Adolfo Fumagalli (1828–56), one of four musician brothers from Inzago, near Milan, made a name for himself across Europe as ‘the Paganini of the piano’, astonishing audiences with dazzling technique and acquiring a reputation for performances using his left hand alone. Fumagalli composed a large body of piano music – over 100 opus numbers – many being operatic fantasies and virtuosic studies of the type presented in this anniversary recital given in his home town. The CD also features several virtuoso studies from the set of 24 in Fumagalli’s École du pianiste modern, published in Paris in 1854.

The Australian-British Sadie Harrison is no ordinary composer: she is also an archaeologist and a professional gardener. So it is hardly surprising that a fascination with historical artifacts and biological processes filters into her music. The instrumental miniatures on this recording are both slow and brutal, some of them mirroring ancient worlds and natural phenomena and others taking their starting point in the paintings of Brian Graham and Peter Sheppard Skærved, expressing visual and textural ideas in sound. All are first recordings.

REVIEW:

Australian-born and UK-based, Sadie Harrison took some time out from composition to work as an archaeologist and professional gardener, activities which nourish these new works, mostly written in the past four years. Her fascination with fragments, minutiae and painted miniatures has resulted in five groups of tiny pieces each lasting around three minutes or less. The shortest is 24 seconds! Gallery (Rooms I and II) for solo violin—19 musical glimpses to be played in any order—takes the paintings of the versatile violinist Peter Sheppard-Skaerved as a starting point. Hidden Ceremonies, for piano, explores prehistory as depicted through paintings by Brian Graham. Musical echoes, from Vaughan Williams to Stravinsky to Aghanistan and beyond, are woven into Harrison’s works, each glittering in their intensity.

-- The Guardian

Alexandre Tansman’s fundamental style is Stravinskyan Neo-Classicism animated by the dance-rhythms of his native Poland and energized by a masterly command of counterpoint. The substantial body of music he produced for his own instrument, the piano, has never been systematically examined in recordings. This first installment presents works he wrote soon after his 1919 arrival in Paris, the city that was to remain his home – except for the years of WW II, spent in American exile. Tansman’s music is a special area of academic study and musical exploration for the American pianist Danny Zelibor.

REVIEW:

It is always surprising to be treated to first recordings written as far back as the 1920s and there are three on this disc. It was fascinating to hear them and to read the helpful notes. These highlight what to listen out for among which was an indication that there are echoes of Scriabin among others in Tansman’s experimental 7 Préludes and so there are. In fact that feeling often occurs when Tansman is at his most dreamy creating a state in which fantasy plays a strong role.

The works on this disc seem all the more impressive when one is reminded that they were written when the composer was in his twenties and had another fifty plus years of composition ahead of him. He never wasted any of those years, producing a huge volume of works. He was definitely one of those composers who ‘hit the ground running’ for these early works do not betray any struggle to find his style. His ensuing compositional life was more one of development and refinement.

I’ve always been impressed by Tansman’s works and this disc proves no exception. Danny Zelibor is obviously an enthusiast and can write authoritatively about the music he plays. He gives us compelling performances that will surely win over new fans for this thoroughly decent and principled human being and superlative composer. Toccata continues to shed new light on undeservedly obscure composers and deserve support and thanks from all music-lovers.

-- MusicWeb International

Nikolai Peyko (1916–95) is a major Russian composer completely unknown in the west. He is another composer who wrote nine symphonies, and much other orchestral music besides, but fell foul of the Soviet regime and was sidelined. His piano music shares certain characteristics with both Shostakovich’s and Prokofiev’s, but sounds an individual tone nonetheless. This second and final CD in this complete recording of his piano music is the first time that any of this music has been heard recorded on a western label. Pianists Dmitry Korostelyov and where needed, Maria Dzhemesiuk perform.

Rudolf Tobias (1873–1918) founded the classical-music tradition in Estonia almost single-handedly, writing the first Estonian orchestral piece, the first Estonian string quartet, first Estonian piano concerto and the first Estonian oratorio, the monumental Des Jona Sendung, from which Ines Maidre has now transcribed for organ the blazingly powerful Sanctus. Although Tobias was himself an outstanding organist, he wrote little music for his own instrument and most of it is modest in scale, but its quirky craftsmanship reveals the hand of a master.

REVIEW:

Rudolf Tobias (1873–1918) is credited with founding the classical music tradition in Estonia, having written the first Estonian orchestral piece, piano concerto, piano sonata, oratorio, and string quartet. He studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakoff and then had a wide-ranging career in Tartu, Paris, Munich, Dresden, and finally as Professor of Theory at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. At the outbreak of war in 1914, he was drafted into the German army, serving as an interpreter. His health began to fail in 1916 and he was discharged, and died of pneumonia in October of 1918.

This program of his complete published organ works reveals a composer of well-crafted, pleasant liturgical “gebrauchsmusik” based on chorale tunes. It is all modest in scope, nothing lasting much over five minutes. It is unfortunate that he left nothing substantial for the organ, as he was considered an outstanding organist. The booklet contains notes on the composer and music as well as the specification of the 1913 Sauer organ (rebuilt in 1998) in the Dome Church (St Mary’s) in Tallinn, Estonia.

-- American Record Guide

These arrangements for string orchestra of works by Alban Berg take their cue from Berg himself: he arranged three of the six movements of the Lyric Suite for string orchestra; the Dutch composer Theo Verby arranged the other three. The CD includes an arrangement of Berg’s Piano Sonata for strings by Wijnand van Klaveren. Ernst Kovacic arranged Berg’s early works especially for this recording. The arrangements chart Berg’s development as a composer, from prentice pieces composed under the tutelage of Schoenberg to the rich, mature style of one of his masterpieces, the Lyric Suite, written to express an impassioned and illicit love. Ernst Kovacic is one of Austria’s best-known violinists as well as a conductor. Among the composers who have written works for him are Krenek, Holloway, Gruber and Schwertsik. Ernst Kovacic and the NRM Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra’s previous Toccata release of music by Ernst Krenek (TOCC 0199), was received with universal enthusiasm, the reviewer for Fanfare writing: ‘This Toccata Classics CD is a model of fine production values…(and) magisterial performances…an absolute must for Krenek fanciers’.

REVIEW:

The Lyric Suite is played complete. It gains from the extra players, not only in obvious richness of sound, but in nuances of phrasing. The arrangements accomplish a broad range of expressive tonecolor, with nearly every conceivable string effect on display. In the trickier parts where there are several extremely chromatic legato lines playing against one another, they play accurately and in tune. The album is a curiosity for a limited audience, but they’ll be happy.

-- American Record Guide

Ján Cikker (1911–89) was one of the leading 20th c. Slovak composers, credited with no fewer than nine operas. This disc features several first recordings of his piano music, of which little is known even in his native Slovakia. The music sits downstream from Szymanowski and Janáček, like them blending folk influences with French impressionism echoes. As also with Szymanowski, some of the pieces evoke the composer’s fondness for the Tatras, the mountainous borderland between Poland and Slovakia.

Alfred Hitchcock commissioned his film scores from composers who were Hollywood’s master-craftsmen. The concert items prepared from those scores feature a dazzling variety of styles, from Baroque and jazz to dark Romanticism and angular angst, all using the orchestra with breathtaking virtuosity. The conductor John Mauceri, as at home with this repertoire as any other musician, has prepared a number of concert suites from the film scores and some of them receive their first recordings here. This recording was made live in concert in Danish Radio’s new concert hall in Copenhagen. The booklet contains an introductory text by John Mauceri and an extensive, illustrated essay on Hitchcock and his use of film music and work with composers by British film-music historian John Riley.

REVIEWS:

The concert recordings contain some ambient noises and quirks of balance (lots of bass tones). But the pluses are powerful: the orchestra's flair, the vivid colors and audible adrenalin. Even the most dedicated film buff should deepen their appreciation as Hitchkock's composers run the gamut.

– BBC Music Magazine

Hitchcock was the enabler of many hours of orchestral music that are part of the 20th century’s legacy. Herrmann’s scores for Vertigo and Psycho, and Franz Waxman’s for Rear Window, stand out. The Wagnerian Scène d’Amour, from Vertigo, comes over as one of the great slow movements.

– Sunday Times

Franois Couperin’s Concerts Royaux (1722) and Les Nations (1726) use open scoring, indicating that they could be performed by whatever instruments were at hand. + He later confessed that he himself preferred to perform them on two harpsichords. + This suggestion had to wait for these two CDs to be taken up in a recording (the second CD is being readied for future release). + Also presented are a number of his Pices de clavecin, also in rarely heard realizations for two harpsichords.