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The Exclusive Subscription Concert Series - Christian Thiele
C Major Entertainment · Oct 2024DVD$32.99 -
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Elgar: Partsongs - From The Bavarian Highlands / Hanft, Arman, Bavarian Radio Chorus
BR Klassik · Jan 2021CD$19.99 -
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Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Complete Songs, Vol. 1 / Kalugina, Nikolayeva, Korostelyov
Toccata · Oct 2008CD$20.99 -
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Dvorak: Cello Concerto In A Major, Serenade For Strings / Rudin, Musica Viva
Fuga Libera · Jul 2013CD$20.99 -
Anthology of American Piano Music, Vol. 3: American Landscapes / Licad
Danacord · Nov 2018CD$18.99 -
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Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 'leningrad' / Temirkanov, St Petersburg
Signum Classics · Jan 2010CD$19.99 -
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Rheinberger: Works For Violin And Organ / Most, Ziener
There is a good deal of Biedermeier charm in these two works, but that is only one of its constituent elements. At its core, it is made of sterner stuff. The Six Pieces for Violin and Organ, op. 150, masquerades as a Baroque suite. Its opening movement is a stylized French overture, which provides one of the piece’s finest moments, in Rheinberger’s aforementioned synthesis of Baroque and Romantic languages. Unlike how they would have been handled by the great Baroque masters, the following movements—Pastorale, Gigue, Elegie, Abendlied, and Theme and Variations—the liner notes claim, “do not have any real interconnection, either thematically or with regard to key.” The implication is that we have a handful of pretty genre pieces and not much more. I respectfully disagree. There are subtle thematic and harmonic links throughout these pieces, and some of them—the Pastorale and especially the Elegy—are achingly beautiful in their inconsolable melancholy. The second work, Suite for Violin and Organ, op. 166, is more closely reasoned. Its opening Preludium evokes the world of Bach. The following Canzone takes us into the worlds of Schubert and Brahms, although there is also a Brucknerian quality in its austerity and in its ability to make time stand still, qualities that also characterize the following Allemande with its Brahmsian trio section. The final Moto perpetuo is based on the same harmonic progression that underpins the whole suite, and it puts the violinist to the test—one that she passes with flying colors.
Violinist Line Most’s intonation is impeccable, and her tone production is ravishing. Organist Marie Ziener, playing the fine organ of David’s Church, Copenhagen (Marcussen & Son, 1980) is with her hand-in-glove. The recorded balances in this tricky repertoire are beyond reproach."
William Zagorski, FANFARE
Beethoven By Arrangement, Vol. 1
This CD is the first in one of Toccata’s many series – almost as many as Naxos. This one is Beethoven by Arrangement.
As far as we know Beethoven, himself a violist, completed no works for the viola as principal instrument. The absence of a local viola virtuoso or at least a viola commissioner might well have been the reason. Others stepped into the breach.
This disc documents their arrangements. Before doing so it documents the 27 second torso of a Viola Sonata he began but never completed. It’s typically assertive and lively. Paul Silverthorne who is the guiding mind and hand behind this project arranged the compact three-movement Horn Sonata. It was written originally for the celebrated horn-player Giovanni Punto. It works rather fluently with its pulsingly dynamic and tenderly noble outer movements framing a mournfully captivating little Poco Adagio. Karl Kleinheinz was a contemporary of Beethoven and turned his musical skills to bear on two works for string trio: the opp. 8 and 25 – the latter arranged for flute. The seven movement Serenade for String Trio op. 8 became the Notturno for viola and piano. It’s in the mood and manner of Mozart’s cassations and serenades with witty movements alternating with more pensive and serious ones. The Allegretto alla Polacca is especially attractive. Friedrich Hermann, a pupil of Mendelssohn at Leipzig, did the same service for the much arranged Septet op. 20 – here appositely dubbed the Grand Duo. It’s an even more extended work at forty minutes than the Notturno this time across six movements. The music is from the high watermark of Beethoven’s early period and rewards close attention as well as casual overhearing. After much profundity the finale’s Marcia and Presto end proceedings with gleaming-eyed cheer and urbane confidence. Intakes of breath can be distracting but I only really noticed them from Silverthorne in the Andante segment of the Grand Duo’s finale. Silverthorne’s playing on the Amati viola is impassioned and completely in-style. David Owen Norris is always not merely reliable but ready with apt and lucid playing; so it proves here.
The liner-notes are by Paul Silverthorne who is Principal Viola of the London Symphony Orchestra. I recall him as the violist who premiered the Thea Musgrave concerto in 1991. He was also the violist for the very late Rozsa Viola Concerto recorded by Koch International circa 1998. Toccata Press have Silverthorne’s Beethoven Edition comprising the Grand Duo and the op. 17 Sonata in preparation. Violists will be pleased and so should their audiences.
The recording was made on a Viennese Blümel piano (1865) and a Brothers Amati viola (1620).
Lively and touching Beethoven voiced for the piano and viola. Viola players and the world’s curious Beethovenians will need to have this.
-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
Made in Germany
Hidden Legacies
Sgambati: 6 Nocturnes, Etudes & Other Works
The Exclusive Subscription Concert Series - Christian Thiele
Elgar from the Archives, Vol. 5
PROKOFIEV
Richard Strauss: A Hero's Life
Elgar: Partsongs - From The Bavarian Highlands / Hanft, Arman, Bavarian Radio Chorus
The British composer Edward Elgar wrote a great deal more than just his “Pomp & Circumstance” marches: his highly diverse oeuvre encompasses symphonies, concertos, chamber works, piano music and numerous choral works (oratorios, cantatas and partsongs). On this release, partsongs by Elgar can be heard with and without accompaniment as part of a representative selection of live and studio recordings. The album begins with the song cycle “From the Bavarian Highlands” op. 27; its six cheerful numbers were written while Elgar and his wife were on holiday in Garmisch in 1895. Alice Elgar had sketched verses from Bavarian folk melodies, and Upper Bavarian songs and dances can be heard in her husband’s settings. These were happy memories of carefree holidays in a region rich in music and full of fine landscapes. The Bavarian Radio Chorus, conducted by Howard Arman, sings the songs in their original version with piano accompaniment (the orchestral version came later). As a composer of English-language choral songs, Elgar is still little-known on the European mainland; in the United Kingdom, however, the situation is very different. The country has long had a lively choral scene, focusing primarily on English music – from Purcell and Handel to Hubert Parry, Charles Villiers Stanford and Elgar, all the way to Benjamin Britten and today’s contemporary composers. The program on this release has been compiled and conducted by the Englishman Howard Arman, one of today’s most knowledgeable experts on British choral music and artistic director of the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and these recordings should do much to boost the popularity of this highly appealing music on the European mainland as well.
Mieczyslaw Weinberg - Complete Songs, Vol. 1 / Kalugina, Nikolayeva, Korostelyov
WEINBERG Children’s Songs. Beyond the Border of Past Days. Rocking the Child • Olga Kalugina (sop); Svetlana Nikolayeve (mez); Dmitri Korostelyov (pn) • TOCCATA 0078 (60:12 Text and Translation)
Mieczyslaw Weinberg (to use what has become the preferred spelling of a composer whose music is hard to find because of the various ways he is listed—Vainberg, Vaynberg, Weinberg) was born in Poland in 1919. He spent most of his life in the Soviet Union, and was a close friend and colleague of Shostakovich, whose influence on Weinberg was very strong.Weinberg had fled the Nazis in 1939, escaping from a horror that saw his parents and sister murdered, settling first in Minsk then hiding again from Nazis in Uzbekistan. In 1943, Shostakovich invited him to move to Moscow, where he lived until his death in 1996. Weinberg wrote 26 symphonies (one fewer than Miaskovsky!), 17 string quartets, other chamber works, a few hundred songs, sonatas and concertos for various instruments, seven operas, much incidental music for film and the theater, and much else. His music is finally being discovered by an enterprising record industry that has run out of room for more Beethoven or Mahler! If it is unlikely that Weinberg will enter the central canon in a way that Shostakovich has, it does seem as if he might occupy an important place on the periphery, perhaps similar to that now occupied by Nielsen.
It is easy to point to the Shostakovich influences on his music; one hears it in many of the songs that make up these three cycles (particularly Rocking the Child ). But he is not a carbon copy of Shostakovich, and certainly not a “poor man’s Shostakovich.” Weinberg has his own musical face, and the more of his music one hears, the more familiar it becomes. The Shostakovich relationship is handy as a tool for placing Weinberg, stylistically, to someone unfamiliar with his music. If you respond to the music of Shostakovich, you are very likely to find Weinberg attractive.
But there is a touch more restraint and straight-forward lyricism in Weinberg; he doesn’t always show the anguish, the pain that one hears in Shostakovich’s scores, nor does he demonstrate quite the same degree of sarcastic wit. Not that those qualities are not there (and there are some works, such as the Requiem, that sear with their pain), but they are perhaps just a bit less extreme in Weinberg. The Jewish influence on Weinberg’s music is strong—and although Shostakovich was influenced by klezmer and other Jewish musical traditions (just listen to the Piano Trio), it is a more integral and consistent part of Weinberg’s art, perhaps stemming in part from his roots as a pianist and conductor at a Warsaw Jewish theater. It is particularly present in the Children’s Songs and Rocking the Child , more subtle in Beyond the Border of Past Days.
The Children’s Songs, op. 13, are set to poems by Itzhol Lejb Perez; Beyond the Border of Past Days sets poems by Alexander Blok (Shostakovich’s Blok songs are among his finest); and Rocking the Child to poems of Gabriela Mistral. The Perez and Mistral poems are translated into Russian and set in that language. Thanks to Toccata Classics for providing Cyrillic and English texts (no transliteration, but that seems only a minor problem). Excellent notes by David Fanning round out the high production values.
The two singers are satisfying. Children’s Songs and Rocking the Child are for soprano, Beyond the Border of Past Days for mezzo. Both singers have a bit of what we like to call that Slavic edge, but it is not too severe. Both are masterful at shaping the music, and they and pianist Dmitri Korostelyov do not seem to be sight-reading the material at all. One feels that they are deeply into the music. Natural and well-balanced sound completes the picture. This disc is a major addition to the catalogue, introducing us to some deeply moving music.
FANFARE: Henry Fogel
Dvorak: Cello Concerto In A Major, Serenade For Strings / Rudin, Musica Viva
For their fourth Fuga Libera-project, the Russian orchestra Musica Viva recorded one very famous, and one forgotten piece by Antonín Dvorak. The well-known piece is the Serenade for Strings in E major, written by Dvorak in 1875. It is believed that Dvorak took up this small orchestral genre because it was less demanding than the symphony, but allowed for the provision of pleasure and entertainment. The other piece is the Cello Concerto in A major. Unlike its brother, the B minor Concerto Op. 104, this concerto has been more than overlooked. It was left un-orchestrated by Dvorak, existing only in piano-score form. It was only after his death that a few composers orchestrated this dazzling piece of music. Cello virtuoso Alexander Rudin, and Musica Viva let us taste from this magnificent forgotten treasure...
Anthology of American Piano Music, Vol. 3: American Landscapes / Licad
Another release in our ongoing series of American Piano Music played by the brilliant pianist, Cecile Licad. This volume, concentrating on music inspired by the American Landscape, features many piano pieces not available in a modern digital recording and is essential to all lovers of piano music. Cecile Licad’s unique natural pianistic talent was recognized early. She began her piano studies at the age of 3 and made her debut as a soloist with the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Philippines in her native Manila at 7. When she was 12 she auditioned for Rudolf Serkin and was admitted to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Ms. Licad’s international career was launched in 1981 after she had been awarded the prestigious Leventritt Gold Medal. Since then, Ms. Licad has appeared throughout the world alongside the finest symphonies and in solo recitals.
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REVIEWS:
It is not hard to find the overt romanticism of Franz Liszt and Joachim Raff in William Mason’s beautiful filigree ‘Silver Spring’ op.6. This was composed around 1850. The liner notes point out that the work is full of ‘delicate bravura figuration and cadenza-like flourishes.’ Mason’s piano music was at the ‘top end’ of the then fashionable salon pieces. It is stunningly played here by Cecile Licad.
Still's A Deserted Plantation utilizes all the devices of jazz and blues. The work is moving and exhilarating at the same time. It is resourcefully played here by Cecile Licad.
– MusicWeb International
This third volume of Cecile Licad’s ‘Anthology of American Piano Music’ is a model of imaginative program-building. On the whole, Licad’s caring and intelligent performances and the savvy program selection by David Dubal and executive producer Thomas Nickelsen augur well for future volumes.
– Gramophone
Idil Biret Beethoven Edition: 32 Piano Sonatas
SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY NO.4
Nielsen, C.: Symphonies, Vol. 3 - Nos. 4, "The Inextinguisha
MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO. 4
Bruckner: Symphonies 4 & 5 / Kempe, Munich Philharmonic
Bruckner's music embodies the visions of a devout, ordinary man. Parts of his expansive, shimmering musical landscapes are influenced by Wagner, but one can also detect Schubert, who began life in similar circumstances. The reposeful piety which runs through Bruckner's symphonic spectrum lends his music its unique power of attraction.
Recorded 1975-76.
Gerhard: Symphony No 4, Violin Concerto / Neaman, Davis
In this disc Lyrita steps about as far away as you can go from their accustomed heartland. This is music of dissonant discontinuity and conflagration – especially in the symphony. Its upheavals and eruptions are expressed in pointillistic silvery fragments and vertiginous stop-starts and mood-swings.sample We are immersed in this pool of imaginative effects immediately in Gerhard's Fourth - and final completed - Symphony. It stutters, creeps, excoriates and bawls. Previously recorded by Naive and by Chandos this its world premiere recording. In that sense it is an awesomely honest document recorded in the last year of Gerhard's life. In addition however it shouts the ultima thule of 1970s exclusivity and ivory towers.
The Violin Concerto is written in more beguilingly compromising tones. Here there is a connection with melody and an evident allegiance for the long melodic line even if it does have an astringent after-taste. Yfrah Neaman with his unmistakable silver thread of tone is as dedicated and fluent an interpreter as his BBC colleagues. In the finale Gerhard gives us a buzz-saw pell-mell climactic display - not above borrowing from Sarasate in mood rather than detail. Overall the concerto can be loosely and rather unsophisticatedly bracketed with the two Rawsthorne concertos, the Frankel and the Fricker; the latter reissued this month on Lyrita. The silence at the end of the concerto demands a burly if misty-eyed cheer from even the most impassive of listeners.
The BBCSO and its then conductor Colin Davis put this music through the hoops. Did anyone at the time think that these works would be recorded more than once. In the studio they must have thought they were recording these works for all time. The results certainly suggest that.
The completely satisfying notes are by MusicWeb writer Paul Conway one of the rising and risen authorities on twentieth century British music. Paul’s article on the Gerhard symphonies is well worth your attention … and mine. However don’t miss Guy Rickard’s article while you are here.
Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International