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Cascade - Beethoven, Prokofiev & Schumann: Piano Music / Williams
SOMM Recordings · Sep 2023CD$20.99 -
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American Classics - Gallagher: Orchestral Music / Falletta, London Symphony
Naxos · Sep 2010CD$19.99 -
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Saint-Saens: Orchestral Works / Pastrana, Markl, Basque National Orchestra
Naxos · Feb 2018CD$19.99 -
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Chamber Music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold / Beatson, Eusebius Quartet
SOMM Recordings · Oct 2021CD$20.99 -
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American Classics - Adams: Shaker Loops, Etc / Alsop, Gunn, Et Al
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Oct 19, 2004
Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams—it is my prediction that, 50 years from now, it will be the last composer’s music that is played most frequently. I am not sure that Adams is the “best” composer of the three (frankly, Reich’s work is more interesting to me), but he is the one who has motivated the most performers to program and record his work. For example, apart from Alsop, three other conductors have recorded Short Ride (de Waart on Nonesuch, Rattle on EMI, and Mosko on Chandos), and there are alternative recordings on Nonesuch of the other three works as well. The Nonesuch discs are important documents, but not necessarily the last word. Despite their explicit or implicit approval by the composer, they can and will be bettered, as time goes on. Consider The Wound-Dresser. I remember being impressed by this work when Nonesuch released the CD with baritone Sanford Sylvan, and the composer conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s—I still was in graduate school, and various commentators were quick to draw parallels between Walt Whitman’s injured and dying boys and the current victims of the AIDS epidemic. There’s nothing wrong with Sylvan and Adams, but I find Gunn and Alsop more moving—almost too much so, as the text’s homoaffective subtext is moved closer to the foreground. (It strikes me now that the vocal line at “Many a soldier’s loving arms about this neck have cross’d and rested” could have been written by Stephen Sondheim.)
Alsop makes a good case for Short Ride and for the Berceuse élégiaque. The latter work is an arrangement for chamber orchestra of a work by Ferrucio Busoni—a fact that is not mentioned anywhere in Naxos’s documentation, shamefully enough. Adams, in his Nonesuch recording, is a little more weird and abrasive than Alsop in Shaker Loops—to good effect. All in all, the availability of the Nonesuch recordings does not make this Naxos release superfluous. Alsop is a fine conductor, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra plays well for her, and then there’s that Naxos price! If you’ve been curious about Adams’s music, but have not been willing to pay Nonesuch prices to hear it, here are four of Adams’s best works in competitive performances at a fraction of the cost.
Raymond Tuttle, FANFARE
Alsop makes a good case for Short Ride and for the Berceuse élégiaque. The latter work is an arrangement for chamber orchestra of a work by Ferrucio Busoni—a fact that is not mentioned anywhere in Naxos’s documentation, shamefully enough. Adams, in his Nonesuch recording, is a little more weird and abrasive than Alsop in Shaker Loops—to good effect. All in all, the availability of the Nonesuch recordings does not make this Naxos release superfluous. Alsop is a fine conductor, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra plays well for her, and then there’s that Naxos price! If you’ve been curious about Adams’s music, but have not been willing to pay Nonesuch prices to hear it, here are four of Adams’s best works in competitive performances at a fraction of the cost.
Raymond Tuttle, FANFARE
Fauré: Orchestral Music / Georgiadis, Rte Sinfonietta, Et Al
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Mar 09, 1998
REVIEWS:
BBC Music (6/98, p.67) - Performance: 3 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5) - "...the exquisite and atmospheric miniatures that make up the Mozariaan 'Masques et bergamasques' and the incidental music for 'Pelléas et Mélisande'....feel ever fresh....The 'Shylock' suite....contains beautiful moments and Lynda Russell's pure, light voice suits the style very well..."
BBC Music (6/98, p.67) - Performance: 3 (out of 5), Sound: 4 (out of 5) - "...the exquisite and atmospheric miniatures that make up the Mozariaan 'Masques et bergamasques' and the incidental music for 'Pelléas et Mélisande'....feel ever fresh....The 'Shylock' suite....contains beautiful moments and Lynda Russell's pure, light voice suits the style very well..."
Cascade - Beethoven, Prokofiev & Schumann: Piano Music / Williams
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99
Sep 15, 2023
SOMM Recordings announces Cascade; the exhilarating new recital by pianist Cordelia Williams featuring music by Beethoven, Schumann, and Prokofiev. Cascade explores music’s mercurial ability to change in an instant; to reveal depths beneath the surface; and to illustrate; as Williams says; “that the whole world can change entirely in one twist of perspective; one change of angle; to offer a glimpse of something bigger”.
Early and late Beethoven bookend the program. Unpublished in his lifetime; the C major Bagatelle (WoO 56) flickers and glints; sparkles and surprises with kaleidoscope-like brilliance. His Op.126 Six Bagatelles – among the very last pieces he wrote for solo piano – alternate between the introspective and the garrulous; each turned inside out to reveal new facets and features. A variegated collection of 20 miniatures with hints of Chopin; Scriabin and Shostakovich to be found; Prokofiev’s Visions fugitives; Op.22 are essentially a series of meditations; each individually pursuing a specific idea or mood while collectively exploring the hinterland between surface appearance and what lies beneath; and all expressed with comparable crystalline clarity. Schumann’s Waldszenen (Forest Scenes); his last major cycle for solo piano; is an enchanted landscape lit up by beguiling pastoralism and shadow-cast by darker recesses of the imagination. Two sides of the same coin: Arcadia in excelsis; and red in tooth and claw.
Booklets notes; as with all of Cordelia Williams’ recent SOMM releases; have been written by Michael Quinn. Piano winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition; Cordelia Williams’ previous SOMM releases include her acclaimed coupling of Bach and Arvo Pärt (SOMMCD 0186); hailed by International Piano as “a magnificently stimulating concept; brilliantly recognised”; well-received recitals of Schubert (SOMMCD 0127) and Schumann (SOMMCD 0150); and Nightlight (SOMMCD 0639); which Fanfare hailed for Williams’ “spectacular playing” and which Gramophone described as “extraordinary”.
Leon McCawley: Piano Recital
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99
Apr 30, 2026
SOMM Recordings continues it's long collaboration with pianist Leon McCawley, named "one of today's most impeccably musical pianists" by International Piano. His past recordings for SOMM include much-admired releases of piano music by Chopin; Barber (Critics' Choice in Gramophone); Brahms (Classic FM CD of the Week); Schumann; Rachmaninoff Complete Preludes; Haydn Sonatas and Variations (awarded a Diapason d'Or); Schubert; three further volumes of Haydn Sonatas; and the 2024 release Natural Connection, about which Gramophone wrote: "This scintillatingly varied recital combines sensuous virtuosity, compelling charm and musical probity. Highly recommended." In this recital McCawley presents some of his old favourites by composer-pianists Liszt, Beethoven, Chopin, and Franck. While the recital focuses on 19th century composers, the programme begins and ends with a nod to J.S. Bach. Among Bach's works that Franz Liszt revered were his six organ preludes and fugues. In transcribing them for piano, Liszt became a major influence on later arrangers. Heard here is the first in the set, Prelude and Fugue in A minor. The Piano Sonata in C major, Op. 53, "The Waldstein," by Beethoven-dedicated to his friend and patron, Count Ferdinand von Waldstein-comes from his aptly named "Heroic" period. It was written in 1804, two years after the watershed moment of his Heiligenstadt Testament, when he had contemplated suicide because of his encroaching deafness, but instead made the profound choice to channel his despair into a bold new musical style. The "Waldstein" Sonata is a vivid expression of this newfound path and of Beethoven's ability to transcend personal adversity to create ground-breaking works of deep complexity. One of the renowned "out-takes" of musical history is Beethoven's Andante favori. He originally intended it as the slow movement of his "Waldstein" Sonata, but he substituted it with a shorter adagio labelled "Introduzione." He had formed an attachment to the piece, though, and he published it as a stand-alone work, including it frequently in subsequent recitals. In an engaging piece of programming, Leon McCawley pairs it here with the "Waldstein" Sonata. Two introspective works by Chopin follow. The Berceuse is a series of continuous contemplations on a simple, nocturne-like theme. In the Barcarolle, Chopin's affinity to the bel canto operatic style is strongly apparent, especially in the beautiful, florid figurations in the right hand. Leon McCawley closes his beautifully curated recital with the Prélude, Choral et Fugue for solo piano by César Franck. Franck was trained as a pianist, but he served as an organist at Paris's Sainte-Clotilde Church from 1858 until his death in 1890. Inspired by the rich, orchestral sound of the Cavaillé-Coll organ there, he developed a grandiose, improvisatory style of keyboard writing that was harmonically influenced by Bach but thoroughly romantic in expression.
American Classics - Gallagher: Orchestral Music / Falletta, London Symphony
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Sep 28, 2010
GALLAGHER Diversions Overture. Berceuse. Sinfonietta for String Orchestra. Symphony in One Movement, “Threnody” • JoAnn Falletta, cond; London SO • NAXOS 8559652 (63:47)
For those who do not know about Jack Gallagher and the genesis of this recording, I refer you to the feature/interview elsewhere in this issue. The four works offered here are an overview of most the American composer’s career so far, from the 1977 Berceuse , written when he was 30 years old, to the Sinfonietta, completed in 2007 and revised the next year.
There probably is no better introduction to Gallagher’s beautifully crafted, accessible music than Diversions Overture , the opener for this CD. The concert overture seems to evoke the open prairies of the old West, complete with sunrise, sunset, and the excitement of discovery. I mean no irony; it is very much in the style of the American school created by Aaron Copland and Gallagher’s first composition teacher, Elie Siegmeister. If there is any irony, it is that Copland and Siegmeister were city boys from New York, and Gallagher was, too, before he took his university job in Wooster, Ohio. It doesn’t matter. In 1986, when Gallagher wrote this, he showed himself a natural heir to the style that his predecessors created. There is poignancy, explosive energy, good-natured humor (love those harp interjections in the middle section), and a warm-hearted directness that is tremendously engaging. This is a feel-good music in the very best sense of the expression.
On the other hand, the earlier Berceuse is so beautiful it could make you cry. How many times does a critic get to say that when reviewing a piece by a living composer? And it works because there is no sense that the composer is trying to make that happen. As is true of all of Gallagher’s music, there is unaffected honesty, the sense of being allowed to look into the composer’s heart. This gentle little lullaby, based on a piano work written for the daughter of friends, is one of Gallagher’s most played and recorded works. I have not heard it better done.
Originally a set of two pieces for orchestra, and expanded in to a full five-movement suite in 2007, the Sinfonietta is occasionally reminiscent of chamber-orchestra works by British composers like Moeran. At other times Britten’s more anxious string works are brought to mind. This is a different side of Gallagher’s art, emotionally more contained—though no less vigorous—and sparer in sound. Throughout there are surprises: an unexpected interval, an unusually timed rhythmic pattern, or a chord that deliciously refuses to resolve. In the Intrada, he uses the octatonic (diminished) scale to create a feeling of uneasy anticipation. In the Intermezzo he frames the melancholy, slowly shifting movement with a concertante opening and closing that is like murmured conversation against the sound of the night. The lively, slightly unsettling central Argentinean Malambo serves as a scherzo, but the bustle never seems joke-like. The Pavane is reminiscent of the Berceuse of 30 years previous, though now the innocence is bittersweet, and the gentleness a touch reserved. The pizzicato opening of the concluding Rondo Concertante brings us back to English pastoral, and the folk dance. Throughout there is a quality of understatement that is deceptive, as greater familiarity with the work reveals a deep complexity that isn’t immediately apparent; very like getting to know the composer, and very moving.
So is Gallagher’s Symphony in One Movement, subtitled “Threnody.” Written, in part, in memory of his mother, who died unexpectedly during its composition, this is understandably the darkest of the works here. The opening section may well remind you of Shostakovich’s wrenching adagios, and echoes of Bernard Hermann will come later, but the way this lament explodes into sudden anger in the second part is clearly Gallagher’s usual kinetic energy, agonized and held too long in check. It subsides eventually, played out in sinister snatches of manic solo violin, and racing piano chromatics, and the roaring of the brass. An eerie harp cadenza provides a release, but no sense of consolation, and the work dissolves into a fractured madness of spent rage and poignant remembrances before collapsing into despair.
As I have said before, this is a most welcome release of some absolutely fantastic music. It is not cutting-edge, nor self-consciously emotive as some neoromantic music is. It is richly and directly communicative. Naxos is to be commended for offering an opportunity to hear these four major works by a composer who richly deserves to be better known. JoAnn Falletta clearly loves these pieces, and brings them vividly to life. The LSO—need I say this?—plays with great conviction and energy. Only an occasional unevenness of ensemble in the swirling figurations of the Sinfonietta, or a moment or two of tentativeness in the brass, hint at any lack of familiarity. The sound is lovely, fully capturing the bloom of that great Abbey Road Studio One. Urgently recommended.
FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames
On evidence here, Jack Gallagher (b. 1947) is a composer of considerable ability. He wrote the notes to this release, not necessarily a good idea, since they read like a job resume and have about as much personality as stale bread, but the music happily says otherwise. The two big works, the Sinfonietta for strings and the Symphony "Threnody", have considerable substance. Among the five movements of the former work is an Argentine Malambo (think of the final dance of Ginastera's ballet Estancia), and a very good one too. The symphony manages the difficult task in a modern work of being turbulent and emotionally affecting without ever sounding petulant or gratuitously miserable. It's also very cogently structured in one movement, part of a long and distinguished lineage stretching back through Samuel Barber and Roy Harris to the Seventh Symphony of Sibelius.
Diversions Overture opens with some lovely modal harmonies in the woodwinds, and for a moment you might feel that you are listening to a lost work from the English pastoral school--not quite Vaughan Williams, but possibly E.J. Moeran or John Ireland. Gallagher's individuality soon reasserts itself, however, in the music's quick sections. The Berceuse is a slight but pretty little intermezzo.
As you may have guessed, this music is harmonically traditional and falls gratefully on the ear, but it never comes across as merely facile or clichéd. JoAnn Falletta and the London Symphony play it all with notable confidence and technical security, as we have every right to expect, and they've been well recorded at Abbey Road Studios. Gallagher is definitely worth getting to know.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Dupre: Piano & Chamber Works
Toccata
CD
$20.99
Feb 07, 2025
Marcel Dupre (1886-1971) was the most prominent French organist of his generation, playing hundreds of recitals on his international tours, and his compositions have entered the standard organ repertoire. But his piano and chamber works have not received the same attention. They are audibly French - there are points of contact with Chabrier, Faure and Satie - but they go their own surprising way, occasionally taking on a ritual, even hypnotic, character that imparts an oriental, quasi-minimalist, flavour.
Shostakovich and Pupils, Vol. 2 - Weinberg, Sviridov, Bunin
Piano Classics
CD
$23.99
Feb 20, 2026
While the solo piano output of Dmitri Shostakovich is smaller than one might anticipate from a composer who was himself a gifted (albeit erratic) pianist, there is more to it than the monumental sequence of 24 preludes and fugues which he composed shortly after the Second World War for the pianist Tatiana Nikolaeva, and in emulation of The Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach. Indeed some of the composer's earliest surviving music is a set of Eight Preludes, Op.2, several of which were long presumed lost. Composed between 1919 and 1921, they demonstrate the teenage composer's grasp of pianistic idioms from Chopin to Scriabin as well as the melodic facility which, it would seem, was his native gift. Towards the other end of his career, another rarity: the contributions he made in 1957 for a portmanteau set of variations on a theme of Glinka commissioned from eight different composers. In complement to Shostakovich's Preludes, Fernanda Damiano presents a gentle Berceuse from the pen of the 16-year-old Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Conceived on a much more epic scale is the Second Piano Sonata which Weinberg wrote in 1942, the year before he first met Shostakovich and became in time one of his closest confidants. Dating from two years later, and thus still very much marked by conflict, is the sonata by Gyorgy Sviridov: a ferocious and too-rarely known work in one movement (but several sections) breathing the same combative air as the 'War' Sonatas by Prokofiev. By the side of these two sonatas, the Sonatina of Revol Bunin is relatively slight, but as the work of a fluent 15-year-old, it already shows signs of the talent which caught the ear of Shostakovich before long, when he took Bunin on as his only composition pupil at the time (between 1943 and 1945). Thus, although only Sviridov's Sonata was composed under the influence of the older composer, Damiano's recital presents a compelling sketch of mid-war and mid-century Soviet culture, through the prism of both the piano and of four gifted composers, each with their own distinctive voice. 'Fernanda Damiano plays. With intelligence, conviction and. #appreciation of the music's flavour.' (Fanfare review of Volume 1)
Saint-Saens: Orchestral Works / Pastrana, Markl, Basque National Orchestra
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Feb 09, 2018
Saint-Saens’ travels often resulted in geographically themed works, such as the Suite algerienne: this exotic musical picture postcard- full of perfumed sensuality and the brazen confidence of march themes- reflects the composer’s visits to colonial North Africa. The two suites on this recording are both structured around dance movements and were originally scored for different forces- the Suite in D major, Op. 49 for harmonium, the Suite in D minor, Op. 16 for cello and piano. The engaging Serenade, Op. 15, rarely performed with its original, exotic scoring, is heard here in an orchestral transcription.
MENDELSSOHN, BRAHMS & GRIEG: VIOLIN SONATAS
APARTE
CD
$20.17
Apr 03, 2026
After their first recording, Nuits parisiennes, Manon Galy and Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan open the door to the inner worlds of Romanticism. Surrounding Mendelssohn's rare Sonata in F major MWV Q 26 (his only mature violin sonata), Brahms's Second, and Grieg's Third are a few poetic and intimate gems, such as Sibelius's Berceuse and Fibich's Poeme. Between "melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo," violin and piano become the exalted yet nostalgic voice of the composers' most personal confidences.
Chamber Music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold / Beatson, Eusebius Quartet
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99
Oct 15, 2021
SOMM Recordings throws new, invigorating light on the Chamber Music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, performed by the Eusebius Quartet and pianist Alasdair Beatson. Hailed by musicologist Nicolas Slonimsky as “the very last breath of the romantic spirit of Vienna”, Korngold’s stellar beginnings in Europe’s concert halls and opera houses were later overshadowed by his success in America where his soaring symphonic signature forged the template for the Hollywood soundtrack. But, as Korngold authority Brendan G Carroll notes in his informative booklet essay, the composer’s “relatively small body of chamber works... is no less impressive and actually offers a succinct distillation of his style and voice, often to considerably profound effect.”
The earliest work here is the string quartet arrangement of the suite drawn from his 1920 incidental music to Shakespeare’s Viel Lärmen um Nichts (Much Ado About Nothing). Its glowing Intermezzo is heard in the world premiere recording of Tom Poster’s sumptuous new arrangement. The following year’s Op.15 Piano Quintet was composed shortly after Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt (The Dead City), and, Carroll notes, “its flamboyant, heroic melodic style owes much to the residual influence of that epic score”. The Op.26 Second String Quartet from 1933 “is one of the most intensely ‘Viennese’ works Korngold ever wrote.” The jolly, bubbling humor of its opening gives way to a rich, expansive Larghetto before concluding with a spirited hymn to that most Viennese of dance forms, the waltz.
Praised as “excellent” by The Sunday Times, the Eusebius Quartet was formed in 2016 and is making its debut on SOMM Recordings. Alasdair Beatson’s previous SOMM releases include his enthusiastically reviewed recording debut, coupling Schumann, Grieg, Brahms and Berg (SOMMCD 086), and a Mendelssohn recital (SOMMCD 104) hailed by Classic FM for its “highly sensitive playing of rare insight”.
Saint-Saëns: Sonatas for Violin & Piano / Zilliacus, Hadland
BIS
SACD
$21.99
Feb 03, 2023
Saint-Saëns's chamber music broke new ground in France at a time when public taste tended to favour opera and opéra-comique. His first Sonata for violin and piano, one of the earliest composed in France, is a masterpiece of boundless beauty. Its emotional impact and its highly poetic content are served by the composer’s perfect mastery of formal architecture. It has also been proposed as the model for the ‘Vinteuil Sonata’ which runs through Marcel Proust's novel cycle ‘In Search of Lost Time’. The second Sonata, composed in Egypt, is very different from its predecessor: more serious, classical, and intimate. While the writing is more melodic, the composer prophesied that the sonata would not be understood “until the eighth hearing”. These two masterpieces are complemented by the Fantaisie for violin and harp, a virtuoso work in which the use of the harp rather than the piano produced a delicate, refined, even magical sound reminiscent at times of Fauré and Debussy, and by the charming Berceuse, one of Saint-Saëns’ best-known miniatures. Originally for violin and piano, it is performed here in an arrangement for violin and harp that, again, emphasizes the subtleties of Saint-Saëns’ writing.
BEETHOVEN: STRING QUARTETS NOS. 15 & 16
ONYX CLASSICS
CD
$20.17
May 27, 2022
This is the final of four installments in the Ehnes Quartet's survey of the late Beethoven Quartets. It was recorded in the US with their producer overseeing the sessions from London as the pandemic halted travel plans and sessions were canceled. "The albums we recorded during this intense two-week period will always be treasured reminders for us of a brief, bucolic window of artistic fulfillment during a terribly challenging period for the world," said James Ehnes. They bring to these masterworks many years of experience.
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15 / Haitink, BRSO
BR Klassik
CD
$19.99
Jan 24, 2025
BERNARD HAITINK conducts: SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY No. 15 in A major op. 141. The Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra enjoyed a long and intensive artistic collaboration, which came to an abrupt end with Haitink's death in October 2021. BR-KLASSIK now presents outstanding and previously unreleased live recordings of their concerts from past years. This recording of Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony documents a concert given in February 2015 in Munich's Philharmonie i'm Gasteig. Haitink first conducted a Munich subscription concert in 1958, and from then on was a regular guest with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra - either in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz or in the Philharmonie i'm Gasteig. This congenial collaboration lasted for more than six decades. The orchestra musicians and singers enjoyed working with him just as much as the BR sound engineers. As an interpreter of the symphonic repertoire, and especially that of the German-Austrian Late Romantic period, Haitink was held in high esteem throughout the world. With him, the symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich were always in the best of hands. Haitink's driving principle was to make the sound architecture of a musical composition, with it's complex interweaving, transparently audible; extreme sensitivity of sound was combined with a clearly structured interpretation of the score. As the last symphony in the oeuvre of the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, the Fifteenth is a kind of symphonic conclusion. Although the composer set out to write a "happy symphony" and this epithet has since become commonplace, everything cheerful in it has a dimension that is exaggerated into the bizarre and grotesque. The work also contains musical references, for example to Rossini's "William Tell" overture, Wagner's "The Ring of the Nibelung" (the so-called "fate motif") and "Tristan and Isolde", and Alban Berg's "Wozzeck". Quotations from Shostakovich's own earlier works also appear. The symphony was composed in 1971 in Repino, a suburb of St Petersburg. The world premiere took place on January 8, 1972, under the baton of the composer's son Maxim.
R. Schumann: Complete Works for Piano / Uhlig
Haenssler Classic
CD
$85.99
Nov 04, 2022
For over 60 years, repeated efforts have been made to capture on recording Robert Schumann’s Complete Works for Piano solo, a fascinatingly broad and varied spectrum ranging from highly virtuosic pieces for the concert hall and valuable literature for teaching purposes. This attractive and yet challenging assignment was not always approached with the necessary intellectual rigor, quite apart from any purely artistic shortcomings, and so none of these sets can justly be deemed “complete”. Schumann had published a string of works in two more or less divergent versions, so that it is highly questionable whether an edition can be labelled “Complete Recordings” if it only contains one of those versions or worse still, makes a misguided attempt to combine two of them. Meanwhile, works that were published at remote locations or remained unpublished have hitherto been taken into account only in exceptional cases.
The first true complete recording of Robert Schumann’s works for piano solo on 17 albums (in 15 volumes), played by Florian Uhlig, seeks for the first time to offer imaginative compilations containing all original works for pianoforte written between 1830 (Abegg Variations op. 1) and 1854 (Ghost Variations) according to the newest critical editions and/or first editions. Several of these albums also contain premiere recordings, often of fragments that were amenable to completion. After the project was completed in 2021, it was evident from a further critical inspection of the five Studien- und Skizzenbücher held in the University and State Library in Bonn, and from the volumes of the complete piano works for two hands that have so far appeared in this comprehensive and groundbreaking edition, that there is a string of either very short complete or longer fragmentary pieces dating from about 1830 to 1837 that are worthy of attention.
Chopin: Fantasie, Polonaise-fantasie, Etc / Fou Ts'ong
Sony Masterworks
CD
$17.99
Aug 12, 2010
Fou Ts'ong's excellently recorded Chopin series continues with four late works, and with some of the best playing that I have heard from him. Outstanding pianistic craft is displayed almost everywhere, as in the double trills of the Barcarolle and treble trills of the Polonaise-Fantaisie... In some quiet passages of the Barcarolle, as in the Berceuse's exquisite traceries, Fou Ts'ong approaches Debussy's ideal of a piano without hammers, his tone suggesting the utmost sensitivity. And in the Barcarolle, though every detail is exactly shaped, it is the grand sweep of the music as a whole that dominates.
Without underestimating the problems of the other pieces, it can safely be said that the Polonaise-Fantaisie is the most difficult work here to interpret. Fou Ts'ong does many excellent things, especially in the poco pià lento section; and note the dream-like reverie in which the music restarts after the return of the introductory gestures. But he does not achieve quite the flow, the sense of conviction, that mark his other...performances. Just the same, this issue still should have the attention of all Chopin collectors.
-- Gramophone [7/1979, reviewing the Berceuse, Barcarolle, and the Polonaise-Fantaisie]
Without underestimating the problems of the other pieces, it can safely be said that the Polonaise-Fantaisie is the most difficult work here to interpret. Fou Ts'ong does many excellent things, especially in the poco pià lento section; and note the dream-like reverie in which the music restarts after the return of the introductory gestures. But he does not achieve quite the flow, the sense of conviction, that mark his other...performances. Just the same, this issue still should have the attention of all Chopin collectors.
-- Gramophone [7/1979, reviewing the Berceuse, Barcarolle, and the Polonaise-Fantaisie]
Schubert & Haydn: String Quartets / Tetzlaff Quartett
Ondine
CD
$18.99
Mar 10, 2017
In these days of megaboxes and reissues, it’s surprising and delightful to see a new release that couples two beautiful quartets, immaculately played, just because–well, just because. OK, the cover art makes Tetzlaff look like a cult leader hanging out with his three sister-wives, but happily his eponymous quartet doesn’t fall prey to any Svengali-like mind control from its first violin. Their work is that of a true quartet, well-balanced, precise, and with a welcome give-and-take between the parts.
This is particularly true of the Schubert, a work whose strange harmonies and endless tremolo textures foreshadow Bruckner, and which demand a particularly sensitive handling of the relationship between melody and accompaniment. The first movement relishes its quasi orchestral textures, but without ever letting us forget that this really is chamber music. In both of the outer movements tempos are particularly well judged, with the constant seesawing between major and minor in the finale producing a truly disturbing, almost queasy effect.
Haydn’s Quartet in G minor, Op. 20 (No. 3) makes an ideal disc mate, even leaving aside its complementary tonality. Its first movement, particularly, offers plenty of uneasy emotional ambiguity that’s very well captured here. Charles Rosen, in The Classical Style, presented a typically penetrating analysis, calling its handling of rhythm and motivic development positively upsetting; and in this interpretation the evident care with dynamics and sense of timing conveys the darkness just below the surface particularly well.
In short, this is a throwback: a classical music release without a stupid title or ridiculous concept, one that lets the greatness of the music speak for itself and offers interpretations that justify the program through purely musical means. Wonder of wonders. It deserves your support, and will reward your close attention. - ClassicsToday.com
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A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month!
Is there, I wonder, a greater string quartet than Schubert’s D.887, Beethoven’s notwithstanding? Certainly it is one of the most profound, moving and indeed disturbing works in that genre, rivalled only by the same composer’s string quintet and characterised by an eternal paradox in its typically Schubertian endless melodic stream and its equally typical sense of impending death, doom and destruction. The finale must emerge as a Dance of Death, a startlingly brutal musical depiction of dissolution almost two hundred years before Stravinsky utilised that trope in “The Rite of Spring”, a brave and desperate defiance of the inevitable masked by enforced jollity - and the Tetzlaff Quartet really nail the mood.
Their playing is swift and invariably tightly focused, never “prettified”, sometimes raw, with sparing use of vibrato, and technically flawless execution of the frequent tremolos. The recorded sound is very detailed and more intimate than, say, the Alban Berg or Allegri Quartets; their broader acoustics match their grander, more overt manner, but where the Tetztlaff really excels is in its scrupulous and invariably unanimous application of dynamics, which greatly enhances the intensity of its playing. That attention to nuance is reinforced by their observation in the booklet notes regarding how the dynamic markings go “from triple piano with diminuendo to triple forte with crescendo”. Those notes provide little factual information on the music itself, being a transcription of a conversation about its emotional hinterland and impact of this constantly questioning music. Mahler’s wry aphorism comes to mind: “If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother to say it in music” – although perhaps a review should be wary of smugly borrowing his bon mot given that the same principle could apply to reviewing.
The first movement is chilling and gripping, its grotesqueries fully realised. The Andante contains some of the most beautiful and unsettling music ever written, exhibiting wonderful control of pianissimi and concluding in almost serene and consolatory mode. The Scherzo is featherlight and delicate in the Mendelssohnian manner, the waltz-time Trio ideally elegant.
If Schubert’s quartet represents some kind of apex in the form then there is an evident logic in including in the programme here a work which was seminal in its inception and establishment. However, there is also the programmatic rationale of establishing a thematic link between these two quartets. If Goethe’s dictum is correct, that the string quartet is “a conversation between four intelligent people”, then in the case of these two works all the participants are to some degree disordered, yet we undoubtedly hear four equal voices, each claiming conversational ascendancy in turn, such is the virtuosity and equilibrium of the Tetzlaffs’ playing. Haydn’s work is disturbing in a manner similar to that of Schubert’s, in that the music evinces a frequent and shocking undercurrent of dissatisfaction and even anger, although it hardly achieves the same scorched emotiveness as Schubert’s masterwork. This is wild, erratic and fragmented music by early Classical period standards; even the supposedly courtly Menuet is more melancholy and unsettled than “galant” and three of the movements conclude by simply tailing off in a piano muttering in a manner most unconventional and even unsatisfactory by the measure of the age. The Trio of the Scherzo is incongruously cheerful as if it hardly belongs in the quartet at all while the Adagio, exquisitely played here, provides another such interlude of unexpected serenity in an otherwise fitful and capricious work whose restlessness goes a long way towards justifying its kinship with D887. A final irony is that there is no evidence that this or any other string quartets were ever performed in Esterházy; it seems that Haydn wrote them out of an inner compulsion to exorcise his demons while marooned in that civilised but remote gilded cage.
Comparison with the esteemed Buchberger Quartet in the Haydn reveals that the Buchberger is more assertive and plays in a more overtly “con spirito” manner than the Tetzlaff, who are perhaps occasionally almost too refined but thereby bring out the subtleties of this extraordinary music; I would not let that count as a demerit, especially when the pairing here succeeds so triumphantly.
– MusicWeb International (Ralph Moore)
This is particularly true of the Schubert, a work whose strange harmonies and endless tremolo textures foreshadow Bruckner, and which demand a particularly sensitive handling of the relationship between melody and accompaniment. The first movement relishes its quasi orchestral textures, but without ever letting us forget that this really is chamber music. In both of the outer movements tempos are particularly well judged, with the constant seesawing between major and minor in the finale producing a truly disturbing, almost queasy effect.
Haydn’s Quartet in G minor, Op. 20 (No. 3) makes an ideal disc mate, even leaving aside its complementary tonality. Its first movement, particularly, offers plenty of uneasy emotional ambiguity that’s very well captured here. Charles Rosen, in The Classical Style, presented a typically penetrating analysis, calling its handling of rhythm and motivic development positively upsetting; and in this interpretation the evident care with dynamics and sense of timing conveys the darkness just below the surface particularly well.
In short, this is a throwback: a classical music release without a stupid title or ridiculous concept, one that lets the greatness of the music speak for itself and offers interpretations that justify the program through purely musical means. Wonder of wonders. It deserves your support, and will reward your close attention. - ClassicsToday.com
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A MusicWeb International Recording of the Month!
Is there, I wonder, a greater string quartet than Schubert’s D.887, Beethoven’s notwithstanding? Certainly it is one of the most profound, moving and indeed disturbing works in that genre, rivalled only by the same composer’s string quintet and characterised by an eternal paradox in its typically Schubertian endless melodic stream and its equally typical sense of impending death, doom and destruction. The finale must emerge as a Dance of Death, a startlingly brutal musical depiction of dissolution almost two hundred years before Stravinsky utilised that trope in “The Rite of Spring”, a brave and desperate defiance of the inevitable masked by enforced jollity - and the Tetzlaff Quartet really nail the mood.
Their playing is swift and invariably tightly focused, never “prettified”, sometimes raw, with sparing use of vibrato, and technically flawless execution of the frequent tremolos. The recorded sound is very detailed and more intimate than, say, the Alban Berg or Allegri Quartets; their broader acoustics match their grander, more overt manner, but where the Tetztlaff really excels is in its scrupulous and invariably unanimous application of dynamics, which greatly enhances the intensity of its playing. That attention to nuance is reinforced by their observation in the booklet notes regarding how the dynamic markings go “from triple piano with diminuendo to triple forte with crescendo”. Those notes provide little factual information on the music itself, being a transcription of a conversation about its emotional hinterland and impact of this constantly questioning music. Mahler’s wry aphorism comes to mind: “If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother to say it in music” – although perhaps a review should be wary of smugly borrowing his bon mot given that the same principle could apply to reviewing.
The first movement is chilling and gripping, its grotesqueries fully realised. The Andante contains some of the most beautiful and unsettling music ever written, exhibiting wonderful control of pianissimi and concluding in almost serene and consolatory mode. The Scherzo is featherlight and delicate in the Mendelssohnian manner, the waltz-time Trio ideally elegant.
If Schubert’s quartet represents some kind of apex in the form then there is an evident logic in including in the programme here a work which was seminal in its inception and establishment. However, there is also the programmatic rationale of establishing a thematic link between these two quartets. If Goethe’s dictum is correct, that the string quartet is “a conversation between four intelligent people”, then in the case of these two works all the participants are to some degree disordered, yet we undoubtedly hear four equal voices, each claiming conversational ascendancy in turn, such is the virtuosity and equilibrium of the Tetzlaffs’ playing. Haydn’s work is disturbing in a manner similar to that of Schubert’s, in that the music evinces a frequent and shocking undercurrent of dissatisfaction and even anger, although it hardly achieves the same scorched emotiveness as Schubert’s masterwork. This is wild, erratic and fragmented music by early Classical period standards; even the supposedly courtly Menuet is more melancholy and unsettled than “galant” and three of the movements conclude by simply tailing off in a piano muttering in a manner most unconventional and even unsatisfactory by the measure of the age. The Trio of the Scherzo is incongruously cheerful as if it hardly belongs in the quartet at all while the Adagio, exquisitely played here, provides another such interlude of unexpected serenity in an otherwise fitful and capricious work whose restlessness goes a long way towards justifying its kinship with D887. A final irony is that there is no evidence that this or any other string quartets were ever performed in Esterházy; it seems that Haydn wrote them out of an inner compulsion to exorcise his demons while marooned in that civilised but remote gilded cage.
Comparison with the esteemed Buchberger Quartet in the Haydn reveals that the Buchberger is more assertive and plays in a more overtly “con spirito” manner than the Tetzlaff, who are perhaps occasionally almost too refined but thereby bring out the subtleties of this extraordinary music; I would not let that count as a demerit, especially when the pairing here succeeds so triumphantly.
– MusicWeb International (Ralph Moore)
French Impressions
Cedille
CD
$19.99
Sep 05, 2025
Acclaimed concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine, sought-after pianist Orion Weiss, and the multiple Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet join forces for their new album French Impressions: Chamber Music by Chausson & Tailleferre, celebrating transformational works by French composers Ernest Chausson and Germaine Tailleferre, whose chamber music deserves greater attention on recordings. Chausson's Op. 21 sextet, titled Concert, known for it's unusual orchestration of solo violin, string quartet, and piano, takes advantage of the quasi-orchestral capabilities of a chamber ensemble. The only work on the album featuring Rachel Barton Pine, Pacifica Quartet, and Orion Weiss as a collective, Concert is regarded as one of the most important French chamber music works of the late-19th-century fin-de-siecle era. Germaine Tailleferre was a prolific composer and the only female member of the group of celebrated 20th-century French composers known as Les Six. Tailleferre was a piano prodigy who enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire at age 12, defying her father's objections. Her compositions span symphonic, chamber, and film music. A winner of numerous premiere prix, she studied with revered composers including Maurice Ravel, whose work significantly influenced her versatile style. Violinist Rachel Barton Pine showcases her "astonishing and joyful" (Washington Post) artistry, alongside the "powerful technique and exceptional insight" (Washington Post) of pianist Orion Weiss for Tailleferre's Violin Sonata No. 2, Pastorale, and Berceuse for Violin and Piano - works that often express a nostalgic longing for home and display dynamic and adventurous interplay between the violin and piano. The Pacifica Quartet, known for it's "remarkable expressive range and tonal beauty" (New York Times), is featured on Tailleferre's String Quartet, a piece acclaimed for it's playful themes, fluid accompanimental figuration, and bold harmonies.
Fauré: Piano Quartet No. 2 & Piano Trio
Naxos
CD
$13.99
$19.99
Save 30%
Jul 08, 2014
Gabriel Fauré’s chamber works, long overshadowed by his popular Requiem (Naxos 8.550765), are regaining their rightful place. This new release from the Kungsbacka Piano Trio follows their recording of Fauré’s First Piano Quartet and other chamber works (8.573042), described by Gramophone as ‘a delectable way into Fauré’s chamber music’. The program features the less frequently heard original version, with clarinet, of the Piano Trio, the Second Piano Quartet, which includes an evocation of the bells of Cadirac near the composer’s home, the Romances sans paroles, described by Marcel Proust as ‘intoxicating’ and one of Fauré’s most famous works, the Berceuse from the Dolly Suite.
Spanish Classics - Rodrigo: Complete Orchestral Works Vol 4
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Feb 01, 2003
RODRIGO Piano Concerto (rev. Achúcarro). Preludio para un poema a la Alhambra. Música para un jardín. Homenaje a la tempranica. Juglares • Max Bragado-Darman, cond; Castile and León SO; Daniel Ligorio Ferrandiz (pn) • NAXOS 8.557101 (60:17)
This is the fourth volume in Naxos’s series of “Complete Orchestral Works” by Rodrigo, but it is the first one to come my way. (I see no record of Volumes 1–3 having been reviewed in Fanfare, either.) My initial impression, though, is that this is yet another worthwhile series from a label that seems determined to leave no work unrecorded.
The glittering Piano Concerto is derived from a 1942 Concierto heroico, also for piano and orchestra. Pianist Joaquín Achúcarro revised the Concierto heroico “to achieve a better balance between the solo instrument and the orchestra, and to avoid some of the original repetitions,” in the words of annotator Enrique Martínez Miura. (Apparently, two “extremely virtuosic” cadenzas have been removed from the Largo too.) The new work was premiered in 1996, three years before Rodrigo’s death. What Rodrigo thought of all this is not indicated here, nor can I comment on the original work, as I have not heard it. I can say that the newer work is an attractive one, colorful to the point of being garish, and dramatic to the point of being hyper-emotional. Rodrigo’s original intention was to reflect on his hometown’s survival of the Spanish Civil War. If most of the Piano Concerto seems more like a marvelous circus than a commentary on war and the human spirit, it is hard to know whether to lay blame at the feet of Rodrigo or Achúcarro. That doesn’t make the work less enjoyable, though.
Música para un jardín (“Music for a Garden”) is Rodrigo’s own orchestration of two piano berceuses from 1935 (one for autumn and one for spring). When he orchestrated it, he added berceuses for the other two seasons, and a brief prelude. The finished work was used in a film documentary about Madrid’s El Retiro Park, but no visual assistance is necessary; this wistful and charming music stands on its own. The life of plants evokes an appropriately innocent response from the composer.
The other three works are less ambitious. Juglares, composed in 1923, was Rodrigo’s first orchestral work. After a brief drum tattoo, there is an attractive Allegro with an appealingly monotonous melody, a passionate slower section, and then a return to the opening section—short and sweet. The gorgeous Preludio para un poema a la Alhambra was written in 1928, while the composer was studying in Paris. The score is headed, “At twilight a guitar sighs, and beyond, almost within the Alhambra, ring out the rhythms that drive the dance.” That Ravel’s influence can be felt in this music is no surprise. Homenaje a la tempranica, from 1939, is another Parisian work, but more typical of the mature Rodrigo. “La tempranica” means “precocious girl,” and it is the name of a popular zarzuela by another composer. This was Rodrigo’s homage to that composer’s work, not to feminine precocity, per se (although the Homenaje was premiered by an all-female orchestra).
None—the conductor, the soloist, the orchestra—is familiar. Nevertheless, I have no complaints about the technical quality or the spirit of the performances. Ferrandiz, in fact, seems like a pianist worth hearing more from. The sound engineers have wrapped this gift with a bright and brilliant ribbon.
Do you like the Concierto de Aranjuez? (Who doesn’t?) Naxos and I ask you, each in our own way, to explore more of Rodrigo’s music. He was most definitely not a “one work” composer!
-- Raymond Tuttle, Fanfare
This is the fourth volume in Naxos’s series of “Complete Orchestral Works” by Rodrigo, but it is the first one to come my way. (I see no record of Volumes 1–3 having been reviewed in Fanfare, either.) My initial impression, though, is that this is yet another worthwhile series from a label that seems determined to leave no work unrecorded.
The glittering Piano Concerto is derived from a 1942 Concierto heroico, also for piano and orchestra. Pianist Joaquín Achúcarro revised the Concierto heroico “to achieve a better balance between the solo instrument and the orchestra, and to avoid some of the original repetitions,” in the words of annotator Enrique Martínez Miura. (Apparently, two “extremely virtuosic” cadenzas have been removed from the Largo too.) The new work was premiered in 1996, three years before Rodrigo’s death. What Rodrigo thought of all this is not indicated here, nor can I comment on the original work, as I have not heard it. I can say that the newer work is an attractive one, colorful to the point of being garish, and dramatic to the point of being hyper-emotional. Rodrigo’s original intention was to reflect on his hometown’s survival of the Spanish Civil War. If most of the Piano Concerto seems more like a marvelous circus than a commentary on war and the human spirit, it is hard to know whether to lay blame at the feet of Rodrigo or Achúcarro. That doesn’t make the work less enjoyable, though.
Música para un jardín (“Music for a Garden”) is Rodrigo’s own orchestration of two piano berceuses from 1935 (one for autumn and one for spring). When he orchestrated it, he added berceuses for the other two seasons, and a brief prelude. The finished work was used in a film documentary about Madrid’s El Retiro Park, but no visual assistance is necessary; this wistful and charming music stands on its own. The life of plants evokes an appropriately innocent response from the composer.
The other three works are less ambitious. Juglares, composed in 1923, was Rodrigo’s first orchestral work. After a brief drum tattoo, there is an attractive Allegro with an appealingly monotonous melody, a passionate slower section, and then a return to the opening section—short and sweet. The gorgeous Preludio para un poema a la Alhambra was written in 1928, while the composer was studying in Paris. The score is headed, “At twilight a guitar sighs, and beyond, almost within the Alhambra, ring out the rhythms that drive the dance.” That Ravel’s influence can be felt in this music is no surprise. Homenaje a la tempranica, from 1939, is another Parisian work, but more typical of the mature Rodrigo. “La tempranica” means “precocious girl,” and it is the name of a popular zarzuela by another composer. This was Rodrigo’s homage to that composer’s work, not to feminine precocity, per se (although the Homenaje was premiered by an all-female orchestra).
None—the conductor, the soloist, the orchestra—is familiar. Nevertheless, I have no complaints about the technical quality or the spirit of the performances. Ferrandiz, in fact, seems like a pianist worth hearing more from. The sound engineers have wrapped this gift with a bright and brilliant ribbon.
Do you like the Concierto de Aranjuez? (Who doesn’t?) Naxos and I ask you, each in our own way, to explore more of Rodrigo’s music. He was most definitely not a “one work” composer!
-- Raymond Tuttle, Fanfare
Egon Wellesz: Piano Concerto; Violin Concerto
Capriccio
CD
$21.99
Apr 27, 2010
WELLESZ Piano Concerto , op. 49 1; Violin Concerto , op. 84 2 • 1 Margarete Babinsky (piano); 2 David Frühwirt (vn); Roger Epple, cond; RSO Berlin • CAPRICCIO 5027 (53:15)
Egon Wellesz, born in Vienna in 1885, is among the group of composers of “degenerate art” who survived the Nazi era physically, but not artistically. Like Braunfels, Zeisl, Mittler, or to a lesser degree Hartmann, his music died twice: once when the Nazis declared it “degenerate” and forced him into emigration, then again when the heavily subsidized postwar arts scene thought him not “degenerate” enough—too tonal, too beholden to music rather than organized sound. Even the many, many honors he received in the 50s, 60s, and 70s—in that sense he was luckier than many a colleague with a similar fate—smacked of guilt and placation, not genuine interest in his œuvre.
Wellesz was taught by Guido Adler (also Webern’s professor), became one of the first private students of Schoenberg, and later Schoenberg’s first biographer. In 1974 he died a CBO scholar in Oxford but was buried in his unappreciative home town, Vienna.
On this disc, further exploring “lost” 20th-century repertoire, Capriccio presents a piano concerto that decidedly, finally, doesn’t remind me of Ravel’s! Not that I don’t adore Ravel’s piano concertos to pieces; I do. It’s just that it started to seem like a strange running joke how anything from Zeisl to von Einem ( Fanfare 33:6) to Krenz ( Fanfare 33:2) seemed to remind of Ravel’s G-Major work. Wellesz doesn’t, partly because of his bold writing for piano and a more reticent orchestral part. From the first movement’s unhurried orchestral introduction over an impatient, then calming piano part, to the sudden spunk that picks up at around the two-minute mark, there is little that would immediately, much less invariably, remind one of any other composer. The virtuosic spikes that the pianist traverses, meanwhile, don’t just strike me as jazzy because I am listening to it (and writing this) as I am at a jazz festival in Bolzano, between gigs in this medieval town in South Tyrol. Pianistic ruminations and short orchestra exclamation marks take turns, with much of the material given to the solo piano. The five-minute, unintrusive slow second movement has the ability to just flit by if you don’t pay attention. The orchestra attempts to wax lyrically; the piano interrupts with coy runs. The third movement takes over stealthily with another slow introduction before virtuosity breaks through once again, pulling through to the end with some rambunctiousness and grand gestures. All together the work is not, to my ears, as wholly marvelous a discovery as Eric Zeisl’s (cpo 777226), to mention just an even more obscure work from a composer with a similar-enough biography. But it’s well worth listening to if concertos in general, and that lost period of music in particular, are of interest to you.
The same verdict stands for the Violin Concerto from 1961—even though it is considerably different in style. If you know Wellesz’s symphonies (also on cpo), you will have noticed a distinct break between the essentially late-Romantic symphonies Nos. 1 through 4 and the more explicitly modern Nos. 5 through 8. Wellesz called his Violin Concerto the brother of his Fifth Symphony and that is reflected by a greater—belated, if you will—incorporation of some elements of the serialist school. All movements are based on the same material, albeit a situation that Wellesz claimed to have discovered only after the fact.
The work manages to suggest density while retaining clear lines, and it is—at four movements—considerably more expansive than the Piano Concerto. After its premiere it was favorably compared to Berg (which it obliquely refers to) and Schoenberg. I don’t hear the beauty in it that I hear in the Berg (which, it should be pointed out, benefits from the advantage of far greater exposure, familiarity, and tons of wonderful recordings). It also seems less austere than Schoenberg’s concerto. Listeners who can just be brought to enjoy or accept the harmonic language of the Piano Concerto will find the Violin Concerto less attractive; tougher listening. But with some good will they should be able to access that work, too … especially via the Andante sostenuto, the fourth and last movement which, a terse and frenzied cadenza apart, has repose and considerable lyricism to offer. The violin part in the first movement has a good deal of electric, buzzing moments that are highly enjoyable. For getting to know the composer Wellesz, I’d start with the symphonies, but if they have turned you on already, then his two full-size concertos will be a mandatory expansion pack.
I know it must be frustrating for soloists or ensemble musicians when their work is done away with in one sentence, only because they are not famous enough to have pre-impressed the critic. This kindly dismissal usually takes place with adjectives like “adequate” or “perfectly acceptable.” Unfortunately for lack of comparison, knowledge of the score, and any immediately sensed enthusiasm about the playing (as in the Wetzler recording— Fanfare 33:4—for example), that’s exactly what I’ll have to do. Certainly the soloists Margarete Babinsky, David Frühwirt, or the Berlin RSO under Roger Epple don’t stand in the way of enjoyment.
FANFARE: Jens F. Laurson
Moszkowski: Complete Music for Solo Piano, Vol. 2
Toccata
CD
$20.99
Oct 07, 2022
Although Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925) wrote a considerable quantity of piano music, only a single piece, ‘Étincelles’, made it into the repertoire, not least because Horowitz enjoyed playing it. The early works on this second instalment in Ian Hobson’s survey of Moszkowski’s complete music for solo piano reveal a debt to Mendelssohn and Schumann, but the effortless craftsmanship to be heard here 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’. Most of the pieces in Opp. 15 and 18 are attractive salon miniatures, but the Three Piano Pieces in Dance Form, Op. 17, are extended Lisztian essays that showcase Moszkowski’s mastery of the keyboard and his command of form.
