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Kreisler, Strauss & Waxman: Love Music
Following her lyrical and witty complete recording of Mozart’s Keyboard Sonatas, issued by naïve in March 2023, Yeol Eum Son invites Svetlin Roussev to join her in enfolding himself in the enticingly subtle harmonic intricacies of Germanic post- Romanticism.
For their second recital as a duo, the Bulgarian violinist and the Korean pianist follow the course taken by works written over a period of slightly more than half a century by composers or famous performers upon whom Richard Wagner exercised crucial influence. They take on almost every genre – cinema, opera, chamber music, transcription – treating it in the lyrical, large-scale manner of the Bayreuth master. During their unexpected, fascinating journey, Svetlin Roussev and Yeol Eum Son chart a variety of pathways, from Waxman to Strauss.
So many different worlds! To begin, two figures who made their indelible mark on the music written for Hollywood. Of German-Polish origins, in 1946 Franz Waxman (Rebecca, Sunset Boulevard, A Place in the Sun, Prince Valiant) wrote, at Jascha Heifetz’s request, a paraphrase on themes from Wagner’s Tristan et Isolde, actually an adaptation of a section of the score he composed for the film Humoresque (Warner Brothers, 1947). In summary, a manifesto in music of an impossible love – to which, at the end of the disc, an extremely rare transcription one of the better known Wesendonck-Lieder, credited to the great virtuoso Leopold Auer, forms a response.
The programme continues with Erich Wolfgang Korngold, a child prodigy in Vienna during the 1910s. The famed Mariettas Lied – the best-known moment in his opera Die tote Stadt – and the sublime nocturne from his incidental music for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing (the Scene in the Garden) remain as much moments of lyric intensity as truly cinematographic, deliciously intoxicating love scenes. But lovers also know how to frolic, and if already in Korngold they readily do so, the three more light-hearted pieces by Fritz Kreisler will place them in everyday, commonplace scenarios, where laughing reigns.
The keystone of the programme is unarguably the magnificent Sonata for Violin and Piano that Richard Strauss composed in 1887. He was 23 years old, and still heavily influenced by Schumann and Brahms, even Grieg. Svetlin Roussev and Yeol Eum Son make its case with radiant commitment, sensitive to the spirit stirring in the young Richard, then already in love with the soprano Pauline de Ahna, who would become his wife.
Beyond Wagner, this highly original album above all celebrates that moment of falling in love when, overwhelmed, the heart quivers, to the point of being transformed.
English String Miniatures Vol 4 / David Lloyd-jones, Et Al
Keynotes / Marti
| Some of the greatest works ever composed were conceived for and inspired by keyboard instruments. Today, however, the splendor of the canonical works for keyboard instruments composed after 1600 — Bach’s Preludes and Fugues, Beethoven’s Sonatas and Chopin’s Nocturnes — tends to overshadow works composed earlier, despite there being a rich history of repertoire and a variety of instruments at that earlier time. Corina Marti here not only explores the earliest keyboard music to be composed in Europe but also provides a fascinating insight into a world of virtuoso players and the music composed for them, playing a selection of instruments that are hardly known today: a metal-stringed clavisimbalum (an early form of harpsichord), an upright gut-stringed claviciterium, two organetti (portative organs) of different sizes, and the church organ in Altenbruch in northern Germany with its array of original pipes that date from the fifteenth century. |
Palace Premieres / Hammond, Countess of Wessex String Orchestra
We are very pleased to announce a new recording from MPR of music for string orchestra entitled 'Palace Premieres', with the Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra. The playlist consists of hitherto unrecorded music performed during Royal Investitures (where honors are bestowed by Her Majesty the Queen or by one of her close family) and includes works such as Suite: In Rural England by Thomas Dunhill, Shepherd's Delight by Alec Rowley, Pastoral Scene by Frederic Curzon, Fragment for Strings by Bertram Walton O'Donnell, Nocturne by WH Speer, In Georgian Days by Roger Quilter, Rivers of Devon Suite by Ernest Markham Lee and a number of beautiful light music arrangements for strings of folk songs. We have also included as a 'bonus' a suite of Seven Pieces by Giles Farnaby, arranged by Bantock. We recorded the latter only to discover that in fact it has already been recorded but only once to our knowledge and we decided that as it is such good material we just had to include it. The Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra is very sensitively directed by Major David Hammond, a truly fine musician. The orchestra consists of the best string players in the Army who are very fine and highly trained musicians. The quality of playing is really excellent and the performances committed. The album was recorded in the sumptuous acoustic of the Guards Chapel in London and the recording engineer is the legendary Tony Faulkner. Mike Purton was producer and editor and we recommend this recording to anyone who loves British music of a certain period (see above). Lee's 'Rivers of Devon' Suite is very Elgarian, Speer's little 'Nocturne' brings to mind Wagner’s 'Siegfried Idyll' and you can see from many of the titles that spirit of Rural Englandis frequently invoked. This recording has been made in collaboration with the Corps of Army Music Trust.
Cello Sonatas of the Romantic Period
Piazzolla Reflections / Ksenija Sidorova
Riga-born Ksenija Sidorova is today one of the most eminent global ambassadors of the classical accordion. She has proudly borne the colors of her instrument in appearances in the world’s leading halls and with the foremost orchestras. Here she pays homage to Piazzolla in her own way: ‘Piazzolla the revolutionary, the ground-breaker, a man thinking ahead of his time . . . Playing this repertoire gave me a sense of artistic freedom and ignited my belief in advocacy of my instrument. For this album, I wanted to celebrate Piazzolla the innovator by pairing some his masterworks with pieces written by other composers for classical accordion, the majority of which I have premiered in recent years. Being of Russian heritage, I couldn’t help noticing the similarity between the nostalgia of the tango and that of Russian composer Sergey Voitenko’s Revelation. French accordionist-composer Franck Angelis’s Fantasia is based on Piazzolla’s waltz-tango, and the programme is completed by the Nocturne of Italian accordionist-composer Pietro Roffi and a piece by Sergey Akhunov.’
Smith Brindle: Complete Works for Solo Guitar, Vol. 1 / Meucci
Although Smith Brindle composed a variety of works including an opera, he is best known for his guitar music. The poetic and lyrical Etruscan Preludes express the mystery of an ancient and lost civilisation, while the enigmatic El Polifemo de oro expresses poet and playwright Federico García Lorca’s attribution of occult powers to the guitar. From the beautifully expressive Nocturne to the extreme effects of Percussion Piece (from Guitarcosmos, Vol. 3), the sheer virtuosity of invention in Smith Brindle’s guitar music led Julian Bream to commend his diversity of style and clarity of intention.
LOST TO THE WORLD
MOMENTS
Reich: Sextet & Double Sextet / Reumert, Ekkozone
This release couples two of Reich’s “sextets” for the first time: the Sextet of 1984 and the Pulitzer Prize winning Double Sextet of 2007, which also makes its first appearance on LP. A striking difference between the two pieces is that the rhythmic world of Sextet mostly consists of a single-meter grooving, while Double Sextet works in the angular, off-kilter shifting meters reminiscent of Reich’s Tehillim (also of Stravinsky). Ekkozone impart a uniquely chamber music feel and color to these works while maintaining their propulsive character. Liner notes by Adam Sliwinski. LP lacquers and mastering by veteran Scott Hull at Masterdisk. Plated and pressed by RTI, California. Danish percussionist and conductor Mathias Reumert lives and breathes contemporary classical music. An in-demand soloist, he explores new percussive territory while remaining a committed interpreter of yesterday’s masterworks. As creator and leader of the acclaimed ensemble Ekkozone, he explores the bounderies between classical, world and experimental music in performances at rock and jazz festivals. Ekkozone is a Danish crossover ensemble that masterfully explores the lines between classical, world and experimental music. Formed by Mathias Reumert in 2013, the ensemble enjoys a special connection with Reich’s music and has performed a large part of his oeuvre, including several performances of Music for 18 Musicians.
REVIEW:
There is more than one way to skin a cat, and there is always more than one way to perform good music. Steve Reich’s Sextet is a long way past being ‘minimalist’, even though there are ostinato elements that recall that particular phase in Western music’s evolution. The first movement and other sections recall Reich’s The Desert Music, while the groovy low piano notes in the final Fast section have something of the finale of New York Counterpoint about them. Multi-layered percussion makes all of this a feast for the ear, and Ekkozone and their hyper-reality studio recording play the piece with a swing and uplifting sense of fun that is very infectious indeed. The bass drums on the second Moderate section are played with musical subtlety but have been balanced in such a way that you’ll enjoy seeing your woofers moving about at reasonable volume. Stereo spread is also a good feature of this recording for all but the piano sound, which is kept very much to the centre channel.
There are numerous recordings of Sextet around. Third Coast Percussion (review) is good, with marginally more measured tempi than Ekkozone and a close-miked balance that reveals superb playing while at the same time being less fun and involving. Steve Reich and Musicians on the Nonesuch label is a classic of course, but uses a rather heavy sounding organ in the opening – this first movement being a little faster than Ekkozone while the remaining movements are as close in timing as makes no difference. The LSO Percussion Ensemble is ok (review), but in this case is too light on the sustained organ notes in the first movement, and there are a couple of moments of imprecision in the ensemble playing elsewhere that dampened my enthusiasm somewhat – understandable for a live performance, but less desirable in repeated listening. Go back to the impact of Ekkozone’s opening after living the LSO for a while and you’ll be hooked straight away.
Double Sextet is also a fine piece, though to my ears not quite the masterpiece that is Sextet. Ekkozone put plenty of dramatic urgency into the first of its three movements, and once again the recording is full of detail and presence. The slow middle movement is soulfully melancholic and atmospheric – a cinematic scene of nocturnal regret, while the finale is even more of a bustling city street than the first.
I greatly enjoyed Ensemble Signal’s recording of the Double Sextet on the Harmonia Mundi label (review). The timings are a little shorter on this version, though not by enough to change the character of the music by a great deal. Ekkozone’s Slow movement has more emotional impact to my ears, their instruments more natural sounding in general, and the vibrato in the string sound adds an extra few ounces of heartstring tug to the cooler sound of Ensemble Signal.
All of these comparative notes are very marginal, and I haven’t come across any recordings of either of these works that are complete duds. As Adam Sliwinski writes in the booklet note for this release, Steve Reich’s music is “like a native language” to percussionists these days, and the chances are that if you walk down the corridor of any decently sized music academy’s percussion department you will hear one or other of his pieces being perfected. Ekkozone’s recordings of both works on this CD are second to none, and should be placed on your wish list forthwith.
-- MusicWeb International
Britten & Facchinetti: Laura Plays Laura / Mondiello
This release offers a vivid picture of the diverse and varied spirits that characterized the twentieth century, as told in music. A milestone of twentieth century guitar literature, Nocturnal after John Dowland op. 70 (1963) by Benjamin Britten, joins hands here with two pieces, Fantasia per Laura (2010) and Suite per chitarra (2016), by Giancarlo Facchinetti (1936-2017), a composer from Brescia who ‘with his biographical and artistic story, sums up the fragmented and contradictory course of twentieth century music’.
Alongside the mainland represented by the works of Britten and Facchinetti, the former unanimously historicized and the latter undoubtedly on the way to being so, five well-known songs belonging to the tradition of pop music have been inserted, like a small and intricate archipelago. Seemingly isolated, far removed from the seriousness of the classical context just described, yet dense with their own poetic originality, thanks in part to the inventiveness of the musicians who have succeeded so well in making guitar arrangements of them, the songs surface like water lilies among the leaden atmospheres elicited by Britten and Facchinetti, like an invitation to free our mind and soul from the meditative introversion characterizing the Nocturnal, as well as the Fantasia and Suite. The pieces in our program alternate as if wishing to lead the listener through the meanderings of an emotional journey that culminates in the concluding Nocturnal.
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream; Wagner / Ormandy, Philadelphia
The distinctive point about Ormandy's version of the Midsummer Night's Dream music is that the vocal sections are given in German. On the sleeve the producer notes the significant point that in the Schlegel-Tieck translation "You spotted snakes" becomes "Bunte Schlartgen", and that Mendelssohn wrote it with two quavers instead of quaver plus two semi-quavers at the beginning of the phrase. It was for a Berlin performance that Mendelssohn wrote his extra incidental music, and therefore there is an historic case, too, for preferring Schlegel-Tieck to Shakespeare... [W]ith finely disciplined playing from the Philadelphians, Ormandy is a fraction heavier [than Previn and Leppard], less playful, but the discrepancy is slight, and with such glorious sound recorded fully and richly with plenty of inner detail, no one will feel disappointed... Both Previn and Leppard include even the briefest melodramas, where Ormandy omits three of them (No. 4 before the Intermezzo, No. 10 before the ironic "Funeral March" and No. 12 before the finale, all of them very brief). The last one consists of a fragment of the "Wedding March" fading into the distance to be followed by fairy music, and I am sorry to lose it. Instead Ormandy opts to transpose the Melodrama No. 8 to that point with a fragment of the "Nocturne" plus a radiant violin descant.
The casual listener may well not register any of these details, and certainly the Ormandy record, beautifully played and recorded, can be confidently recommended...
-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [6/1978, reviewing the original LP release of the Mendelssohn]
Vacchi: Complete Music for Guitar
Born in 1949, Fabio Vacchi stands among the pre-eminent Italian composers of his generation. Working primarily in the operatic field, he has had pieces staged at the Teatro alla Scala and by the Opéra Comique in Paris, the Opera de Lyon, the Maggio Musicale in Florence and the Teato Comunale in his home city of Bologna. Vacchi’s instrumental pieces have attracted similar high-profile performances. His chamber cycle Luoghi Immaginari (1987-1992), has been given across the world, including at the Salzburg Mozarteum conducted by Daniel Harding. Other pieces were commissioned by Claudio Abbado and by the Tokyo Quartet.
The most substantial piece on this new collection of his chamber pieces was commissioned by the Swedish guitarist Magnus Andersson and first performed by him in 1997 as a guitar concerto; this Quintetto Notturno Concertante dates from 2012 and is a masterful condensation of the complexities of the original, rich instrumental texture, while preserving its fleeing moods and subtly shifting changes of harmony. At the other end of this collection, Livia Rado sings Flow my Dowland, a rapturous transformation of five songs by the Elizabethan lutenist, in which the original vocal part is richly embroidered by Vacchi’s own modern reimagination of the accompanying part, scored for a small ensemble of winds, strings, vibraphone and harp, to melting and magical effect. In between come a pair of solo works, though in fact Plynn quotes Britten’s Nocturnal after John Dowland as a study of harmonics on the guitar, evoking its most dreamlike and insubstantial timbres. The earliest piece here is a Suite for flute and guitar, dating from 1971. Here, the 22-year-old Vacchi is at his most experimental in terms of both form and harmony, employing extraneous elements such as pen and paper and sending both instruments to the extremes of their register, though always with an intrinsically idiomatic sympathy. Any listener with an ear for the Italian postwar avant-garde will find this newly recorded album full of delight and discovery.
Chopin for Piano Duo
Piano Music of Oscar Fernandez / Jones
Fernândez’ work can be divided into three periods, the first (1918-22) is influenced by French Impressionism, the second (1923-38) is marked by the systematic use of folklore, particularly amerindian rhythms and harmonies, rather than ‘popular’ urban melodies. Finally (1939-48) was a period of increasing introspection and the development of a more universally recognised language. [Adrian Farmer]
Shostakovich: String Octets / Bambú Ensemble
| Bambú Ensemble was expressly created as a string octet and its players are trained in the careful cultivation of the distinguishing features of their literature – from Mendelssohn or Gade to more contemporary offerings. On this album, therefore, they demonstrate an intuitive and eloquent ability to deliver not only the cyclical-thematic density of the massive symphonic structure in nine interconnected themes that is the magnificent Octet composed by a precocious and utterly inspired Enescu, but also the exceptional academic exercise in counterpoint that displays the skill and brilliance of the young Shostakovich, and the nocturnal garden of multiple textures woven around a single motif created by Javier Martínez Campos, transferring the concept of counterpoint from the thematic or motivic to the terrain of experimentation in timbre and sound. Listening to their album, therefore, is an adventure which will undoubtedly open up the map of any music-lover’s imagination – come aboard the good ship Bambú and, like Marco Polo on his travels, embark on a voyage of marvels upon the ocean of music. |
A Musical Journey: Paris - Music By Beethoven
Morricone: Cinema Rarities / Serino, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto
The idea for this album came about during the recording of its predecessor Cinema Suites (BBC Music Magazine’s “Screen Choice”, Album of the Week on WDR3 etc.), when the Morricone family sent Marco Serino a number of rarities that they hoped could also be recorded, particularly “Dedicated to Maria” (from the film The Sleeping Wife) that the composer had dedicated to his wife. These works, along with others that Serino rediscovered in his own archives, make up the backbone of Cinema Rarities, an ideal sequel to the previous recording.
After twenty years as Ennio Morricone’s chosen violinist, Serino continues his exploration of the compositions for violin and orchestra, but this time with a particular focus on pieces that, besides being less well known to the wider public, all share a degree of “Italianness”.
The main nucleus of the program consists of three suites named after three Italian film directors (Silvano Agosti, Mauro Bolognini and the Taviani brothers), with whom Morricone worked closely. Although the respective films did not achieve the international acclaim of those directed by Sergio Leone or Giuseppe Tornatore, which featured in the previous recording, they inspired the composer to come up with new and distinctive solutions, such as “Love Remembered” from The Inheritance, considered by Marco Serino to be one of the most beautiful.
Equally quintessentially Italian are the two extracts from the scores for The Lady Caliph directed by Alberto Bevilacqua, including the lovely “Nocturne” and the brief “Quasi un Vivaldi” (from Sergio Sollima’s film Revolver), which herald by almost a decade remakes like Gian Piero Reverberi’s Rondò Veneziano. A unique place is occupied by Four Adagios, a collection of four pieces chosen by the composer himself (including the iconic “Whoever” and “Deborah’s Theme”), which in this arrangement for violin cites the main theme of the first movement of the Beethoven Concerto. Dedicated to Serino and performed worldwide under the baton of Morricone, Four Adagios speaks to the artistic partnership between composer and violinist, their mutual professional respect and deep friendship.
#1 PIANO ALBUM / VARIOUS
Font de Anta: Andalucía
O weh!
Theme varie
Erkki-Sven Tuur: Awakening / Reuss, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
February 2012
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It's a good thing people buy the disc before they read the notes. What sane person buys a CD, even one of contemporary music, in order to digest an essay called "Universality, Time and Phenomenology in the Oeuvre of Erkki-Sven Tüür"? Really, life is too short for such garbage, and if Tüür himself believes in this stuff then perhaps most normal listeners should look elsewhere. Happily, we can ignore the pompous twaddle and focus on the music itself, which is quite attractive.
To be sure, the vocal works try very, very hard to be "deep". Awakening mixes liturgical texts with words by various Estonian poets, but happily (for non-Estonian-speaking listeners anyway) we can ignore the words and just concentrate on the emotional ambience of the music itself. Like much contemporary music today, dissonant textures alternate with more consonant harmonies. The general pacing is slow, and Tüür makes an obvious effort to be "transcendental"--but there's little sense of strain and the work's 36 minutes pass without trying the listener's patience. It's quite beautiful.
Tüür's sensitivity to texture is everywhere in evidence in the a cappella setting The Wanderer's Evening Song. Modern choral writing often requires a virtuoso response, and this work is no exception, but the effort proves to be worth it. The text, drawn from poems by Ernst Enno (d. 1934), is yet another super profound concatenation of transcendental imagery, and I have no patience for it. But then, I feel the same way about Wagner's librettos--you may feel differently, and the setting is stunning. Insula deserta, for string orchestra, is a simple work in alternating sections rich in textural contrast. The performances are all splendid, and so is the sound. I do think that Tüür needs to lighten up a bit, but there's no question that he's a composer of real quality, phenomenology be damned.
– David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
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Starting out in the world of progressive rock music and becoming a professional composer in the mid-1980s, Erkki-Sven Tüür’s music has been becoming ever more widely recognised, and ever more refined and luminous. This recording stands as a triumphant representative of this progression.
The most recent piece, Awakening, for mixed choir and chamber orchestra, was written as part of Tallinn’s multitudinous activity as European Capital of Culture 2011. The texts are a mixture of Estonian poetry and Latin liturgical words related to Easter. This is a highly approachable score, full of colourful harmonies and transparent textures, as well as having mysterious depths to go along with the more overtly joyful gestures. Some moments are comparable to the kinds of open musical expression of Americans such as John Adams and Steve Reich, and with the strong Estonian choral tradition pushing the piece onwards like wind in the sails of a galleon. This makes for compulsive listening from beginning to end. Tüür himself views awakening as a life-long process. “While composing this piece I lingered deep on the level of instincts and senses... From a musical perspective, this composition can also be viewed as an awakening to the light.” You can’t have an awakening to light without first experiencing the dark, and there are some central minutes of nocturnal chills before we make the final journey. There is no really well defined moment of awakening as such, as Tüür’s impressionistic writing keeps us guessing if we’re looking for a point of climax. The final coda in the last few minutes has some of the most sublime choral writing you could ever wish to hear. By avoiding corny stereotypes and going back in onto the resources of his own past work, Tüür has created a work which is tremendous in its effect.
The Wanderer’s Evening Song for mixed choir was written for the 20 th anniversary of the Estonian Philharmonic Choir and its founder, Toñu Kaljuste. This is a narrative of the wanderer who, to quote Gerhard Lock’s booklet notes, “is bewitched by the sombre silence of the northern woods [and is] longing for home.” This piece is also concerned with a fascination with light and an approach towards blissful ecstasy, using a mixed combination of the romantic poetry of Ernst Enno to create a remarkable journey. Close harmonies, dramatic dissonance and beautifully ethereal atmosphere make this another very special work.
Going backwards in time the final work is the oldest: Insula deserta, which is the string orchestra piece which marked Tüür’s international breakthrough. This has appeared on CD before, including as part of the Virgin Classics ‘Searching for Roots’ series, in this case with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Paavo Järvi (Virgin Classics 7243 5 61993-2, 2002). There is little to choose between this version and Daniel Reuss’s as both are excellent, though the Sinfonietta Riga has a closer, more detailed and intimate feel. Exploring “the relationship between fragility and power” is a driving force in the piece, which unites and fragments the orchestra in a variety of ways, punching dramatically or giving voice to the different sections and individual voices within fields of sound.
This release represents a genuine cross-section of Erkki-Sven Tüür’s work, but is by no means a catch-all compilation. If you are new to his expressive and compelling work then I would hope it might be a springboard for discovering more of his pieces, such as the Architectonics series, and an extensive catalogue to be found on the ECM label.
-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International
Liszt: Benediction De Dieu / Feltsman
1 Liebesträume, No. 3 in A flat major (1850) 4.53
2 Ballade No. 2 in B minor (1853) 14.47
Six Consolations (1850) 16.20
3 I Andante con moto 1.11
4 II Un poco piu mosso 3.08
5 III Lento placido 4.01
6 IV Quasi adagio 2.31
7 V Andantino 2.37
8 VI Allegretto sempre cantabile 2.52
9 Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude (1853) 17.26
10 Berceuse in F sharp major (1876) 3.34
11 Elegia (1874) 5.19
12 La lugubre gondola (2nd version) (1885) 8.34
13 En rêve, nocturne (1886) 2.25
Total playing time 73.16
