Search results: Search results
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Various: White Nights - Viola Music from Saint Petersburg / Masurenko, Ishay
Profil · Nov 2021CD$24.99 -
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Furtwangler: Symphony No. 2 / Jochum, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks
BR Klassik · Nov 2010CD$29.99 -
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Kalabis: Symphonies, Concertos / Kosler, Neumann, Kalabis, Belohlavek
Supraphon · Feb 2013CD$47.99 -
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Robert & Clara Schumann: Piano Trios / Swiss Piano Trio
Audite Musikproduktion · Jan 2013SACD$21.99 -
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Dvorák: Complete Cello Works / Jamnik, Netopil, Prague Radio Symphony
Supraphon · Dec 2010CD$37.99 -
Schutz: Cantiones Sacrae / Rademann, Dresdner Kammerchor
SCHÜTZ Cantiones Sacrae , Op. 4 • Hans-Christoph Rademann, cond; Dresdn C Ch • CARUS 83.252 (2 CDs: 108: 31 Text and Translation)
The fifth issue in Rademann’s projected complete works of Heinrich Schütz, this publication of 1625 has already been recorded complete three times. Rudolf Mauersberger used a large choir of men and boys with instrumental ensemble; the Eterna recording was once available on Telefunken LPs but, in a Berlin Classics set of 10 CDs of Schütz’s music, never came for review. Manfred Cordes ( Fanfare 20:5) got a rave review for rendering one voice to a part, unaccompanied except for motets that required continuo. Matteo Messori (30:5) also used one voice to a part with organ continuo throughout. The new version has a vocal ensemble of 18 with continuo.
One might wonder why this collection of Latin-texted motets, written over a period of years (some of them were certainly sung for the Emperor Matthias when he visited Dresden in 1617) is not heard as often as the German-texted Geistliche Chor-Musik of 1648, which has been recorded complete 10 times. In a very informative note here, Oliver Geisler shows that Carl von Winterfeld (1834), Philipp Spitta (1894), Joachim Moser (1936), and most recently Clytus Gottwald have singled out the treasures that are to be discovered here, beginning long before the revival of interest in the greatest German composer of the 17th century. The last-named lamented that 20th-century church music has been modeled on the 1648 book instead of this expressionist music that would have led composers in more adventurous directions. It would seem that the music is more admired than loved. Rademann sets out to make it loved.
To read Cordes’s notes is to imagine that, foreseeing this new recording, he was arguing against it in his insistence on one voice to a part without the “rigid sound” of the organ, but his real reference was to Mauersberger’s pioneering set. Rademann shows how light and flexible his singers can sound in this madrigalian music, and the continuo is so discreet as to fade out of hearing. (Indeed, I cannot hear it at all in at least one piece, “Dulcissime et benignissime Christe.”) I find the two versions equally appealing, appreciating the one I am hearing before switching to the other equally impressive performance. My head tells me that Cordes argues persuasively, but my heart tells me that the warmth of Rademann’s multiple voices is unarguable. These Scriptural texts in Latin are not madrigals, after all.
At least six conductors have assembled partial collections of this music to fit a single disc. The largest was two LPs under Helmut Rilling, both issued here on Musical Heritage Society, probably a projected complete set that was never finished. The most recent, a full CD by Erik van Nevel (15:5), was commendable when the only complete set was Mauersberger’s, but van Nevel never made the rest of the book. It should be noted that I referred in that review to “41 motets;” the correct count is 40, since “Pater noster” is printed twice as the secunda pars of two motets. If you have not discovered the marvels of this book, I urge you to hear Rademann. He promises to give us a commendable complete works.
FANFARE: J. F. Weber
LIVE AT WARSAW JAZZ JAMBOREE 1991
SWING IT!: YOUR HIT PARADE COLLECTION 1934-39
Franck: Complete Organ Works / Hans-Eberhard Roß
FRANCK COMPLETE ORGAN WORKS • Hans-Eberhard Roß (org) • AUDITE 21413 (6 CDs: 411:46)
When it comes to the organ, I think it’s safe to say that César Franck is the most important composer since Bach, and here we have a survey of Franck’s organ music so complete that it would take an entire page to list the entire contents of these six discs in standard Fanfare headnote format. In fact, there’s not another collection in existence this complete—not Jean Guillou’s, Marie-Claire Alain’s, Anthony Newman’s, or anyone else’s—since whole discs full of items here are flagged as being premiere recordings, premiere recordings for organ, premiere complete recordings, or premiere complete recordings for organ. So, I have decided to describe the set’s contents on a disc-by-disc basis. Let me forewarn the reader, though, that this is a release dedicated to the doggedly determined among lovers of organ music in general and Franck’s organ music in particular.
Organist Hans-Eberhard Roß performs all 142 pieces on a single instrument, the Goll organ at St. Martin’s Church in Memmingen, Germany. I haven’t been able to find any detailed information on the organ builder, but the enclosed booklet gives the following specifications for the organ: built in 1998, it has four manuals plus pedal, controlling 62 registers. The recordings were made between 2004 and 2005 and were originally released in three two-disc sets in SACD. The boxed-up, six-disc set that came to me for review was on standard, two-channel CDs.
One criticism I will lodge about the presentation is this: the track listings for every piece give the date it was composed, the date it was published, and which of nine editions Roß uses. This last bit of information about the editions may be of interest to the musicologist or scholar studying Franck’s organ works, but more interesting to the general listener, I think, would have been a concordance of stops and registrations used for each piece, something I’ve seen in the notes to other organ recordings, and something that ought, I think, to be material to an undertaking of this seriousness.
Disc 1 starts off with a first-time recording of Pièce en mi bémol ; i.e., Piece in E?. Of course, you’d have to listen to it to know if it was major or minor, but I’ll save you the effort. It’s more or less both, opening with a chord progression that eerily anticipates the ear-curling pronouncement at the beginning of Poulenc’s Organ Concerto. This is followed by another early work, Pièce pour Grand Orgue . It’s not asterisked as a premiere recording but is nonetheless absent from current listings except for this version. Several more early works fill the first disc, all dating from between 1854 and 1856. There are five pieces by Franck originally written for harmonium and transcribed for organ by Louis Vierne, and this is their first time on record. Also a first on record is a first version of a Fantaisie in C Major. Its second version, apparently not a first on record, is also included on the disc. Roß, himself, has transcribed the harmonium piece, Quasi Marcia , op. 22, and plays it here for the first time on organ.
If it’s mainly a CD of Franck’s big organ hits you want, you would be happy with just disc 2. They’re all there in one place: the Fantaisie in C Major, op. 16, the Grand Pièce Symphonique , op. 17, the Prélude, Fugue, et Variation , op. 18, the Pastorale , op. 19, Prière , op. 20, and Final, op. 21.
Disc 3 contains no fewer than 39 short pieces collected under the heading of Posthumous Pieces for Harmonium or Organ with Pedal for L’Office Ordinaire . This spills over onto disc 4, which contains another seven pieces that are part of the same collection. The fourth disc is then filled out by Three Pieces for Grand Organ , a Petit Offertoire , and an Untitled piece, that last two of which were both originally for harmonium. The entire contents of discs 3 and 4, with the exception of the Three Pieces for Grand Organ , are flagged with three asterisks (***), referencing the fact that they are heard here for the first time complete on organ.
Disc 5 and almost all of disc 6 are occupied by Franck’s answer to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier , the sets of Pieces for Organ or Harmonium. The number seven must have held some mystical significance for Franck because there are nine sets of these pieces, each containing seven numbers, beginning with 7 Pieces in C Major and C Minor , progressing to 7 Pieces in D?-Major and C?-Minor , then to 7 Pieces in D Major and D Minor , which he subtitles, Pour le temps de Noël , and so on. The cycle stops after the 7 Pieces in A?-Major and G?-Minor , leaving the keys of A, B?, and B unexplored. There’s nothing mysterious or supernatural about the reason; Franck died before he was able to finish the project. The entirety of the Pieces for Organ or Harmonium is also thrice asterisked, meaning this is its first complete recording on organ. The final disc in the set concludes with the 3 Chorales for Grand Organ.
At first, I was a bit skeptical of how Franck’s organ music would sound on a modern, German-built instrument. It’s difficult to disassociate these works from the Cavaillé-Coll organs that inspired them. Much of this music, in fact, was composed during Franck’s tenure as organist and maître de chapelle at Sainte-Clotilde between 1858 and 1872. Of the three-manual plus pedal Cavaillé-Coll organ installed in the church, Franck is quoted as saying, “If you only knew how I love this instrument . . . it is so supple beneath my fingers and so obedient to all my thoughts.”
Concluding the 63-page booklet note by Martin Weyer (translated by Viola Scheffel) is a lengthy apologia in defense of playing these works on a Goll organ. The author twists himself in knots talking about the historical period-instrument movement and then tries to turn the argument on its head by explaining why this modern Goll instrument is an appropriate substitute for a Cavaillé-Coll organ and Franck’s music. “Upon hearing the instrument,” Weyer contends, “one will discover a lot of similarities to the sort of instrument that Franck found inspiring.” One could counter that many an organist has recorded Franck’s organ works on authentic Cavaillé-Coll instruments, and that if organist Hans-Eberhard Roß had betaken himself to France to make these recordings, he could have done likewise. But, as far as I’m concerned, the point is irrelevant. Roß is a consummately accomplished player who uses the richly variegated palette of the Goll organ to paint Franck’s pieces in an amazing array of tonal color combinations both bright and subtle, and the acoustic of Memmingen’s St. Martin church, perfectly captured by Audite’s engineers, is ideal. Franck and Cavaillé-Coll are nodding their heads in approval.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 5, Triple Concerto / Fleisher
Fleisher plays the first movement with splendid brio and the dash with which he gives out the opening flourishes is equalled by the orchestra's attack and energy when it starts the tutti. In one passage of brilliant semiquavers he tends to hurry very slightly, both times it comes, but in general his rhythm is excellent. There are, too, passages of most lovely liquid playing, a kind of brush of quiet sound, beautiful not only as sound but admirable in that they let woodwind solos come through without any forcing by the players. Fleisher is obviously always aware of what's going on in the orchestra and knows when he should be taking part in chamber music, rather than always holding the front of the stage. He does indulge in a wide range of speeds but not, I suppose, more than is usually done. The slow movement is played simply by both soloist and orchestra, as it should be— yet it's a difficult thing to play something so apparently simply but make it as moving as it is here.
At the very end of the movement (bar 80) you may be surprised to hear the strings play a long crotchet, arco, instead of the pizzicato to which we are all so used (which starts only at the last quaver of the bar). I asked Denis Matthews (always a mine of Beethoven information) about this and he told me he had played the concerto with Szell and was quite astonished at rehearsal when the expected 'plonk' from the strings didn't happen. Szell told him that Beethoven's autograph has the `pizz' written over the rests in the middle of the bar: and I now see that the preface in the Eulenburg miniature score states the same thing (despite which, the word is printed at the start of the bar!). This is not a trivial point, for it occurs, of course, at just about the most magical moment of the whole concerto and I do think that the long, grave, B flat from the strings is far more apt than the rather disturbing 'plonk' which emphasizes Beethoven's change from B to B flat in the wrong way.
The finale goes splendidly all through and I only don't like Fleisher's mannered playing of part of the main theme each time. I refer to the bars marked espressivo, which would appear to suggest something other than his jerky delivery of the right hand phrases. But this is a small point and there is no doubt that this is the sort of performance that will make you enjoy the music afresh, for the playing all through the concerto is both zestful and perceptive; Szell's contribution is an added source of pleasure—and the admirable engineering complements the players' artistry.
-- Gramophone [1/1966, reviewing the original LP release of the Emperor Concerto]
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The apologies invariably made for Beethoven's Triple Concerto seem to have an effect on performances. I have rarely, if ever, known one which did not in some respect carry an apology with it, and I have rarely, if ever, known one which treated the work in the strong bravura way which makes for success in the Emperor or violin concertos. But here is just such a performance, and it makes one glory in what Beethoven did achieve in the work.
The scale of the work as conceived by Stern, Rose and Istomin is quite different from that of the rival performances on record, however enjoyable. The precision and stylishness of Schneiderhan, Fournier and Anda on DGG make for an eighteenthcentury manner in the outer movements, particularly the first. Some may well continue to prefer it, and technically the balance with the orchestra is better than on the new CBS disc, but the newly roused echoes of other Beethoven concertos place the Stern/ Rose/Istomin performance in the right period. It is after all a produce of the Fidelio years, the years which also produced the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto and the Symphonies Nos. 4 to 6. It is possible to regard the formalism of the outer movements, their conscientious balance of thematic statements by each of the three soloists in turn, as a return to eighteenth-century practice, but the sheer size speaks rather of a really grand manner. And if the thematic material is more bald and less striking than that in other Beethoven concertos (at least in the first movement) there was a practical need with three soloists to keep ideas short.
In achieving a sense of size Stern, Rose and Istomin reveal their own stature in the relaxation of the playing. Lesser players would either screw up the tension or become ponderous, but these three over and over again convey the joy of their playing: the relaxed lilt of the second subject, Rose's natural warmth in the slow movement enunciation, the whole of the final Rondo Polacca. Not only has the main Polacca theme tremendous verve, the middle episode, when the `yatta-tah-ta-tah-ta' rhythm emerges on horn and lower woodwind, has a unique tang of East European music. Stern obviously takes the idea of a Polacca literally and exaggerates the first beat in each dactyllic phrase, giving a real bounce to the music, and he is matched by his colleagues.
Then the semiquaver allegro reprise of the main theme towards the end is taken very fast and very clear, the result extraordinarily exciting. You have only to compare the DGG performance, very fast too and excellent in its way, to realize why Stern's, Rose's and Istomin's playing is not merely vital but great. Equally exciting are the furious florid dialogues between violin and 'cello in the passage-work of first and last movements. All three soloists are masterly in varying the tension, in shaping towards climaxes, and Ormandy draws from the Philadelphia Orchestra yet another of his really full-blooded accompaniments. In relation to the soloists the orchestra may seem a little backward, but the salient tuttis burst out with great effect, to match the scale of the soloists' playing. The nearness of the soloists does of course make it hard for them to sound as though they are playing really softly, and initial sotto voce entries in the finale are too loud.
In my detailed comparisons I have occasionally found points in which rivals score over Stern, Rose and Istomin, and the other CBS version has Serkin in marvellous form actually dominating the performance from the least prominent solo part, the non-virtuoso piano role originally devised for the Archduke Rudolf. But no minor shortcomings can alter the positive merits of what could well come to be regarded as a classic record.
-- Gramophone [10/1965, reviewing the original LP release of the Triple Concerto]
Rudolf Kempe Conducts Dvorak & Strauss
STRAUSS Ein Heldenleben 1. DVO?ÁK Symphony No. 9, “From the New World 2” • Rudolf Kempe, cond; 1 Royal PO; 2 BBC SO • ICA 5009, mono (DVD: 89:22) Live: Royal Albert Hall, London 1 8/28/1974; 2 8/29/1975
How absolutely wonderful it is to see Rudolf Kempe, looking hale and fit, ascend the podium and direct an absolutely magical performance of Ein Heldenleben with his usual minimum of podium fuss, his face mirroring both the music’s changes and his obvious pleasure at hearing it emerge the way he wants, the Royal Philharmonic members playing their little hearts out for him. This is exactly the way I always imagined Kempe in performance, as close to Toscanini’s podium style as any conductor who outlived him, eliciting that magical, transparent sound, ignoring nothing in rhythmic acuity and liveliness, and now we have the pleasure of seeing how he did it.
The sound is still mono but the images are in color. The members of the orchestra look completely rapt in concentration; everything in this performance is focused on the music, nothing on how they look to the audience. A bit dull to watch? Perhaps. But, like watching such similar conductors as Toscanini, Doráti, and Böhm, it amazes one that such exuberance of spirit and a rich palette of colors can emanate from such outward calm and control. For make no mistake, Kempe was a master of coloration. He knew how to make an orchestra “speak.” He knew the secret, now lost to a modern generation of conductors, of how to play music like this so that it sounded not only beautiful but noble, eschewing bombast in favor of the long line, the gradual ebb and flow of suspense, and—I reiterate—that unbelievable palette of colors he had at his disposal. Kempe’s strings had the sound of a choir singing.
In my experience there was only one performance of Ein Heldenleben I really loved prior to hearing this performance, and that was Willem Mengelberg’s 1941 broadcast with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The Concertgebouw of that time was by no means the technically precise instrument that the New York Philharmonic of 1928 was, in his Victor recording, but there is so much more detail and drama in the later performance that I forgave the roughly played passages. Kempe’s Heldenleben is an entirely different animal. The contrasts are all musical, not as dramatic, but with a flow and coloristic quality that make the score sound more akin to the upward spiral of ascending angels than to Mengelberg’s explosive reading (though they join hands in “The Hero’s Deeds of War”). There is nothing like it in my experience, not even Kempe’s studio recording for EMI, because the studio recording adds the goop of mid 1960s reverb to a performance that doesn’t need it. Here we have, if you will, Kempe urtext, and the result is simply mind-boggling. Listen, for instance, to the way he makes the low bass passage resound with great depth without sounding heavy or ponderous. His legato flow is seamless, the accuracy and crispness of his attacks and releases flawless. It was exactly moments like these that took your breath away when listening to a Kempe performance.
Yet he resented EMI’s pushing him as a Wagner and Strauss specialist. Kempe conducted a great deal more than that, Schubert, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Dvo?ák, Shostakovich, and Bruckner among them, and all of them well (he’s one of the few conductors besides Furtwängler who, to me, made some sense of Bruckner’s succession of endings in his symphonies), and here he follows Heldenleben with the “New World” Symphony of Dvo?ák. Unexpectedly, his performance of this symphony is startlingly dramatic, having almost the punch and drama of Toscanini’s excellent 1953 recording, only with Kempe’s patented transparency. The orchestra swells and ebbs flawlessly and naturally under his guiding hands; an unexpected rubato after the brief flute solo is picked up with tremendous force when the brass and high strings erupt again. Dozens of little details—clipped rhythmic accents here, buoyant legato bridges there—mark this interpretation as unique.
Kempe uses a fairly small baton, even a little smaller than Toscanini’s but not as tiny as the toothpicks that Strauss and Reiner used. His arms are a little further apart than Toscanini’s, but he is only slightly more animated on the podium, his arms moving in graceful arcs. Only a few months after the Dvo?ák performance came the shocking announcement that Kempe had died. I can remember that moment as if it were yesterday; it grieved me more than you can imagine. He had a very special gift, sought by many but bestowed on few, and we are all the poorer for his untimely passing.
FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley
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In a letter to his friend, the distinguished French man of letters Romain Rolland, Richard Strauss categorically denied that he was the model for Ein Heldenleben: “I am not a hero. I have not got the necessary strength; I am not cut out for battle; I prefer to withdraw, to be quiet, to have peace.”
Some commentators may have refused to take Strauss at his word, but the uncredited director of this BBC transmission of a 1974 Proms concert is clearly not among them. His view of things is crystal clear for, throughout the whole of the work’s first section, a musical depiction of Der Held (The Hero), he resolutely directs his cameras at the conductor. There is, in fact, not a single second of that opening 4:59 of music when Rudolf Kempe is not pictured on-screen, whether in close-up, middle distance or in long-shot. The corollary of that fact is that as soon as we begin the work’s second section, Des Helden Widersacher (The Hero’s Adversaries), we start to see the orchestra members on their own – but maybe I am now stretching my theory of the supposed relationship between the visual images and the “text” just a little too far.
Even though Kempe’s widow Cordula records in the DVD booklet notes that her husband “thoroughly resented” being pigeonholed as a Strauss (and Wagner) specialist, his affinity with Strauss’s music was well recognised at the time. His record company EMI persuaded him to set down the complete orchestral works on disc. No less a personage than the Queen Mother reportedly gushed “Oh, Mr Kempe, when will you do the Alpine Symphony again?” (rather a surprise, given recent revelations of the sort of music she listened to at home). And, as evidenced in this performance taken from the conductor’s very last concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the 1974 Promenaders were quite over the moon with this Ein Heldenleben; critic Joan Chissell reported that this performance elicited “a hero’s ovation and rightly”.
Having never seen Kempe conduct live or on film before, the first thing that struck me was just how physically charismatic and animated he was on the podium. By fastidious, very precise gestures with both his baton and the fingers of his left hand, he coaxes some exquisite sonorities that we can fully appreciate thanks to his scrupulous care for orchestral balance - and to the installation of fibre-glass acoustic diffusing discs on the Royal Albert Hall’s ceiling just five years earlier, successfully reducing its notorious echo.
The outstanding characteristic of Kempe’s interpretation is that, by the application of both sensitivity and sensibility, he gives Strauss’s score the opportunity to breathe. This is, indeed, anything but a brash, bombastic account: the orchestra plays with notable and carefully controlled intensity and Erich Gruenberg’s substantial violin solos are especially affecting - he justifiably gets a special roar of approval from the Promenaders as he takes his bow.
If the Strauss is very fine indeed, the Dvorák is, however, outstanding. Edward Greenfield’s booklet notes suggest that its distinguishing feature is the wide range of dynamics that Kempe applies. What struck me most, however, was the interpretation itself. In contrast to performances that emphasise the score’s elements of cheery Bohemian bonhomie, Kempe’s is a deeply serious account.
The opening movement is characterised by fierce attack and precision - wonderful playing from the BBC orchestra - and Kempe minimises the elements of lyricism in favour high drama. In a similar vein, the second movement’s sentimentality is entirely played down. Its well-known “big tune” ( Goin’ home, Goin’ home, I’m a goin’ home / Quiet like, still some day, I’m just goin’ home) is moved purposefully along and the fervent manner in which its central section is played communicates, to this listener at least, a distinctly uneasy feeling of agitation and unrest.
Kempe’s interpretation is nothing if not consistently of a piece for the scherzo and the allegro con fuoco finale are similarly driven powerfully forward. The formers elements of bucolic rusticism are given short shrift and the latter, right from its opening bars, emerges as a real daredevil ride and is terribly exciting - while still very skilfully controlled and crafted.
This New World is one that emerges as a real eye-opener and a very different work from the one that we’re usually presented with. It justifiably receives a huge ovation from the audience.
This new DVD, then, preserves some superb performances. The direction – originally for BBC TV - is expert and thus almost entirely unobtrusive, the visual image - in colour throughout - is sharp and pleasing and the sound is more than acceptable. It offers an opportunity to acquaint or reacquaint oneself with a conductor of the highest calibre, performing live and at the peak of his abilities.
-- Rob Maynard, MusicWeb International
Flying Saxophone Circus / Turkovik, Selmer Saxharmonic
FLYING SAXOPHONE CIRCUS • Milan Turkovi?, cond; Selmer Saxharmonic • MDG 910 1625-6 (SACD: 59: 01)
SHOSTAKOVICH Suite for Variety Orchestra. DVO?ÁK Slavonic Dances, op. 46/1, 7, 8. MILHAUD Scaramouche. GERSHWIN American Stories Suite. MATITIA Devil’s Rag
If Flying Saxophone Circus , the title of this CD, conjures up images of a troupe of madcap comedians and “something completely different,” I think you have gotten the point. As the program notes, with their references to magical materializations in Red Square and abductions by jazz-loving space aliens make clear, here indeed is a unique experience. With this eclectic program of Shostakovich, Dvo?ák, Milhaud, Gershwin, and Jean Matitia, played by a saxophone dodectet (I’ve waited my whole life to use that term) called the Selmer Saxharmonic, this is about as different as things get here in the classical aisle.
The Shostakovich Suite for Variety Orchestra (post 1956)—usually misidentified, as it is here, as the lost-but-now-located 1938 Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 —is the perfect opener for a disc of this title, as the style of these delicious waltzes, polkas, and gallops, taken from film and ballet scores, is strikingly similar to music played in Russian circuses. (That the composer could apparently write these crowd-pleasing tunes with the same skill and conviction as his darkly intense symphonies and string quartets is a mystery worthy of further exploration. It surely doesn’t sound like slumming to me.) The band’s multilayered saxophone sonority expands on the color offered by the four saxes in the original orchestration, with some excursions into pizzicato and other sounds usually alien to reed instruments. The performance of the insinuating Waltz No. 2, made familiar in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut , is particularly convincing.
The other works are just as effectively done. The Saxharmonic’s Dvo?ák dances capture the Slavic flavor while adding the colorations of his wind serenade, the saxophones morphing credibly into flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. The Scaramouche may seem a bit heavy at first, but well before they get to the “Brasileira” one almost begins to believe it was written for this ensemble. Then the German musicians transform into a 1930s dance band—with an amazing sax line—for the suite of Gershwin show tunes arranged by French saxophonist Jean-Marie Londeix. They finish off with the fiendishly difficult Devil’s Rag for 12 saxophones by another French sax player and teacher, Christian Lauba, writing under the nom de plume Jean Matitia. Pure magic.
But I go on too long. So, here’s the endorsement: This is the group I’d want to book if I was having a cost-no-object party. The ensemble boasts 12 of the finest saxophonists in Germany, playing everything from sopranino to bass. The music is ingenious and accessible to a wide variety of tastes. The arrangements, most of them by tenor saxophonist Christoph Enzel, are technically sophisticated, true to the various styles, and great fun. Bassoonist/conductor Milan Turkovi? (he still plays in the Vienna Concentus Musicus) leads lively, idiomatic performances. These range from subtle to brazen as appropriate, with not a trace of the stiffness that often creeps in when wind ensembles tackle orchestral repertoire. The sound is magnificent and the notes are a hoot . Why wait? Drop your copy of Fanfare (temporarily of course) and get to your favorite retailer post haste. If you enjoy this repertoire, or the sound of saxophones, you will love this SACD.
FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames
Various: White Nights - Viola Music from Saint Petersburg / Masurenko, Ishay
Darling Of The Day / Original Broadway Cast
Principal cast includes: Vincent Price (Priam Farll), Patricia Routledge (Alice Challice), Brenda Forbes (Lady Vale), Peter Woodthorpe (Oxford), Teddy Green (Alf), and Charles Welch (Henry Leek).
Producers: George R. Marek, Andy Wiswell.
Recorded at Webster Hall, New York, New York in 1968. Includes liner notes by Steven Suskin.
Digitally remastered by Bill Rosenfield and Marian Conaty.
"This is one of the most witty, melodic and underrated Broadway scores ever, and those who love big, well-built musical comedies are in for a real treat with this beautifully remastered recording. . . . If you want to hear the latest 're-discovered' musical, grab a copy of this recording ASAP!" -- John Kenrick, Musicals101.com
Tracks:
1. Overture
2. He's A Genius Performer: Vincent Price (Singer), Peter Woodthorpe (Singer), Charles Welch (Singer)
3. To Get Out Of This World Alive Performer: Vincent Price (Singer)
4. It's Enough To Make A Lady Fall In Love Performer: Patricia Routledge (Singer), Teddy Green (Singer), Marc Jordan (Singer)
5. A Gentleman's Gentleman Performer: Patricia Routledge (Singer), Vincent Price (Singer), Teddy Green (Singer), Marc Jordan (Singer), Mitchell Jason (Singer)
6. Let's See What Happens Performer: Patricia Routledge (Singer)
7. Panache Performer: Peter Woodthorpe (Singer), Brenda Forbes (Singer)
8. I've Got A Rainbow Working For Me Performer: Vincent Price (Singer)
9. Money, Money, Money Performer: Teddy Green (Singer), Marc Jordan (Singer), Reid Klein (Singer)
10. That Something Extra Special Performer: Patricia Routledge (Singer)
11. What Makes A Marriage Merry Performer: Patricia Routledge (Singer), Vincent Price (Singer), Joy Nichols (Singer), Beth Howland (Singer), Teddy Green (Singer), Marc Jordan (Singer)
12. Not On Your Nellie Performer: Patricia Routledge (Singer), Teddy Green (Singer), Marc Jordan (Singer)
13. Sunset Tree Performer: Patricia Routledge (Singer), Vincent Price (Singer)
14. Butler In The Abbey Performer: Vincent Price (Singer)
15. Finale
CITY OF A MILLION DREAMS
My Choice
Uri Caine and Stefan Winter met for the first time in New York 30 years ago. A musical adventure begins, there is no goal, but a path. Two outstanding jazz albums are created on JMT, then Caine breaks through the boundaries between jazz, classical and new music like no other artist on Winter & Winter. New, exciting, groundbreaking things are emerging. Caine embodies sound, composition and improvisation merge, Bach and Monk meet as in a completely new duo drama and conduct a dialogue. Caine: “When Stefan Winter asked me to choose music from the past to put on an album, I hesitated. The selection of works is as difficult as if someone asked you which of your children is your favorite child." Caine made a completely surprising choice: worth hearing, enlightening, remarkable!
Songs of Connie Converse
Jonathan Dove: The Passing Of The Year
This will turn out to be, I am sure, one of my favorite recordings of 2012. I first came upon Jonathan Dove’s music on a Hyperion recording of his sacred music, featuring the Wells Cathedral Choir, conducted by Matthew Owens (2010). Over the last year I have occasionally returned to that CD, each time coming away more impressed by Dove’s writing. This new CD has only confirmed and strengthened that impression.
The recording opens with The Passing of the Year, a song-cycle written for double chorus and piano, dedicated in memory of Dove’s mother. The work, which is made up of seven movements divided into three main sections, takes the listener literally and metaphorically through changing seasons. Thankfully, Naxos does not follow its increasingly common practice of making the listener go to its website to search out the texts though they can be found here. Listening with the poetry at hand only increased my admiration for Dove’s sensitive text setting.
The work opens with Invocation, the voices repeatedly singing “O Earth, return!” with an ever increasing intensity. This leads into an extended setting of William Blake’s The narrow bud opens her beauties to the sun, that features contrasting textures of soloist versus choir and high versus low voice to convey the idea of “Summer breaking forth.” The third movement sets Emily Dickinson’s Answer July as a call and response between female and male voices that perfectly captures the playfulness of the text. Movement 4 begins the second section begins with Hot Sun, cool fire, a setting of words by George Peele that uses slowly shifting dissonant chords to evoke how difficult it can be to breathe, let alone move, on a brutally hot summer day. The cycle’s emotional climax is found in Movement 6, a setting of Thomas Nashe’s Adieu! Farewell earth’s bliss. Over an ostinato that bares a passing resemblance to the final minutes of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, one of the choirs intones “Lord, have mercy on us,” as the other choir sings, in achingly beautiful harmonies, about the inevitability of death.
Three times these competing choral textures break off so that all voices can join together in singing “I am sick, I must die”. Even after listening several times, Dove’s setting leaves me shaken. The sadness of that movement is effectively dispelled by the final Ring out, wild bells, a passage from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam that speaks of the promises found in the beginning of a New Year.
The rest of the program is just as impressive as the Song Cycle, and displays a greater variety of musical styles, including a solo for mezzo-soprano (My love is mine), three songs for upper voice/women’s choir (It sounded as if the streets were running). The CD is rounded out with Advent and Christmas music, including The Three Kings, written for Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge.
Dove’s music is impressive, with attractive melodies and tonal harmonic writing. Nevertheless, he is not afraid to use dissonance when it more strongly projects and expresses the text, and his writing displays a particularly strong skill in creating onomatopoeic effects. When I began my listening, I thought it would be helpful to note where Dove’s writing seemed reminiscent of other composers’ work. Sometimes the piano writing, which often uses ostinato figures, reminds me of the minimalists Steven Reich and John Adams. A few of Dove’s melodies soar in a way that recalls Samuel Barber. Answer July brings thoughts of Benjamin Britten’s “Ballad of the Green Broom” from Five Flower Songs. I share these comments not to suggest that Dove is in any way a derivative composer, but rather to express how highly I rate his work. Dove is very much his own man, with masterly word setting that reminds me most strongly of Benjamin Britten and, on this side of the Atlantic, Libby Larsen.
Dove receives the strongest advocacy from his performers. The Convivium Singers, under the assured direction of Neil Ferris, display admirable control of the long line and excellent intonation. I find the balance to be a bit dominated by the women’s voices, and would not have minded a few more men in each section. But the balance never detracted from my immense enjoyment of this recording. Accompanist Christopher Cromar’s playing is splendid, self-effacing virtuosity that serves the choir and the music.
I urge you to purchase this CD as quickly as possible. It is gorgeous and poignant music, performed with wholehearted fervor by an excellent choir, all at budget price.
– David A. McConnell, MusicWeb International
Taneyev: Violin Sonata, Piano Music / Olga Solovieva, Et Al
TANEYEV Violin Sonata in a. 1 Theme and Variations in C. Repose. Scherzos: in d; in g; in e?; in C; in F. Prelude in F. Quadrille. Andantino semplice. Prelude and Fugue in g?, op. 29. Romance, op. 26/6 (arr. Feigin) 1 • Olga Solovieva (pn); Ivan Peshkov (vn) 1 • NAXOS 8.557804 (72:41)
After several decades in the wilderness, Sergey Ivanovich Taneyev (1856–1915) is enjoying somewhat of a comeback, with a number of recent recordings introducing him anew to audiences that may have known his name but have heard little of his music. With Nikolai Rubinstein as his piano teacher and Tchaikovsky as his instructor in composition, Taneyev graduated from the Moscow Conservatory with honors. He made his concert debut in Moscow in 1875 playing Brahms’s D-Minor Concerto, and the following year he toured Russia as accompanist to the great violinist Leopold Auer.
Unfortunately for Taneyev, a dyed-in-the-wool musical conservative who distinguished himself as a performing artist in the works of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, and who, as a composer, cast his countenance ever further West and further back than Tchaikovsky, becoming an expert in the techniques of 15th-century vocal polyphony and 16th-century counterpoint, he ran afoul of his Russian nationalist contemporaries. No love was lost between them. Taneyev was disdainful of the “Mighty Handful,” publicly reproaching Balakirev, calling Borodin “a clever dilettante,” and remarking that Mussorgsky made him laugh. He was a bit more deferential towards Rimsky-Korsakov, respecting the composer of Scheherazade for his serious study of counterpoint.
Taneyev’s personality and outlook are perhaps a bit easier to understand when one realizes that he was, in his own mind, anyway, an unfairly untitled aristocrat. Coming from a wealthy family, he enjoyed the resources to pursue his interests in science, history, mathematics, and philosophy. Traveling extensively, he rubbed elbows with literary figures such as Zola and Flaubert, and with musical celebrities such as Franck and Saint-Saëns. Taneyev’s attitude towards the progressive composers and modern music of his day was not dissimilar from that of his older but longer-lived French contemporary, Saint-Saëns; both abhorred what they saw as unschooled, undisciplined dilettantism in any field of endeavor, but especially in music and the arts. When Tchaikovsky left his position at the Moscow Conservatory in 1878, Taneyev replaced him; during his tenure there, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Gliere, and Medtner, among others, benefitted from Taneyev’s teaching, though each went his own way once out from under his influence.
The five scherzos for solo piano on this CD, written between 1874 and 1875, are asterisked as being world premiere recordings. And grateful we should be to pianist Olga Solovieva and Naxos for outing them, for they are gem-like beauties, which, in melodic and harmonic vocabulary, are heavily indebted, according to note author Anastasia Belina, to Schumann and Tchaikovsky.
The major work on the program, Taneyev’s 1911 A-Minor Violin Sonata, carries the subtitle, “Of medium difficulty.” The piece was new to me, though there is another recent recording of it listed on the Northern Flowers label. Melodically, as well as in the close exchanges and echoing back and forth of material, the writing bears resemblances to the op. 12 violin sonatas of Beethoven, not surprising, given Taneyev’s Classical leanings and his touring with Auer. Based on the hearing of it—I don’t have the score—I’m fairly confident in saying that the piece is technically easier to play than the Beethoven sonatas. Filled with charming melodies for the violin and delightful effects in the piano part, Taneyev’s Sonata would make a wonderful work for any moderately advanced violin student.
Though Naxos is not claiming premiere recording status for the C-Major Theme and Variations, this is the only current listing I find for it. The piece is a student work dated 1874. Taneyev was 18 at the time and still under Tchaikovsky’s supervision. According to Belina’s note, Taneyev’s exercise was heavily influenced by Tchaikovsky’s “Thème original et variations,” the concluding number in his Six Pieces for Piano , op. 19, which appeared in 1873, the year before Taneyev wrote his work. Evidence in support of Belina’s contention comes in the form of a theme Taneyev borrowed from the finale of Tchaikovsky’s Second String Quartet as a counter-melody in the second variation. The transmigration from Tchaikovsky’s Quartet to Taneyev’s Variations must have happened at the speed of light, for both works were written at virtually the same time.
Of the remaining pieces on the disc for solo piano, the Quadrille is the most interesting and the longest at almost eight minutes. Careful listening reveals that Taneyev did not use the title flippantly or fancifully. He was too much of a stickler for correctitude. Technically and formally, a quadrille is an ancient and very complex dance that became all the rage, alongside the waltz craze, in 19th-century Vienna. If written according to the Viennese form, which Taneyev’s is, the dance is comprised of six sections: (1) an open rondo-form, the “Pantalon,” in 2/4 or 6/8 time; (2) the “Été,” always in 2/4; (3) the “Poule,” a closed rondo form, always in 6/8; (4) the “Trénis,” a mirrored binary form (A-B-B-A); (5) the “Pastourelle,” a modified rondo, always in 2/4; and (6) “Finale,” a double ternary form (AA-BB-AA) in 2/4 time in which each statement of the theme is eight bars in length. It’s fascinating to listen to the precision with which Taneyev adheres to the formal scheme in his whirligig Quadrille.
Finally, there is the Romance adapted for violin and piano from the composer’s song cycle, Immortelles . The appearance of the right-hand piano’s notes on the page is alleged to resemble the stalactites of the song’s title, “Stalaktitï.” While there is a static “dripping-tears” character to the piece, I wouldn’t put too much stock in the analogy, especially if you, like me, associate stalactites with the freakish icicle-like formations found in cold limestone caves. Taneyev’s Romance may be tearful, even sentimental, but it’s heartwarming in the same way that the fourth in the set of Dvo?ák’s Four Romantic Pieces , op. 75, is. In fact, Taneyev’s Romance bears a striking resemblance to the Dvo?ák.
This is a thoroughly winning disc. The more of Taneyev’s music I hear, the more I think he has been undeservedly eclipsed by the very dilettantes he despised. He wasn’t a Russian nationalist in the mold of the “Mighty Handful,” but his music may actually be better crafted than theirs; and, to me at least, it’s more appealing than that of some of his more renowned students. Ivan Peshkov is wonderful in the two violin works, and Olga Solovieva, as both soloist and accompanist, is one of the best advocates Taneyev has. Urgently recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Furtwangler: Symphony No. 2 / Jochum, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks
FURTWÄNGLER Symphony No. 2 • Eugen Jochum, cond; Bavarian RO • BR 900702 (2 monaural CDs: 82:54). Live: Munich 12/9–10/1954
One fact has been demonstrated to me as I did some research for this review: There is no logic whatsoever in pricing practices of the record industry. The major competition for this release is Daniel Barenboim’s Chicago Symphony Teldec recording (43495), which is also on two discs. Teldec U.S.A. priced it as two full discs—so on Amazon it sells for about $30, and on ArkivMusic for $34.99. However, on the British site MDT.uk.com its price for U.S. customers is listed as $18.50, because Teldec in Europe decided to price it as if it were one disc (which is rational, since it is just two minutes over the limit for one disc). On the other hand, this Bavarian Radio release seems to be treated in precisely the opposite manner: $26.77 is the U.S. price listed on MDT, but it is only $19.99 on ArkivMusic! You figure it out—I can’t!
Time for full disclosure: At the time of Barenboim’s recording (2001), I was managing the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and I played a role in persuading him to conduct the piece and him and Teldec to record it. Because of that I could not review it for Fanfare , but two reviewers did, in 26:2. Marc Mandel liked it very much but felt that Furtwängler’s own Vienna Philharmonic performance issued on Orfeo trumped Barenboim’s in the concluding section of the finale, where Mandel felt Barenboim let down just a bit. Martin Anderson expressed no reservations at all, in an unreservedly enthusiastic review.
Barenboim’s still remains the only readily available and enjoyable modern stereo recording. Alfred Walter’s Naxos effort is flabby beyond description, and one’s mind wanders halfway into the first movement, never to return. A performance by Georg Alexander Albrecht on Arte Nova is better, but not at the level of Barenboim or Furtwängler. Takashi Asahina’s fine Japanese recording from 1984 is just about impossible to obtain in the West (and may be so in Japan, too, for all I know). There are actually five (!) Furtwängler performances on disc, one a studio recording for DG, the other four all live readings. By far the best is the VPO on Orfeo (C365 941 B). It has good monaural 1950s broadcast sound, inspired playing, and of course the advocacy of the composer, who just happened to be one of the great conductors of the 20th century.
Both Barenboim and Furtwängler persuade one that this is an important, enjoyable score. As different writers have pointed out, there are elements of Bruckner, Strauss, Schmidt, Rachmaninoff, and probably others in its blood. It is old-fashioned for its time, to be sure, and it has its longeurs. But it is deeply moving, a work filled with some considerable anguish (much of it was written in Switzerland where Furtwängler had fled because he learned that he was on a Nazi assassination list, and where he was unable to conduct until he was cleared of Nazi affiliation charges by the Allies). It is also a work that doesn’t really sound like anyone else, despite having elements of many. In the end, one’s interest is maintained by the skillful orchestration and a strong element of melodic inspiration. For those interested in Furtwängler or in late-Romantic music, both Furtwängler’s and Barenboim’s recordings are valuable.
So where does this first-time issue of a 1954 broadcast fall? Right at the top level with those other two recordings. I reviewed the Furtwängler Orfeo release (a 1953 performance recorded in Vienna’s Musikvereinssaal) in the Classical Hall of Fame in Fanfare 18:5, and commented that it had some of the best recorded sound of any Furtwängler recording. That is true—but the Bavarian Radio folks were doing it even better in the middle 1950s, and what we have here is truly fine monaural recorded sound equal to many studio recordings being made at that time. It still of course cannot equal the sound quality of the Barenboim recording.
What distinguishes Jochum’s reading from the other two is his different approach to orchestral sonority and his tauter reading in general. Barenboim and Furtwängler both built their orchestral sound from the bottom up. Everything rested on a foundation of the basses and cellos, and, where appropriate, the lower brass. Jochum’s sound is brighter—it wouldn’t be fair to call it “top down,” but it is definitely a lighter sonority, with more emphasis on the upper strings and brass than is the case in the other two. What it lacks in lushness it compensates for with brighter colors. Add to that his extra dash of rhythmic snap, and you have a performance different enough to warrant exploration by anyone who loves this work. I would still not be without the composer’s own and the Barenboim, but I am very happy to have added this to my library. Renate Ulm’s very interesting and informative notes are an added plus.
FANFARE: Henry Fogel
Eduard Franck: Piano Trios
By now, readers should be somewhat familiar with Eduard Franck (1817–1893), following half-a-dozen or so appearances he has made here on recordings mainly of his chamber works. The Audite label, in particular, though not exclusively, has taken up the dual causes of Eduard and his son Richard with 15 or so discs devoted in large part to the two composers’ chamber music output; and, being the compulsive collector of 19th-century chamber music that I am, I’m proud to say I’ve acquired every last one of them. But there’s more to Eduard Franck than quartets, quintets, sextets, trios, and duo sonatas; among Audite’s offerings have been two violin concertos, a disc of concert overtures, and two symphonies.
This latest release, containing three of Eduard’s piano trios, holds no surprises if you’ve already acquainted yourself with one or another previous Eduard Franck release, but like those that have preceded it, this disc of piano trios does hold in store just as many musical felicities.
I use the word “felicity” with intent; for Eduard studied privately with the “Felix” of Mendelssohn fame, and mostly Mendelssohn is what you get with these three trios. It’s really hard to describe how brimming over this music is with sheer contentment in untroubled, joyful song. The nonstop rippling piano parts are shot through with Mendelssohn’s nimble keyboard work, and even Franck’s melodies are consistently constructed from intervals and phrases that are dead ringers for Mendelssohn’s melodic invention. If you find Felix’s two piano trios irresistible, you will be thrilled to know that Eduard Franck composed at least four piano trios just like them.
In fact, this is Audite’s second volume of Franck’s piano trios. The first (92567), on SACD, contained the trios in E Minor, op. 11, and D Major, op. 58, performed by a different ensemble of players than the Swiss Piano Trio on the current disc, which, for some reason, did not come to me on SACD. Also, be aware that if you purchased the Naxos CD containing Franck’s sonatas for cello and violin, plus the Eb-Major Piano Trio I recommended in 36:5, the trio is duplicated on this Audite disc. No matter, though; it’s worth the one duplication to get the two additional trios included on the present CD.
This is now my third or fourth encounter with the Swiss Piano Trio on record, and each one has elicited from me the highest praise. The ensemble’s recent Audite release on SACD of Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio led me to declare the Swiss Piano Trio one of the top ensembles on today’s stage in 36:6; and in a 35:1 review of Robert Schumann’s piano trios, Steven Ritter declared the Swiss Piano Trio’s Audite SACD an essential recording.
It seems only fitting that the Swiss Piano Trio, having already committed Mendelssohn’s two piano trios to disc on another Audite SACD—to which I gave an urgent recommendation in 34: 6—should now turn its attention to Mendelssohn’s musical doppelgänger , Eduard Franck. You cannot love 19th-century piano trios in general, and Mendelssohn’s piano trios in particular, and not love these trios by Franck. Considering Franck’s dates, the skewing of his catalog towards chamber works (though he did pen symphonies and orchestral scores), and his strong leaning towards a Mendelssohnian style, he bears comparison, I think, to his very close “French-though-I-prefer-to-be-German” contemporary, Theodor Gouvy (1819–1898).
I just don’t understand why previous Audite releases have been SACDs and this one isn’t. Perhaps there is a parallel SACD version, and I just happened to receive the standard two-channel stereo CD one. Anyway, with the music, performances, and recording being so beguiling, it would be churlish of me to complain. This is a must-buy recommendation.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Gjeilo: Sunrise Mass / Jordan, Westminster Williamson Voices
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REVIEW:
Norwegian New Yorker Aja Gjeilo's music is thoroughly tonal. He seems to specialize in church music, with quotations in this mass from Duruflé and Mendelssohn. Texts by Hildegard von Bingen are rewritten and freely orchestrated. The others are by the composer. Harmony is clean and conservative, with occasional surprises in the voiceleading. For the most part, this is lovely and very beautiful. There is nothing here that could not be sung by well-schooled amateur choir singers. In fact, choral aficionados will surely enjoy this.
– American Record Guide (Allen Gimbel)
Kalabis: Symphonies, Concertos / Kosler, Neumann, Kalabis, Belohlavek
The second disc opens with the Concerto for Large Orchestra, commissioned by Karel An?erl for the Czech Philharmonic and composed in 1965–66, which begins with one of Kalabis’s fiercest dissonances, but it’s one of those dense agglomerates which suggests resolution and, sure enough, an arching violin line emerges and purifies the air and, almost before we know it, we’re off on another of Kalabis’s white-knuckle allegro s; Kalabis described the middle movement as a “tragic meditation”; and the freewheeling Finale has something of the ferocious energy of the last movement of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Sixth Symphony, though Kalabis pauses for air rather more often. In contrast to the four-movement Second, the Third Symphony is in three movements, another of Kabalis’s galloping allegro s bookended by two uneasy essays, predominantly but not always slow and, as ever, with Kalabis, powered even at moderate tempos by the sense that there’s energy in plenty waiting to be given its head. Volume 2 ends with Kalabis’s Trumpet Concerto of 1973. R?ži?ková, who provides the booklet notes for the set, explains that, exceptionally, Kalabis was allowed to accompany her on a tour of France that year and, in a little town in Provence, he was given a statuette of the town crier, whose adventures the music depicts (hence the title, “Le Tambour de Villevieille”). Cast in two movements and 18 minutes long, it moves as easily as the other works here from knockabout vigor to anxious inaction. The drums that are occasionally heard in the first movement are, briefly, more prominent in the second and sound as if they are about to set up a tattoo but the music then sets off in a different direction. I find this work slightly less personal than the other pieces on offer here, but Kalabis’s craftsmanship is as evident here as elsewhere, and there aren’t so many good trumpet concertos in the world that trumpeters can afford to ignore this one.
Kalabis’s Harpsichord Concerto, composed in 1974–75 (no prizes for guessing who the dedicatee and first performer was), has something of the buoyancy of the Poulenc Concert champêtre and the angularity of neo-Classical Stravinsky—but far more of a sense of onward drive than either composer; indeed, it’s in the driving rhythms of the Finale that Kalabis comes closest to Martin? though, unsettlingly, it then subsides into anguished silence. R?ži?ková complained to her husband, only half-joking, that “You have let me die”; but the times in which it was written, he responded, did not permit another ending. Martin? was tangentially involved in the birth of the work, as R?ži?ková relates in her notes. She was performing the Martin? Concerto in Switzerland and the conductor asked if by chance she had heard of a Czech composer called Viktor Kalabis; much laughter ensued, and a commission soon after that. But don’t expect some maudlin love-letter: Kalabis obviously wanted to show the world what she could do, and the solo part is a demanding one; the piece is almost half-an-hour in length, too, which must make it one of the world’s longer harpsichord concertos. The second work on the third, all-concerto, disc is the Second Violin Concerto of 1977–78, performed by the much-missed Josef Suk, with whom R?ži?ková formed a duo in 1963, so it is good to see him represented here and find him in stellar form. Just over a quarter-hour in length, it’s in a single movement, as are the 22-minute Concerto for Piano and Winds (1985) and the 12-and-a-half-minute Concertino for Bassoon and Winds (1983)—the most explicitly Stravinskian works in this collection. All three are tightly argued, the first two earnest and generally grave in manner, with the Concertino exploiting the capacity of the bassoon to suggest boisterous and slightly preposterous good humor, though there are also a number of passages of almost hieratic starkness.
The performances throughout make the case for the music as convincingly as you could ask. The recordings were made between 1968 and 1991 and have come up well. A few slips from the soloist in the Trumpet Concerto suggested it might be a live recording, a suspicion confirmed by the subsequent applause; a cough and the occasional noise serve the same function in the Bassoon Concertino.
Altogether, this is an excellent survey of some of the major works of one of the major voices of recent times. Taken together with the MSR box (if you do not know the Fourth Symphony, you should not let yourself live in ignorance of it much longer), it should help Kalabis’s name before a Western public, even if it’s largely the small part of it that buys recordings. Bit by bit, one hopes, some of Kalabis’s oeuvre might begin to appear in concert, where audiences will cheer it to the rafters. In the meantime, I urge you to acquire this box and do some hollering at home."
FANFARE: Martin Anderson
Robert & Clara Schumann: Piano Trios / Swiss Piano Trio
C. SCHUMANN Piano Trio in g, Op. 17. SCHUMANN Fantasiestücke, Op. 88. Piano Trio No. 3 in g, Op. 110 • Swiss Pn Tr • AUDITE 92549 (SACD: 77:42)
This is now the third occasion on which I’ve been privileged to review a new release by the outstanding Swiss Piano Trio. The ensemble’s Mendelssohn trios received an urgent recommendation from me in 34:6, and its account of Tchaikovsky’s Trio, if not quite as enthusiastically received by me in 36:3, still earned my nod of approval. Expectations for this Schumann disc thus ran high, and, I’m happy to report, they were not disappointed.
Clara Schumann (1819–1896) was a devoted wife, loving mother, accomplished pianist, and, no doubt, a composer of some talent. But I’ve always felt that her eminence in the latter capacity has been exaggerated both by virtue of her being spouse to one of the most famous of romantic composers and for being somewhat of that 19th-century novelty, a female composer. It has thus come about that when someone is asked to name three or four women composers, Clara Schumann invariably tops the list. Yet, if one 19th-century composer of the female gender deserves equal billing with her male counterparts, it’s not Clara Schumann or Fanny Mendelssohn; it’s Louise Farrenc (1804–1875), a composer who wrote symphonies and chamber works on a scale and of a quality comparable to many of her male contemporaries.
The Piano Trio in G Minor, dated 1846, is Clara’s only large-scale chamber work; in fact, it’s her only chamber work of any scale, period. Most of her catalog consists of songs and pieces for solo piano, though, as a teenager, and later, with the help of her husband to be, she did try her hand at a Piano Concerto. The trio was long held to be Clara’s crowning compositional achievement; some even credited it with being the inspiration for Robert’s first numbered Trio in D Minor, op. 63, written the following year. Thus, I was rather surprised to find fewer recordings of Clara’s opus listed than I would have expected; and of those currently in the catalog, more than one logically pairs it with Fanny Mendelssohn’s Trio in D Minor, written in the same year, 1846.
Whether pairing Clara’s trio with Robert’s third and final Trio in G Minor, composed in 1851, is a logical choice or not, I can’t say, although it seems to me that juxtaposing Robert’s D Minor, the one supposedly inspired by Clara’s effort, would have made more sense. However, in addition to Robert’s G-Minor Trio, Clara’s trio also shares the disc with Robert’s 1842 Fantasiestücke , which, though otherwise named, is his actual first work in the medium, though not designated or numbered as such. The present program therefore makes this new release unique, at least insofar as other current listings are concerned, although another recent disc, which also happens to be in SACD format, contains Clara’s trio and Robert’s G Minor-Trio, but not Robert’s Fantasiestücke . That recording by the Boulanger Trio on the Ars Produktion label was filled out with a work for piano trio by Wolfgang Rihm, and was favorably reviewed by Steven E. Ritter in 33:5
I’ve not heard the Boulanger disc, but the playing here by the Swiss Piano Trio leaves nothing to be desired. I doubt that Clara’s trio has ever received a more loving performance. The only word that describes the ensemble’s tone is voluptuous, and Audite’s perfectly positioned and balanced recording affords that ideal sweet-spot perspective. I do agree with Steven that Clara’s trio is not Robert’s. One has only to listen to the first few bars of Robert’s G-Minor Trio to recognize the difference between talent and genius. But I honestly have to say that I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated Robert’s trio as much as I have in this performance. The Swiss players seem to be absolutely swept away by the score, sweeping me away in turn. It doesn’t even feel like they’re performing the piece as much as they’re becoming one with it and living and breathing it.
This is definitely going on my provisional list of Want List candidates for 2013, and I most strongly urge you to acquire it. The Swiss Piano Trio, in my opinion, has rapidly risen to become one of the very top piano trio ensembles on today’s stage.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Brahms: Symphony No 4, Hungarian Dances / Alsop, London PO
Here it is: the final release in the set of Brahms symphonies from Marin Alsop with the London Philharmonic. Previous reviews have praised just about every aspect of this new Naxos cycle, and while I admit to arriving somewhat late on the scene I have to admit that all expectations are realised.
So that you know where I’m coming from, my formative introduction to the symphonies of Brahms came with the 1983 live cycle on DG with Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic. The influence of those initial impressions of intensity and edgy freedom of expression are of course hard to shake, but there is always more than one way to skin a great piece of music, and later on I was as likely to be found settling down with a good book and Herbert von Karajan’s 1989 recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic. Other versions have passed my way as well – Günter Wand’s 2001 RCA cycle with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra for instance, and those lovely old Bruno Walter recordings with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra now on Sony, which still sound surprisingly good given their vintage.
If done properly, Brahms’s symphonic writing means that you will have read the same page a multitude of times in that ‘good book’ you have in your hand while listening. The content and meaning of the words will remain as obscure as at the first attempt as your ears and attention are absorbed and enthralled by the lush musical garden that gradually unfolds through your loudspeakers, or in my case headphones. With Alsop and the LPO you might as well give up on reading at all, and give yourself over to a feast of wonderful music-making.
Marin Alsop’s tempi are measured and sustained in what seems to me an ideal way in this symphony. The first movement seems at first urbane and restrained, but the ceiling is set high, and there is plenty of room for bite and drama in the music – never hurried or unstable, but with a gloss of perfect preparation which seems to allow the listener to plunge directly and deeply into Brahms’s inspired vision. The same is true of the second Andante moderato movement, in which the winds initially shine with lush resonance. Intonation is crucial here, and the LSO’s wind and brass are spot on – playing as one. The timing and anticipation is beautifully measured in advance of the ‘big tune’ at 8:55, which is turned out here without histrionics, but as a noble and almost infinite field of sound – a bounteous source for a composer like Elgar, whose own ‘Enigma’ variations spring immediately to mind.
A lightness of touch is required of the third movement’s Allegro giocoso, and Alsop blows away any cobwebs which may have gathered in a sweep of freshness. There’s a slightly anticipatory rhythm at 4:23 caused by an edit, but this will hopefully only be noticeable to fully trained and overly picky reviewers. The final movement brings back the measured, sustained feel of the first, but with that extra turbulence, and those quicksilver touches of detail in the orchestration pointed subtly and superbly by all concerned in this recording. I was wondering if that slow central section wasn’t just a little too slow and lingering, but the re-entry of the full orchestra at around 6:00 is made all the more magical for being delayed for that extra few ounces of ‘down-time’, and the final run builds in intensity to create a fully satisfying close.
The Hungarian Dances presented here are the ‘leftovers’ from Brahms’s own orchestrations of nos. 1, 3 and 10, covered in volume 2 of this series. The dances here have been newly orchestrated by Peter Breiner in an imaginative commission from Naxos especially for this recording. Breiner’s versions respect Brahms’s orchestral resonances for the most part, but inject quite a bit of extra jazzy impact and violinistic Hungarian idiom, emphasising some of those seriously fun syncopations with extra percussion and brass. There is a danger of creating a set of little P.D.Q. Bach monsters here, but with the essence of Brahms’s ideas held largely intact I admire the way Breiner has stretched these pieces just enough to make them into genuine orchestral showpieces, without turning the smiles they bring into disrespectful guffaws.
I think the way is clear – I simply must have the rest of this set.
-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International
BREMEN 1965
Keiser: Fredegunda / Hammer, Munich Neue Hofkapelle
There is a real danger, especially in Handel’s anniversary year, that he and other major composers such as Bach and Telemann eclipse their talented contemporaries completely. Yet the Leipzig Council, for example, cannot have been entirely bone-headed in preferring Fasch and Graupner to Bach for the post of Kantor at the Thomasschule. The story that they thought Bach ‘mediocre’ is, however, based on a misunderstanding.
CPO have also recorded his secular cantatas (CPO999 8562 – ‘a lovely disc’: see review) and his version of the Christmas story is coupled with Graupner’s Magnificat on ‘a splendid festive offering from Carus – albeit short value at forty five minutes’: Carus 83.417 – see review). Keiser was also the first composer to set the Brockes Passion, a text later employed by Fasch (recorded by Naxos on 8.570326 – see review), Telemann and Handel; perhaps Naxos will now record that, too.
There are two recordings of his St Mark Passion: the older Claves recording of his St Mark Passion is available from eMusic, albeit on 50 tracks, which will mean blowing your whole monthly £12 allocation in one go. The single-CD Christophorus recording on original instruments is, in any case, the one to go for, (CHR77143 – Parthenia Vocal and Parthenia Baroque/Christian Brembeck); it’s also available from classicsonline as a very acceptable 320k download. Bach certainly possessed a copy of this work and there are points of similarity with his St Matthew and St John settings, including the traditional tune of O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden – compare Keiser’s setting of Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden (track 5) with Bach’s. I’m sure that I shall be listening to it on future occasions.
Like those other two operas, Fredegunda (March, 1715) was composed for the Hamburg Oper am Gänsemarkt, or Goose-market Opera, where it was extremely popular, four years after Crœsus. The libretto is by Johann Ulrich von König (1688-1744) after an Italian libretto by Francesco Silvani (c.1660-c.1725). It is sung in German and Italian. The plot concerns the tempestuous relations between the sixth-century Frankish King Chilperich and his mistress Fredegunda; each of them has another lover, making for two sets of love triangles though all, of course, ends happily.
As usual, I set out first to test the claims made in the blurb on the rear insert, that this is ‘an important and entertaining ... opera [which] abounds in melodious, often ravishingly orchestrated, music.’ More crucially, do the performances do justice to the music?
Certainly the music is very attractive – listen to track 28 of CD1 Ricordati, ben mio (‘Remember, o my beloved’) for some of the finest baroque music – though the opera has its moments of longueur and there is no doubt that posterity has been correct in preferring Telemann and Handel. If you have already become familiar with their music, however, Fredegunda is well worth trying.
The opening Sonata goes with a real swing in this performance; there’s no stodginess here, but rather the kind of abandon at the start which I associate with modern Italian performances of baroque music. On the other hand, there’s enough contrast between the sections to avoid the problem of having everything too hurried, which I recently found with Collegium Musicum den Haag’s performance of Telemann’s Ebb und Fluth (L’Europe réunie, ORF SACD3008).
Dora Pavlíková as Fredegunda begins her opening recitative in fiery mood, too: at first she sounds almost too fiery to hit the notes securely, but soon settles down, especially in the aria Du verlachtest die Tränen (‘you mocked my tears’, CD1, track 3). After all, Fredegunda is a fiery character and she is chiding Chilperich for preferring Galsuinde – she opens the recitative by referring to him as Grausamer, ‘awful man’, and ends the ensuing aria by referring to his undoing their relationship mit deiner falschen Hand ‘with your faithless hand’.
Tomi Wendt’s Chilperich comes over as penny plain to Pavlíková’s twopenny coloured Fredegunda – I might have preferred him to be a little more sonorous and her a little less squally, but, again, this is not inappropriate to their roles – Chilperich is something of a wimp at this stage. By the time that we come to Fredegunda’s arias on tracks 20, (Ihr reizende Blicke, ‘your ravishing looks’) and 22, (Schließet euch, ihr holde Kerzen, ‘be extinguished, dearest candles’) Pavlíková is in much more mellifluous voice and Wendt’s Chilperich much firmer-toned. By track 24 (Zur Rache! ‘Revenge!’) both the character and Wendt’s voice have come much more to life.
The first notable aria is Galsuinde’s Lasciami piangere, ‘let me weep’ (CD1, track 7), and Bianca Koch sings it well. I might have preferred her to bring out its beauty a little more lovingly; it is, of course, a lament, but laments don’t have to be entirely squally. Galsuinde has some of the finest music – and the aria Ricordati, ben mio (CD1, tr.28), to which I have already referred as some of the finest baroque music, is sung by Koch in a manner which could hardly be bettered.
Michael Kranebitter as Sigibert, too, sings attractively, if a little too forthrightly: in his recitative Ich kann ja wohl die Zähren nicht verdammen (‘I cannot condemn the tears’, track8) he almost seems to have two different registers, one more attractive than the other. His diction is not exactly ideal: so keen is he to bring out the drama of his words that he sometimes fails to enunciate them perfectly. His aria Ich muß schweigend von dir gehen (‘I must be silent and leave you’, track 16) did not affect me as it should – here, more than anywhere, I felt that he was the weakest link in the cast, though not as disastrously so as Elisabeth Scholl, who is really off-form in Naxos’s recording of Handel’s Semele – don’t just take my word for it in my review; see also Robert Hugill’s review.
Katja Stuber as Bazina also has an attractive voice; in her first scene (track 9), however, she is slightly out-sung by Tomo Matsubara as Hermenegild. His voice has an attractive timbre, though his diction, too, is not perfect – he is not a native German-speaker. His aria Eine stolze Hand zu küssen (tr.11) illustrates both the attractiveness of his voice and his comparative failures of enunciation. If Stuber is a little reticent here, she is certainly in fine and powerful voice by track 30, giving Fredegunda as good as she gets in Du drohest and rasest (You threaten and rave). By this point, too, Kranebitter’s Sigibert has also warmed up somewhat; though I still found him a little too droopy in Ach betrachte doch die Wangen (tr.35 ‘Just look upon her cheeks’), his account of Mich schrecket kein Eifer, ich achte kein Drohen (tr.37, ‘Your overbearing threats do not frighten me’) is just right.
Tobias Haaks as Landerich is perhaps a little too forthright in the recitatives but he sings Ach, ich will viel lieber sterben (tr. 44, ‘Ah, I would much rather die’) in such a way as to make it one of the highlights of the first CD, almost at its close. If, as I suspect, the Chilperich-Fredegunda duet Vieni, o cara, o mio Tesoro (tr.48, ‘Come, my dear, my treasure’) which closes CD1, is meant to outshine Landerich – the few arias in Italian are some of the highlights of the music – it doesn’t succeed here: their singing sounds merely very decent by comparison, though they round off the act and the disc stylishly enough.
Matters are much the same on CD2, which begins quietly with the duet of Galsuinde and Bazina, Sanfte Lüfte (‘Gentle breezes’). There is some intrusive stage noise here – much than on CD1 – and in the ensuing scene. Bazina’s aria Ein Sklav’ ist mehr beglückt (tr.3, ‘a slave has greater fortune’) is a little underpowered. If Kranebitter is the weak link on CD1, he atones somewhat in Sigibert’s duet with Galsuinde (tr.5), though he is still a little too lugubrious and Koch’s Galsuinde still a little shrill.
Pavlíková’s Fredegunda, too, is just a little too shrill for my taste in Vieni a me (tr.7, ‘Come to me’) by contrast with the delicate accompaniment. It may be wishful thinking on my part, but she does seem to tone down the shrillness for the repeat of this aria (tr.11).
Wendt’s Childerich is in much better voice than he was on the earlier part of CD1. His aria threatening to react with slaughter of his foes, Con le stragi (tr.13) goes with quite a bang, as does Haaks in Landerich’s Da voi fieri guerrieri (tr.15, ‘Your beauteous eyes, proud warriors’). Both these Italian arias are among the high points of the opera, and both receive good performances.
Fredegunda’s invocation of Hecate (tr.17) is another high spot and here Pavlíková is in almost ideal voice despite some unusually intrusive stage noise. Yet she is able to achieve real tenderness a few moments after this outburst in Ach, nenne mich doch nur noch einmal Königin (tr.19, ‘Oh, let me just once more be called the queen’).
Matsubara really manages to convey Hermenegild’s indecision (tr.21, Ach nein, ich kann nicht entscheiden, ‘Ah. No, I cannot decide’) and does so with fewer problems of diction than before. Paradoxically, Kranebitter’s diction in Su’l mio crine (tr.23, ‘I shall be crowned with love’) is less than ideal.
Wendt, in Childerich’s aria bidding fortune do its worst, Weich immerhin zurück (tr.25) is affective, though not entirely tonally secure. Koch is equally affective and in better voice in Felice moriró (tr.30 ‘I shall die happy’). The whole opera is rounded off by a suitably jubilant performance of the short fifth act.
This, then, is not a ‘Sunday-best’ cast but it is a good, often very good, workaday one. It’s certainly good enough for me to predict that I shall return to it – and I shall follow with interest the careers of these singers, mostly still in their twenties.
Christoph Hammer’s direction is secure; his own solo keyboard performances have clearly prepared him well to lead the Munich Neue Hofkapelle. Though founded in 1992 to specialise in historically informed performances, their playing offers baroque music without any of the excesses which sometimes spoiled period performances in earlier days and still sometimes intrude where one least expects it – on Jordi Savall’s rather strident, but still enjoyable, version of Biber’s Missa Bruxellensis (AV9808) for example. Some of the accompaniment here is really sensitive, as in the case of Fredegunda’s aria Vieni a me (‘Come to me’, CD2, tr.7).
Apart from some very minimal stage noise and applause at the end of each CD, there is little to indicate that the recording was made live. That it was so helps in part to explain why some of the singers are a little slow off the mark at the beginning – in a studio performance, of course, there could have been retakes to round off some of the slightly rough edges. The recording itself is neutral in the best sense of the word.
The libretto, mostly in German but with sections in Italian, is available online as a pdf document but in portrait A4 – how do you get that into the CD case? – and there is no English translation, which is a problem, since even those with a decent knowledge of German may find the sometimes archaic diction hard to follow. It would be much better to offer the libretto as a download in landscape mode at a size capable of being cut, folded and inserted into the case – Naxos, please learn from Chandos, Gimell and Linn, who offer texts and notes in this manner with their downloads. Actually, it is possible to cut and paste the text into a Word document and print this in the correct format, but it is a nuisance to have to do so.
I would gladly have forfeited the booklet’s four-and-a-half pages of illustrations of the parent production, from the Bayerischer Theaterakademie August Everding, in favour of the libretto. These illustrations make me grateful to have received this recording on CD rather than DVD, since they show the production to have been the kind of up-dated version which I almost inevitably find annoying – featuring, in this case, a baby carriage and, apparently, the use of a taser.
-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International
Dvorák: Complete Cello Works / Jamnik, Netopil, Prague Radio Symphony
DVORAK Cello Concerto in b 1. Lasst mich allein, op. 82/1 (arr. Lenehan) 2. Rondo in g, op. 94 2. Goin’ Home (arr. Fisher and Lenehan) 2. Songs my mother taught me , op. 55/4 (arr. Grünfeld) 2. Silent Woods, op. 68/5 2. Slavonic Dance in g, op. 46/8 2 • Alisa Weilerstein (vc); 2 Anna Polansky (pn); 1 Jirí Belohlávek, cond; 1 Czech PO • DECCA 0019765-02 (67:10)
DVORAK Cello Concertos: in A; in b. Rondo in g, op. 94. Silent Woods, op. 68/5 • Tomás Jamník (vc); Tomás Netopil, cond; Czech PO • SUPRAPHON 4034-2 (2 CDs: 89:53)
‘Tis apparently the season for me to review recordings of Dvorák’s cello concertos; in the previous issue (37:5) I discussed the recent pairing of those two works by Steven Isserlis, and now in addition to these two sets I also cover a historic live performance with Pablo Casals elsewhere in this issue. This is not a complaint, mind you; far from it. The B-Minor Concerto is both one of my very favorite concertos for any instrument (along with the Brahms D-Minor Piano Concerto and the Bruch G-Minor Violin Concerto), and on my short list (say, my top 25 entries) of favorite orchestral works, so it is always a treat to encounter it again. And, given my deep love for Dvorák’s music in general (only the operas do not register with me), I have a great fondness for the early A-Major Concerto as well, despite its obvious flaws.
In my review of the Isserlis recording, I regretfully opined that “there is no doubt for a moment that one of the world’s great cellists is playing, and that he has a very fine conductor and accomplished orchestra as his partners. Somehow, however, a fully idiomatic feeling for this work eludes their sensibilities.” No such complaint can be made about either of these two recordings; both are very good, if perhaps just shy of the very top tier, albeit for different reasons. Still only 32 years old, Alisa Weilerstein has already been deservedly established for several years as one of the world’s top cellists, and no one should take my previous critical review of her DVD of the Elgar Concerto in 34:4 as indicating a lack of admiration for her on my part. On the contrary: in November 2009 I heard her play the Dvorák B-Minor Concerto with Peter Oundjian and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and “breathtakingly superlative” is a woefully inadequate description of that performance. (At one point in the finale, Weilerstein, Oundjian, and the orchestra wound one section down to total silence and held that for three or four seconds, and there wasn’t so much as a single cough or rustle from the audience.) Whereas that performance was deeply probing of the melancholic undercurrents of the score, this version is very much a young person’s take instead, with a total emphasis on sunny lyricism and the joy of homecoming. While the movement timings (14: 42, 11:23, 12:37) are thoroughly mainstream, the reading has a very brisk, occasionally even almost breathless, feel to it, with the eager enthusiasm of a high-spirited filly just waiting to bolt out of the gate for a frisky gallop. Ji?í B?lohlávek seconds Weilerstein at every step of the way, and of course the Czech Philharmonic has this music in its blood. As the contrast with the live Philadelphia performance I witnessed shows, the interpretive outlook here is one of very conscious choice; and while I favor a more ruminative approach that brings out the work’s more pensive side, this is a refreshingly different take that makes one think about it anew, and I heartily recommend it accordingly.
I am less enthusiastic about the rest of the disc, however. In the filler pieces—the G-Minor Rondo and Silent Woods in their piano accompaniment versions before Dvorák orchestrated them (though Silent Woods was first composed for piano four-hands), plus four shorter pieces in various arrangements (though no arranger is credited for the Slavonic Dance in G Minor)—Weilerstein is accompanied by pianist Anna Polonsky. While it is good to have the Lasst mich allein that the composer drew on for thematic references in the second and third movements of the B-Minor Concerto, as well as the Rondo and Silent Woods , the performances are rather generic in outlook, and the other three pieces are unimpressively fluffy makeshift fillers, with Goin’ Home coming off as too saccharine. I wish that all concerned in this enterprise would have thought to offer the Rondo and Silent Woods in their orchestral guises as well; certainly the disc had enough room for that, and it would have been a major selling point to offer both versions of those works together. Decca provides warm sound with a bit of distance and a touch of resonance; the brief booklet notes are perfunctory. A minor irritant is the “classical cheesecake” photo on the booklet cover of Weilerstein in the woods, in what I derisively term “fetching feral female form.” (The photo on the back tray card is infinitely superior and should have been used for the booklet cover instead.) I suppose this is what advertising executives think will sell some additional copies to the general public, but an artist of Weilerstein’s stature deserves much better.
Tomás Jamník is even younger than Weilerstein—by three years, to be exact. While his performance of the B-Minor Concerto is also a youthful one, it is such in the more generic sense of not yet having a strongly individual interpretive profile. Whereas Weilerstein is already a full-fledged major interpreter, Jamník is still a promising talent who has not yet arrived at the same degree of artistic maturity. This is not to imply that he is faceless or callow; he has beautifully burnished tone and secure technique, and he tapers dynamics and phrases with genuine feeling. He just hasn’t quite reached the point yet where all the fine individual moments coalesce into a larger, cohesive, distinctive unity. Much the same can be said for the still relatively youthful but increasingly prominent conductor Tomá? Netopil; he understands what the score needs to say at any given moment, but has not yet quite gotten to the point of integrating those moments together into a more memorable and sweeping overarching framework. Overall it’s a very good and enjoyable performance in a mainstream interpretation; it just faces impossibly stiff competition from the likes of Rostropovich and Fournier, to name just two figures whose recordings rank among the immortals.
However, this set is far more fortunate in its pairings than is the Weilerstein CD. In the Rondo and Silent Woods , Jamník and Netopil have the totally idiomatic feel needed to give these smaller-scale works their full and due measure. And then there is the youthful A-Major Concerto as the other and most welcome anchor to this set. Having covered its somewhat tortuous history in previous reviews, I will not repeat myself on that point here. What I will say is that this is one of the two best versions of the cello and orchestra version available, the other being the performance by Ramon Jaffé, Daniel Raiskin, and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Phiharmonie. (Of the remainder, the performance played and conducted by Alexander Rudin, reviewed by Jerry Dubins in 37:3, ranks an honorable third. Avoid the utterly wooden version on Supraphon with Milo? Sádlo, Václav Neumann, and the Czech Philharmonic on Supraphon; the pedestrian and long out of print performance on Koch with Werner Thomas-Mifune, Rudolf Krecmer, and the Bamberg Symphony; and the Isserlis recording of the misbegotten Günther Raphael version recently dissected by me in my aforementioned review. The unabridged original piano and cello version with Ji?í Bárta and Jan ?ech on Supraphon is a must for fans of the work, though I’m much less impressed with the pianist than with the cellist there.) To repeat briefly what I said at the end of the Isserlis review, Jaffé and Raiskin are the superior interpretive team, but if you place a heavy premium on beauty of instrumental tone then you will prefer Jamník’s greater warmth and depth to the somewhat more wiry sound of Jaffé. In all four works the Prague Radio Symphony, like its bigger brother the Czech Philharmonic on the Decca release, has imbibed the composer’s music as mother’s milk and gives its interpretive all. While Supraphon’s basic recorded sound is quite good, there are occasional odd moments (such as the very beginning of the first CD) where there is some slight incipient background noise, almost like the surface noise of an LP. Detailed booklet notes are provided in English, German, French, and Czech. Jamník is an artist to watch, and it will be interesting to hear him revisit these works in another decade or so; warmly recommended.
FANFARE: James A. Altena
