In 2013, Florian Uhlig released a recording with French Piano Concertos and it received excellent reviews from critics all over the world and became one of that year's bestsellers. Uhlig is here again, accompanied by the German Radio Philharmonic under Pablo Gonzales - a collaboration which already made his first recording a massive success. This album contains again, piano concertos by Ravel and Francaix, which supplement the concertos of the 2013 album, and rarely performed and very imaginative works for piano and orchestra with concert character by Germaine Tailleferre and Nadia Boulanger. Tailleferre's Ballad for Piano and Orchestra passed through different phases from 1920 - 1922, starting as a pure orchestral work, then becoming a solo piece, and then finally as work with concerto character in the final version. Boulanger originates from a musical family and is famous for her pedagogical passion. Among the concertos on this album, her work was inspired by her idols Cesar Franck and Sergei Rachmaninov.

This release features a unique compilation of ballads, romances and other works for vocal soloists or choir with orchestra by Hector Berlioz. These lesser-known works by Berlioz are worth discovering, even more so when interpreted by the SWR Vokalensemble. The ensemble is led by Sylvian Cambreling. French-born conductor Sylvain Cambreling is a musician with big ideas. A thought-provoking, colorful and dramatic artist, he has a flair for grabbing the attention of audiences, yet his originality is rooted in thorough knowledge of musicology. As the Chief Conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, and Principal Guest Conductor of Klangforum Wien, he has offered ample proof of his gifts for imaginative programme-planning and persuasive championship of contemporary music.

There are few recordings of the famous Czech violinist V�a Pr�hoda. His SWR recording (dated 1951!) of the Dvorak violin concerto is released here for the first time. The recordings have been carefully remastered after the original SWR tapes. Born in 1900, V�a Pr�hoda performed his first public concert at age 13, playing the 4th Violin Concerto by Mozart. At age 19 he joined the orchestra of the Caf� Grand'Italia in Milan. There, he was heard by Arturo Toscanini, who arranged a benefit concert for him, which led to a successful Italian tour. He went on to concertize all over the world, and made a number of recordings when the industry was new.

This release is a new installment in the SWR Classics Edition dedicated to Hand Rosbaud. It offers the chance to enjoy two renowned pianists - Nikita Magaloff and Hans Richter-Haaser, with Hans Rosbaud providing authoritative orchestral accompaniment. Gramophone recently remarked that Rosbaud "was one of the unsung heroes of mid-20th-century music, who... gave thoroughly rehearsed and assimilated performances and premieres of the widest possible range of music". In Fanfare, Peter J. Rabinowitz pointed to range of his sympathies, claiming it was "greater than that of just about any of his contemporaries except perhaps Bernstein, Scherchen, and Stokowski. Rosbaud is best remembered, probably, for his Mahler, his Bruckner, his work with the Second Vienna School... and especially his commitment to the post-war avant-garde..."

Classical Music

Classical Music

SCHUMANN Romances and Ballads: Book 1, op. 67; Book 2, op. 75; Book 3, op. 145; Book 4, op. 146. Romances for Women’s Voices: Book 1, op. 69; Book 2, op. 91 • Rupert Huber, cond; SWR Folk Ens Stuttgart • HÄNSSLER (76: 04 & no translations)


In Fanfare 24:1 Marc Mandel, speaking of this rerelease, said “a lack of printed texts unfortunately proves a major hurdle when we listen to the disc of Schumann Romances and Ballads issued by Hänssler Classic.” No joke. Even the notes mention that “Schumann’s typical poetic sensibility and literary awareness are evident in his selection and compilation of the texts he set.” But we in the English-speaking world will never know this. Mandel also lamented that the German texts were not given, nor the poets who wrote them. Someone at Hänssler must have been listening, for the texts and designated poets are now present. But still, the lack of translations in works as unknown and esoteric as these, and the fact that part-songs are so comprehension-dependent for real enjoyment to be found, make this a really frustrating experience.


It was 1849 when Schumann first began work on these little jewels, and he continued with them until 1851, though most were completed the first year. Today they have evaporated from the public consciousness, though they are every bit as entertaining as Brahms and Mendelssohn, two composers whose choral work is sung more often. It might be the deceptive simplicity of these pieces; though many are seemingly straightforward and wholly songlike in essence, Schumann’s bold sense of modulation and some tricky manipulation of the sometimes jittery vocal lines make them more difficult than apprehended. The composer himself was quite enthusiastic about these works, and never even hinted at any idea that they were written for monetary considerations only, or were in any way relegated to a lesser status in his oeuvre. He composed them rapidly—a preferred state of mind—and felt quite confident in their worth. Today we don’t pay as much attention to this genre, forgetting that in Schumann’s day there were boatloads of choral societies always on the prowl for new and sing-worthy pieces.


As far as I am able to ascertain, this is the only album currently available where you can get these works together, and perhaps the only album period where you can find them. As such, it has a monopoly, and one cannot but be impressed by the quality of the recording, now 13 years old. If you are a Schumann collector, or want to explore this romantic angle on part songs, you will want this, as you can probably dig up the texts with some effort (Mandel’s review might help). This will find a place on my shelves because the music is so darned nice, but boy it really burns me that in a 22-page booklet they could not find room for the translations.


FANFARE: Steven E. Ritter

This release contains a live recording, with Fricsay conducting his core repertoire. The rarely performed "Caboclo" by B.A. Zimmermann is heard here for the first time on a recording under his baton. This is a release of greatest relevance, documenting the work of Ferenc Fricsay, who died young after long illness. Ferenc Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and died in Basel in 1963. After standing in twice at the Salzburger Festspiele at the end of the 1940s for colleagues who had been taken ill, Fricsay was first engaged in Berlin and later in Munich and was a busy concert, opera, radio and record conductor. He had an extraordinary feel for the specific requirements of sound-carrier productions. Whenever he was involved in such projects he exercised meticulous care and showed immense technical know-how. The Berlin radio symphony orchestra as well as the Berliner Philharmoniker valued him highly as a guest conductor.

This album is one of the most important symphonies by Shostakovich. This is the fifth Shostakovich release featuring the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart and Andrey Boreyko. Many considered it a "wonderful, passionate performance."

Maurice Ravel's predilection for fantasy worlds and exotic ambience can be heard in many of his orchestral works. Even as a student he composed the Ouverture de Sheherezade and had planned to write an opera based on the fairytales of teh Arabian Nights. in the end, all that remains are three poems for voice and orchestra. Stéphanie d'Oustrac sings these songs rapturously and with exactly the right feel for oriental opulence.

This is the fifth and last installment of the complete Debussy Piano Works with the pianist Michael Korstick. The first four volumes were highly acclaimed by critics worldwide, a new dimension of Debussy cycles has been achieved. The booklet text is written by the Debussy expert Prof. Robert Orledge. Michael Korstick received his first piano lessons at the age of 9 and was first prize winner of the "Jugend musiziert" competition in Cologne at the age of 11. After graduating from high school he entered the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Cologne as a student of Jürgen Tröster, and in 1974 he became a student of Hans Leygraf in Hanover. In the same year he took master classes from the Russian pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva and subsequently worked with her on several occasions. He made his formal concert début in Cologne in 1975, performing Beethoven's sonatas op.106 and op.111. Michael Korstick has made more than 50 CD recordings so far, among them most notably Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas (the complete edition was released in 2012). He has been the recipient of Germany's Echo Klassik prize in 2005, the MIDEM Classical Award Cannes in 2009, as well as of six "Awards of the German Record Critics", most recently in November 2014.

This is a re-release within the new SWR series "SWR Century Classics". It contains two main works of Antonin Dvorak, his famous Symphony No.9 "From the New World" as well as the Carnival Ouverture, interpreted by the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the SWR, conducted by it's former chief conductor, Sir Roger Norrington. Sir Roger Norrington was born in Oxford, and comes from a musical University family. He was a talented boy soprano, studying the violin from the age of ten and singing from the age of seventeen. He read English Literature at Cambridge University, and spent several years as an amateur violinist, tenor singer, and conductor, before attending the Royal College of Music as a postgraduate student of conducting, studying with Sir Adrian Boult. Norrington's work on scores, orchestral sound and size, seating and playing style has had a growing effect on the perception of 18th- and 19th- century orchestral music. He is in great demand as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras worldwide, working regularly with orchestras in Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, Salzburg, Amsterdam, Paris, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London. He is Chief Conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and of the Camerata Salzburg, and is closely associated with the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment (which has taken over the work of the London Classical Players) and with the Philharmonia.

BRAHMS Violin Concerto. Serenade No. 2 in A • Ernest Bour, cond; Zino Francescatti (vn); SWR SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg • HÄNSSLER 94.219 (72:07)


Readers should be aware that when multiple reviews of the same release appear back-to-back in the magazine, copies of those recordings are sent to the contributing reviewers blind. This means we don’t know when or if a colleague might be submitting an opposing opinion and, if so, who that colleague might be. In this case, however, I think I can make a pretty good guess that this release also went out to Robert Maxham and, based on our usually differing views about violinists and violin playing, plus what he’s said about Zino Francescatti in past reviews, I can almost guarantee the reader two quite different takes on this performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto.


First, let me say that of Francescatti’s recordings I’ve heard—admittedly not that many—there’s only one I really liked and would have recommended, had I been reviewing for Fanfare back then. That was his 1959 recording of the Brahms “Double” Concerto with cellist Pierre Fournier and Bruno Walter leading the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Among my disliked Francescatti recordings was his Paganini First Concerto with Mitropoulos and the New York Philharmonic, coupled with a Saint-Saëns Third Concerto with Ormandy leading the Philadelphia Orchestra.


It’s hard to say exactly what turned me off Francescatti’s playing early on. It was at a time in the late 1950s, shortly after I first started learning the violin and listening to recordings that my ideas of what constituted ideal violin playing were being formed. Francescatti was touted as a virtuoso extraordinaire, a technician of such redoubtable accomplishment that he was compared favorably to Heifetz. Yet what I heard when I listened to Francescatti was a rich, silken tone that often turned hard and abrasive in technically challenging passages. More disturbing, though I couldn’t have verbalized it at the time, was what I now regard as a laissez-faire approach to rapid passagework—a sort of “close enough for government work” attitude, in which harmonics were missed, runs were uneven, and notes were often sloughed off. To my ear, Francescatti lacked the self-discipline of Heifetz and Milstein and the discretion of Oistrakh in knowing when to resist risk-taking that exceeded one’s limits.


Second, all of this may be of little relevance because—though Francescatti’s discography is probably more extensive than current listings would suggest—Columbia Records, the label for which Francescatti mainly recorded, decided that Isaac Stern was the more saleable violinist, thus curtailing Francescatti’s exposure on record, at least to American audiences.


Counting this current Hänssler release, to the best of my knowledge, there are five Francescatti versions of the Brahms concerto on record, all of them commercially available on CD. Compared to Oistrakh’s 15 recordings, documented in a 28:4 review, five seems like a modest number, but as suggested above, Francescatti may have been captured live in more performances of the work than are in general circulation; I don’t know. Of the five, however, this studio recording made in 1974 is the latest. The other four versions are Ormandy/Philadelphia, 1956 (mono); Mitropolous/Vienna Philharmonic, 1958 (mono); Bernstein/New York Philharmonic, 1961; and Leinsdorf/ORTF National Orchestra, 1969.


Francescatti was 72 when he joined Ernest Bour and SWR Symphony Orchestra of Baden-Baden and Freiburg for this venture. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that his previously full-bodied tone has thinned a bit, and there seems to be a very slight but detectable right-hand tremor on sustained notes; listen carefully, for example, to the high A at bar 140. Also, some of the minor technical issues noted in his earlier recordings have now become real liabilities. The passage in chords beginning in bar 164, for instance, is choppily articulated and sounds a bit desperate in its grasping for the notes. Nonetheless, the violinist has lost none of his fearlessness in the face of danger. For a 28:4 review of Arabella Steinbacher’s Brahms, I plugged 24 versions of the concerto into a spreadsheet and then sorted them by timings. If I were to add this Francescatti performance to the mix, it wouldn’t be the fastest—at 36:03, that distinction still goes to Milstein with Fistoulari and the Philharmonia in a 1961 recording for EMI—but at 38:15, it ties Grumiaux’s 1958 recording with van Beinum and the Concertgebouw for seventh place on the list, still 15 seconds faster than Heifetz’s classic 1955 Reiner/Chicago account.


I hope I haven’t made this Francescatti Brahms sound worse than it is. If you’re willing to overlook a slip here, a mishap there, and a rough patch every now and then—all technical flaws which I believe were always present in Francescatti’s playing on earlier recordings—there are some nice things to be said of the performance as well. Conductor Bour and Francescatti share a rapturous vision of the score, bringing to it many moments of an almost ecstatic magnanimity. The lofty, angelic purity of Francescatti’s tone in the first movement’s post-cadenza measures (he plays the familiar Joachim cadenza, by the way) is absolutely transfixing.


So, even though I’ve expressed personal reservations about Francescatti’s playing in general, I acknowledge that he’s justly recognized as one of the 20th century’s great violinists, and I recommend this CD not just to Francescatti fans. Those who cherish Brahms’s Violin Concerto will also want this memento of what is probably the violinist’s last recorded performance of the work.


Brahms’s rustic, amiable A-Major Serenade is a generous addition to this already desirable disc, and considering it’s almost as long as the concerto, it would be ungenerous to call it filler. Ernest Bour is not a conductor I’ve had occasion to review before, but based on his contribution in the concerto and his reading of the serenade, I’d have to say that he has a real flair for Brahms. Unfortunately, Bour died in 2001, so we’re not likely to hear any more from him. But this is a glowing performance by a conductor and an orchestra on top form.


Sonically, both the concerto and the serenade are quite good, but the serenade, recorded four years later in 1978, is marginally better. It’s more open and has more air around it, which lends the serenade an appropriate outdoorsy atmosphere. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

Classical Music

This special recording of the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart under Georges Pr�tre comprises two symphonic poems by Richard Strauss and his Rosenkavalier-Suite Op. 59. Richard Strauss was a pioneer in the genre of the tone poem. The tone poems that he wrote are still considered to be the high point of program music. He extended the boundaries of program music and took the concept of realism in music to an unprecedented level. He widened the expressive range of music, while depicting subjects many times thought unsuitable for musical depiction. French conductor Georges Pretre made his Paris debut at the Opera-Comique conducting the work of Richard Strauss, no doubt creating a special place in Pretre's heart for Strauss's music. This album is part of a new re-release series (Century Classics) consisting of SWR music bestsellers. The series is competitively priced, optically highly attractive and contains acclaimed SWR recordings mostly of the SWR orchestras and their chief conductors.