This twelfth release in the Toccata Classics exploration of the music of Ferenc Farkas (1905–2000) once again puts his chamber music with flute in the spotlight – here with an oboe chaser. As with previous albums in this series, the music highlights the characteristics that make Farkas’ music so appealing: catchy tunes, transparent textures, buoyant rhythms, a fondness for Baroque forms and a taste for the folk-music of his native Hungary that marks him out as a true successor to Bartók and Kodály. The works in this recording are all reworkings – by Farkas or the two soloists here – of music first written for different forces and now taking on a new lease of life.

Toccata Classics continues its exploration of the music of the Hungarian composer Ferenc Farkas (1905–2000) with this second of two releases of his chamber works for cello. As with previous albums in this series, the music here features the characteristics that make Farkas’ music so appealing: catchy tunes, transparent textures, buoyant rhythms and a fondness for Baroque forms and folk-dances. Some of these pieces speak a tougher language that show Farkas to have been in touch with his times, but it is the infectious melodic appeal of most of the music here that carries the day.

Nicola Fago (1677-1745) was one of the leading practitioners of the chamber cantata, a kind of mini-opera for voice and ensemble. This genre, brought to perfection by several generations of composers working in the aristocratic courts in Naples, has only recently attracted the attention of musicologists. The six examples by Fago recorded here, for the first time, reveal him to have been a master of the genre: they are dramatic, full of rhythmic excitement and stuff with catchy tunes.

This release is a joint project between American string sextet Cuatro Puntos and student ensembles from Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), opened in Kabul in 2010 after a period of Taliban rule in which instruments were destroyed and musicians were outlawed. The special goal of ANIM is on supporting the most disadvantaged members of Afghan society, many students are orphans and street vendors. Cuatro Puntos is based in Hartford, Connecticut. The ensemble is a non-profit organization centered around global peace and cooperation achieved through the writing, teaching and performance of music across the world. The title work is by composer Sadie Harrison; in recognition of her unique integration of modern composition and traditional Afghan folk music, she was given the honor of being named a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths, London. This album is the result of her time there. The Rosegarden of Light alternates between interludes performed by the Ensemble Zohra, the ANIM all-girls ensemble and fantasies on their material performed by Cuatro Puntos. "At a time when we are bombarded every day by images of the world in crisis, The Rosegarden of Light is a joyful celebration of musicians who share a fundamental right to express themselves through the universal language of music." - Blackmore Vale Magazine

REVIEW:

Music can mean many things to different people and to some it can mean everything. Music can represent religious beliefs, create political conversations, and preserve the cultural aspects of a civilization. Now imagine living in a place where music has been heavily censored since the 1970s, a ban on instrumental music wasn’t lifted until 2001, and the first performance of a decades old children’s book moved people to tears because they thought the songs were lost. This is Afghanistan. This is the importance of the “Rosegarden of Light” release.

The liner notes tell of books about Afghan music and its history and a website to view videos of performers. The performances are lively and solid, mostly a mix of Indian, Persian, and Pashtun, with some strongly influenced by western music. The music isn’t the most difficult, but simply having groups like the ANIM Junior Ensemble of Traditional Afghan Instruments playing folk songs and the all-female Ensemble Zohra existing at all is a major accomplishment. The US string sextet Cuantro Puntos does the heavy lifting on the culturally mixed pieces, and the collaborative works turn an already important musical release into something even greater.

-- Fanfare

Wilhelm Goldner (1839–1907) was one of the many composer-pianists who populated European musical life in the nineteenth century. Born in Hamburg, six years after Brahms, he trained in Leipzig and made his name and his living in Paris, where his attractive and easy-going music became a favorite of the salons. His first Suite moderne for piano duet, written in 1875, proved so popular that his publisher asked for more, and over the next twelve years Goldner composed five further Suites modernes. Although all six were reprinted in 1904 (by Universal in Vienna, no less), they have long since slipped from sight, and these first recordings restore their charms to modern audiences.

Although Liszt’s thirteen symphonic poems exist in two-piano transcriptions prepared by the composer himself, it was his Czech student August Stradal (1860–1930) who transcribed twelve of them for solo piano – versions which demand almost superhuman virtuosity. Stradal died before he could tackle the last of the symphonic poems, Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe; Risto-Matti Marin has made good that lacuna with his own virtuoso transcription, and adds six of Stradal’s transcriptions of Liszt songs for good measure. The Finnish pianist, Risto-Matti Marin, began his piano lessons at the Kuopio Conservatoire as a pupil of Jouni Räty and continued with professional studies there under Jaakko Untamala. In 1998 he transferred to the Sibelius Academy to study with Erik T. Tawaststjerna, and from 2002 onwards also studied with Teppo Koivisto. He gained a Master´s degree in music in 2004. Since 2005 he has studied at the Sibelius Academy DocMus department. Winner of the first prize in the Kuopio Piano Competition in 1996 and the Helmi Vesa Piano Competition in 1999, Marin was awarded the third prize in the Weimar International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in 2003.

Although the American composer David Maslanka (1943–2017) wrote in a wide range of genres, it is for his generous output of music for wind band that he is best known. Three of the works heard here are in effect symphonic poems, all three infused with that big-hearted sense of space found in the best of American music and the quiet dignity of those endless open landscapes, but also energized by a powerful sense of freewheeling drama. The fourth piece is a charming and hugely engaging presentation of the instruments of the symphonic wind ensemble, a latter-day Peter and the Wolf – likewise intended for children and similarly bubbling with good tunes. The composer himself was closely involved in the preparation for these recordings – the last major project involving his music before his death – which now stand as a testament to a man much-loved in American musical circles.

The music of Théodore Dubois (1837–1924) has rather been overshadowed by that of other French composers of the same period, not least Fauré and Saint-Saëns. But Dubois does not deserve his relative neglect: not only was he a superlative craftsman, but he could also unfold a fetching melody and had a strong sense of musical narrative. This recital of chamber works for oboe and strings is noteworthy for a further quality, one often underestimated: much of the music is, quite simply, charming.

Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925) wrote a considerable quantity of piano music, but it is generally remembered today only for a single piece, ‘Étincelles’, which Horowitz enjoyed playing. The early works on this first instalment in Ian Hobson’s survey of Moszkowski’s complete music for solo piano reveal a debt to Mendelssohn and Schumann, but the craftsmanship already justifies a later remark of Paderewski’s: ‘After Chopin, Moszkowski best understands how to write for the piano, and his writing embraces the whole gamut of piano technique’.

The organist and harpsichordist John Worgan (1724–90) was one of the most highly respected musicians in the London of his day: Handel admired his playing, and Burney described him as ‘very masterly and learned’. All that survives of his harpsichord music are a ‘New Concerto’, an independent Allegro non tanto and two collections, one of six sonatas and the other of thirteen teaching pieces, but they encompass an eclectic variety of styles and a surprising range of emotions – proud, spirited, witty, impulsive, touching, vivacious – making Worgan sound something like an English Domenico Scarlatti.

The man who as W. D. Munn published papers on that branch of mathematics known as semigroup theory had another side to his personality: Douglas Munn (1929–2008), professor of mathematics at the University of Stirling, was also a fine pianist and a gifted composer. His piano music has its origins in Chopin, Brahms and Bartók but is clearly also inflected by Scottish folksong – much of it has a sense of the hills and the open spaces – and is written by someone with an intimate knowledge of the instrument. The Latvian pianist Arta Arnicane knew Douglas Munn and this album is the fulfillment of an unspoken promise to record his piano music.

Ronald Center (1913–73) is sometimes described as ‘the Scottish Bartók’, and his music does indeed capture some of the stark, wild energy of the Scottish landscape in a style of Bartókian asperity. These three string quartets show him, in his northeast corner of Scotland, to have been fully conversant with the quartets being written around the same time by Barber, Britten and Shostakovich, but their direct manner, terse expression, wiry humor and roots in Scottish folk-music ensure that Center is his own man.