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Zemtsov: Chamber and Instrumental Music and Arrangements / Utrecht String Quartet
Toccata · Jul 2021CD$20.99 -
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Silverman: Elephant Steps - A Fearful Radio Show / Michael Tilson Thomas
Sony Masterworks · Apr 2013CD$11.98 -
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On Wings Of Lightning Vol. 3
Zemtsov: Chamber and Instrumental Music and Arrangements / Utrecht String Quartet
The Russian composer Yevgeny Zemtsov (1940–2016) may be better known for the dynasty of musicians – most of them violists – that he fathered than he is for his own music. This first album ever to be devoted to his music features works from the beginning and end of his career: some early violin works, influenced by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev, a Bartókian string quartet, three spirited and spiky piano miniatures, an oblique piano elegy and five late, enigmatic, almost ritualistic settings of Japanese haikus. Late in life, too, he discovered a fascination with tango, and the album also features his elegant arrangements for string quartet and quintet of two Piazzolla favorites.
Silverman: Elephant Steps - A Fearful Radio Show / Michael Tilson Thomas
Tracks:
1 Elephant Drone; Elephants 3:01
2 Elephant Heartbeats 2:03
3 Don’t You Believe; My Ears 2:21
4 All Shook Up 1:33
5 Read My Palms; My Hands Are Inside the Wall; Gavotte 3:52
6 Read My Palm; Watch Me Move; I’m No Closer; Look at My Hands 6:33
7 Stop Seeing Reinhardt 5:23
8 Entr’acte; Watch Me Put My Right Foot 5:27
9 I Am No Longer Beautiful; Beautiful As Is 4:43
10 We Sit in the Window 4:13
11 Gypsy Tango; Shoot Them 3:31
12 You’re on the Radio; Radio Waves 3:34
13 Dreaming of Reinhardt 1:04
14 Midnight Sun 4:05
15 Photograph Song 1:29
16 Madrigals 2:50
17 Vaudeville Chase; Stirring Soup; A Strange Thing 4:32
18 Finale 4:35
Scrubwoman – Karen Altman
Hannah – Susan Belling
Max – Luther Enstad
Doctor – Roland Gagnon
Otto – Larry Marshall
Rock Singer – Luther Rix
Ragtime Lady – Marilyn Sokol
Hartman – PhilipSteele
Archangel – Michael Tilson Thomas
Chorus: Patti Austin, Jane Gunter, Dianne Higginbotham, June Magruder, Patricia Price, Albertine Robinson, Maeretha Stewart, Rose Taylor
Electronic music realized by Pril Smiley at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Laboratory.
Langgaard: Piano Works, Vol. 3 / Tange
Apocalyptic and paradisiac visions of good and evil meet aphoristic miniatures of nine small, mainly malignant insects. The rousing graphic imagery of Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) is on full display in this third volume of piano works by the deeply original Danish composer. Including three world premiere recordings, Berit Johansen Tange captures the mysterious forces, poetic gracefulness and absurd hysteria that are all part of Langgaard's both dark and wondrous expression.
1929 - Tempo, Tanz und Technik / Theis, Munich Radio Orchestra
October 29, 1923 was a date steeped in history. In the middle of a year of political and economic crises, the age of public radio in Germany was ushered in with the first broadcast of the "Berliner Funkstunde" (Berlin Radio Hour) from the attic of an office building on Potsdamer Platz. Radio offered entirely new possibilities for the production and reception of music. The two compositions on this CD not only benefited from these developments but also played an active role in shaping them.
Eduard Künneke's five-movement Concerto grosso "Tänzerische Suite" op. 26 for jazz band and large orchestra corresponded to modern dances: the Overture is a Foxtrot, the Andante a Blues, the Intermezzo a Tango, the valse mélancolique a Boston Waltz, and the Finale a Foxtrot again. The suite was celebrated as a milestone in contemporary radio music and soon became part of the regular concert program.
Hanns Eisler's cantata "Tempo der Zeit" (Tempo of the Times) op. 16 for soloists, narrator, choir, winds, and percussion was written in 1929. The libretto was written by the popular lyricist Robert Gilbert, under the pseudonym of David Weber. With its pure wind ensemble and percussion, "Tempo der Zeit" captures the typical Songspiel sound of the time. The fact that Eisler used the "modern" medium of radio, of all things, to get his fundamental criticism of blind enthusiasm for technology across to the people is an ironical aspect of the work’s composition and reception history. This CD is part of the special programme focus on the topic "The Wild Sound of the Twenties".
Sur
The Lovers
Godowsky in Asia / Baldoria
Philippine-born pianist, composer, and educator Dr. Charisse Baldoria draws upon Western pianism, her Southeast Asian and Hispanic heritage, and various art forms in her work. Prizewinner of international piano competitions, she has performed as a soloist on five continents and established a career as a musician with multidisciplinary interests. She has collaborated with dancers, visual artists, performance artists, and Hindustani classical performers, performs her own compositions, and explores the art of improvisation. Her album Gamelan on Piano features music inspired by Southeast Asia while Evocación showcases flamenco and tango inspirations. Her recently recorded all-Godowsky album features the complete Java Suite inspired by pianist-composer Leopold Godowsky’s travels to the island of Java in 1923, as well as other pieces inspired by non-Western cultures. Recordings of her song cycles Alchemy and The Kiss based on the poems of Denise Levertov and Sara Teasdale are also being prepared for release.
Integrale Charles Trenet, Vol. 15 - "Kangourou" 1960-1962
Itzhak Perlman: Complete RCA & Columbia Album Collection
In celebration of the great Israeli-American violinist’s 75th birthday, Sony Classical is proud to present the first-ever collection of Itzhak Perlman’s complete recordings for RCA and CBS/Sony in a single box set: 18 CDs spanning the years 1965 to 2012.
Itzhak Perlman has dominated the world of violin virtuosos for half a century. His TV appearances had already made him a household name in the US by the time he was 13. A few years later came his Carnegie Hall debut, then the prestigious Leventritt Award, followed by triumphant tours of Israel, North America and Europe between 1965 and 1968. By then he was an international celebrity and recognized “not just as the finest violinist of his generation but as one of the greatest musical talents to emerge since World War II” (leading string authority Tully Potter writing in the NEW GROVE).
And it was then that Perlman began his illustrious, virtually unparalleled career as a recording artist. His first sessions for RCA, accompanied by pianist David Garvey – with works ranging from sonatas by Handel, Leclair and Hindemith to showpieces by Paganini, Bazzini, Sarasate and Falla – took place in New York in 1965 but were not issued for nearly 40 years because the label felt concertos would make a more suitable commercial debut for the rising star. When an album of these pieces was finally released – as “Perlman Rediscovered”, in 2004 – it was hailed “an outstanding tribute to one of the great names among violinists of any age, as well as a remarkably varied and interesting recital in its own right” (ClassicsToday). These tracks are, of course, included in the new collection.
Perlman’s first concerto efforts for RCA – the Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Prokofiev Second, with Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony – were set down in 1966/1967 and released the following years as his recording debut. ClassicsToday acclaimed them in a recent reissue as “offering playing that is gutsy and shamelessly virtuosic, and with a sharper rhythmic focus than Perlman often achieved subsequently. The finale of the Sibelius remains a potent example of the playing’s youthful fire.” In 1969, Perlman recorded what was arguably one of the finest albums of his career, the two Prokofiev Sonatas (which he never remade), partnered by pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy at the beginning of their long and distinguished collaboration: “Delicate where needs be … and yet with a Heifetzian resilience that both sonatas willingly respond to … Perlman and Ashkenazy play with astonishing virtuosity” (Gramophone).
Itzhak Perlman’s work for American Columbia began in the mid-1970s and – apart from Bach and Vivaldi multi-violin concertos with Isaac Stern, Pinchas Zukerman and the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta – cover a wide swath of chamber music with special partners: pianists Daniel Barenboim and Emanuel Ax, cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Lynn Harrell and guitarist John Williams. The Mendelssohn Piano Trios with Ax and Ma, first released in 2010, appear here for the first time in a Perlman collection (“…ensemble balance, clarity of inner part-writing, drama, lyricism, and phrase shaping of the highest order … I find these performances not just outstanding; I find them astounding” (Fanfare).
That other John Williams, the legendary composer for the silver screen, was Perlman’s collaborator in another medium, the movies: his two best-selling “Cinema Serenade” albums arranged and conducted by Williams, with Perlman featured in selections from such classic films as Modern Times, Gone with the Wind, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Out of Africa, Cinema Paradiso, The Color Purple and, of course, the theme that Perlman memorably performed on the soundtrack of Williams’s Oscar-winning score for the Spielberg masterpiece Schindler’s List.
New to Perlman CD editions are two complete soundtrack albums: John Williams’s “elegant and thoughtful score” for Memoirs of a Geisha in which the violinist is joined by Yo-Yo Ma and to which Perlman “brings a magical and peculiarly oriental sound to his violin-playing” (Gramophone), and the music for Yimou Zhang’s Hero by Tan Dun: “Few composers today write more effective melodies for bowed strings” (Gramophone). And to round off this uniquely wide-ranging survey of the violinist’s musical passions and triumphs, in its first appearance in a Perlman collection, the artist is joined by golden-voiced cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot in Eternal Echoes, a highly praised album of liturgical and traditional selections which the violinist has affectionately described as “Jewish comfort music – everything that I recognize from my childhood is in this program.”
SET CONTENTS
DISC 1:
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63
Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D Minor, Op. 47
DISC 2:
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, TH 59
Dvořák: Romance in F Minor, Op. 11, B. 39
DISC 3:
Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 80
Prokofiev: Violin Sonata in D Major No. 2, Op. 94bis
DISC 4:
Lalo: Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21
Ravel: Tzigane, M. 76 (Version for Violin & Orchestra)
DISC 5:
Paganini: Centone di sonate, Op. 64, MS 112 (Sonata No. 1 in A Minor)
Paganini: Sonata for Violin and Guitar in E Minor, Op. 3, No. 6, MS 27
Paganini: Sonata concertata in A Major, Op. 61, MS 2
Giuliani: Duo concertante in E Minor, Op. 25 "Grand Sonata"
Giuliani: Cantabile in D Major, Op. 17, MS 109
DISC 6:
Dohnányi: Serenade in C Major, Op. 10
Beethoven: Serenade in D Major, Op. 8
DISC 7:
Bach, J.S.: Concerto for 2 Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043
Vivaldi: Concerto for 3 Violins in F Major, RV 551
Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante in E-Flat Major, K. 364
DISC 8:
Chausson: Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet in D Major, Op. 21
DISC 9:
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108
DISC 10:
Mozart: Duo for Violin & Viola in G Major, K. 423
Mozart: Duo for Violin and Viola, K. 424
Leclair: 6 Sonatas for 2 Violins, Op. 3, No. 4
DISC 11:
Lubbock/Rosenbaum/Jones/Temperton: The Color Purple: Main Title
Gardel: Scent of a Woman: Tango (Por Una Cabeza)
Legrand: Yentl: Papa, Can You Hear Me?
Bacalov: Il Postino: Theme
Bernstein: The Age of Innocence: Theme
Williams: Theme (From "Far and Away")
Legrand: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg: I Will Wait for You
Previn: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Theme
Williams: Sabrina: Theme
Barry: Out of Africa: Main Title
Bonfa: Black Orpheus: Manha de Carnaval
Williams: Main Theme (From "Schindler's List")
Morricone: Love Theme (From "Cinema Paradiso")
DISC 12:
Raksin: Theme from "Laura" (1944)
Steiner: Theme from Now, Voyager (1942)
Chaplin: Smile from "Modern Times" (1936)
Rózsa: Love Theme from Lost Weekend (1945)
Young: St. Patrick's Day from The Quiet Man (1952) (Traditional)
Korngold: Marian & Robin Love Theme from "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938)
Hupfeld: As Time Goes By from "Casablanca" (1942)
Walton: Touch Her Soft Lips and Part (From "Henry V")
Young: Stella by Starlight from The Uninvited (1944)
Young: Theme from My Foolish Heart (1949)
Steiner: Tara's Theme (From "Gone with the Wind" 1939)
Newman: Cathy's Theme from "Wuthering Heights" (1939)
DISC 13:
Tan Dun: Works
DISC 14:
Paganini: 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Op. 1, MS 25
Ben-Haim: Berceuse Sfaradite
Sarasate: Navarra, Op. 33
Handel: Violin Sonata in E Major, Op. 1 No. 15, HWV 373
Hindemith: Violin Sonata, Op. 11 No. 1 in E-Flat
Leclair: Violin Sonata, Op. 9 No. 3 in D
Bloch: Baal Shem: II. Nigun (Version for Violin & Piano)
Falla: Spanish Dance No. 1 (from La vida breve)
Bazzini: La ronde des lutins, Op. 25
DISC 15: John Williams: Works
DISC 16:
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 49
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 2 in C Minor Op. 66
Mendelssohn: Songs without Words, Op. 19, No. 1 Sweet Remembrance" - Andante con moto"
Mendelssohn: Songs without Words, Op. 38, No. 2 - Allegro non troppo
DISC 17:
Berditchever: A Dudele
Shenker: Mizmor L'Dovid
Goldfaden: Shoyfer Shel Moshiakh
Schwartz: Romanian Doyne
Rosenblatt: T'filas Tal
Traditional: Yism'chu
Schloßberg: R'tzay
Traditional: Dem Trisker Rebns Khosid
Schorr: Sheyibone Bays Hamikdosh
Traditional: Kol Nidrei
DISC 18:
Tchaikovsky: Sérénade mélancolique, Op. 26, TH 56
Tchaikovsky: Valse-Scherzo, Op. 34, TH 58
Dvořák: Romance in F Minor, Op. 11, B. 39
Dvořák: 8 Humoresques, Op. 101, B. 187: No. 7, Poco lento e grazioso (Transcribed by Oscar Morawetz for Violin, Cello & Orchestra)
Dvořák: Piano Trio No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 90, B. 166: "Dumky", V. Allegro
Dvořák: Slavonic Dances, Op. 72, B. 147: No. 2, Dumka. Allegretto grazioso
Halvorsen: Passacaglia and Sarabande for Violin and Viola (With Variations on a Theme by Handel)
Walton: Canzonetta from Henry V
Williams: Air and Simple Gifts
Violino Latino - Piazzolla, Etc / Steinbacher, Von Wienhardt
VIOLINO LATINO • Arabella Steinbacher (vn); Peter von Wienhardt (pn) • ORFEO 686 061 (65:04)
PIAZZOLLA Libertango (arr. Wienhardt). Adios nonino (arr. Calo). Milonga del angel (arr. Calo). Oblivión (arr. Wienhardt). Revirado (arr. Calo). PONCE (arr. Heifetz) Estrellita. FALLA La vida breve: Danse espagnole (arr. Kreisler). Canciones populares españolas: (arr. Kochanski) Nana; Polo. El amor brujo: Ritual Fire Dance. KREISLER La gitana. GINASTERA Pampeana No. 1. Rhapsodie. ALBÉNIZ Tango, op. 165/2. MILHAUD Scaramouche: Brazileira (arr. Heifetz). VILLA LOBOS O canto do cisne negro. WIENHARDT Salsa for BBWL. MOWER Bossa merengova (arr. Wienhardt)
Arabella Steinbacher and Peter von Wienhardt sound like names worlds apart from the program on Orfeo’s CD, “Violino Latino.” But Steinbacher comes out punching in Piazzolla’s Libertango and Milonga del angel . While the description of the tango as a vertical expression of a horizontal desire may not capture the mood of the program or the performances, and if there’s more fire than smoke even in pieces like Falla’s familiar “Danse espagnole,” nobody should object. Stewart Spencer attributes to Daniel Barenboim, Gidon Kremer (who plays this repertoire regularly), Yo-Yo Ma, Mstislav Rostropovich, Emanuel Ax, and Gary Burton the opinion that you can’t play Piazzolla’s compositions without getting your hands dirty. Steinbacher and Wienhardt certainly don’t. Steinbacher plays with an extremely wide dynamic range on the 1736 Muntz Stradivari, a violin that has impressed me in the past as sounding somewhat tubby. That clotting occurs only briefly in moments on the lower registers in Milonga del angel ; otherwise, it’s as steely as a saber (or Steinbacher makes it sound that way). Steinbacher and Wienhardt breathe a dragon’s breath into Kreisler’s Gitana , and play Heifetz’s signature Estrellita and his boffo transcription of Milhaud’s “Brazileira” with the kind of panache with which Heifetz himself wowed audiences. In Falla’s “Ritual Fire Dance,” Steinbacher employs hair-raising timbres to generate extra electricity, but Wienhardt certainly helps turn the crank, keeping the duo’s rhythmic verve from flagging. Albéniz’s Tango may be the only piece on the program to bear unfavorable comparisons with other performances; Arthur Grumiaux brought to this Kreisler transcription a smoldering warmth that haunts my memory almost 20 years after I first heard it. On the other hand, Steinbacher’s more aggressive reading may fit better into the overall program. Nevertheless, she settles into a sultry yet elegant reading of Falla’s “Nana” (she sounds somewhat hoarse in Villa Lobos’s similarly suggestive miniature). The two most recent pieces, a jaunty one by Wienhardt and a jazzy one by Mike Mower hold their own as more recent updates of the program’s older repertoire.
Steinbacher’s way with Piazzolla makes for quite a more passionate affair than did Gidon Kremer’s archer wit. Throughout these miniatures, in fact, Steinbacher recalls Kyung Wha Chung’s fiery intensity. Wienhardt, who made some of the arrangements, as well as Orfeo’s startlingly lifelike recorded sound, add to the excitement of already exciting playing and music. Strongly recommended.
FANFARE: Robert Maxham
The Film Music Of Sir Richard Rodney Bennett / Gamba, Et Al
Usually we only hear Bennett's celebrated waltz from Murder on the Orient Express so the eleven-minute suite from the 1974 Academy Award nominated score is most welcome. Gamba, aided by Chandos's superbly dynamic and detailed sound, gives a thrilling reading of this glittering, sophisticated music for the smart set travelling on a mission to kill, on Europe's premier train. The music reflects the styles of that hedonistic era between the two world wars: waltzes, tangos and music played in the salon style. There is, as to be expected, an element of murky mystery and swift violence; but there is appealing elegiac material too. But overall, there is the glamour and urgency of the great powerful train itself.
From international sophistication, the prograame turns to a smaller world of rural romantic tragedy and to John Schlesinger's 1967 film of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd starring Julie Christie, Peter Finch, Alan Bates and Terence Stamp. Although the film had mixed reviews, Bennett's score was Oscar-nominated. Bennett wrote some beguiling pastoral themes, notably the poignant Bathsheba love theme. Opposed to this delicacy, is some very astringent, harsh, dissonant folk-like material that underlies the cruel reality of rural life like the loss of the shepherd's (Bates) flock of sheep (they throw themselves over the edge of a cliff) leaving him penniless and unable to pursue his love, Bathsheba. There is also bravado music for the proud, womanising soldier (Stamp), counterbalanced with elegiac material and music that, in its sense of chill isolation, recalls Holst's Egdon Heath.
Bennett has arranged his music for the 1972 film Lady Caroline Lamb as an elegy for orchestra and that Cinderella of the orchestra, the viola. His music for this film, which was about Lady Caroline Lamb's disastrous obsessive love for the poet Lord Byron, is distinguished by a very appealing tender romantic melody that is redolent of the Lady's yearning. The work is presented in two movements. Before the love theme is stated in the first of these, there is headlong skittish, neurotic music portraying the rash, foolish woman. Afterwards comes some comically ironical military music of some pomposity which includes (Lady Lamb's?) sighs before the mood darkens - perhaps signifying Lady Lamb's encroaching madness. The second movement reprises the love music, which becomes the theme for a set of variations: some dreamily nocturnal, some passionate, some troubled. Philip Dukes is a sensitive and refined soloist.
Cynthia Miller adds an ethereal touch, playing her ondes martenot for Bennett's Enchanted April score. This 1991 Merchant Ivory production dealt with the lives and loves of a handful of English ladies spending an idyllic month in an Italian villa. Accordingly, Bennett responded with a mellow nostalgic score, in which the ondes martenot transports the characters, and us, away from the ordinary, everyday world - to somewhere that is extraordinary and enchanted. His music is very delicate, atmospheric and impressionistic; and very reminiscent of both Debussy and Ravel (Ravel in Chinoiserie mode). At one point this delicate fantasy is grounded by the strains of Elgar's Chanson de matin played on a cor anglais but the peaceful idyllic mood is soon reinstated. A lovely work that perhaps is too fragile for its 19-minute length.
The concert is completed by two shorter works: the Nicole's haunting theme from the 1985 TV production, Tender is the Night, although I would argue that this is not its premiere recording for I remember hearing it the soundtrack recording I purchased at that time. I would also argue that Nicole was rehabilitated by the man she married and it was the strain of that work which caused his destruction! The concluding item is the touching and plaintive love theme for Four Weddings and a Funeral that tended to be overshadowed by more familiar pop source music.
Gamba leads the BBC Philharmonic in committed, romantic performances. A delightful album and strongly recommended.
-- Ian Lace, MusicWeb International
Tansman: Piano Works / Fingerhut
Chandos has been attentive in promoting the orchestral works of Alexandre Tansman, who due to the vagaries of fashion has to a great extent been ignored. We now embark on the piano music and a deeply personal project for soloist Margaret Fingerhut. 'My curiosity about the piano music of Tansman began over 20 years ago when I encountered the delightfully languid Berceuse he wrote for the album of Hommages to Roussel, and which I recorded for Chandos. The fact that he was born in Lodz, Poland, where my great-grandparents also came from, spurred me on to find out more about him, and since then I have been assiduously collecting his piano works - quite a task as it turns out that in the course of his long composing career Tansman was nothing if not prolific!' 'I feel his music deserves to be revalued and heard by a new generation of listeners, and so I wanted to create a CD to present an overview of his unique style and musical language. While the influences of Ravel, Poulenc, Milhaud and Stravinsky are apparent, along with jazz-inspired techniques, he himself professed his music to be rooted in his native Polish culture. So the starting point for this disc had to be his Mazurkas - after all, he wrote more of them than almost any other composer except for that other famous Polish exile-in-Paris, Chopin! Listen to his 2nd Mazurka to be transported to a world filled with gentle sweet melancholy. For me his piano music abounds in lyrical expression, tenderness, elegance, grace, good humour and exuberant virtuosity (he loved writing on three staves with huge leaps at great speed!). It seems such a shame that the forces of dogma and experimentalism which ruled Paris since the Second World War left so many casualties in their wake, composers like Tansman who determinedly stuck with neoclassicism and who were not afraid of melody. It is my hope that his individual voice can speak to us afresh'. Margaret Fingerhut displays her special artistry and élan to Tansman's music. Also Available: CHAN9887 Bloch Piano Sonata CHAN9818 Bainton Piano Works CHSA5041 Tansman Orchestral Works, Vol.1
Walter: Piano Quintet & Violin Sonata
His work as a composer came to an end when exposed at close quarters - conducting premieres in many cases - to the full glory to the music of his friend Mahler. Before that withering blast had taken its toll he wrote two symphonies, Das Siegesfest for solo voices, chorus and orchestra, various songs and one each string quartet, piano quintet, piano trio and violin sonata. The violin sonata has had quite a few recordings - Graffin (Hyperion), Wallace (VAIA) & Shahan (Talent) - but it was CPO's contribution of the red-blooded hour-long Symphony No. 1 in D Minor with Leon Botstein that knocked me sideways. Mahler had dismissed the work out of hand, it seems. I have been waiting with enforced patience for CPO to follow up with Walter's Second Symphony. Incidentally I should also mention, curiosity value or not, Walter's two-piano arrangement of Mahler's Resurrection (Naxos).
The Violin Sonata is very much a sonata for violin and piano with neither player ancillary to the other. It's in a romantically high flown yet not over-boiled style with some indebtedness to Brahms. Earnest it may be but this is no obstacle to Walter prefacing the middle movement's dolce-dolce writing with what amounts to a gawky troll tango. It's a clever touch and carried off in a very seemly way. While there is ardor in spades in the first movement, the 'Moderato' finale flirts with some florally static salon-style pages before, in its last few moments, asserting itself. Interesting but not transfixing. The other three recordings of the Sonata come with works by other composers. This Naxos disc introduces listeners to Walter's four-movement Piano Quintet; a first recording as far as I can see. This is an exultant work with plenty of joyous activity for each of the five musicians. It is demonstrative, tense and brimming with intense cantabile. Here the finale makes for a convincing conclusion; more so than the equivalent movement in the Sonata. It should appeal to those who are already captivated by the quintets by Vierne and Medtner. Both performances are more than capable with the listener gaining the feeling that the players know the music well enough to enjoy putting it across rather than having to concentrate on forming the notes.
The notes, in German and English, are accompanied by a well selected photograph of the young, confident, and pursed-lipped Walter adorning the booklet cover.
– MusicWeb International (Rob Barnett)
Home / Les Arrivants
Les Arrivants is an ensemble composed of Amijai Ben Shalev (bandoneon), Abdul-Wahab Kayyali (oud) and Hamin Honari (tombak, daf, frame drums), three musicians who moved to Montreal during the COVID-19 pandemic. The repertoire developed by "Les Arrivants'' therefore reflects their experience of adaptation, which has had a lasting impact on their artistic and social lives. It is steeped in the traditional styles that the instrumentalists have mastered over the course of their careers: Argentinean tango, classical Arabic music, traditional Persian rhythms. This album is part of the Collection du Centre des musiciens du monde, a place where professional artists from an array of musical traditions, exchange ideas and share experiences.
Parts to Play / Lee, Locker
On Parts to Play, critically acclaimed violinist Moonkyung Lee turns from the symphonic environment of the critically lauded label debut, Tchaikovsky, on which she performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, to a more intimate setting, with only pianist Martha Locker as her partner on a selection of works that include both stunning solo performances and intricate yet simple duets. Choosing to include Prokofiev’s “Sonata for Solo Violin” amid compositions from six contemporary composers who collectively represent three decades of works is indicative of Lee’s ability to tease out the subtle nuances of every piece she performs. The three-movement suite moves from the simplicity of Moderato’s Classical sonata format through the more lyrically, introverted Andante Dolce to the clever finale, Con Brio. Similarly, her transit through Benjamin Ellin’s composition for solo violin, “Three States at Play,” is a nuanced journey through three movements, in which the more serene second movement is bookended by two outer movements that are quite rhythmically active. When performing duets with Locker, such as on Rain Worthington’s “Jilted Tango,” Lee’s violin seamlessly integrates with the piano to create an atmosphere both spirited and poignant, capturing the “push and pull in a dance of love” implied by its title. Another sort of dance entirely is captured on the duo’s performance of the vibrant and upbeat “Grand Tartanella.” Moonkyung Lee’s career includes numerous accolades, awards and scholarships including the Yale Chamber Music Celebration, and an NYU/Steinhardt Doctoral Fellowship for Doctoral Studies, of which she was the first ever classical string performer recipient. Her extensive array of performances, both in Europe in the US, include collaborations with many eminent ensembles, conductors and performers.
Esperanza
Guitar Recital: Alí Arango
Carlevaro: Guitar Music / Cappelli
This new release presents an absorbing portrait of Abel Carlevaro (1916-2001) through his music as performed by Cristiano Poli Cappelli, an Italian guitarist making his second album for Brilliant Classics. The first was of guitar music by another relatively forgotten figure, Alexander Tansman, and it was enthusiastically reviewed by Classical Guitar magazine: ‘Highly recommended!’ Like Tansman, Carlevaro studied with Andres Segovia, the father of the modern guitar, during the 1930s. However, he broke away from his master’s teachings in order to make his own experiments in both guitar manufacture and composition. His music caught the ear of Heitor Villa-Lobos, another South American innovator, and it embraces the widest stylistic range captured by Poli Cappelli on this album, from the delicate watercolours of the Preludios Americanos (1969-74) to the vivid brushstrokes and abstract form of Cronomias (1972). Carlevaro’s later music returned often to the milonga, a tango-related dance popularised in the classical sphere by Astor Piazzolla. Milonga para Ling (1999) is brief but saturated with melancholy, while to the Milonga Oriental (1994) belongs one of the composer’s happiest melodic inspirations. Later still, a pair of milonga suites describe a peaceful return to the composer’s heritage. An essential acquisition for guitar aficionados, but also a collection of beautiful South American melodies that deserve to travel more widely.
Rendez-vous
Tchaikovsky & Babajanian: Piano Trios / Gluzman, Moser, Sudbin
In Russian chamber music, a rather special tradition evolved around the piano trio, with a number of composers turning to the genre to write ‘instrumental requiems’. First out was Tchaikovsky with his Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50, ‘à la mémoire d’un grand artiste’, and he was followed by composers such as Rachmaninov, Arensky and Shostakovich. In the case of Tchaikovsky’s trio, the ‘grand artiste’ was the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, and Tchaikovsky chose the trio genre as he felt that a piece for solo piano would be too lightweight and one with orchestral accompaniment would be too showy. The work is in two movements, a Pezzo elegiaco (‘elegiac piece’) and a set of variations, and it begins with the cello playing a moving lament which sets the tone for the entire first movement. The theme returns at the end of the second movement in the form of an impassioned funeral march. Seventy years later, when the Armenian composer and pianist Arno Babajanian (1921—83) wrote his Piano Trio in F sharp minor, he didn’t give it any subtitle, but there’s a grandeur and breadth of scale which rivals Tchaikovsky’s work – and the second movement is thoroughly elegiac in character. The trio is Babajanian’s best-known work, composed in the Romantic style of Rachmaninov, but also rooted in Armenian folk music, melodically as well as rhythmically. Performing the two works are Vadim Gluzman and Yevgeny Sudbin, both with Russian roots, joined by cellist Johannes Moser, and the three close the album with Sudbin’s arrangement of a brief Tango by Alfred Schnittke.
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REVIEW:
I will begin with what, strictly speaking, is merely the “other piece” on this disc: the piano trio by Arno Babajanian. I have never heard of him or what appears to be his best-known work, but the outstanding recording and startling advocacy of this starry chamber group makes me think I should have.
The piano trio opens with the violin and cello playing a dark theme together. The piano comes in with some lovely runs reminiscent of Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto (no bad thing, in my view). The second movement starts with a long violin melody over a syncopated piano accompaniment, not a million miles from Korngold or Prokofiev’s second violin concerto. The final movement opens with something of a shock, a jazzy passage in 5/8 time, but then the cello comes in with a lovely theme, and the two moods alternate until the end.
It is a delightful work with strong melodies and rhythmic complexity, which this trio plainly adore. It is wonderfully recorded, giving plenty of power to Johannes Moser’s cello work. I shall be taking it off my shelves frequently.
I have so far had to make do for Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio opus 50 with an old Naxos recording by the Ashkenazy Trio (8.550467), still available. The coupling is Arensky’s trio, and I would not want to be without that. But this disc blows that version out of the water, both in terms of performance and recording. I cannot pretend to have heard all the hundreds of recordings of the work by world-renowned musicians which are out there – but this well may be among the best.
Once again, the recording of Moser’s cello has all the resonance of the real instrument; Sudbin’s piano is alert but self-effacing when it needs to be; Gluzman’s violin soars and inspires. Above all, the trio give the impression they are listening to each other and adjusting their performances accordingly.
The disc ends with a little bon-bon which I assume the group put in because they were enjoying themselves so much: the Tango from the opera Life with an Idiot by Alfred Schnittke. It is not really necessary, since the disc lasts almost seventy minutes without it, but it is great fun, for us as well as for the artists.
– MusicWeb International
