This CD documents a ten-year productive friendship between a composer and a performer. Many of Matthews’ quartets were written for the Kreutzer Quartet, and they’ve recorded two previous CDs of his complete cycle of music. This release features all world premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

Finally, there comes Hopeful Monsters of 2011 for string orchestra (the orchestra includes the members of the Quartet). Commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street (a day in 1936 when, in East London, crowds gathered to protest against fascism), it is a fascinating canvas that includes references to Jewish music in its faster section. The title is borrowed from Nicholas Mosley and refers to biological mutations that hover on extinction. Lee Hallman’s exemplary booklet notes suggest this is reflected in Rose’s use of harmony, with its clear tonal references that it just as often seeks to negate—or at least toy with.

All pieces here receive their first recordings, and the disc was made in the presence of the composer. Unhesitatingly recommended.

-- Fanfare

This is Garry Walker's third CD for Toccata Classics after two well-received releases of Havergal Brian works with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. On this recording he explores Matthew Taylor's Viola Concerto, a work that "reinforced his status among the most significant living composers for string quartets" (International Record Review).

The four works on this first CD of Komarnitsky’s music are all that remains of his copious output of chamber music. Featuring the London Piano Trio, they “audibly believe in every note, and their dedicated performances are set within a bold sound frame […]” (Gramophone Classical Music Guide).

REVIEW:

I was bowled over by the music on this record and sincerely hope that there is more to be discovered of this composer’s works, perhaps lying in some archives somewhere which is often where such things end up. It is tantalising to have heard this music and not to be sure of being able to explore further examples of it. I wait with bated breath and great hopes that more from him will emerge.

The members of the London Piano Trio play all of this music with passion, commitment and great skill making me want to seek out music where they play as a trio. Robert Atchison’s notes are a useful commentary on the background to the pieces.

-- MusicWeb International

REVIEW:

We are told that Luis Carlos Figueroa is one of the senior and much esteemed figures in Colombian music. As such this disc is very welcome as to most intents and purposes it serve as an initiation into the man’s music. Given his dates we might perhaps have expected a thornier style but it is warm and welcoming. This is attractive music that is well worth your ear-time.

-- MusicWeb International

Classical Music

Classical Music

Estonian violinist Kerem (b.Tallinn, 1981) is familiar as a performer in Britain as well as at home. He is also a prolific composer, with over 100 works to his credit, 3 symphonies among them. The three-movement 3rd Symphonny (2003) and the Lamento for viola and strings (2008–9) lie downstream from Shostakovich and Boris Tishchenko, and were inspired by the idea of the struggle of the individual voice against oppressive ideology.

The music of the Ukrainian composer Boris Lyatoshynsky (1895–1968) is familiar in his home country but sorely neglected abroad. Lyatoshynsky’s songs are neglected even there: this anthology of his best romantsiy for low voice and piano contains many first recordings.
The songs meld intense Scriabinesque expressionism with elements of Ukrainian folksong in a language that embraces both the lyrical and the dramatic. His setting of Shelley’s Ozymandias, with its warning of the impermanence of power, was a brave act in the Soviet Union of 1924. The booklet contains full sung texts, with English translations by Russian-music expert Anthony Phillips, who also provides an extensive introduction to Lyatoshynsky.

REVIEW:

Ukrainian composer Boris Liatoshinsky (1895–1968) studied with Gliere at the Kiev Conservatory and then became a life-long member of that faculty. Death, melancholy, dread, and grief over unrequited love are the subjects of his chosen texts by mostly Ukrainian poets Ivan Bunin, Alexei Pleshcheyev, Leonid Pervomaiski, Maxim Rylsky, and Volodymyr Sosyura as well as Heine and Shelley. The mood of his songs is consistently somber.

The program of works from 1922 to 1951 is ordered mostly chronologically. His earliest compositions show an evident love of Schumann, Chopin, and Borodin; but the works heard here show a Scriabinesque expressionist style that reflects the cultural chaos following WW I and the Russian Revolution. His 1924 setting of Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ with its image of the impermanence of power shows his courage and conviction in the face of Socialist Realism as Stalin was consolidating his stranglehold over the Soviet Union.

The performances here are broodingly powerful. Savenko’s lyric bass is a good fit for these songs, written specifically for bass (or low voice). With smooth legato singing and well applied dynamics, his performance gives full expression to their mournful nature.

-- American Record Guide

GOUVY Sérénades: No. 1 in G; 1 No. 2 in F; 1 Op. post. in d 1. Introduction et Polonaise 2. Danse suédoise 2 • Markus Brönnimann (fl); 1 Kreisler Qt; 1 Ilka Emmert (db); 2 Michael Kleiser (pn) • TOCCATA 0185 (61:42)


As regular readers of this magazine will know, I am an ardent advocate of the music of Louis Théodore Gouvy (1819-1898), an enthusiasm I share with past and present Fanfare reviewers Barry Brenesal, Jerry Dubins, David Johnson, John W. Lambert, Robert McColley, and Peter J. Rabinowitz. The virtual consensus across the board is that Gouvy was a significant composer of the Romantic era who wrote music of considerable substance, which has until recently suffered unjust neglect. At this point, there are now a dozen or so CD sets in print of Gouvy’s compositions, with a few others out of print, devoted primarily to his symphonic works, large-scale choral pieces (secular oratorios and a Requiem), and chamber music, plus one disc apiece of his chansons and his piano music for four hands. I don’t know if this Gouvy renaissance on recordings has led yet to an increase in concert performances—I’ve not seen any myself—but it certainly provides hope for the future, and in the meantime grants a boon to music lovers for private enjoyment.


The present disc adds to our knowledge of Gouvy’s chamber works, with the world premiere recordings of five pieces for flute. (A sixth piece, the Sérénade vénitienne for flute, viola, and harp, was issued in 1999 on a Calliope CD.) All of them date from later in Gouvy’s life: the Danse suédoise from 1879, the Introduction et Polonaise from 1890, and the three sérénades for flute and string quintet (which all add a double-bass to the standard string quartet) from 1888, 1889, and 1891 respectively. The first two pieces are adaptations of movements from other works: the Danse from the op. 71 Octet, and the Introduction from the op. 83 Ghiribizzi for piano duet. The one-movement op. post. Sérénade is probably a torso of a planned larger work that was never completed; as it is, one four-page folio is missing from the surviving unpublished manuscript, but musicologist and Gouvy scholar Oliver Schmitt was able to reconstruct that material from a surviving adaptation for piano duet. While the excellent booklet notes by Schmitt (which include actual musical passages from the scores, a most commendable practice that seems to be all but extinct) do not mention an impetus for the composition of any of the other works, the Sérénade No. 1 was commissioned by the Philharmonic Club of New York, an indication of the international reputation that Gouvy once had before fading into total obscurity immediately upon his death.


While Toccata is to be commended for adding to the Gouvy discography, so far as repertoire is concerned this is definitely minor rather than major Gouvy. All of the pieces are thoroughly charming divertissements with appealing melodies and formal elegance, but none is of great significance. The instrumentalists (who have nice color photos featured on the inside face of the back tray card) are uniformly excellent and play these works with all the charm and gracefulness one could ask for. The recorded sound is ideal, with just the right perspective and balance and an inviting degree of warmth, and as previously mentioned the program notes are outstanding. While this is not an essential acquisition, lovers of Gouvy or of chamber music for flute should find this disc quite appealing, and it is recommended accordingly.


FANFARE: James A. Altena

Grigoriu (b. Moldavia, 1926) is one of the major Romanian composers in the period after Enescu. His vast output is little known outside his own country, although it includes oratorios, symphonies, cantatas, chamber music, film-scores, and much more. His musical roots reach back to Romanian folk-music and the modal melodies of ancient Byzantium.

Presenting Vol.5 in the first complete recording of the 72 cantatas from Telemann’s collection Harmonischer Gottes-Dienst, published in Hamburg, 1726 – they were the first complete set of cantatas for the liturgical year to appear in print.

The music of Buxton Orr (b. Glasgow, 1924), was hardly over-exposed during his lifetime but has encountered even more neglect since his death in 1997. This CD takes a step in the right direction, presenting Orr’s mildly modernist, elegant and honest music in first recordings of four of his chamber works for strings.

REVIEW:

All of the performances are passionate, committed and of the highest quality as is the recording which does not get between the performers and the listeners. The music needs to be ‘Listened to’ and, more than once. It is not fashionable, it does not always come out to meet you half way but it is approachable and emotional and has its own strong rewards.

The reason why the disc has taken over a decade to emerge, and I do recall it being mentioned many years ago, is that the company which originally recorded it lost interest and abandoned the project. Well done Toccata for picking up these most valuable pieces

-- MusicWeb International

Classical Music

The music of the Czech-born Viennese composer Kornauth (1891-1959) was once a staple of Austrian concert-halls. It has been largely forgotten in the half-century since his death. In this pioneering recording, British pianist Jonathan owell uncovers the many strands that fed into Kornauth’s rich and full-bodied compositions.

REVIEW:

This is the first full disc of piano music by Egon Kornauth, a composer born in what is now Olomouc in the Czech Republic (and was then Olmütz) who studied with Robert Fuchs in Vienna and then later with Schreker and Franz Schmidt.

Jonathan Powell is one of the most eloquent commentators on the music he plays I have come across, whether that be Sorabji or Kornauth, and his booklet note is a source of great interest. The angular, active Fantasy (1915) contains distinctly Richard Straussian turns of harmony and phrase in the sweet contrasting themes (that influence is less obvious in the more Schwung sections); the overt lush Straussian gestures sound more like a reduction of an orchestral tone poem. The op. 25 Klavierstücke (1920) are more modernist, probably because of his experiences of Schreker. The first is decidedly Bergian (think the op. 1 Piano Sonata), while the central Improvisation sounds exactly like that. Most fascinating is the final “Walzer,” a very sprightly evocation of Viennese dance, a bit like an Austro-Germanic Ravel La Valse in places.

The Kleine Suite (1923) has fewer ambitions than the other works on the disc and receives another fantastic performance from Powell. The Barcarolle (third movement) sums the suite up in essence, reflecting the less demanding demeanor of the piece, while the penultimate “Walzer” elicits a phenomenally light touch from Powell before the cheekily scampering Finale rounds things off with a smile.

The Präludium und Passacaglia offers maximal contrast, the B♭-Minor twilight of Bachian rigor and severity of the Prelude meeting the storm clouds of Chopin’s finest turbulence; the Passacaglia continues the gloominess. Powell paces it superbly: The close is truly crushing before the final surprise major-key end. The op. 44 Klavierstücke of 1940 is also sometimes known as the Second Suite. It is shot through with sweet nostalgia. The five pieces (“Präludium”; “Intermezzo”; “Capriccio”; “Mährische Ballade”; “Walzer”) speak of sweet nostalgia. Powell lavishes them with an attention to detail that almost makes them sparkle (in a retrospective sort of way). The “Mährische Ballade” (Moravian Ballad) is the highlight. Its almost folkish mode of discourse hides a strong compositional rudder steering the work perfectly; the final “Walzer” is the suite’s longest movement, and drips with charm.

This is a fascinating disc (as we are beginning to expect from Toccata Classics). The recording (made at Durham University, U.K.) is excellent.

-- Fanfare

In his piano music, as in his symphonies and string quartets, the English composer David Matthews (b. 1943) marries the idiom of classical tradition with that of his own day. His 2009 Piano Concerto, Mozartian in spirit, contains both a tango and a blues; his Piano Sonata of 1989 includes jazz elements, and his 1997 Variations feature both further blues and a homage to Beethoven. The mood of the music on this CD ranges from contemplative introspection to fiery, rhythmic energy. David Matthews describes the Finnish pianist Laura Mikkola as ‘a marvellous exponent of my music’. This disc is released to mark David Matthews’ 70th birthday in March.

REVIEW:

David Matthews’s 2009 Piano Concerto, with string orchestra, is an approachable, joyfully tonal work that should appeal to pianists and audiences seeking a diverting, fresh 20-minute extension of the worlds of Britten and Tippett, with excellent craftsmanship and minimal complication. It would take an act of desperation not to enjoy it, and unless you are a firebreathing modernist you will.

Speaking of “firebreathing”, the earlier Piano Sonata (1989), in three continuous movements, is far more acerbic and breathlessly dramatic. Prokofieff may be a distant influence, but the language is more relentlessly dissonant, and some would call it “advanced”. It’s pretty exciting, and like most of this composer’s work is unfailingly musical.

The 1997 Variations is an imaginative and very effective set built on a theme of descending thirds very distantly related to Brahms, but its treatment is very much of our time. Always with a distant flavor of tonality in the background, the seemingly improvisatory work holds the attention until the quiet, bluesy close.

Dionysus Dithyrambs (2007, 2004) are two brief pieces inspired by Nietzsche. Scriabin lurks, especially in the pieces dealing with Nietzsche’s insanity, most obviously in the wild final piece (‘Esultante’) with its whiffs of Tristan toward the end. Tristan gets up to dance in the final piece on the program, ‘One to Tango’ (1990, rev 1993), a pleasant but not trivial coda.

This should be of interest to pianists looking for high-quality end of century repertoire.

The excellent Finnish pianist Laura Mikkola acquits herself nobly.

-- American Record Guide

Sekles (1872–1933) was a leading figure in German music in the first decades of the20th century. In 1928, as director of the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt, he established the 1st academic program in jazz studies, an act of courage that unleashed furious attacks from Nazi press. His music was banned during the 3rd Reich and was virtually forgotten until now.

Matthew Taylor's sense of musical architecture – extending the symphonic tradition of Sibelius and Nielsen into the modern age – can be felt in his chamber music no less than in his orchestral output. Though his String Quartets Nos. 5, 6 and 7 were written in close succession, they are fundamentally different in design and feeling.

In the last years of his life, the great composer and violinist Tartini (1692-1770) labored at a cycle of sonatas for solo violin. The resulting manuscript offers the most important composition for solo violin after Bach and, at six hours in duration, the largest integrated work for the instrument. This is a world premiere of the complete work.

ERNST Introduction and Fantasy on Le Quattour Favori by F. Halévy , Op. 6. Élégie , Op. 10. Introduction, Variations, and Finale on a Waltz by Charles Shunke and Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, Op. 26. Hungarian Airs, Op. 22. HELLER and ERNST Pensées fugitives , 7-12. OSBORNE and ERNST Souvenirs of La Juive • Sherban Lupu (vn); Ian Hobson (pn) • TOCCATA 0163 (80:55)


Toccata’s series, Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst: Complete Music , continues with its third volume, comprising two sets of variations, the once famous but now at least familiar Élégie , the second half of Pensées fugitives (the first half having appeared in the series’s first volume), an opera fantasy, and the formidable Airs hongrois variés (here with a cadenza by Arthur Hartmann), all played, once again, by violinist Sherban Lupu and pianist Ian Hobson. The first work in the collection bears the title Introduction et Variations Brillantes en form de Fantaisie pour le violon sur le Quatuor favori de Ludovic de F. Halévy and consists of a set of four variations on a theme from Halévy’s opera Ludovic (according to the notes, Halévy completed the work begun by Ferdinand Hérold). As in the earlier volumes, Lupu produces a slightly acidulous tone, but he wields it suggestively, leaping with great effect into the higher registers in the introduction and playing with the pathos and drama the music, as well as the composer’s reputation, demands. As in the other volumes, Toccata has provided separate tracks for each section—the introduction, theme, variations, and concluding passages—so that reader-listeners can follow the highly detailed—and highly informative—booklet notes by Ernst’s biographer, Mark Rowe. In the variations, Lupu communicates the brilliance and aplomb (listen to his strutting staccato double-stops sprinkled with pizzicatos or the transcendentally difficult finale) that must have made such a strong impression on Ernst’s listeners (he seemed to have known—and been admired by—virtually everybody, including Liszt, with whom he played Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata, Joachim, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann, Paganini, Brahms, Wieniawski, and Charles Hallé, while the perceptive 19th-century violin historian, the Rev. H. R. Haweis, identified him as the greatest of all the violinists he’d heard).


The notes relate the hyper-romantic story of the Élégie sur la mort d’un objet chéri , which Ernst composed upon learning of the death of a young woman with whom he had fallen in love years earlier. Lupu creates the violinistic equivalent of a sob—many times over—in his heartfelt performance of this piece, which includes Louis Spohr’s characteristically chromatic introduction—the practice of including, which Rowe traces to Joachim and August Wilhelmj. Compare this deeply moving reading to the blander but still affecting one by Ingolf Turban (without Spohr’s introduction, on Claves CD 50-9613, Fanfare 20:6), the rich-toned but again less electifying one by Ilya Grubert (with Spohr’s introduction but also with some heavy breathing that doesn’t really help make Ernst’s mournful point—Hyperion 67619, Fanfare 31: 6), and Grubert’s similar reading with orchestra (without Spohr’s introduction but with the weight of the orchestra to give it ballast, which Steven E. Ritter reviewed in Fanfare 30:5 and I reviewed in Fanfare 31:1—Naxos 8.557565), and it becomes clear how much more pathos Lupu wrings from the piece. The notes give the next work the title, Introduction, Variations et Final, Dialogués, & Concertans sur une Valse favorite pour Piano et Violin par Charles Schunke et H. W. Ernst , and the work, with its showy pianism, recalls the Thème Allemande Varié , also by the two in collaboration, which appears in the series’ first volume. In this case, they’ve embellished in four variations a waltz by Johann Strauss, Sr., creating from it a highly entertaining, rhythmically vibrant pastiche that relies for its effect more heavily on pianistic than on violinistic brilliance. Hobson meets the challenge, as does Lupu—handily in both cases (and the violin part’s not at all easy, even if it’s overshadowed by the piano).


The Pensées fugitives include a Rêverie, Un Caprice, Inquiétude, Prière pendant l’orage, Intermezzo , and a Thème original de H. W. Ernst , with a variation and finale. (The identification of Ernst must have been necessary because Ernst published these pieces with pianist Stephen Heller—and though Ernst wasn’t their sole composer, he did give performances of them.) In the Rêverie, Lupu plays some portamentos that will strike many listeners as old-fashioned, but will seem to others the most effective way in which to heighten the expressivity—which they do. The Caprice doesn’t suggest the difficulty of Paganini’s works by the same name, but communicates the joviality and indeterminacy at the title’s root (a leaping goat?). The restless Inquiétude gives way to the moving Prière, to which, according to the notes, a storm serves as the background. Lupu and Hobson capture the prayer’s urgency as effectively as they do the storm’s tumultuousness. The Intermezzo, more playful, nevertheless reflects darker Affekten in its accompaniment, at least in Hobson’s performance. The theme and variations doesn’t empty Ernst’s bag of tricks as do the other works, but the variations seem strongly characterized, in the drawing-room manner, and the duo digs the marrow out of each of these moods and posturings. The booklet notes give the epigraphs printed with these pieces and descriptions of each.


Lupu and Hobson make Souvenirs de l’Opéra La Juive de F. Halevy [sic] pour Piano et Violon Concertants Composés par Osborne et Ernst , another collaboration—this time with George Osborne, according to the notes, an Irish pianist—sound quintessentially operatic, in each of its two sections. The intensity of these movements, and their performances, gives way to the breathtaking swagger of the Hungarian Airs , which Rowe identifies as one of Wieniawski’s favorite warhorses and even cites as an influence (in its rising 10th) on Edward Elgar’s Violin Concerto. Ruggiero Ricci recorded this piece twice, mounting its technical challenges with more breathtaking panache (if greater recklessness) than does Lupu, although Ricci doesn’t capture to a significantly greater degree its ethnic coloring or the affecting lyricism of its second theme, in which, once again, Lupu seems almost to sob. And Hartmann’s brilliant and commanding cadenza fits the work hand-in-glove.


For those who haven’t yet discovered the riches of Toccata’s series, this third volume might be as good a place as any to begin—but surely not to end. There’s a diamond in every sock drawer—almost, in fact, in every sock. The volumes of this series ought to pass directly through the Want List into the Hall of Fame, but it may be good for readers to learn of them more expeditiously among the pages of ordinary reviews. But the usual precautions ought to apply: Not recommended for those with heart problems, and so forth. They’re that exciting.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

MYSTERY VARIATIONS ON GIUSEPPE COLOMBI’S CHIACONA • Anssi Karttunen (vc) • TOCCATA 0171 (79:57)


COLOMBI Chiacona. KAIPAINEN Anything Goes. MATALON Polvo. REYNOLDS Colombi Daydream. COHEN Chaconne. TIENSUU Bleuelein. STUCKY Partite Sopra un Basso. SALONEN Sarabande per un Coyote. CAMPION Something to Go On. WALLIN Ciacconetta. ORTIZ Paloma. HEININEN Triple Antienne. HILLBORG Still and Flow. LERDAHL There and Back Again. PUUMALA Se Sillan. DUSAPIN 50 Notes in 3 Variations . HAKOLA Colombi Variation. DUN Chiacona After Colombi. NEIKRUG Tiny Colombi. YUASA Locus on Colombi’s Chiacona. WIGGLESWORTH Arietta. MATTHEWS Drammatico. SAARIAHO Dreaming Chaconne. FEDELE Preludio and Ciaccona. GLOBOKAR Idée Fixe. DAZZI Variation Sombre et Libre d’après Chiacona. TUOMELA Idulla. JOLAS A Fancy for Anssi. SRNKA A Variation. FRANCESCONI Anssimetry. LINDBERG Duello


Mystery Variations contains 30 different short works based on Giuseppe Colombi’s Chiacona. Colombi who lived from 1635 to 1694 replaced Giovanni Bononcini as maestro di cappella of the Modena Cathedral in Italy in 1678. The Chiacona is only one of an enormous number of pieces he wrote for various instruments, chamber groups, and orchestras. It is, however, said to be the oldest piece written for the cello. The music is part of a collection from the court of Francesco II of Este at the Biblioteca Estense in Modena. The idea for the Mystery Variations came from composer Kaija Saariaho and Muriel von Braun, the wife of cellist Anssi Karttunen, as a means of celebrating the cellist’s 50th birthday. They asked each of 30 composers to write a variation on the Chiacona . None of the composers knew who else had been asked and Karttunen promised to premiere music that he had not yet heard. Most of the variations range from just under two to just over three minutes long, so all of them fit on one disc. Few of these variations are truly melodic, most depend on texture, drama, percussion, and tonal color to excite the senses of the listener. Only one of the composers, Colin Matthews, uses electronics. Mark Neikrug and Magnus Lindberg use the letters of the cellist’s name as part of their variations. Some composers, such as Tan Dun, who was born in China and Pablo Ortiz from Argentina, make use of their native cultures while others, like Argentinian Martin Matalon and Texan Edmund Campion turn elsewhere. Matalon creates novel textures and far off sounds with a mute while Campion includes some aspects of Happy Birthday in his variation. Roger Reynolds’s Colombi Daydream , evokes an element of foreboding, while Jukka Tiensuu’s Bleuelein and Paavo Heininen’s Triple Antienne have plaintive, pleading qualities.


Composers like Steven Stucky, Kimmo Hakola, Joji Yuasa, Ivan Fedele, and Magnus Lindberg are fully aware of Karttunen’s virtuosity and have written works that show off some of his skills. Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Sarabande for a Coyote starts with the cello sounding a bit like a harp, before introducing some charming harmonies that expand the usual cello range. Rolf Wallin’s Ciacconetta has sliding arpeggios that resolve into an impressive dance. Lerdahl’s There and Back Again uses the dance to guide us from Colombi’s time forward to our own and back again. Anders Hillborg’s Still and Flow treats us to his seriously studied version of Bach. The in-your-face style of Veli-Mali Puumala’s… Se Sillan… is rather unique and it added a bit of spice to the mixture on this disc. Kartunnen follows it with Dusapin’s 50 Notes in 3 Variations, an inventive and intuitive work that resolves into a tone color-filled meditation. Also in the meditative mood, Ryan Wigglesworth’s Arietta offers more respite from the dramatic. Kaija Saariaho’s Dreaming Chaconne portrays a pastoral scene with her full-blooded sound vocabulary. In Idée Fixe, Vinko Globokar asks the cellist to sing and I found it a distraction. Gualtiero Dazzi’s Variation Sombre et Libre d’après Chiacona brings us a sweet and smooth melody played in the cello’s lowest notes. Idulla means germinating and Tapio Tuomela brings us a fantasy that includes tonal color and percussion. Betsy Jolas’s A Fancy for Anssi creates rivers of sound that broaden out to reflect fragments of Colombi’s theme. Miroslav Srnka, on the other hand, uses slides and double-stops to make us hunt for the theme while Luca Francesconi makes use of it openly but varies it in unexpected ways. The finale is Magnus Lindberg’s Duello , a dialogue between the Chiacona and music based on the cellist’s full name. It ends with a pleasing melody that leaves the listener feeling that the music was worthwhile hearing. The sound on this disc is excellent and I think many of our readers will find it interesting.


FANFARE: Maria Nockin

In this recital of Alnæs’ atmospheric songs, Eriksen, whose playing of Alnæs’ piano works can be heard on an earlier Toccata Classics CD, returns to his music in the company of Solvang, one of Norway’s best mezzos. This CD marks the 140th anniversary of Alnæs’ birth and the 80th of his death and includes a number of word premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

Solvang’s lyric soprano is attractive and colorful, and she is capable of floating some lovely pianos. Very rarely she pushes it too much and the tone turns hard, but this is a minor flaw in a disc of lovely singing. Eriksen is clearly as much of an Alnæs expert as we have today—having recorded a disc of piano pieces—and he and Solvang are on the same wavelength throughout. One could not ask for better performances. The recorded sound is a bit too “airy” for my tastes—but one gets used to it quickly enough. Very informative and high-quality program notes along with complete texts and translations round out the production.

-- Fanfare

Whatever your views on the music or the performance, that this recording exists at all is an extraordinary story, and due congratulations must be offered to the hard work and dedication of all involved, in particular of Jennifer Condon. Her “normal” job is as a prompter at the Hamburg Opera, but she has been responsible for editing this previously unpublished work, preparing it for performance, persuading a large and distinguished cast to take part, in some cases without any remuneration, as well as conducting the performance. This shows a commitment to the work that may seem eccentric to the cynical but heroic to others who have laboured in vain on behalf of other similarly neglected works.
 
Peggy Glanville-Hicks was an Australian composer whose teachers included Vaughan Williams, Egon Wellesz and Nadia Boulanger, who was married for a time to Stanley Bate, another neglected composer, and who spent twenty years in New York before moving to Greece and finally back to Australia. Her other works include the opera The Transposed Heads, commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra and recorded by them in the 1950s and in 1984 by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. I have listened many times to both recordings with increasing pleasure so that I have been very eager to hear the present discs.
 
Sappho is a setting of an adaptation by the composer of a verse play by Lawrence Durrell. It tells of the Lesbian (but not lesbian) poet Sappho in her latter years when she was married to a wealthy local merchant, Kreon. The various scenes show her with the twin brothers, Pittakos and Phaon, with her tutor, Minos, and with Diomedes, a drunken poet. Towards the end she is exiled to Corinth on a false charge of incest. Her final monologue, the only part of the opera to have been publicly performed, is the clear climax of the opera, with Sappho accepting the impermanence of personal relationships as well as of her own life. It mirrors similar scenes at the end of operas by Strauss and Janácek, albeit that it is very different in its musical style. That style derives to a great degree from the composer’s attempt to reduce the importance of harmony in music, and to throw the emphasis instead on texture and tone, melody and heterophony. The result may seem a little bland at first but the listener soon adjusts to the composer’s very individual style.
 
A quick glance at the cast list shows several distinguished Wagnerian singers. Very surprisingly that appears to have been a necessity due to the weight of some of the orchestration. The conductor’s note indicates that she believes that with adjustment to dynamics and some of the orchestration it could be performed on a smaller scale, and I have to say that this would be welcome. In fact the ideal might be to retain the Wagner-sized voices but allow them to sing at somewhat less than full power. That would permit a more nuanced approach to performance and a more natural delivery of the, admittedly somewhat flowery, text. I am full of admiration for the cast here, who have taken on a major new work with obvious enthusiasm, but it has to be admitted that for much of the time there is a lack of any attempt at light or shade in their singing. The many singers for whom English is not their first language cope well but it cannot be said that the result sounds idiomatic. Admittedly the results in the case of the English-speaking artists are not all that much better, and although I attempted to follow what was being sung without it after a while I found myself wholly dependent on the printed libretto to understand what was being said or even who was saying it.
 
Sappho is by no means as immediately attractive as is The Transposed Heads, partly due to an apparent preponderance of slow or slowish music, but enough is revealed through this very welcome issue to suggest that subject to the preparation of a performance edition that would make it kinder to singers and to a greater familiarity with the work it would certainly merit stage performance. In the meantime we should once again thank Jennifer Condon for her untiring efforts to make it possible to hear the work and all the singers and players who helped her in this. Congratulations also to Toccata Classics whose presentation of the issue, with essays on the work, the edition, Durrell and Sappho, together with the full libretto, does all that could be done to help the listener and encourage understanding of this important discovery.
 
-- John Sheppard, MusicWeb International

Like his close friend and colleague Shostakovich Shebalin (1902-63) knew a life of both celebrity and hardship. He was condemned in the infamous '48 Party congress in Moscow and in later life he fought to overcome a series of crippling strokes. His personality remained undaunted by these tribulations as his music resolutely proves.

Ashton (b. 1859, Durham), is a best-kept secret of British music. He has a generous output of piano music, chamber works and songs. Ashton’s writing for both cello and piano is virtuosic. What strikes the ear is the quality of his melodic inspiration – the lyrical immediacy of his tunes suggests Schubert, set in a style of Brahmsian richness. This CD features world premiere recordings.

REVIEW:

Algernon Ashton, (1859–1937) was a British-born composer who was educated in Germany. When his father died in 1863, his mother moved the family to Leipzig where she was befriended by Clara Schumann. Even as a child, Algernon attended the famous Schumann soirees and rubbed shoulders with famous musicians. After finishing his education, he returned to England. He became professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London and spent the rest of his life in England. Ashton was a prolific composer but many of his works were not published and very few have been recorded. His chamber music output includes four sonatas for violin and piano, four for cello and piano, two piano quartets, and two piano quintets. He also wrote symphonies, but they were never published. The opening work on this Toccata disc is his Arioso, a beautiful piece in a contemplative mood. It has some of the colors of Brahms, but none of his rhythmic bite. The Sonata No. 1 in F Major opens with an Allegro Appassionato, an impassioned plea begging the listener to take a mental voyage to Ashton’s lyrical world of drawing rooms with polished grand pianos and crimson velvet drapes where chamber music was as common as video games are today. He develops the second movement, the Larghetto, with consummate skill and clothes it with jewel tones. Only in the Finale, which he asks to be played Allegro Frescamente, does he bring in a truly rhythmic melody. It could be a happy folk dance replete with clapping and stomping on the accented notes. It’s the kind of music that makes you get up and move! Abbate and Mizerska play all of this music joyfully and with great skill.

The Phantasiestücke is an invitation to reverie. Ashton is a master of melody and he begins with a broad sunny tune that might bring back memories of a hike in German or English woodlands. In the second movement, marked Andantino con Gran Espressione, he leads us away from the cares of the everyday world into the nirvana of pure musical concentration where we can spend a few blissful minutes. After we reach our goal, we return to the village for the last movement marked Allegro Scherzando. There we can relax and tap our toes to another of Ashton’s fast and furious folk tunes. The Second Sonata is a bit more dramatic than the First. Its markings, Moderato and Adagio ma non troppo are somewhat deceiving, because this work is constantly increasing in tension as it builds toward its marvelously animated finale. The two fine artists who currently reside and teach in London, the Polish-born Evva Mizerska and the Naples-born Emma Abbate, play all of this music with great finesse. Ashton’s music is a revelation. It deserves a much wider audience than it has had so far. The sound on the disc is clear with each instrument given equal presence. I enjoyed getting to know Ashton’s story and his music and think this disc should have a place in many record libraries.

-- Fanfare

Russian composer Korndorf was a larger-than-life character and wrote music that was expansive and urgent. His 3 works for solo cello illustrate his unwillingness to be governed by convention. (Toccata)