ELLER Caprice in f#. Romanze in f#. Molto vivo in f#. Nocturne in B. Presto in f#. Lyric Waltz . Waltz in B. Small Waltz. Méditation. Preludes: Book 2. Theme and Variations in E. 13 Pieces on Estonian Motifs • Sten Lassmann (pn) • TOCCATA (73:40)

This recording is the fifth in a projected series of seven discs surveying the entirety of Estonian composer Heino Eller’s prolific output of works for solo piano. Pianist Sten Lassmann initiated the series in 2008 as the culmination of his doctoral studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. As evidenced by his detailed program notes, Lassmann is a knowledgeable and passionate advocate of Eller’s work, which is virtually unrepresented on recording.


Dubbed “the Estonian Sibelius” by the pioneering musicologist Guido Adler, Eller’s output spans over six decades, from 1909 to his death in 1970, and includes three symphonies, five string quartets, and a large number of chamber works. A 1999 disc pairing his violin concerto with five symphonic poems reveals a luxuriantly effusive neo-Romantic composer. Eller’s nearly 200 piano works, though, spanning the full length of his career, demonstrate the extraordinary scope of Eller’s musical personality. As Lassmann indicates in the notes to the first disc of this series, he has attempted to present a diversity of styles and genres on each disc, so that each recording can offer “a distinctive portrait of Heino Eller.”


This disc presents eight miniatures, an early set of variations, and three significant works from Eller’s maturity. The latter three works could hardly be more diverse. The 13 Pieces on Estonian Motifs dates from 1940–41, during Eller’s brief tenure as chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Estonian Soviet Composers’ Union. On first hearing, the pieces are strikingly Bartókian. Lydian harmonies are prominent, as are sparse textures, drone bass, uneven phrase lengths, and rapid, motoric passages. But I do not find these pieces to be derivative. Eller supplements his modal harmonies with pastel, jazzy ninth chords. He is fond of counterpoint and clever uses of motivic material, which moves fluidly between foreground and background. The entire cycle demonstrates tremendous skill and a refined sense of craftsmanship. And the music is thoroughly engaging.


During the first third or so of his career, Eller wrote three books of piano preludes and a handful of individual preludes, for a total of 28. Readers interested in the complete cycle can find it ably performed by Vardo Rumessen on a 1998 Pro Piano disc. Lassmann’s treatment of the second book of preludes is equally appealing—slightly more impetuous and rhapsodic, though Rumessen brings an understated suaveness to these pieces that I find just as effective. The pieces themselves employ a sensual, chromatic harmonic language not far from that of Scriabin, with sudden flourishes reminiscent of Bax. Frequent use of the major triad with an added sixth brings to mind the American popular idiom. I give these comparisons only to orient the reader to Eller’s sound world; Eller’s personality shows itself to be completely unique in these preludes. And they are expertly constructed, with the thematic material always easy to follow, even in rather thick textures.


Eller’s Méditation dates from what Lassmann refers to as “a golden period in Eller’s oeuvre .” I find it to be the most compelling piece on this disc. An interval of a major second, sounded in the bass and answered by a treble motif outlining a perfect fifth, appears throughout the opening section beneath a long-phrased melancholic melody featuring descending fourths, creating a spacious, somber atmosphere. The piece becomes increasingly rhapsodic, culminating in emphatic minor-ninth chords and rapid treble arpeggios before returning to the opening material. The final moments convey a sense of despairing resignation. In this piece, Eller demonstrates an impressive ability to produce a significant emotional impact with a great economy of musical material. The nearly omnipresent opening motif never feels repetitive or unwelcome; instead, it is clearly the axis around which the drama of the piece revolves.


One danger of presenting a comprehensive survey of any composer’s works is that not all pieces are likely to represent the composer’s best artistry. In a large body of works such as Eller’s, even a comparatively small percentage of subpar compositions equates to a fairly substantial number of pieces of minimal interest. As Lassmann admits, the first five works on this disc “do not demonstrate much originality.” Written during the first few years of Eller’s career, they are largely derivative of Chopin and Schumann. They are well-crafted and attractive enough, but do not bear repeated listening. Three brief waltzes from the 1930s are similarly slight genre pieces. The Lyric Waltz ’s main melody is quite similar to Greensleeves . The Waltz in B Major demonstrates a pleasant affability. And the Small Waltz shows Eller flirting with Poulencian harmonies. The only true disappointment on the disc is the theme and variations of 1912. A pleasant though generic chorale theme is put through a predictable series of variations: it is arpeggiated, ornamented in triplets, placed in canon with itself, and played in the parallel minor. The piece sounds like a composition exercise and is unlikely to hold the listener’s interest. In no way do I fault Lassmann for including these pieces, though I doubt they have any place other than in a complete survey of Eller’s work. It is does mean, however, that only two-thirds of this recording is of significant musical interest.


Lassmann’s playing is confident and expressive throughout the disc. Eller’s music has moments of impressive technical display, and Lassmann is more than capable in his execution of these moments. His lyrical passages are expressive and songlike, and his musical choices strike me as being stylistically apt. The recording itself is well-engineered, with a clean piano sound. Eller’s music is well worth exploring, and this disc is generally quite rewarding. I hope, though, that when Lassmann has completed his cycle of the complete works, Toccata Classics might release a compilation of Eller’s most significant pieces.

FANFARE: Myron Silberstein

Harold Truscott (1914–92) enjoyed a reputation as one of Britain’s most perceptive writers on music, a doughty champion of many neglected composers who have now become familiar figures. Truscott himself was a composer of some stature, writing in an individual style rooted in Beethoven and Schubert but also absorbing influences of Nielsen, Medtner and Hindemith. This is the first CD in a series presenting his substantial corpus of piano music. Ian Hobson, pianist and conductor, began his international career in 1981 when he won First Prize at the Leeds Int’l Piano Competition.

As a young man, Harold Shapero (1920–2013) reacted against the dominance of modernism in American musical life by using a Stravinsky-animated neoclassical language with its roots in Beethoven and Schubert. +These three early piano works – two of them receiving their first-ever recordings – reveal his superb craftsmanship and ready wit in music that embraces rather than rejects the past. +The result is an extraordinary fusion between the Viennese classics and contemporary America.

REVIEW:

Massachusetts-born and -raised Harold Shapero belonged to that generation of American 20th-century composers who eschewed European Modernism, including serialism, employing instead a kind of wrong-note Neoclassicism in the manner of Prokofiev. He was extraordinarily well educated; private lessons with Nicolas Slonimsky and Ernst Krenek as a teenager, then on to Harvard where he studied with Walter Piston. World War Two prevented the obligatory post-graduate studies in Paris or Rome, so Shapero worked with Nadia Boulanger, herself dislocated by the war, at the Longy Conservatory in Cambridge.

These three works are from that early period in Shapero’s career, and as the very titles of the works would indicate, are intentionally retrograde. There are echoes of Beethoven strewn about the sonatas, with typical fast-slow-fast three-movement construction in the Sonata in F Minor, and a broad, harmonically complex introduction for the Four-Hand Sonata, while the variations are more Baroque in their use of florid melodic figures and free fantasy. Not surprisingly, given the composer’s superb training, the music is very well crafted. There is an attention to precise detail that recalls Stravinsky. The Four-Hand Sonata is enlivened by an easy theatrical expressivity and jaunty spirit that sounds influenced by the composer’s dear friend Leonard Bernstein, to whom the piece is dedicated, and with whom he performed it. I was mildly bothered, however, by Shapero’s occasional quirky sense of rhythm, including the stuttering pace of the Arioso movement from the Sonata in F Minor. I don’t think I can fault the playing, having heard many fine performances of contemporary piano music from the reliably excellent Pinkas. She is also well abetted by Evan Hirsch, her regular partner (in life as well as on stage).

Shapero, who died in 2013 at the age of 93, probably did not have the robust career that his early days seemed to promise. Perhaps his time is yet to come; this excellent collection of piano music is a step in the right direction.

-- Fanfare

GÁL Solo Cello Sonata. Solo Cello Suite. Cello and Piano Sonata • Alfia Nakipbekova (vc); Jakob Fichert (pn) • TOCCATA TOCC0043 (61:95)


Hans Gál (1890–1987) was born into a cultured Jewish family that lived in a suburb of Vienna. He studied piano, first unwillingly and later with enjoyment. What he seemed to like most was composing. In 1929, with the support of such famous conductors as Fritz Busch and Wilhelm Furtwängler, he became director of the conservatory in Mainz, Germany. He was fired in 1933 because of his ethnicity. Hitler did not allow Jews to hold positions as teachers, and Gál’s compositions, one of which was a popular comic opera, could no longer be staged. After a futile move back to Vienna, Gál left for Great Britain where, unfortunately, he was interned as an enemy alien. All this time he continued to compose, however. He wrote the Huyton Suite for two violins and flute, the only instruments to be had in the camp where he was held. After the war, he finally attained a position that fit his abilities at the University of Edinburgh where he was active in the creation of the Edinburgh Festival. He was a major player in that city’s musical scene from 1948 to his death in 1987. On this disc we hear a sonata for cello and piano from 1953 and two works for unaccompanied cello from 1982, written when the composer was 92. If Rossini called the music he composed after his early retirement Sins of My Old Age, I guess these Gál pieces are the mitzvahs of his seniority. What a survivor he was! How wonderful that he could still work productively late in his life!


All of the pieces on this disc were written in the United Kingdom. The earliest piece is the 1953 sonata. We immediately hear the influence of Brahms in the dark opening. Although he was not a cellist, Gál certainly knew how to accent the best features of the instrument, and Alfia Nakipbekova, an artist from far-off Kazakhstan, knows how to make her cello sing. German-born pianist Jakob Fichert plays with a Brahmsian palette of wine-colored tones. The style of this most interesting composition looks back 100 years with 20th-century eyes. The second movement requires a light touch and the players respond with grace and alacrity as they converse equally with each other. The last movement starts off sadly, and I wonder if Gál was remembering friends who had not made it through the war. However, he follows this with a happy duet he characterizes as energetic. Perhaps it is his song of triumph over all the adversity that life had handed him.


The Solo Cello Sonata and the Solo Cello Suite are rather similar works that feature the virtuosity of Nakipbekova. I don’t doubt that she will become better-known in the West. While Gál’s works are melodic, they are not in a 19th century style; he found his own unique voice and wrote in a style that now seems to be in line with the work of 21st-century melodists. The first and shorter piece consists of a propulsive Andante, a lilting Minuet, and a final Vivace with a gorgeous cadenza at the end. The suite has four movements and, after a short introduction, treats us to a Fughetta with a catchy tune. The Alla Marcia is lighthearted, too; perhaps the marchers are a child and his stuffed animals. The Cavatina is a wordless aria for a velvet-voiced alto played with a delicious legato on the instrument that most closely resembles that voice. The finale is a Rondino that ends the suite in a sumptuous and traditional manner.


Nakipbekova and Fichert are a most accomplished duo and their playing is recorded in clear and present sound.


FANFARE: Maria Nockin

The composer Arnold Griller (b. 1937), son of the violinist Sidney Griller, grew up in London, surrounded by some of the world’s best-known musicians. In spite of this propitious beginning to his career, his considerable output remains largely unknown. This second volume of orchestral pieces presents four major works, one of them Griller’s only symphony. His music is highly individual: it absorbs a number of disparate influences, not least Milhaud (his main teacher) and late Stravinsky, shows an occasional touch of the surreal and the bizarre, and infuses the result with radiant lyricism, edgy humor and restless energy. The career of Alexander Walker has taken him all over the world. His pioneering recordings for Naxos have been of music by Havergal Brian and Ignaz Waghalter. He works regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and has toured with the Royal Ballet to the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theaters in Russia and throughout the USA. Emin Martirosian, born in Yerevan in 1987, graduated from the Moscow State Conservatoire in 2011 as both cellist and pianist. Since 2001 he has toured actively, both in Russia and abroad: the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Moldova, Switzerland, Turkey, and elsewhere.

Alexander Grechaninov (1864–1956), an eventual Russian exile following the Revolution, was a member of the second generation of nationalist composers – he was a student of both Rimsky-Korsakov and Taneyev – he never abandoned an essentially Russian lyricism. These attractive unknown viola works are as good as unknown: several remain unpublished, and two are in Elena Artanomova’s own viola transcriptions. The CD is released to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Grechaninov’s birth this year.

REVIEW:

Primarily known for his orchestral music, Grechaninov also wrote a sheaf of chamber works. That for viola has remained obscure. His Op.161 Sonata for viola (or clarinet) is unpublished which accounts for much of its obscurity and this is its first recording. Its premiere was given by Elena Artamonova and Nicholas Walker in London only in 2013, the same year it was recorded. The premiere was given in December but the recording was made earlier in June. Couched in sonata-form, and written between 1935 and 1940 the work proves amiable, songful and engaging. There is a high quotient of charm in Grechaninov’s chamber music, and that is an element that figures prominently here. His penchant for vocal composition ensures that the melodies are at all times winningly warm, not least in the lyric effusions of the central Canzona movement. I hear hints of Spanish music in the finale though there is certainly a strain of Russian folklore buzzing merrily throughout, and some passages sound almost like Dvo?ák.

The Second Sonata was written in 1943 and is actually a clarinet sonata, whose dedicatee was the great Simeon Bellison. The arrangement for viola is the work of Elena Artamonova, who has taken her cue from the earlier viola sonata and has dealt persuasively with questions of articulation and register. The work sounds convincing in its new form. Once more there’s a fine balance between the instruments, and an uncluttered and jovial quality. Toccata has gone to the trouble of separately tracking each of the variations that mark the theme and variations, with coda, of the second movement of this bipartite work. Here Slavic folk affiliations are to the fore, and a vigorous and engaging variation for solo piano too. I was most taken by the third variation where the piano’s gruff enquiries are met by a pliant viola response. There’s a viola cadenza before the spirited and exciting toccata-like coda.

Early Morning is a cycle of ten pieces written in France in 1930 for cello (or violin) and piano. It has been arranged for viola by Sabine Stegmüller and this is its first recording in this guise. Primarily this is a work of instruction for children, adept and engaging teaching material with nice descriptive titles à la Schumann, two highlights of which are the pensive In the Twilight and the deliciously deft Burlesque. In modo antico is a suite written back in 1918 for violin and orchestra or piano. This arrangement is Artamonova’s. It opens with a somewhat showy cadenza but continues in a romantic vein rather more than anything too self-consciously modo antico, though the movements sport titles such as Sarabande, Gavotte – played with deliciously zesty lift here – and Jig. Finally there are the two Grechaninov transcriptions of songs by Debussy, first published in 1946, which would make excellent recital pieces. Once again these are premiere recordings.

These richly lyrical works, all pretty much unknown, receive highly persuasive and stylistically apt performances from Artamonova – who writes the excellent booklet notes – and Nicholas Walker. Well worth getting to know, in fact.

– MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

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

In his last years, Giuseppe 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. Now at Vol. 3, this first complete recording is based on a fresh study of the source and includes a number of works in Tartini’s shorthand, overlooked in earlier editions. “Skærved has a fine sense of Baroque style and an understated virtuosity…” (Infodad) “…one waits impatiently for the series to unfold.” (MusicWeb Int’l)

Georgy Sviridov (1915–98) has been hailed as the most important composer of choral music of the 20th c. He saw himself as part of the thousand-year continuum of Russian culture, giving its resonance full expression in the monumental choral cycle Hymns and Prayers, written 1987-97; he completed it only weeks before he died. Extraordinarily beautiful and profoundly moving, Hymns and Prayers is perhaps the most important Russian choral composition since the liturgies of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. The Credo Chamber Choir, based in Kyiv, Ukraine, was founded in April 2002.

These five works, from three different stages of Hans G�l's long life (1890-1987), all show his consummate craftsmanship but are otherwise quite different in character. The passionate Piano Quartet (1914), downstream from Brahms and Dvor�k, brings the grand gestures of Romanticism into the early twentieth century. The 1935 Sonatina in F major for violin and piano, recently rediscovered, and the three Sonatinas from 1956 put a premium on textural clarity and lyrical approachability; here the contrapuntal ingenuity, ceaseless thematic development, harmonic freedom and rhythmic unpredictability of G�l's language animate the music from within. Newcastle-born pianist Sarah Beth Briggs was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician competition at the age of eleven and studied with Denis Matthews and Edith Fischer. Katalin Kertesz is the leader of the Kertesz Quartet, with which she recently recorded the four string quartets by the nineteenth century Czech composer heinrich Wenzel Veit. Nichola Blakey, viola, enjoys a busy freelance career, giving performances across the UK. Cressida Nash, cello, is a founding member of Musicians South West.

Like Brahms and Reger, Hans Gal expressed some of his last musical thoughts in the form of a Clarinet Quintet, this one written when it's composer was 87 years old. In these three scores, Gal produced some of the loveliest music in the clarinet repertoire. Creating a family affair, the album was produced by Hans Gal's grandson, Simon Fox-Gal.

Beat Furrer is no stranger to the attention he receives for his subtle exploration of the possibilities of the human voice. Furrer's six Enigmas, a cycle of a cappella settings of Leonardo da Vinci, demonstrates a striking emotional range, from rich, almost romantic tonal warmth to dramatic avant-garde expressionism. All eight works on this new release accentuate Furrer's fondness for exploring sonority, timbre and texture.

GERNSHEIM Piano Quintets: No. 1 in d , op. 35; No. 2 in b , op. 63 • Edouard Oganessian (pn); Art Vio Qrt • TOCCATA TOCC 0099 (64:21)


One of the great joys of initial acquaintance with the standard classical-music repertoire is the thrill of that first personal encounter with one masterpiece after another. And while that repertoire is and should not be static—pieces within and without it require periodic re-evaluation—it exists precisely because there are masterworks of superlative excellence that set standards by which all other works are measured. Beyond those confines, a law of diminishing returns sets in; most music that is lesser or little known is such for the very good reason that it is of inferior quality. Nevertheless, pursuing acquaintance with works outside the canon is both a necessity and a pleasure; it avoids complacency and routine, broadens and deepens the mind, provides context for the standard repertoire, and offers enjoyment of the very real merits of such lesser works on their own terms. Above all, it gives the rare opportunity to reexperience that initial youthful thrill, when one stumbles across unjustly neglected compositions that deserve, even demand, recognition as true masterworks and inclusion in the standard repertoire.


For me, a very short list of such neglected masterworks includes the third and fourth symphonies of Alberic Magnard and the opera Risurezzione of Franco Alfano. I will now risk sticking my neck out even further and add to that list the two quintets recorded here for the first time. Friedrich Gernsheim (1839–1916) was previously a completely unknown name to me, and I suspect to most people reading this review as well. In my case, at least, that has now changed, and exploring more of his works will be a top musical priority. Other recordings of Gernsheim pieces currently in print include his cello concerto (reviewed unenthusiastically by Peter J. Rabinowitz in Fanfare 30:6), his three piano quartets and four symphonies, one of his five string quartets, and two of his four piano trios; a violin sonata once appeared on LP as well.


These two pieces were composed 20 years apart, completed in 1876 and 1896, respectively; both are cast in the traditional four-movement sequence with the scherzo in third position. If they are true indicators of Gernsheim’s oeuvre as a whole, then the existing dismissive verdict of him as a pedantic imitator of Brahms is a great injustice. (Anti-Semitism also worked against Gernsheim’s posthumous reputation, as the Nazis systematically removed copies of his works from German libraries and destroyed them.) Without question his thematic material, harmonic language, rhythmic patterns, and instrumentation—even his transitional cadences and successions of key signatures—are all remarkably similar to those of Brahms. For example, the unison opening of the D-Minor Quintet immediately recalls that of Brahms’s F-Minor Piano Quintet, while the energetic, folkdance-based Scherzo is obviously inspired by the finale of his G-Minor Piano Quartet. Likewise, several transitional passages in the opening Molto moderato of the B-Minor Quintet remind one of counterparts in the opening Maestoso of Brahms’s D-Minor Piano Concerto (though the following Adagio suggests an affinity with Dvo?ák as well). However, the stylistic relation between the two composers is that of fraternal twins, rather than of an original versus a doppelgänger ; the fundamental family resemblances do not negate Gernsheim’s real and substantial originality. One noteworthy difference between them is that, even more so than Brahms, Gernsheim uses a principle of continuous development and progressive variation, wherein recapitulated thematic materials do not simply recur in their original forms but mutate into new guises. Gernsheim also more often allows the first violin and cello to sing out freely in cantabile solos, providing much-needed contrast to the frequently dense full-ensemble passages. Indeed, his musical style is best described as a synthesis of the Brahmsian elements noted above with the rhapsodic exuberance and freedom of Schumann (whose E?-Major Piano Quintet also makes its influence felt here).


Pianist Edouard Oganessian (of Armenian descent but Russian-trained) and the Art Vio Quartet (a Lithuanian ensemble) make a wonderful team, playing with rich, weighty, and yet luminescent tone and superb ensemble balance and interplay. The recorded sound is full and spacious but not reverberant; the instruments are closely miked but not oppressively so. The booklet offers exceptionally informative program notes, including detailed analyses of each movement in both works.


With this CD, that initial youthful thrill of discovery is back; Romantic chamber music simply doesn’t get any better than this. It is definitely a keeper for a 2010 Want List entry, and has my most urgent recommendation for you to make it a priority acquisition.


FANFARE: James A. Altena

The Russian composer Grigori Frid (1915–2012), whose long life encompassed the entire existence of the Soviet Union, is best known for his 1969 chamber opera The Diary of Anne Frank. His sizable output, which has yet to be properly explored, includes three major works for viola and piano, their dignified restraint and emotional honesty taking the late works of Shostakovich as their stylistic starting point. They are followed by In Memoriam Grigori Frid, a touching tribute by Alexander Vustin (b. 1943) to his former teacher.

REVIEW:

Grigori Frid’s long life was marked by political turbulence and unease. His father had been sentenced to a five-year period in a vicious labor-camp in 1927 but the family survived intact. Frid was a teacher and educator, a disseminator of contemporary music and a composer of wide gifts whose portfolio includes three symphonies, numerous chamber works, and choral music as well as a raft of incidental, theater and radio works.

His complete viola music is the subject of this disc. Frid admired the instrument for its qualities of ‘reflection and contemplation’ as he related to the violist in this disc, Elena Artamonova, who gave the British premiere of the Viola Sonata No.1 in 2011. The work dates from 1971. The viola opens solo, and muted, revealing a Fridian fusion of lyricism and austerity with hints of March elements too. The central movement is a fast one, opening attaca, toccata-like and full of verve. The slow finale – the ground plan is vaguely Prokofiev-like – opens with a free cadenza, the piano cushioning or commenting quietly on the viola’s inexorable ascent to its highest register and silence.

The Sonata No.2 followed in 1985. Its subject matter is the Greek myth of Phaedra and it’s cast in four movements. There is appropriately somber tolling embedded in the work, and a heavily oppressive atmosphere, though Frid also embraces polystylism, introducing a stylized Baroque dance into the second movement, Music in a Palace, which is then subjected to much development and fragmentation. The Catharis movement takes the viola very high and introduces an element of equilibrium before the tolling finale of the Epilogue leads the viola to meander amidst the lament and reiteration of the opening movement. Some elements here suggest Shostakovich’s influence but this stoically aloof piece need not be seen as part of that lineage; it stands on its own feet. The Six Pieces (1975) are little character sketches, strong on sul ponticello, off-kilter dancing, interrupted dialogues, some tart dissonance and a highly developed sense of introversion, perfectly exemplified by the concluding Lento.

Talking of conclusions, that marks the end of Frid’s viola music. The disc is rounded out with his pupil Alexander Vustin’s In Memoriam Grigori Frid, composed in 2014. In two movements it builds strongly, through a quietly complex structure, to produce a work of weighted gravity whose lyricism formulates into a kind of somber refraction. It’s a fine salute from student to teacher.

Both Artamonova and Christopher Guild have recorded before for Toccata. She recorded Grechaninov and Vasilenko, whilst Guild has recorded Ronald Center and Ronald Stevenson. Together they make a fine team, though the violist has in the past more usually been paired with Nicholas Walker, who accompanied her in the two discs just mentioned. The recording is well-balanced and the notes – by the violist – are full of important biographical and musical information.

– MusicWeb International (Jonathan Woolf)

FRANÇAIX String Symphony. Ode sur “La Naissance de Vénus” de Botticelli. Die Kamelien: Pantomime • Kerry Stratton, cond; Sir Georg Solti C O • TOCCATA 162 (52:06)


The light yet well-crafted music of Jean Françaix is extremely popular but not well thought of by the majority of critics and academics. I’ve long loved his Wind Quintet and his Trois Epigrammes, and so did Nadia Boulanger who performed excerpts from the latter with her singers. The String Symphony (1948) is one of his happiest and most popular works, and I found myself utterly charmed by this re-acquaintance with it. Nor is it as much a piece of musical gingerbread as we often hear nowadays: Françaix wrote some very interesting chromatic harmonies and off-kilter rhythms into the score, which oddly enough bear an occasional resemblance to early Britten. Conductor Stratton and his chamber orchestra capture the lightness as well as the lovely textures, and their performance is delightful. So, too, is the brief ode to Botticelli’s “La Naissance de Vénus,” written for a 1961 TV documentary on the artist that was never aired. An unnamed studio orchestra recorded and broadcast the piece to arouse interest in the TV program, but when the show was scuttled that recording disappeared. This is its first official recording, and is an excellent example of the composer’s ability to set a mood with only a few gestures.


Possibly the most arresting piece here is the ballet score Die Kamelien , a retelling of Dumas’s tale of Marguerite Duplessis. It was written in 1950 and premiered in New York the following year with choreography by George Balanchine. This incident was not an anomaly; as Françaix often said, “I live in exile in my own country and am nurtured from abroad.” As in the case of much 20th-century ballet music, the score alludes to the movements of the dancers and does not always develop as concert music, yet I found it extremely well written. The opening piece, titled “Am Grab: Andantino ,” is moody and evocative, representing a scene at Marguerite’s grave. According to the liner notes, “Her spirit accepts the camellias from Armand’s ghost and reflects that her legend has become immortal: she invites the audience to see how it came about.” The second piece, representing the ball at which she meets Armand, is an interesting waltz in which the rhythms are, again, occasionally skewed. It includes a minuet and ends in a lively vein. The pair dance a “melancholy siciliano” while Marguerite reflects that “the reality of their affair was much more mundane than the legend.”


The next section, “Das Landhaus: Vivo ,” is set at the country house of Armand’s father who forbids her to continue the affair with his son. It opens with violin scales that rise and fall chromatically, suggesting the uncertain nature of their relationship. These are altered in various ways throughout the scene—one of them a melancholy and quirky waltz in which the string figures occasionally resolve the harmony only to set off again restlessly. A Gallic sort of polka rhythm also makes its appearance here in the middle section. “Im Spielsaal: Allegro ” places Marguerite in the gaming hall with the Baron. The liner notes aptly describe the music as beginning with vivacious dances but eventually veering off into long, sad phrases that depict her death from tuberculosis. The final scene returns her, and us, to the graveside once again, bringing closure to this rather brief (25 minutes) but sad ballet.


This is the first recording of the ballet as well as of the Botticelli piece, thus this disc is a must for Françaix fans. For those who have heard his music and like it, I recommend it highly as well. The string symphony has only been recorded three times previously, and since this disc collects almost all his music for string orchestra it is a valuable addition to the composer’s discography. I particularly applaud conductor Stratton for his enthusiasm for this music and foresight in getting it recorded.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley