Haydn: The Last 3 String Quartets

Of Gods and Demons

This release features 5 pieces conducted by Ormandy and Davis now available on CD including the two featured recordings plus Ibert's Escales, Faure's Pavane, and Roussel's Bacchus et Ariane Suite No. 2.

This selection received a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with Orchestra)."
This selection is available in standard CD, Super Audio CD and Mini Disc formats.
Arcadi Volodos' concerto recording debut is an involving and exciting Rachmaninov Third which is quite unlike any of the other classic accounts that come to mind. Not for him the manic intensity of Horowitz or the hell-bent impetuosity of Argerich, this particular virtuoso has his own signature gifts, a golden tone that never tarnishes under duress, a mastery of overall form that might be viewed as restraint, and then of course, the killer technique. In this last regard Volodos truly sets himself apart, for his magic is not all speed and power. One is often held breathless by his control in quiet moments, especially where the combination of dexterity and delicacy is called for, and he revels in passage work, making every note count and shine where other pianist seem to merely be moving on to get to the next big hurdle. Then, when the big hurdles of the "Rach III" arrive, Volodos dispatches them with such level command that one is truly awed. No wonder the live Berlin audience breaks into hysterics at the end. They, like you, are lucky to be alive to hear this.

CELESTIAL CLOCKWORK

These quintets come from a set of six in a Madrid manuscript with an attribution to Boccherini: they are not in Boccherini’s own catalogue of his works, which doesn’t necessarily exclude their authenticity (he noted in it most of his true chamber music, though not the cello sonatas or the keyboard ones); they sound as if they date from the 1780s, and the presence of an obbligato cello part does of course imply at least some link with him. This is claimed as their world premiere recording.

They are very agreeable and on the whole deftly written pieces, but to my mind don’t quite have the ring of his style: their formal regularity, their sometimes motivic writing (the first movement of the G major work, for example), and the frequent spells of rather routine invention argue against his authorship, as does the three-movement form (he preferred, oddly, two-movement opere piccole or four-movement opere grande), the absence of minuets (a movement type he patently relished) and the presence of three very schematic variation finales (a type he avoided). The compiler of the Boccherini thematic catalogue thought that they had “formulas and turns of style which are characteristic of him”, on reading through the parts, but since he evidently didn’t notice that they were for flute, violin, viola and two cellos (as opposed to flute and string quartet) I am inclined to think the reading-through wasn’t too rigorous.

By Boccherini or not, they make pleasant listening. They don’t demand that special affection for detail or feeling for texture that the most characteristic Boccherini needs, and respond well to these direct, modern performances, neatly phrased, the dialogues gracefully executed. The first cellist, who has several flights into the upper reaches of his instrument, is very assured, and there is also the particular pleasure of Jean-Pierre Rampal’s flute playing, as urbane as ever.

-- Stanley Sadie. Gramophone [8/1998]

Performances of The Flying Dutchman stand or fall by the ability of the lead bass-baritone to project the anguished, world-weary yet demonic nature of the accursed seafarer. I was not expecting a definitive reading from James Morris, whose Wotan has often tended towards the bland. But his darkly despairing Monologue is very impressive and comes closer to the superb Fischer-Dieskau (with Konwitschny, available on Berlin Classics) than most recent versions.

-- BBC Music Magazine

This release features the overtures of the Barber of Seville, Semiramide, William Tell, Il Turco in Italia, Tancredi, and more.

THE BEST OF CHRISTMAS IN VIENN

Immerseel, Beths and Bylsma offer period-instrument versions of Schubert’s B flat and E flat Piano Trios. However, theirs is not the delicate, fine-grained sound of, say, the Castle Trio (Virgin). Immerseel plays a 19th-century fortepiano by Tröndlin of Leipzig, whose full, rounded tone inspires all three musicians to project these works with striking vigour and energy. I was disturbed by a lumpy pulse in the first movement of the B flat Trio, but otherwise the fresh vitality of the music-making on this disc gives an effective portrayal of Schubert’s expressive extremes. Bylsma phrases the yearning melodies in the slow movements of both trios affectionately, while the ensemble fragrantly evokes dance in the Scherzos and stirs intense passions in the music’s more violent outbursts.

-- BBC Music Magazine

THE JOY OF CHRISTMAS NEWMAN,

Caprice Viennois: Music of Fritz Kreisler

Haydn: Paris Symphonies Nos. 85-87

SWING YE NOEL WILLIAM NOLL, R

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