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SaleBeethoven: The Conquering Hero - Complete Works for Cello and Piano / Kloetzel, Koenig
Avie Records · Jan 2022CD$25.99$12.99 -
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SaleHindemith: Complete Music for Cello & Piano / Aleandri, Farinelli
Brilliant Classics · May 2024CD$16.99$12.99 -
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Franck: Piano Rarities - Original Works & Transcriptions / Armengaud
Grand Piano · Dec 2022CD$19.99 -
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Eötvös, Fujikura, Mamlock et al: Chattering Birds / Isanie Percussion Duo
Wergo · Jun 2023CD$20.99 -
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George Szell - The Forgotten Recordings / Cleveland Orchestra
SOMM RECORDINGS announces the first release of never before available performances by one of the defining partnerships of modern American music in the specially priced two-album set George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra: The Forgotten Recordings. Long considered one of America’s “Big Five” orchestras, the Cleveland Orchestra entered its second century in 2018 and earlier this year was hailed by The New York Times as “America’s finest [orchestra] still”.
The Forgotten Recordings features eight historic performances made for the Book-of-the-Month Club in 1954 and 1955 – seven of which are first releases – that have been restored and remastered by the multi-award-winning audio restoration engineer Lani Spahr, who also provides extensive and informative booklet notes. Three works – Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite (BWV 1068), a revealing engagement by Szell with a composer he is not usually associated with, Smetana’s The Moldau and Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel (with an early spotlight on legendary horn player Myron Bloom) were recorded in mono in a remarkably productive session on Christmas Eve, 1954.From October 1955 in stereo recordings are two works by Brahms – his Haydn Variations and the Academic Festival Overture, two symphonies – Mozart’s No.39 and Schumann’s Fourth – and a Stravinsky Firebird Suite that “crackles with energy”. “Here”, says Spahr, “we can appreciate that the orchestra was well on its way to becoming, in Szell’s words, ‘this glorious instrument... that perfectly reflects my musical ideals’.”
REVIEW:
George Szell’s tenure as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra began in 1946 and ended with his death in 1970. He can be credited for transforming the orchestra into a first class ensemble, with its own characteristic sound and style. When he first accepted the position, he vowed to "dedicate all [his] efforts…to make The Cleveland Orchestra second to none in quality of performance." Musicians were hired and fired in an effort to achieve this goal – a warm, refined sound, clarity and technical perfection, demanding total commitment from the players. His lofty goal was eventually achieved.
These ‘Forgotten’ recordings were made for the Book-of-the-Month Club (BOMC), a mail order outfit that dealt with popular books sold by subscription. In 1954 it made the decision to branch out into classical LPs, with accompanying analysis of the works by such noted writers as Thomas Scherman and Deems Taylor. Many of the issues were licensed from labels such as Vanguard, Vox and Decca, conducted by some notable names - Max Rudolf, Alfred Wallenstein, Fritz Stiedry and Leonard Bernstein. George Szell was also approached by the company and was happy to accept, considering it a means of supplementing his musician’s income.
On December 24 1954, the first recording session took place at the Masonic Auditorium, Cleveland, with the Bach, Smetana and Richard Strauss works, music that had recently featured in subscription concerts. The session was recorded in mono. The rest of the works featured in the set date from 1955 and are in stereo.
Bach is not a composer one usually associates with Szell. Though HIP had a long way to go, Szell pares his orchestra down, and employs a harpsichord continuo. Tempi throughout don’t drag, with the dance movements being quite animated. The ubiquitous Air is nicely paced. There’s some wonderfully refined woodwind playing in Smetana’s Moldau (Vitava), and the recording balance enables the river’s rippling undercurrents to form a vivid backdrop. Szell never overdoes it with the brass, which lets down some performances, but steers everything along maintaining balance and proportion. The quieter moments are quite magical. Strauss’ Till Eulenspiegel features the renowned horn player Myron Bloom in one of his first appearances on record. A year later he became the orchestra’s principal horn. The performance captures the very essence of the witty, light hearted, mischievous prankster, and reveals the discipline and virtuosity of the Cleveland players, especially in the brass and woodwind sections.
Over three days in October 1955, five more works were recorded for BOMC, this time in the new stereophonic sound. Szell takes a rather more relaxed view of Mozart’s Symphony No.39, which is free-flowing, refined and eloquently phrased. The Menuetto is lively with a distinct spring in its step, and the finale is truly exhilarating. There’s a bracing account of Brahms’ Academic Festival overture, infused with spirit and celebration. Szell’s approach is warm-hearted in the composer’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn. The performance is well-paced and the variations are deftly-characterized.
There’s a purposeful reading of Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, soused throughout with drama and tension. The Romanze excels for its tender moments. Szell injects plenty of energy into the fourth movement, and the orchestra respond with gusto and panache. Stravinsky’s Firebird is heard in the 1919 version. It’s an atmospheric account of many moods. There’s the captivating lyricism of the Round of the Princess, which contrasts strikingly with the Infernal Dance of King Kastchei, where Szell invests the music with an extra ounce of punch and sizzle. I certainly concur with Lani Spahr that this is the highlight of the set.
Comparing the three mono recordings with those taped in stereo, the latter have a degree more bloom to the sound and register more presence. All the works featured are making a first appearance on CD, with the exception of Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn. These compelling aural documents have been expertly restored by Lani Spahr, who has also contributed the booklet notes, running to 19 pages. All in all, the entire project is an unmitigated success.
– MusicWeb International (Stephen Greenbank)
Krasa, Ancerl, & Schulhoff: Youth - Krasa Quartet
Ives: The Anniversary Edition
On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Ives - acclaimed by his champion Leonard Bernstein as the "first great American composer", who, "all alone in his Connecticut barn, created his own private musical revolution" - Sony Classical presents the most authoritative recording collection ever released of works by this eccentric, prophetic genius.
The 5-CD box set Charles Ives - The Anniversary Edition is a unique and provocative introduction only released previously 50 years ago on LP by Columbia Masterworks under the art direction of Henrietta Condak to celebrate Ives's centenary.
The first disc examines "The Many Faces of Charles Ives" through eight diverse works recorded between 1964 and 1970: Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic in The Fourth of July and The Unanswered Question; General William Booth Enters into Heaven, one of Ives's towering achievements, and The Circus Band are performed by the Gregg Smith Singers; baritone Thomas Stewart sings the moving song In Flanders Fields; organist E. Power Biggs plays Ives's Variations on "America"; composer Gunther Schuller conducts The Pond for chamber orchestra; and the Largo cantabile Hymn is performed by the New York String Quartet and double bass player Alvin Brehm. CD 2, "The Celestial Country", offers Ives's early cantata by that name, composed in 1897-99 for his conservative Yale composition teacher Horatio Parker. It is sung by the Gregg Smith Singers (accompanied by the Columbia Chamber Orchestra), who also perform arrangements of four of Ives's most powerful patriotic songs with the American Symphony Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski conducting. "The Things Our Fathers Loved", CD 3, contains 25 of Ives's songs, delivered by the soprano Helen Boatwright, who specialized in American song. She is partnered by John Kirkpatrick, who studied and worked closely with Ives and is still regarded as the most authoritative interpreter of his piano music. Gramophone in 1974 praised this famous recording as "the finest selection ever to appear" on LP of "what may well turn out to be considered his most important, characteristic and consistently inspired body of music."
Schubert on Violin: Works for Violin & Piano / Pusker, Fejérvári
Ludwig van Beethoven: Late Works for Flute and Piano
Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique; Varese: Ionisation / Mariss Jansons
BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique 1. VARÈSE Ionisation 2 • Mariss Jansons, cond; Bavarian RSO • BR 900121 (58:45) Live: Munich 1 3/7-8/2013 and 2 7/1-2/2010
This new recording of Berlioz’s iconic masterpiece has a good feel to it—certainly, a more “Berlioz-ish” feel than the interesting but emotionally detached version by Robin Ticciati. Jansons achieves this feeling, particularly in the first movement, by means of varied accents on certain notes within the phrases, as well as by means of superbly chiseled dynamics that bring out details within the score without unduly italicizing the music. This gives the listener the feeling of, as the movement is titled, “Reveries and Passions.” Here, from the outset, one is aware of an awakening of the things that will eventually come to pass in the ensuing movements. This performance does not include the optional cornet solo in the second movement, but here, too, Jansons accents the music in a way (and I know this is hard to put into words) that just “sounds French.” You’ll know exactly what I mean when you hear it. I was also fascinated by the way in which Jansons held my interest throughout the “Scenes aux champs,” undoubtedly the most difficult movement of the five to pull off well—it’s so easy for this movement to come across as boring, particularly when it is not inflected.
One of the more interesting aspects of this performance is that Jansons does not slam into the “March to the Scaffold” as if it was the most dramatic event in the symphony (as so many conductors think), but, rather, almost ties it in to the previous movement by understating its opening measures. I would have liked a little more raw power when the brasses opened up, but he maintains his overall sense of balance here by not exaggerating. Jansons, rather, saves the all-out drama for the last few bars, which actually makes more sense—after all, that’s the “drop.” Jansons saves his best and most dramatic gestures for the “Witches’ Sabbath,” which has all the power and strange accents one could wish for. (Serpent Watch for those who actually care: That instrument is not used in this performance.) The particular way in which Jansons accents the timpani in the middle of the movement is absolutely wonderful, producing an effect I’ve heard in no other performance. All in all, this is exactly the kind of performance we critics yearn to hear but so seldom do, one in which a fresh approach is brought to an old warhorse, yet does not damage or mar the music.
Edgar Varèse’s strange work for percussion instruments and siren, Ionisation (1931), may seem a bit too different to follow Berlioz on a disc, but in its own way it is an ear-cleanser, particularly when one has been listening to a lot of Romantically-influenced music. The liner notes credit Varèse with having “discovered the mechanical siren as a musical instrument,” but George Antheil did that first in his 1924 Ballet Mécanique. Here, too, Jansons finds an unusual way of playing the work, giving it a jaunty, syncopated feeling, and it ends up being quite an enjoyable romp.
In its own way, this performance of the Berlioz is as good as the old mono recording I praised two issues back by Carl A. Bünte on Bella Musica, and the sonics are easily 20 times better here. Highly recommended.
FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley
Paganini: Quartets for Strings & Guitar, Vol. 3
Many Paganini scholars consider the quartets with guitar to be among his finest chamber works. The care Paganini took in their composition is documented in numerous letters asking the opinion of his friend Luigi Germi, to whom Quartet No. 10 is dedicated. The Quartets, Op. 4 and Op. 5 with their almost playful eccentricities and freedoms show the composer trying out a variety of forms and variations on convention, all with his typically virtuoso and lyrical touch. Volume 2 of this edition (CDS7938) was admired for its ‘crisp and elegant sensibility’ in BBC Music Magazine.
Beethoven: Complete Works for Piano & Violoncello / Altstaedt, Lonquich
Beethoven’s output for cello and piano is fascinating because it covers every period of his career, from early to late, with references to Bach in op.69 and op.102 no.2 and an especially innovative and amazingly modern musical language. For this complete set, which includes the variations on themes from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus and Mozart’s Die Zauberflote, Nicolas Altstaedt was keen to record on an instrument with gut strings, a Guadagnini from Piacenza dated 1749, and using a Classical bow. Alexander Lonquich, his faithful recital partner – they been inseparable companions since the day Altstaedt replaced his teacher Boris Pergamenschikow at the last minute for a concert of Beethoven sonatas with Lonquich at the Beethovenfest in Bonn in 2004 – here plays a Graf fortepiano of 1826. The combination of these instruments produces a finely balanced sound and exceptional tone colors. This recording is Nicolas Altstaedt’s first for Alpha as a soloist. Others will follow, in very different genres, for eclecticism is the hallmark of this musician, among the most promising of the new generation.
Scott Pender: Music for Woodwinds
Beethoven: The Conquering Hero - Complete Works for Cello and Piano / Kloetzel, Koenig
| Jennifer Kloetzel’s lifelong journey with Beethoven began early: she was eight years old when her teacher placed the composer’s second cello sonata on her music stand, opening the door to an odyssey of intrigue and, ultimately, obsession with the composer’s music. Since then, rarely has a day passed without Beethoven being a part of Jennifer’s life. She has studied and performed all of the composer’s duos and trios. As founding cellist of the Cypress String Quartet, she spent 20 years rehearsing, performing and recording the string quartets. Jennifer now arrives at a career milestone with this recording of Beethoven’s Complete Works for Cello and Piano. Views vary as to what comprises Beethoven’s “complete” works for cello and piano. Jennifer’s discerning choice includes the five Sonatas for Cello and Piano, three sets of variations – based on arias from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus – and the Horn sonata for which the composer also wrote a cello part. Jennifer spares no attention to detail across the entire spectrum of this significant recording project. Her performing partner Robert Koenig plays on a 19th century Blüthner concert grand piano. The illuminating liner notes are penned by Beethoven scholar William Meredith who boldly states, “if there were only the five cello sonatas of Beethoven left of all his music, these alone would have cemented his place in history.” The recording was made in the stellar acoustic of Skywalker Sound. The 3-album set is lavishly packaged in a deluxe digipack. The title track, “The Conquering Hero” – from the opening set of variations from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus – evokes everything for Jennifer about Beethoven’s music, coming from a place of triumph and joy. |
Reger: Organ Works
Chopin, Debussy, Ravel & Schumann: Waltzes
Bach: Inventions & Sinfonias / Dinnerstein
Simone Dinnerstein, a graduate of the Juilliard School, is an inventive artist who is motivated by a desire to find the musical core of every work she approaches. The Independent praises the “majestic originality of her vision” and NPR reports “She actively listens to every note she plays, and the result is a wonderfully expressive interpretation.” Dinnerstein’s schedule has taken her around the world since her tri- umphant New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall in 2005, performing with such world famous orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and she has also performed at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and the Ravinia Festival.
Stefan Wolpe, Vol. 8: Music for 2 Pianos / Quattro Mani
Stefan Wolpe’s escape from Nazi Germany was fraught with uncertainty and danger. During the months following Hitler’s rise to power Wolpe went into hiding, while completing one of his most compelling works- the March and Variations (1932-33), a work of Beethovenian power, scored for two pianos. The piece was largely been forgotten until Quattro Mani’s revival of it, and their sensational premiere recording on Bridge's Music of Stefan Wolpe, Vol. 8. Wolpe’s ballet score, The Man from Midian (1942) a work based on the Old Testament, is centered around the story of Moses, and is the other major work on this release. The virtuoso piano duo team, Quattro Mani (Susan Grace & Steven Beck), has worked with many of today’s leading composers, and is devoted to the expansion of the repertoire for duo piano. QM’s new Wolpe release is the duo’s 14th album for Bridge Records.
Schubert & Hummel: Piano Quintets
Hindemith: Complete Music for Cello & Piano / Aleandri, Farinelli
Within the extensive repertoire of the German composer Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), music for cello and piano occupies a considerable position in terms of both quantity and quality. Hindemith was primarily a violist and conductor, but his wide-ranging interests led him to experiment with a great variety of instruments both as a composer and a player, making him a de facto multi-instrumentalist. Among his favorite instruments, the cello always occupied a special place in his activities, partly due to his collaboration with his brother Rudolf, an excellent cellist.
His original compositions for the specific duo of cello and piano are varied and numerous, offering a synthetic vision of the different stylistic instances of an author who never tired of rethinking and redefining his language. This recording brings together and offers the listener this entire wonderful portion of Hindemith’s catalogue.
The Drei Stücke Op. 8 (1917) are undoubtedly among the most important pieces of the composer’s youthful phase. The later Sonata Op. 11 No. 3, a composition of considerable constructive commitment and complex genesis, is recorded here for the first time in both versions: one from 1919 (lost piano parts reconstructed by Fazil Say), the other from 1921. The delicate and expressive Drei leichte Stücke ‘Cello in first position’, composed in April 1938, are intended for the didactic sphere, without renouncing the peculiarities of the harmonic language of the composer. The same can be said of the brief and melancholic Meditation, a transcription of a movement from Hindemith’s orchestral ballet Nobilissima Visione. More complex is A Frog he went a-courting. Despite its brevity, it is one of the finest pieces on this program. A dozen concise variations, framed by the initial exposition and the concluding return of the traditional English theme, present a wealth of instrumental, timbral, expressive, and dynamic solutions in a small, dense, brilliant display of Hindemith’s compositional mastery. Do not be deceived by the title Kleine Sonate (1942), which is small in size but not in terms of compositional complexity. The imposing Cello Sonata (1948) was written for Gregor Piatigorsky and premiered by him in New York in the year it was composed. Comparing this Sonata to the Sonata Op. 11 No. 3 conveys a sense of the stylistic evolution across some 30 years.
CHOPIN BRAHMS SCHUMANN 24 PRELUDES OP. 28
Franck: Piano Rarities - Original Works & Transcriptions / Armengaud
Few composers have enjoyed a late flowering to compare with that of César Franck. Many of the great works in this recording were composed during his final decades and still stand today as powerful representatives of French music in the post-Franco-Prussian War period. The influence of Wagner can be heard in the poetic evocations of Les Éolides, while the magnificent Prélude, Choral et Fugue, much admired by Liszt, reinterprets well-known Baroque-era genres into an unforgettably expressive Romantic aesthetic. Widely acknowledged as one today’s great interpreters of French music, Jean-Pierre Armengaud presents an album of rarities composed for piano by Franck and arrangements of the composer’s works by distinguished musicians from the early 20th century.
REVIEWS:
The welcome César Franck revival rumbles on...here’s an interesting collection of piano music from veteran French pianist Jean-Pierre Armengaud. Three out of five of the pieces here are transcriptions; I’d argue that the Prélude, Fugue et Variations, originally an organ work from 1863, sounds far more appealing in Harold Bauer’s piano arrangement. Armengaud’s prelude is tender and lyrical, the ensuing fugue’s lines nicely delineated. The final section’s baroque flourishes look ahead to the opening of Saint-Saens’ Piano Concerto No. 2, composed just a few years later. The tone poem Les Éolides is heard in an effective transcription by French composer Gustave Samazeuilh. Franck’s claggy harmonic language is easier to make sense of when you can hear the notes clearly, and Armengaud keeps the music moving.
The Prelude, Chorale and Fugue is marvellous...its three movements lasting around 20 minutes. Intensely chromatic and brilliantly organised, Armengaud is superb in the fugue’s radiant B major conclusion, the resonant acoustic really suiting the work. As a closer, there’s the posthumously published introduction to Ruth, Églogue biblique, a large-scale early work for voices and orchestra. Armengaud’s conviction brings it to life[.]
-- The Arts Desk
Franck wrote only two mature piano works, the splendid Prélude, Chorale et Fugue and the rather less fine Prélude, Aria et Finale. The first of these features here; otherwise, we have a collection of transcriptions, all except one by other hands.
We begin with the best-known, the version by Harold Bauer of the Prélude, Fugue et Variation, originally written for organ. Bauer did his work so skilfully that you would hardly think that this was not an original piano work, apart from a few spread chords – but then Franck used these anyway in his proper piano works. In this form it is a worthy companion to the two major piano works, and its gentle melody and limpid flow make a good contrast to the more powerful writing in those works. I liked Armengaud’s performance, in which he makes intelligent use of the Steinway third pedal, the sostenuto pedal, to sustain the deep bass notes while the melody and figuration occur above.
Les Éolides is a most attractive orchestral tone poem, inspired by a poem by Leconte de Lisle about what in English we call the Aeolids, the daughters of Aeolus, keeper of the winds in Homer. The original has an elaborate texture, which makes for complex piano writing in Samazeuilh’s piano transcription.
The sleevenote is helpful and the recording very good.
-- MusicWeb International
Brahms: Orchestral Works / Dausgaard, Swedish Chamber Orchestra
This boxed set brings together Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra’s cycle of Brahms’ symphonies, originally released as four separate discs. Each symphony is coupled with carefully selected works to provide a well-rounded idea of the composer’s orchestral output.
Favorites such as the two concert overtures are included – the laughing and the weeping one, to paraphrase Brahms himself – as well as the beloved Haydn Variations (on a theme likely not by Haydn at all…). Another perennial favorite is the Alto Rhapsody, here with Anna Larsson singing the solo part, but there are also less-heard works – Brahms’s orchestrations of his own Liebeslieder-Walzer for instance, and of six songs by Schubert.
Throughout the set, the composer’s Hungarian Dances run like a thread. Brahms's orchestrations of Nos. 1, 3 and 10 have pride of place on disc 1, with the remaining 18, in much praised orchestral versions by Dausgaard, spread over the remaining three discs. In reviews of the individual discs, critics used words such as ‘freshness’, ‘transparency’, and ‘urgency’ to describe the performances, with Fanfare expressing pleasure at hearing ‘Brahms from the edge of one's seat’.
REVIEWS:
Exciting in quite a different way is Thomas Dausgaard’s invigorating cycle of Brahms symphonies (with interesting additions) with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. ‘The real purpose of using a small orchestra’, Dausgaard told Andrew Mellor regarding his recording of Brahms’s Second, ‘is to allow us to appreciate all the music that’s there, so that it comes to life in every corner, rather than becoming a mesh of sound'...Dausguaard [conducts] with a sense of style.
-- Gramophone
If you are sympathetic to the ideas that Brahms’s orchestral works can be played successfully by a smaller ensemble, and that the music does not lose its effectiveness when somewhat faster tempos are used, then there is no reason not to explore what Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra have done here. He is an intelligent conductor who infuses his ideas with personality, and Brahms is in good, un-arthritic hands. The recordings, made between 2011 and 2018 in the Örebro Concert Hall, sound wonderful.
-- Fanfare
ULADZISLAU KHANDOHI IN RECITAL
Eötvös, Fujikura, Mamlock et al: Chattering Birds / Isanie Percussion Duo
Undisputedly brilliant in jazz and rock at all times, the percussion in all its diversity is proving more and more predestined for new music. Leonie Klein, a stirring artist in this field, offers here, partly in duo with Isao Nakamura, a compact, carefully compiled selection of today's music for percussion instruments. A solo version of Peter Eötvös's percussion concerto "Speaking Drums" is performed in true virtuoso style by the interpreter, with the voice of the percussionist joining the sounds of the drums. Vinko Globokar's "Dialog über Erde" experimentally exposes instruments to water, even in a small aquarium - a subtly elemental event. In Sara Glojnaric’s "Latitudes #2", the soloist on the drum set then enters into a breathtakingly virtuoso duel with artificial rhythm impulses from the tape. In Dai Fujikura's "Chattering Birds", the duo gives an astonishing demonstration of how much music is possible while radically reduced to finger cymbals. In Ursula Mamlok's "Variations and Interludes", again arranged for solo by Leonie Klein, the form emerges between the groups of instruments, and Hosokawa's "Windscapes" explores the contrast between vertical accent beats and horizontal sweeping and scratching sounds. And finally, Uroš Rojko's "Ritem kože", after many changes of perspective, constitutes the aesthetically homogeneous virtuoso conclusion to this album.
C.P.E. Bach: Solo Keyboard Music, Vol. 36 / Spanyi
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach published the first collection in his series 'for Connaisseurs and Amateurs' in 1779, at the age of 65, and the sixth and final in 1787, a year before his death. Throughout the series he continues to develop the three genres which are featured in it – sonata, rondo and fantasia. In the sixth collection, the fantasias and rondos continue to resemble each other in structure and in stylistic features: abrupt tempo changes, disruptive rhythms, and constant harmonic non sequiturs. Bach gives them ample dimensions, but as in previous collections he continues to reduce the length of the sonatas, to the point that Sonata No. 1 is the shortest work of the collection, although it is in three distinct movements. On this amply-filled album, Miklós Spányi also includes four other works from Carl Philipp's last decade which in various ways underline the composer's boundless curiosity. The Sonata in G major, Wq 65/48 was composed for an experimental keyboard instrument with a bowing device coupled to it – a 'Bogenclavier' – while Bach in the set of variations Wq 118/9 gives us his own take on La Folia, the harmonic scheme that almost a century earlier had inspired composers such as Corelli, Marin Marais and Vivaldi, as well as his own father, in the famous ‘Peasant Cantata’.
Famous Works for Piano Duo / Piano Duo van Veen
The pianist, composer, producer and renaissance musician Jeroen van Veen has played many concerts with both his wife Sandra and his brother Maarten, and has recorded with both of them for Brilliant Classics. The present compilation brings together a unique sequence of masterpieces for the genre in live and studio performances, made between 1992 and 2008, and given by the brothers as Piano Duo Van Veen.
This pocket history of the piano duo opens – as it must – with the F minor Fantasy of Schubert. All elements of Schubert's art can be found in the Fantasy: his gift for a sublime, gently unfolding melody; melancholy harmonic turns from major to minor; high drama within a spacious symphonic design; intricate counterpoint in the finale. Less well known but no less accomplished in its way is the set of Beethoven variations by Camille Saint-Saëns, a polished transformation of a minuet theme. This 1992 studio recording concludes with a pair of 20th-century pieces which capitalize on the energy and momentum of the piano duo genre as a whole: La valse of Ravel and the Paganini Variations of Lutoslawski, which never fail to raise the pulse and receive here barnstorming performances. The adrenaline level increases further with a sequence of live performances on album 2, opening with Rachmaninov’s gorgeous Russian Rhapsody and continuing with The Rite of Spring in the version which Stravinsky first performed with his friends in Paris prior to the ballet’s notorious public premiere in 1911. In his Monologue of 1964, Zimmermann developed the thread of his Dialogue for two pianos and orchestra with a collage technique which quotes from Bach, Mozart and Beethoven in which the two pianists muse almost to themselves at times. Rounding off this collection in epic style is the apotheosis of Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen.
REVIEW:
This is a spectacular piano duo release. Of the 2 discs one was recorded in the studio (one piano) and the other in concert (two pianos). The repertoire here is mostly “famous works”, but the Zimmermann falls outside of the title’s range. There are a lot of brilliant, virtuosic pieces here, and the Ravel and Stravinsky are best known in their orchestral guises. Among people who listen to a lot of 4-hand repertoire, everything here, except perhaps the Zimmermann, will be in our libraries. This is a release I’ll keep on my active listening stack for quite some time.
-- American Record Guide (James Harrington)
Price: Organ Works
