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Fevrier: Pieces de Clavecin, 1re livre (Paris, 1734) & Secon
Brilliant Classics · Sep 2026CD$14.99 -
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A Song Without Words: The Legacy of Paul Taffanel
Mendelssohn: Songs Without Words / Ronald Brautigam
If claims could be made for a certain composer to have invented a genre single-handedly, Felix Mendelssohn would be a strong candidate with his 'Songs without Words'. The term itself can be traced back to 1828, and a letter in which Fanny Mendelssohn mention having received a 'song without words' as a birthday present from her brother. Although Mendelssohn continued an existing tradition of writing short lyrical pieces for the piano, the concept of 'wordless songs' was new, and indeed the great majority of the Lieder ohne Worte display some sort of song-like structure (melody in the upper voice, an accompaniment that is predominantly chordal or arpeggiated, ABA-form). Immediately popular with a wide audience, and soon a staple ingredient in domestic music-making all over Europe, the Lieder ohne Worte were also highly regarded by fellow composers, who imitated the style of Mendelssohn's pieces, and sometimes adopted his title for them as well. One such admirer was Robert Schumann, who was captivated by the 'Duett' (Op. 38, No. 6), hearing in it: 'lovers... conversing quietly, intimately and confidently'. (The piece was in fact written for Cécile Jeanrenaud, who would later become Mendelssohn's wife.) Gathered on this disc are the first four books of the eight published collections of Lieder ohne Worte (two of which appeared posthumously) and an appendix consisting of five individual pieces which Mendelssohn never included in any collection but which nevertheless belong to the genre. One of today's leading exponents on the fortepiano, Ronald Brautigam has released complete sets of the piano music by Mozart and Haydn, and is currently recording a highly regarded series of the solo piano works by Beethoven. For the present disc he has chosen to play on a replica by the renowned maker Paul McNulty of a Pleyel instrument built in 1830, and thus contemporary with the music performed on it.
SONGS WITHOUT WORDS
Mendelssohn & Walden: Without Words / Levingston
Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words simply defy ordinary description. Refined and nuanced, they constitute some of the composer’s finest and best-known works. For nearly two hundred years, they were regarded as charming relics, select romantic gems performed in small concert halls and salons. While their subtle, ornamental qualities certainly shine brightest in more intimate settings, closer inspection reveals an unexpected depth and complexity to these miniature masterpieces. Their interpretive and technical demands are considerable, requiring sensitivity to voicing, pedaling and dynamic control. Meant to enchant rather than dazzle, they evoke myriad dreams revealing some of the composer’s innermost reflections. Like private entries in a musical diary, they offer a rare glimpse into this reserved but passionate artist’s thoughts.
REVIEW:
The Mendelssohn gems of course I was familiar with and very fond of, while Price Walden’s music was a most rewarding discovery of compositions that reflect keen sensitivity, a delicate overall feel, and expansive melodies underpinned by equally clear and open harmonies that never muscle into the crystalline quality of the melodies. These are intensely American works and a joy to listen to.
Bruce Levingston’s insights into Mendelssohn provide many moments of delight – his ever-sensitive approach bringing out everything that is joyful about that chapter of Mendelssohn’s oeuvre.
As is always the case the engineering of the album is peerless and the album itself well annotated.
A winner through and through.
-- All About The Arts (Rafael de Acha)
Mendelssohn: V1: Songs without Words / Donohoe
Sirens & Soldiers - Song without Words from the Italian Seic
Wanderer Without Words / Juliette Journaux
For her first recital, Juliette Journaux evokes the figure of the Wanderer: a wayfarer, a traveller, a man who walks alone, without apparent purpose. He confronts a Nature that is beyond him and his deepest thoughts. The wanderer's drifting is also inseparable from the dream, the acceptance of a dilated time. Musically, one immediately thinks of the worlds of Schubert, Mahler and Wagner... Another aspect of this project is Juliette Journaux's passion for transcription. In tackling the difficult task of transcribing vocal or orchestral works for solo piano, she draws on her knowledge of the orchestra and the operatic voice thanks to her three masters degrees in piano, vocal accompaniment and voice direction from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris... The album opens with Schubert's Lied Der Wanderer in a piano transcription by Liszt, followed by his three Klavierstücke D.946; then comes her transcription of Mahler's last two Lieder eines fahrendes Gesellen, full of pain and sorrow. She also evokes Wagner and his opera Siegfried where Wotan becomes the Wanderer. The farewell and renunciation of the world that is the Abschied from Mahler's Song of the Earth concludes the programme.
REVIEWS:
Enhancing the appeal of pianist Juliette Journaux’s first recital is the concept she used to shape its selections into its nearly hour-long form. In using the figure of the wanderer, a nomad walking alone with no apparent goal or destination, as a guide, she’s sequenced works by Liszt, Schubert, Wagner, and Mahler into an epic travelogue. As a result, the Romantic self-questioning and angst of the prototypical wanderer dovetails seamlessly with the inwardly probing character of the material and lends the recording a satisfying arc and design.
Making the project even more special, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris graduate doesn’t simply perform piano works created by others but for the most part plays personalized transcriptions of the material.
Recorded in October 2022 at Cultural Centre Gustav Mahler in Dobbiaco, Italy, Wanderer Without Words includes two pieces by the great Austrian composer, Journaux transcriptions of “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen” from Rückert-Lieder and “Der Abschied” from Das Lied von der Erde. Augmenting the Mahler selections are a Liszt piano transcription of Schubert’s “Der Wanderer,” Wagner’s “Mein Schlaf Ist Träumen” (from Siegfried), and other Schubert settings. The journey begins, aptly, with Schubert’s “Der Wanderer,” our protagonist setting out in the hope that his journey will bring answers and resolution. As tormented as that traveler is Wagner’s Wotan, whose questions to the all-knowing goddess Erda are met with confounding riddles.
In notes included with the release, Journaux clarifies the difference between reduction and transcription. She says of her Wagner transcription that it’s primarily based on the principle of reduction, “a concentration of all the elements of the orchestral score into two staves that can be played with two hands.” Whereas reduction aims to retain in pianistic form as much as possible of the orchestrated original, transcription, in her view, is a more personal interpretation of the score in that the transcriber might choose to bring greater attention to certain aspects of the work than others. She writes, “When Liszt faithfully adapts a Beethoven symphony for piano, he is making a reduction; when he arranges a Schubert lied for ten fingers with great freedom of writing (arpeggios, octaves, even re-harmonizations), he is making a transcription.”
“Der Wanderer” finds our protagonist embarking on his journey with determination and resolve, his steps guided by the conviction that answers to his questions will materialize and allowing himself moments of rapture as he confidently makes his way. That alternately serene and dramatic statement’s followed by Wagner’s “Mein Schlaf Ist Träumen,” it similarly oscillating between episodes of tenderness and violence. The focus returns to Schubert for the three-part Drei Klavierstücke, the chorale-like “Allegro Assai” first tempestuous and then lyrical, the subsequent “Allegretto” gently pretty in its reminiscing but also turbulent, and the closing “Allegro” rousing and buoyed by optimism. With “In Der Ferne,” a Journaux-transcribed lied from Schubert’s Schwanengesang, the album moves into its second half and shifts the thematic focus to renunciation, specifically renunciation of the self.
In one of the album’s strongest performances, Journaux imbues her gentle reading of Mahler’s “Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen” with a poetic intimacy that reflects a thorough grasp of the material and emotional connection to the composer’s sensibility. The seven-minute performance creates the impression of the wanderer having temporarily stopped moving to wholly surrender to an inner reverie. That peaceful quality carries over into the final Schubert setting, “Wandrers Nachtlied II,” both pieces setting the stage for the closing movement of Das Lied von der Erde, “Der Abschied.”
Journaux’s musicianship and performances...are stellar from start to finish. This exemplary pianist brings virtuosic command to the pieces but even better a thoughtful and sensitive sensibility that allows her to probe the material deeply, whether it be Mahler, Schubert, or Wagner. It’ll be interesting to see where her next venture takes her.
-- Textura
Prokofiev: Alexander Nevsky, Lt. Kijé / Casadesus, Et Al
The first thing to note is that this CD was in fact recorded live, although it’s not clear until the applause at the end that this is the case. There is no audience noise and the recording is very sharp, clear and close to the orchestra.
Alexander Nevsky opens with “Russia under the Mongolian Yoke”, with harsh open octaves setting the scene perfectly. This is followed by a song about Alexander Nevsky recalling an earlier battle. The chorus in this recording are the Latvian State Choir and, although I am not a Russian speaker myself, the words seem to be very clear and the choral singing excellent. The song about Nevsky is beautifully interpreted with a clear contrast being drawn between the more reflective parts of the song at the start and finish and the recollection of battle in the central section. The third section suggesting the appearance of Teutonic knights in the city of Pskov, with brass and percussion blaring out a bleak warning, is performed in this recording with enough gusto to bring a chill to one’s spine!
I had a chance to hear the recording of this work by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and it is interesting to note that Reiner adopts a much slower tempo than Casadesus for the second and third parts, which seems to me to work better, even if there is the slightly off-putting factor of Reiner’s recording including the text in English.
The fourth section (Arise, ye Russian People), allows a distinct contrast to be drawn between the different emotions; the call to arms which opens this song, along with the more reflective middle section. Again these contrasts are handled excellently in this recording.
It is the fifth section (The Battle on the Ice), which is the longest. In fact this section took up a large part of the film. The performance is clean and precise. Perhaps it is this precision that takes away a little from the tension that one would expect in a battle scene; for me there is still enough there to get the adrenaline going. Special mention should go to the percussion section, who are able to drive the music on without overpowering it, no mean feat with such music. On balance, I would have to say that the Reiner/Chicago SO recording narrowly wins in terms of building tension, but there’s not a lot in it.
The sixth section (The Field of Death) is where we hear the mezzo-soprano, Ewa Podles, lamenting the lives lost in battle. Her wonderful deep voice carries these sentiments perfectly, assisted by some sensitive playing.
The final section (Alexander’s Entry into Pskov) ends the work on a triumphant note, aided by another excellent piece of chorus singing; they are able to hold their own to the very end and are not overpowered by the orchestra.
Overall, this is an excellent performance of Prokofiev’s colourful and exciting score, which I would recommend highly.
-- Euan Bayliss, MusicWeb International
Joseph Szigeti: Complete Columbia Album Collection
Sony Classical is pleased to announce the release of a 17-CD box set collecting the recordings made between 1940 and 1956 for American Columbia by the renowned Hungarian violinist Joseph Szigeti.
Szigeti had a remarkable career. Born in 1892 in Budapest, where he studied with Jenő Hubay, one of most celebrated virtuosos and teachers of that golden era of violin playing, he was praised by the iconic German violinist Joseph Joachim at his Berlin debut in 1905; lived in London for several years following his acclaimed 1907 debut and played chamber music with, among others, Myra Hess and Ferruccio Busoni; was a frequent visitor after the war to the Soviet Union, where he introduced Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto; made his triumphant American debut at Carnegie Hall under Stokowski in 1925; toured the world during the 1930s before finally settling in the US in 1940.
It was in that year that Szigeti renewed his friendship with fellow Hungarian émigré Béla Bartók, and in April the two gave a now-legendary recital in Washington which featured Bartók’s First Violin Rhapsody of 1928 – a work dedicated to and premiered by Szigeti in Europe. In May 1940, Columbia recorded their interpretation of this “vehicle for Szigeti’s biting and wholly magnificent fiddling” (MusicWeb International) in New York. That performance appears here for the first time on CD, along with another important work by Bartók, the classic first recording of his Contrasts for clarinet, violin and piano, written for and performed with Szigeti and Benny Goodman.
The rest of the new collection displays many more treasures of Szigeti’s passionate dedication to chamber music: in Bach, Handel, Tartini, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Dvořák, Debussy, Ravel, Bloch, Busoni, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Henry Cowell, collaborating with such artists as Andor Foldes – another Hungarian émigré – as well as with Mieczyslaw Horzowski, Myra Hess, Pablo Casals and Igor Stravinsky.
There are, of course, major orchestral works represented in the new Szigeti edition, including two towering concertos in D major – the Brahms, recorded in 1945 with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Beethoven, recorded in 1947 with Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic (“an account of impassioned grandeur” – MusicWeb International) – along with Busoni’s early Violin Concerto in D major, recorded in 1954 with Thomas Sherman conducting the Little Orchestra Society. Szigeti’s numerous Bach concerto recordings for Columbia are here as well, conducted by Casals, Fritz Stiedry and George Szell.
As Nathan Milstein, one of his great colleagues, said in a touching tribute to Szigeti, who died in 1973: “He was an incredibly cultured musician. Actually, his talent grew out of his culture. … I always admired him, and he was respected by musicians.” In his late years, Joseph Szigeti finally got the appreciation he deserved from the general public as well. Sony Classical’s new collection his Columbia recordings, many never before released on CD at Sony Classical, can only further enhance that appreciation.
REVIEWS:
Joseph Szigeti (1892-1973) was the violinistic equivalent of a “kunst diva”, just as Gidon Kremer is today. He never had a particularly beautiful tone, while his bowing and intonation grew less dependable with age. Yet Szigeti never put a wrong musical foot forward. His phrasing communicated form, character, architecture, and astute harmonic awareness, with musical considerations always taking precedence over physical expediency.
Sony/BMG’s 17-CD collection of Szigeti’s complete Columbia Masterworks recordings stands out for exemplary remasterings that stem from the best possible source material. His intense yet thoughtful collaborations with Mieczyslaw Horszowski in Beethoven’s Sonatas Nos. 1, 5, 6, and 10 have never sounded so full-bodied and detailed as they do here. The same goes for the 1947 Beethoven Concerto, where the New York Philharmonic turns in firm and insightfully aligned playing under Bruno Walter’s direction. It contrasts to the conductor’s relatively casual and deferential backing in Szigeti’s 1932 recording, which, however, finds Szigeti on far better form.
Rehearing Szigeti’s 1949 Bach Sonata No. 3 in C major for violin solo reminded me just how much more fluent and controlled this performance is in comparison to the violinist’s relatively tenuous Vanguard remake. Likewise, his masterful 1940 account of the D minor concerto based on Bach’s keyboard concerto BWV 1052 is technically, musically, and sonically superior to the bloated 1950 reading under Pablo Casals’ direction. Szigeti’s Casals Festival contributions are admittedly uneven.
His collaborations with Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, and Henry Cowell are both historically important and musically illuminating. Somehow the older Szigeti’s wiry tone imparts welcome character and tension to sonatas by Hindemith, Ravel, and Busoni, as well as the rarely heard Prokofiev solo sonata and Busoni concerto. It must be said, though, that the latter’s final scherzando-like passages are heavy going for the veteran violinist, as are the Busoni sonata’s overextended fugal sequences.
Listeners expecting suaveness and elegance in Brahms’ G major Op. 78 and D minor Op. 108 sonatas with Horszowski may wince at Szigeti’s tremulous and effortful execution. Still, he makes every note count, and the aching fragility that emerges from Op. 78’s outer movements and Op. 108’s deliberately unfolding third movement compels my undivided attention. Yet this Brahms D minor pales next to the power and authority of Szigeti’s great 78 rpm edition with pianist Egon Petri. As for the short encore-type pieces favored in the shellac era, Szigeti plays them dutifully rather than lovingly; he wasn’t a charmer like Kreisler, Elman, Milstein, or Ricci. Or Heifetz, for that matter.
The booklet includes full discographical data, an informative essay by Tully Potter, and Szigeti’s own notes for a 1970 Japanese reissue of his Schubert recordings. Even if just half of this collection represents Szigeti at his best, Sony/BMG’s comprehensive and meticulous production values deserve the highest accolades. In the meantime, a complete edition of Szigeti’s pre-war European 78s is long overdue.
-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)
The 31 works, from sonatas to chamber works to concertos, span Bach and Beethoven to Debussy, Ravel, Busoni and Henry Cowell. Bartók is pianist in his own Rhapsody No 1 for Violin and Piano. All the Brahms, including the Trio No 2 in C major with Hess and Casals, is to treasure. Szigeti plays Dvořák with grace and melancholy, and gives bite and attack to Stravinsky. The style may be redolent of another era, yet still this playing speaks to us.
– Guardian (UK)
This is a quite wonderful set, one of the highlights being an all-Busoni disc, the Second Sonata with Mieczysπaw Horszowski and the Violin Concerto with the Little Orchestra Society under Thomas Sherman. No one listening could fail to grasp the profound level of Szigeti's musical understanding.
– Gramophone
SET CONTENTS
DISC 1:
Bartók: Violin Rhapsody No. 1, Sz.87 (Remastered)
Bartók: Contrasts for Clarinet, Violin and Piano, Sz.111
Bloch: Three Pictures of Chassidic Life for Violin and Piano (Remastered)
Milhaud (arr. Lévy): Saudades do Brasil, Op. 67: No. 9, Sumare (Remastered)
Falla (arr. Levy): El Sombrero de Tres Picos, Parte I, Danza de la molinera (Remastered)
Mozart: Divertimento No. 15 in B-Flat Major, K. 287, "2. Lodronsche Nachtmusik" (Remastered)
DISC 2:
Mussorgsky-Rachmaninoff: Sorochintsy Fair, Act III: No. 5, Gopak (Remastered)
Dvorák (arr. Kreisler): Slavonic Dance in E Minor, Op. 46, No. 2 (Arr. in G Minor) (Remastered)
Dvorák (arr. Kreisler): Slavonic Dance No. 3 in A-Flat Major, Op. 46, No. 3 (Arr. in E Minor) (Remastered)
Hubay: Scènes de la Csárda No.4, Op. 32, "Hejre Kati", I. Lento ma non troppo. Allegro moderato (Remastered)
Hubay: Scènes de la Csárda No.4, Op. 32, "Hejre Kati", II. Allegro molto (Remastered)
Kodály (arr. Szigeti): Háry János Suite, IZK 26: V. Intermezzo (Remastered)
Brahms: 21 Hungarian Dances for Orchestra, WoO 1: No. 5 in G Minor (Remastered)
Debussy: Violin Sonata No.3 in G Minor, L. 140 (Remastered)
Hubay: The Zephyr, Op. 30, No. 5 (Remastered)
Schubert, Francois: Bagatelle Op. 13, No. 9, "Die Biene" (Remastered)
Stravinsky: Duo Concertant for Violin and Piano
Stravinsky: Pastorale, Song without Words for Violin & Woodwind Quartet
Stravinsky: Russian Maiden's Song
DISC 3:
Beethoven (Cadenza: Joseph Joachim): Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61
DISC 4:
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77
Brahms: Violin Sonata No.3 in D Minor, Op.108: II. Adagio
DISC 5:
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.1 in D Major, Op. 12, No. 1 (Remastered)
Schubert: Violin Sonata in D Major, D.384
Schubert (arr. Friedberg): Piano Sonata No.17 in D Major, D.850: IV. Rondo. Allegretto moderato (Remastered)
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.7 in C Minor, Op. 30, No. 2 (Remastered)
DISC 6:
Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No.1 in F Minor, Op. 80 (Remastered)
Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 94bis (Remastered)
DISC 7:
Bach, J.S.: Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1005
Bach, J.S. (arr. Reitz): Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052
DISC 8:
Schubert: Fantaisie for Piano & Violin in C Major, Op.Posth. 159, D. 934
Corelli (arr. H. Leonard): Violin Sonata in D Minor, Op.5 No.12 "La Folia" (Variations Serieuses)
Debussy (arr. Roelens): Suite bergamasque, L. 75: No. 3. Clair de lune
Lalo (arr. Szigeti): Aubade from "Le Roi d'Ys" (Act III)
Tchaikovsky: 6 Pieces, Op. 51: No. 6, Valse sentimentale
Bach, J.S. (arr. Szigeti): Violin Partita No.3 in E Major, BWV 1006: VI. Bourrée (Remastered)
DISC 9:
Bach, J.S.: Concerto for Flute, Violin and Keyboard in A Minor, BWV 1044 (Remastered)
Bach, J.S.: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, (arr. BWV 1052/1056) (Remastered)
Bach, J.S.: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050
DISC 10:
Schubert: Rondo in B Minor for Piano and Violin, D.895 (Op.70) "Rondeau brillant"
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.10 in G Major, Op. 96 (Remastered)
Schubert: Violin Sonata in A Major, Op. 162. D. 574 "Grand Duo" (Remastered)
DISC 11:
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 60
Brahms: Piano Trio No. 2 in C Major Op. 87
DISC 12:
Cowell: Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano (1945) (Remastered)
Shapero: Sonata for Piano Four Hands (1941) (Remastered) (Harold Shapero, piano; Leo Smit, piano)
Cowell: Celestial Vision: How Old Is Song? (Remastered)
DISC 13:
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.5 in F Major, Op. 24 "Spring"
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 6 in A Major, Op. 30, No. 1
DISC 14:
Bach, J.S. (arr. Szigeti): Violin Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1056 (Remastered)
Handel: Violin Sonata in D Major, HWV 371 (Remastered)
Tartini (Cadenzas: Szigeti): Violin Concerto in D Minor, D. 45 (Remastered)
Tartini: Violin Sonata in G Major, B. G19 (Remastered)
DISC 15:
Ravel: Violin Sonata No.2 in G Major, M. 77
Hindemith: Violin Sonata in E Major (1939)
Prokofiev: Sonata for Solo Violin in D Major, Op. 115 (Remastered)
Prokofiev: Five Melodies for Violin and Piano, Op. 35bis (Remastered)
DISC 16:
Busoni: Violin Concerto, Op.35a, BV 243
Busoni: Violin Sonata No.2, Op.36a, BV 244
DISC 17:
Brahms: Violin Sonata No.1 in G Major, Op. 78 "Regen" (Remastered)
Brahms: Violin Sonata No.3 in D Minor, Op.108 (Remastered)
Prokofiev: Milestones, Vol. 2
Songs of Connie Converse
English Song Series 22 - Britten: Songs & Proverbs Of William Blake
"This music has the power to connect the avant-garde with the lost paradise of tonality,’ said Robin Holloway once about Britten. He might have been talking about this Blake set, a standout in Britten’s still often underrated output of the 1960s, written for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau after his contribution to the War Requiem.
Putting this new Roderick Williams recording immediately up against the composer and Fischer-Dieskau is like going from hymns ancient to hymns modern. Williams finds an ideal emotional stance—involved, totally word-conscious but never melodramatic…as a recorded recital, Williams—and Burnside, who is similarly colourful but keeps an interpretative distance from pumping up the text—have created an outstanding achievement, one to set alongside the Gerald Finley/Julius Drake disc. Their remaining items, including Tit for Tat—Britten’s ‘reissue’ of early 1929-31 Walter de la Mare settings—shine in a similar way. The Potton Hall recording is clean and clear with excellent instrument/voice balance."
-- Mike Ashman, Gramophone [6/2012]
This disc couples a masterpiece from Britten’s maturity and songs written in his youth. The latter were revived and gathered together as a set in his later years. Britten wrote very little for baritone, but I do think it a pity that rather than seek an interesting work by another composer to complement these two works, it was decided to complete the disc with folk-songs. Beautiful though these arrangements are, many collectors will have quite enough Oliver Cromwells and Little Sir Williams on the shelves, thank you. They are, however, beautifully sung here. There is a very brisk Plough Boy, and Roderick Williams tones in his voice beautifully for the gentler numbers. Ca’ the yowes, a minor masterpiece, is magnificently grand. Overall, the delivery is simple, neither folk-song nor art-song, and refreshingly avoiding the coy or arch in the likes of The foggy, foggy dew. No, Williams presents them unadorned, and with a beautiful legato line, as a series of lovely tunes with inventive and striking accompaniments. Others, some of whom set them up as quasi-operatic scenes, do inject more life into some of the songs, not always to their advantage.
Tit for Tat, a set of five short songs to poems by Walter de la Mare, was first performed in 1969 by John Shirley-Quirk with the composer at the piano. I have in my head the sound of Shirley-Quirk singing these songs, but can’t for the life of me remember where or when it comes from. The songs were written when Britten was in his teens, and he had only recently gathered them together and, with minimal editing, prepared them for publication. They are accomplished works that can, on the whole, be enjoyed without making allowances for the composer’s age. There is not the psychological insight - neither into the poems nor into the mind of the listener - that you find in the mature composer’s vocal music. Nor is the piano part so developed. Listen however to the second song, “Autumn”: everything that was to come is there in embryonic form. It would be easy to exaggerate the claims of these songs, but presented so cleanly and with such understanding as do Williams and his superb pianist, Iain Burnside, they make just the effect the mature composer surely intended.
Philip Lancaster’s booklet essay casts plenty of light on the programme. Walter de la Mare’s poems are sadly not given, but the folk-song texts do appear, as do the texts of the masterly Songs and Proverbs of William Blake. This work was composed for Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and is dedicated to him. The dedication reads “For Dieter: the past and the future. It is a proper, integrated song-cycle, but which is sung without a break. Poems and proverbs alternate, creating a continuous text which was chosen and arranged in order by Peter Pears, no doubt with input from the composer. Words and music combine to create a cycle that maintains a single mood throughout its length, one of melancholy observation. In his book Britten, Voice and Piano, Stephen Johnson recounts how the relationship between Fischer-Dieskau and Britten, though nourished by mutual admiration, was not an easy one. The sessions for their Decca recording of December 1965 were by all accounts particularly fraught, but this is hardly audible in the finished result, which is a performance of extraordinary mastery. Fischer-Dieskau is magnificent, and the composer’s piano playing is miraculous. Listen, for example, in the ppp quavers that introduce A Poison Tree, how he manages to conceal the inconvenient fact that a piano works by hammers striking on keys. This is the kind of piano playing that prompted Gerald Moore, in his book Am I Too Loud?, to proclaim Britten as “the world’s greatest living accompanist”. Britten’s recorded legacy is essential for any admirer of his work, but happily the era is now long gone when attempts by other performers to stamp their own personality on the music seemed like an affront to the composer’s memory. Iain Burnside is outstandingly fine on this disc. It seems almost insulting to state that his playing is technically impeccable, but I do state it, whilst adding that he is profoundly in tune with the music and with the singer’s needs. Roderick Williams gives a performance of great vision, beautifully sung, that will satisfy any listener who discovers the work from this performance. In general, Fischer-Dieskau employs a wider range of vocal colour that allows him, in The ChimneySweeper, for example, to play the part of the oppressed child with remarkable vividness. Another example would be at the line “And blights with plagues the marriage hearse” in London, where Williams doesn’t really match Fischer-Dieskau’s disillusioned bitterness. Williams is slower, too, the song hardly reflecting the composer’s marking of “Very agitated”. If this gives the impression that the reading is a pale one, the opposite is the case. There is a suggestion of whimsy in Fischer-Dieskau’s performance of The Fly that is absent in Williams’ reading, and Williams launches Ah! Sun-flower with a superb crescendo barely observed by Fischer-Dieskau. The end of the work, too, is very fine indeed from both artists, not quite resigned, not quite hopeless.
-- William Hedley , MusicWeb International
John Cage: The Works for Piano 11
CAGE – SA TIE – FELDMAN – TAKAHASHI sums up the focus of this album. All of these works by Cage are influenced by Satie. Cage’s friend and colleague Morton Feldman made an arrangement of Cage’s solo piano “Cheap Imitation” for a trio of piano, flutes/piccolo and glockenspiel. Feldman’s admiration for the pianist Aki Takahashi caused him to gift this arrangement to her. And, full circle, we have the repertoire of this album. The major discovery is Feldman’s arrangement of Cheap Imitation for this very Feldmanesque instrumental ensemble. It is unknown why Feldman made this arrangement in 1980. Knowing of Takahashi’s reputation as a pianist specializing in new music, Feldman had invited her to be an artist in residence at the university where he taught. When she was leaving, Feldman gave a musical score to Takahashi as a gift. It was a copy of John Cage’s solo piano piece Cheap Imitation with annotations by Feldman. He told her that this was an instrumental version of this piece: flute, piano, and glockenspiel.
ALL THE HITS AND MORE 1927-54
John Blow: Venus And Adonis / Boston Early Music Festival
BLOW Venus and Adonis & • Paul O’Dette, Stephen Stubbs, cond; Amanda Forsythe ( Venus ); Tyler Duncan ( Adonis ); Mireille Lebel ( Cupid ); Boston Early Music Fest Vocal/Ch Ens • CPO 777 614-2 (65:21 Text and Translation)
& Welcome, Ev’ry Guest. Chloe Found Amyntas Lying All in Tears. Ground in g
Venus and Adonis is an opera or masque (at the time, an opera intended for royal presentation) composed by John Blow in or around 1683. It isn’t the earliest English work of its kind to be set to music without spoken dialogue, though it is the first whose score is known to have survived. A tally of its predecessors yields much of interest. The great playwright Ben Jonson wrote that Nicolas Lanier’s setting of one of his masques in 1617 was completely composed, and in “stylo recitativo,” while William Davenant penned the libretto in 1656 for an all-sung opera titled The Siege of Rhodes , with music by Henry Cooke, Henry Lawes, and Matthew Locke. Two other operas composed around that time, Richard Flecknoe’s Ariadne Deserted by Theseus and The Marriage of Oceanus and Brittania , were also sung without spoken dialogue. Whether these or other operas furnished Blow with any English precedent to draw upon is impossible to determine, though the lack of any similar dramatic works in his career may indicate a commission or request of some kind.
The opera’s subject is well known, but here, too, a mystery arises. In other versions of the myth, Venus tries to persuade her lover Adonis not to go hunting; he refuses, leaves, then dies. Blow’s librettist, Anne Kingsmill, a maid of honor to the Duchess of York, reverses the roles, making it Venus who repeatedly demands that Adonis go forth to do battle via hunting, while Adonis wishes to stay with her. The reason for this inversion has never been explained, but that one existed is universally acknowledged. Royal masques (and French opera-ballet, such as Charles II enjoyed and occasionally took part in at Versailles while in exile) always operated at multiple propagandistic levels, and the little we know about the opera’s first performance is that it was performed at court with Mary “Moll” Davis, one of Charles II’s former mistresses and an actress of some ability, as Venus, while her daughter by the King, Lady Mary Tudor, was Cupid. (She would have been about 10 years old at the time of Venus and Adonis . Later she would marry three times, always into the nobility, and have four children, two of whom were hanged for treason as Jacobites.) About one of the opera’s subtextual political meanings we are reasonably certain, then: The presence of Mary Tudor amounted to recognition in her father’s eyes before his court. Beyond that, we can only guess about Venus’s harsh behavior. Charles II was known among other personal qualities for his great discretion, and his court records imitate their master in this.
This studio recording followed by almost a year the Boston Early Music Festival’s double-bill performance of Venus and Adonis paired with Charpentier’s Acteon . I saw that production in late 2008, with all the trimmings, scholarly and entertaining, that the BEMF bestows on its operatic productions. None of the visuals are available here, of course, but the production’s stylishness and vitality under the dual leadership of Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs are palpable. Amanda Forsythe combines a radiantly focused soprano with excellent enunciation and a dramatic coloration of the text. Surely other fanciers of archival operatic performance besides myself would proclaim “My Shepherd, Will You Know the Art” a superb example of shading and phrasing if it were only hip-deep in tics, rumble, restricted frequency response, and scratchy background noise on an acoustical 78 rpm shellac disc. She is well matched in all respects by Tyler Duncan’s darkly suave baritone. His especially fine lower extension is heard to advantage in “You Who the Slothful Joys of City Hate.” Finally, there’s Mireille Lebel as Cupid, a relatively simple part as written, and suited to a talented 10-year-old probably trained in singing for several years. Lebel gives us characterization, a great deal of color, and I suspect more in the way of delicately executed figurations than Mary Tudor managed.
I can’t claim to have listened to all the available competition. Of those I’ve heard, Philip Pickett’s vigorous, sharply accented account (Decca 473713) is fortunate enough to have the rich-voiced Catherine Bott as Venus, though neither oratorio-like Michael George nor the harpsichord-laden continuo do much for me. Elizabeth Kenny/Theatre of the Ayre (Wigmore Hall Live 43) has a superior Adonis in Roderick Williams, but I find Sophie Daneman not as vocally or dramatically as interesting as either Forsythe or Bott, while Elin Manahan Thomas seems too hard-edged for Cupid.
Given its 50-minute length, the BEMF folks supply three additional pieces that were not sung live in the Chamber Opera series. Welcome, Ev’ry Guest is the opening number to Blow’s song collection Amphion Anglicus , published in 1700. Forsythe’s control of agility and dynamics come to the fore in this virtuoso piece.
Chloe Found Amyntas Lying All in Tears is a setting of a Dryden poem published in 1693. It is a mock pastoral: The shepherd Amyntas begs for a kiss from, and is ridiculed by, his Chloe, who requires three verses before she repents (with some risqué play on words). Blow has great fun portraying Amyntas’s quasi-pathos, complete with elaborate chromaticism and madrigalisms, and Chloe’s cruel, blithely uncaring response. The trio of two tenors and a bass-baritone produce a fine sound, with excellent intonation, and the slow, pointed skipping of Chloe’s rhythms by the continuo are highlights.
Finally, the Ground in G Minor spotlights the stylish and technically expert work of Robert Mealy and Peter Spissky. I can’t claim much familiarity with the latter, but Mealy is a fixture at many early-music festivals, as well as a professor of early music at Yale. He’s on several records, but seldom in any solo capacity—would that were to change, based on several instrumental concerts I’ve seen.
The sound is generally good and close for the vocalists, as it should be, though I note one oddity in Venus and Adonis : Forsythe’s microphone audibly diminishes in volume in the middle of her repeat of “hounds” on F in “Hark, Hark, the Hunters; Hark, Hark, the Hounds!” This should have been fixed before release.
That very minor blemish aside, this is a first-rate release in all respects. BEMF has yet another highly successful operatic recording to its credit.
FANFARE: Barry Brenesal
Margola: Music for Mandolin & Other Chamber Music
An exact contemporary of Olivier Messiaen (1908-92), Franco Margola was a Brescian musician born and bred, growing up within the culture of the city’s historic industry of string-instrument making. He composed in all the major classical genres but his music has been little heard outside Italy: a situation which this engaging new collection of his chamber music should remedy. Though he composed operas and symphonies, Margola was most at home in the world of miniatures such as we find on this album. He had a ready fund of quirky, memorable melodies which spring from the neoclassical Italian idiom honed by composers of the 1920s and 30s such as Respighi and Casella. While still a student, he met Alfredo Casella, and showed him a recently composed song. Casella was impressed and asked for more, so Margola an instrumental trio which Casella proceeded to perform with his own ensemble throughout Italy and farther. These precociously mature student years are represented on this album by the Piccola Sonata for violin and piano, composed in 1929. There are three sections within its concise five-minute span, largely elegiac in character and flavored not only with late-Romantic harmonies but the unmistakable influence of Maurice Ravel. At the other end of his life, Margola began to write for mandolin as a professor at the conservatoire in Parma. He treats the instrument like a lute, as if transcribing Renaissance dances in the style of Respighi, but the harmonies remain richly Romantic. One particular highlight is the Romanza senza parole, a song without words with an airy theme that alternates between the piano and the mandolin in a lyrical mood that naturally brings Mendelssohn and the world of Lieder to mind. Made in the composer’s home city of Brescia, these recordings are led by the mandolin player Raffaelle lo Ragione, an experienced soloist in music of the Baroque and Romantic eras, with a previous Brilliant Classics album of neglected Neapolitan music to his credit, ‘Serenata Napoletana’.
REVIEW:
There is some wonderful music on this disc, especially the lovely Picccola Suonata, a work clearly wedded to the Romantic Era. Occasionally one can hear a harmonic reference that is a bit adventurous, but those moments are fleeting. This is music of great charm and eloquence, coupled with wonderful melodic invention. It is simple, without being simplistic. All of the performers on the disc serve the music well. Their performances are sympathetic and sincere in their expression. The recorded sound is very good.
– Fanfare
Fevrier: Pieces de Clavecin, 1re livre (Paris, 1734) & Secon
V40: JOHN CAGE
Lehár: Eva / Bozic, Fadayomi, Et Al
Eva has never been much of a success and set beside some of his other stage-works the musical – or rather – melodic inspiration seems a bit meagre. The only hit-song is Eva’s Lied early in act I, Wär es auch nichts als ein Augenblick, which also appears a couple of times later on in the operetta as a kind of Leitmotif. There are good enough melodies of typical Lehár Schmalz and a great deal of light-hearted rhythmic dances, but they tend to slip out of one’s memory as soon as they are over. What is obvious though is his masterly handling of the orchestra and more than in any other operetta I know gives grateful and attractive solos to many of the instrumentalists in a transparent orchestral web. I think he is closer to Puccini’s sensuality than Richard Strauss’s overblown bombast, even though in the second act finale there are reminiscences of Der Rosenkavalier, which was premiered almost a year before Eva was first performed, on 24 November 1911 at Theater an der Wien. That was the same theatre that also saw the premiere of Die lustige Witwe, and the first Hanna Glawari and Danilo, Mizzi Günther and Louis Treumann, also sang the leading roles in the new operetta.
The libretto is a variant of the old Cinderella story, where the poor factory girl wins the prince, in this case the owner of the glass factory, situated near Brussels. A kind of social realism, one could think, but in the second act we are back in the normal upper class operetta world, in Octave Flaubert’s villa. The third and last act takes us, not for the first time in a Lehár operetta, to Paris. There are rather few arias, and those few are labelled Lied (song) to make them less pretentious, since they are often very short. Most of the musical numbers are duets, but there are no less than three melodramas that grow into songs or duets. The three finales are quite extended numbers, the one in act II is almost 14 minutes long, and here, just as in the melodrama numbers, Lehár works in freer, partly recitative style, more related to opera. It is also in these more ambitious numbers that his inventive scoring is at its most colourful. This recording is complete with all the spoken dialogue, in some places fairly stilted and unatmospheric but there are several heated scenes where the acting is lively and involved. It is a pity, though, as is unfortunately often the case, that the spoken dialogue is recorded at a seemingly lower level. This means that you have to turn up the volume quite a bit to hear it properly and then turn it down again when the music starts. The melodramas are likewise afflicted and even though Lehár has scored the music lightly, the orchestra still tends to mask some of the spoken words. I also regret that the sung and spoken texts are not printed in the booklet, which would have been a great asset even for fluent German speakers. Apart from the balance problem the recording is good without being very atmospheric. It was recorded in the Festival Hall in Bad Ischl, where every summer there is a Lehár festival. Lehár lived in a beautiful villa in Bad Ischl in Salzkammergut in Austria, from 1910 until his death, but he also had a house in Vienna. This recording was not made during performances but with a cast that had played a number of performances and were settled into their roles. Conducted by Wolfgang Bozic, who is well versed in this genre – I have heard him conduct operetta in Vienna – and he finds that typical Lehárian lilt in the music with tempos that feel absolutely right. The chorus is good. There is even some a cappella singing at the beginning of Act I.
Of the soloists Morenike Fadayomi impresses in the title role with a large vibrant dramatic soprano voice. It comes as no surprise to find that she has been singing both Aida and Salome. Reinhard Alessandri, an experienced operetta singer. I saw his Edwin in Die Csardasfürstin at Volksoper some years ago. He is a good actor while his voice is rather small and he has some trouble with the top notes. But he can sing meltingly beautifully when the tessitura is not too high and in the main he makes a positive impression. Zora Antonic as Pipsi is fully into her role and Thomas Malik is just perfect for the comic part as Dagobert with his expressive and fluent buffo tenor. Stefan Frey contributes one of his well-researched liner notes and also a synopsis that unfortunately isn’t related to the track-list, but rather gives a general overview. On the credit side it is nice to have several photos, both from the original production back in 1911 and from the Bad Ischl event.
A matter of swings and roundabouts but operetta lovers will find much to enjoy here.
Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International
The 18th Century American Overture - Hewitt, Carr, Reinagle / Gallois
HEWITT Medley Overture. New Medley Overture. New Federal Overture. CARR Federal Overture. REINAGLE Miscellaneous Overture. Occasional Overture . Overture in G • Patrick Gallois, cond; Jyväskylä Snf Finlandia • NAXOS 8.559654 (68: 25)
Most readers will never have heard of these composers. In fact, I rather suspect that most collectors attracted to this release, The 18th-Century American Overture , will be so more out of historical curiosity than out of any prior knowledge of the music itself. Benjamin Carr (1768–1831) and James Hewitt (1770–1827) were both English-born and educated. Carr, who studied organ with Charles Wesley and composition with Samuel Arnold, the first great cataloger and editor of Handel’s music, was a prolific publisher, a driving force in the development of a music establishment in Philadelphia, and one of the founders of the Musical Fund Society. Hewitt, who made the questionable claim that he had played violin in London under the direction of Haydn, was similarly engaged in New York, where he bought an earlier publishing concern from Carr, and later in Boston, where he was a conductor, arranger, publisher, and of course composer. Scots-born Alexander Reinagle was a contemporary of Carr in Philadelphia, where he established a concert series and was involved in the theatrical life of the city. He was a favorite composer of George Washington, who not only attended many of Reinagle’s concerts, but arranged for Reinagle to give piano lessons to his adopted daughter, Nelly Custis.
I mention the credentials of the three composers, as one would otherwise never attribute these works to musicians of any serious standing. Of course, when listening to the initial track, the Hewitt Medley Overture , one may well assume that a disc of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 had been substituted. But wait a bit, for soon after follow quotes of reels, marches, and patriotic songs like Yankee Doodle . In many of these, transitions are minimal, and there is little or no attempt to create a coherent flow. Tunes are occasionally cut off in mid-phrase to make way for the next, and the sublime and the trivial reside incongruously together. These then are pops concert entertainments of their day, compendiums of common tunes that would be recognized by the audience, packaged occasionally with the latest works from Europe. (The Mozart piano concerto premiered but 13 years before its appropriation here.) Some, like Carr’s Federal Overture , have a political purpose, with La Marseillaise running roughshod over some English tunes, followed by Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be? and Philip Phile’s Presidential March , now better known as The Itsy-Bitsy Spider . The intent would not have been lost on his audience in 1794. Others by Reinagle, the pragmatic man of the theater, lack pretensions musical or political, and are full of lively dance tunes.
Each of them, whatever the musical merit, gives insight into the culture of the new republic. These seven overtures are all that remain of many such works produced in America in the last two decades of the 18th century, and these have only survived in published piano reductions, or string parts without wind parts or score. The reconstructions were done by musicologist Bertil van Boer, professor of music history and theory at Western Washington University in Bellingham. He explains the historical background, and the detective work done in preparing the reconstruction, in his amusing and informative insert notes. Van Boer’s specialty is Scandinavian music of the 18th century, which explains, perhaps, the provenance of the recording. The Jyväskylä Sinfonia Finlandia is not an ensemble whose work often finds its way to these shores. Fanfare critics have reviewed only two releases: a disc of works by Rautavaara and another of Finnish tangos. That is about as broad a range as any ensemble I know. Now add obscure American popular potpourris to the mix. Who does their programming?
Whatever the story behind the recordings, kudos to van Boer, conductor Patrick Gallois, and the adaptable musicians of the orchestra for rescuing these curiosities and bringing them to our attention. The execution is polished and enthusiastic. The engineering is top-drawer. No one will mistake anything other than the Mozart quotes for great music, but the overtures are amusing, and this release adds an important tile to the mosaic of American music.
FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames
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This is another issue in the Naxos “American Classics” series. Even if you are doubtful about the relevance of the word “Classics” these Overtures most certainly are, and go out of their way to be, American. Each is in the form of a “Medley Overture”, a collection of popular tunes linked together with greater or lesser skill. Although this device originated in London the examples here are all intended to further particular political views at a time of intense debate in America between Federalists and Republicans. All of this is explained in the fascinating leaflet notes by Bertil van Boer who has also reconstructed these works, in some cases from limited evidence.
The tunes included in these Overtures almost invariably include “Yankee Doodle” and a large helping of Scottish and Irish tunes, presumably appealing especially to those coming from those countries. Other tunes used include the “Marseillaise”, William Shield’s “The Ploughboy”, “Oh dear, what can the matter be”, and, most surprising of all, the opening tutti from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 20 in D minor. The results are clearly of considerable historical interest even if musically to describe them even as second rate might seem an exaggeration of their qualities. However unless you insist on nothing but the best, as did a relation of mine whose entire reading of fiction consisted of “Ulysses” and “War and Peace”, there is much to enjoy here. This is due more than a little to the sprightly performances and clear recording but I think is primarily due to the very appealing self-confidence and ingenuous swagger of the music itself. Despite the political messages that their music is apparently intended to send, the three composers represented here were all British in origin – Reinagle from Scotland and Carr and Hewitt from England. These Overtures have much in common with the music of such composers as Michael Kelly, Charles Dibdin and Steven Storace. Hewitt is best known for a wonderfully naïve Sonata describing the Battle of Trenton, and the works by him on this disc are little more advanced musically. However like all the rest they have charm and curiosity value in abundance. Maybe it is overstating the case to describe them as “American Classics” but this is certainly a disc that I find almost always generates a contented smile in this listener at least.
-- John Sheppard, MusicWeb International
