produced the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto and the Symphonies Nos. 4 to 6. It is possible to regard the formalism of the outer movements, their conscientious balance of thematic statements by each of the three soloists in turn, as a return to eighteenth-century practice, but the sheer size speaks rather of a really grand manner. And if the thematic material is more bald and less striking than that in other Beethoven concertos (at least in the first movement) there was a practical need with three soloists to keep ideas short.

In achieving a sense of size Stern, Rose and Istomin reveal their own stature in the relaxation of the playing. Lesser players would either screw up the tension or become ponderous, but these three over and over again convey the joy of their playing: the relaxed lilt of the second subject, Rose's natural warmth in the slow movement enunciation, the whole of the final Rondo Polacca. Not only has the main Polacca theme tremendous verve, the middle episode, when the `yatta-tah-ta-tah-ta' rhythm emerges on horn and lower woodwind, has a unique tang of East European music. Stern obviously takes the idea of a Polacca literally and exaggerates the first beat in each dactyllic phrase, giving a real bounce to the music, and he is matched by his colleagues.

Then the semiquaver allegro reprise of the main theme towards the end is taken very fast and very clear, the result extraordinarily exciting. You have only to compare the DGG performance, very fast too and excellent in its way, to realize why Stern's, Rose's and Istomin's playing is not merely vital but great. Equally exciting are the furious florid dialogues between violin and 'cello in the passage-work of first and last movements. All three soloists are masterly in varying the tension, in shaping towards climaxes, and Ormandy draws from the Philadelphia Orchestra yet another of his really full-blooded accompaniments. In relation to the soloists the orchestra may seem a little backward, but the salient tuttis burst out with great effect, to match the scale of the soloists' playing. The nearness of the soloists does of course make it hard for them to sound as though they are playing really softly, and initial sotto voce entries in the finale are too loud.

In my detailed comparisons I have occasionally found points in which rivals score over Stern, Rose and Istomin, and the other CBS version has Serkin in marvellous form actually dominating the performance from the least prominent solo part, the non-virtuoso piano role originally devised for the Archduke Rudolf. But no minor shortcomings can alter the positive merits of what could well come to be regarded as a classic record.

-- Gramophone [10/1965, reviewing the original LP release of the Triple Concerto]

For the complete Mandarin, Boulez is still the safest bet.

-- Gramophone [10/1993]

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It is nothing less than intriguing to find Pierre Boulez's whole interpretative personality significantly modified—at least on the evidence of this disc—by contact with the orchestra which for so many years Leonard Bernstein directed. Granted that two of Bartok's more abrasive works can never sound exactly gentle, these are interpretations that so far from following the pattern of diamond precision and emotional austerity we associate with Boulez in Britain, lean towards romantic expressiveness.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [1/1973, reviewing Miraculous Mandarin on LP, CBS 73031]

TCHAIKOVSKY: SYMPHONY NO 5, SE

Let’s cut right to the chase: Ormandy’s Tallis Fantasia is one of the reference versions of the work, while his Delius is every bit as fine as Beecham’s. It has all of the same virtues: flowing tempos (indeed, in Brigg Fair he’s a minute quicker), magnificent orchestral playing, and a willingness to let the music unfold freshly and naturally. The only reason these performances fail to receive the acclaim that they deserve is because the English press, historically, has been quick to dismiss foreigners who dare to compete with home-grown talent in “their” music, and no one else much cares.

Still, just listen to the massed Philadelphia strings in the first great tutti of the Tallis Fantasia (first sound sample). This is great playing, and beyond that Ormandy’s tempo, a bit quicker than usual, gives the music an uncommon degree of energy without compromising its nobility of spirit. The Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’ is basically indestructible and certainly in no danger here, while Sony offers a lovely bonus in the form of The Lark Ascending, affectingly played by Cleveland Orchestra concertmaster Rafael Druian and the Cleveland Sinfonietta under Louis Lane.

As for the Delius works, has there ever been a more purely beautiful version of In a Summer Garden? Or a more rapturously played recording of Brigg Fair (second sound sample)? Ormandy’s reputation has never been lower than it is at present, but there was a reason he was Sony’s (Columbia’s) “house” conductor in the 50s and 60s. He and his orchestra maintained a level of versatility and polish that no one else could match, and his catholicity of taste was remarkable. This surprising disc makes a fine tribute to his art, and an eloquent reminder of his achievement in repertoire for which he was, to put it mildly, not a household name.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

THE ROYAL EDITION - TCHAIKOVSK