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C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin / Podger, Bezuidenhout
Channel Classics · Apr 2023SACD$23.99 -
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SaleBeethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29, 'Hammerklavier' - Eroica Variations / Aimard
PENTATONE · Jul 2021CD$19.99$14.99 -
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Haydn: Symphonies 35, 38, 39, 49, 58, & 59 / Solomons, L'Estro Armonico
CBS Masterworks · Jul 2010CD$24.99 -
E . T. A. Hoffmann: Missa; Miserere / Rupert Huber, Wdr Symphony Orchestra Cologne
CPO · Feb 2014CD$18.99 -
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Shostakovich: Concerto And Sonata For Cello / Sol Gabetta
Sony Masterworks
CD
$11.98
Feb 03, 2009
I know of no more dramatic and beautifully played account of the Concerto.
Sol Gabetta is a cellist in great demand as a concert performer. If the high-end German record shops such as Ludwig Beck, Munich and Dussmann, Berlin are anything to go by Gabetta is being strongly marketed by her record label. The programme chosen this time for the young Argentine cellist is all-Shostakovich with wonderful accounts of both the Concerto and the Sonata. The Concerto recording was made at live concerts in January 2008 in the admirable acoustic of the Philharmonie at Munich’s Gasteig. The applause has been elided. On the other hand the Sonata in which Gabetta teams up with Romanian-born pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa is a studio recording made in Zurich. My disc was sent from Germany with German-only text.
The Cello Concerto No.2, written in the last decade of his life, was dedicated to Rostropovich who premièred the score at Shostakovich’s 60th birthday concert in Moscow. Compared to the first Cello Concerto, Op. 107 from 1959 this relatively underrated score is only now beginning to establish its rightful place in the repertoire. The harsh constraints of living and working under the Soviet regime must surely have helped shape its character.
In the opening Largo the cello plays virtually continuously. Right from the first bars the darkly brooding intensity of the cello is spine-tingling. Gabetta’s rich mocha-toned instrument is caught splendidly by the sound engineers. Taking the listener by surprise the cannon salvos and pounding martial beat at 3:58-4:03 is highly dramatic. From 4:31 the anguished wails of the cello are remarkably affecting. A reflective passage on the cello at 5:34 and 6:55 is developed by the orchestra into a thickly textured and deeply depressing episode. A concentrated section from 7:28 feels almost overwhelming. Coming as a welcome relief from 8:35 is a more upbeat passage. It is not long before the playful figures become restless and demanding and the overwhelming weight of torment returns. At 10:32-10:59 the percussion blows are quite ferocious and serve as an ominous warning. The pounding continues but fades and disappears into the distance. Over a rumbling and restless orchestra the cello from 12:54 with its plaintive theme tries to calm the agitation.
Serving as a Scherzo the central movement marked Allegretto is terse and highly rhythmic. A waltz-like street theme on the cello with a sardonic twist opens the movement. Horn-calls punctuate the scene together with a colourful array of percussive effects. Gabetta’s energetic playing cuts through the macabre orchestral writing seemingly intent on holding the cello back. Played continuously, the closing movement also an Allegretto, is heralded by a horn fanfare and drum-roll. Gabetta plays a languorous melody of a certain nobility that has been described as “ barcarolle-like”. Especially interesting are the unusual orchestral textures with notable percussive effects. From 4:41 the tempi shift quickly several times and take on a curious galloping quality. At 6:35 the cello theme becomes one of sadness and tender introspection - a mood that underpins the remainder of the movement. Percussion lashes against a frenetic cello line from 9:41 create a disconcerting effect and this builds to a terrifying climax at 10:52. The breathless cello writing then recovers its poise to repeat the melancholic but introspectively steely theme. If that was possible the mood becomes even more mournful with Gabetta’s cello sounding as if it was weeping. Snare drums and other light percussion effects close the score. The orchestra provide warm and positive support .
For alternative versions of the Cello Concerto No.2 I have long been satisfied with that from cellist Heinrich Schiff with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich. With playing of impressive assurance the performance was recorded in 1984 at the Hercules Hall, Residenz, Munich on Philips 475 7575. (c/w Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1). Another beautifully played account is from cellist Mischa Maisky with the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas. It was recorded in 1993 at the Abbey Road Studios in London on Deutsche Grammophon 445 821-2. (c/w Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1).
The four movement Cello Sonata was written when Shostakovich still had artistic freedom. This was prior to the denunciation in 1936 by the Soviet authorities and before his fall from favour owing to the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Essentially a lyrical score rather than experimental the Sonata was premièred in 1934 in Moscow by cellist Viktor Kubatsky, its dedicatee. Interestingly there have been several arrangements for viola and piano.
The two main themes of the opening movement could not be more different in character. The first is an upright elegant melody that Gabetta and Ursuleasa. It is intensified in tension and made more weighty until it becomes unruly bordering on stormy. By contrast the second theme is cloaked in lush yearning Romanticism. Gabetta’s glorious tone is outstanding and Ursuleasa revels in the long warm lines. An Allegro the second movement is a countryside romp that Gabetta and Ursuleasa develop into the manner of an excitable folk dance. Sombre and mournful in the third movement Largo Gabetta’s cello sounds as if it is sobbing. The intensity becomes heavier with the cello reaching down to its deepest register. In the skittish and scampering Rondo: Finale the piano has abundant opportunity to shine with Ursuleasa demonstrating her assurance in a number of dazzling runs. It is Gabetta’s relatively restrained cello part that keeps the merriment in check.
For both the splendid playing as well being an important music document I admire the version of the Sonata played by cellist Daniil Shafran and the composer on piano. Recorded in 1956 I have the performance on Revelation RV10017. (c/w Rachmaninov Cello Sonata). I also play often the account from cellist Leonid Gorokhov and pianist Nikolai Demidenko. This satisfying version was recorded at Champs Hill, Pulborough, Sussex in 2004 on ASV Gold GLD4006.
I was perfectly happy with this RCA Victor Red Seal recording in both the concerto and sonata. Gabetta’s cello is placed well forward and is vividly clear. I know of no more dramatic and beautifully played account of the Concerto.
-- Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International
Sol Gabetta is a cellist in great demand as a concert performer. If the high-end German record shops such as Ludwig Beck, Munich and Dussmann, Berlin are anything to go by Gabetta is being strongly marketed by her record label. The programme chosen this time for the young Argentine cellist is all-Shostakovich with wonderful accounts of both the Concerto and the Sonata. The Concerto recording was made at live concerts in January 2008 in the admirable acoustic of the Philharmonie at Munich’s Gasteig. The applause has been elided. On the other hand the Sonata in which Gabetta teams up with Romanian-born pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa is a studio recording made in Zurich. My disc was sent from Germany with German-only text.
The Cello Concerto No.2, written in the last decade of his life, was dedicated to Rostropovich who premièred the score at Shostakovich’s 60th birthday concert in Moscow. Compared to the first Cello Concerto, Op. 107 from 1959 this relatively underrated score is only now beginning to establish its rightful place in the repertoire. The harsh constraints of living and working under the Soviet regime must surely have helped shape its character.
In the opening Largo the cello plays virtually continuously. Right from the first bars the darkly brooding intensity of the cello is spine-tingling. Gabetta’s rich mocha-toned instrument is caught splendidly by the sound engineers. Taking the listener by surprise the cannon salvos and pounding martial beat at 3:58-4:03 is highly dramatic. From 4:31 the anguished wails of the cello are remarkably affecting. A reflective passage on the cello at 5:34 and 6:55 is developed by the orchestra into a thickly textured and deeply depressing episode. A concentrated section from 7:28 feels almost overwhelming. Coming as a welcome relief from 8:35 is a more upbeat passage. It is not long before the playful figures become restless and demanding and the overwhelming weight of torment returns. At 10:32-10:59 the percussion blows are quite ferocious and serve as an ominous warning. The pounding continues but fades and disappears into the distance. Over a rumbling and restless orchestra the cello from 12:54 with its plaintive theme tries to calm the agitation.
Serving as a Scherzo the central movement marked Allegretto is terse and highly rhythmic. A waltz-like street theme on the cello with a sardonic twist opens the movement. Horn-calls punctuate the scene together with a colourful array of percussive effects. Gabetta’s energetic playing cuts through the macabre orchestral writing seemingly intent on holding the cello back. Played continuously, the closing movement also an Allegretto, is heralded by a horn fanfare and drum-roll. Gabetta plays a languorous melody of a certain nobility that has been described as “ barcarolle-like”. Especially interesting are the unusual orchestral textures with notable percussive effects. From 4:41 the tempi shift quickly several times and take on a curious galloping quality. At 6:35 the cello theme becomes one of sadness and tender introspection - a mood that underpins the remainder of the movement. Percussion lashes against a frenetic cello line from 9:41 create a disconcerting effect and this builds to a terrifying climax at 10:52. The breathless cello writing then recovers its poise to repeat the melancholic but introspectively steely theme. If that was possible the mood becomes even more mournful with Gabetta’s cello sounding as if it was weeping. Snare drums and other light percussion effects close the score. The orchestra provide warm and positive support .
For alternative versions of the Cello Concerto No.2 I have long been satisfied with that from cellist Heinrich Schiff with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Maxim Shostakovich. With playing of impressive assurance the performance was recorded in 1984 at the Hercules Hall, Residenz, Munich on Philips 475 7575. (c/w Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1). Another beautifully played account is from cellist Mischa Maisky with the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas. It was recorded in 1993 at the Abbey Road Studios in London on Deutsche Grammophon 445 821-2. (c/w Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1).
The four movement Cello Sonata was written when Shostakovich still had artistic freedom. This was prior to the denunciation in 1936 by the Soviet authorities and before his fall from favour owing to the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Essentially a lyrical score rather than experimental the Sonata was premièred in 1934 in Moscow by cellist Viktor Kubatsky, its dedicatee. Interestingly there have been several arrangements for viola and piano.
The two main themes of the opening movement could not be more different in character. The first is an upright elegant melody that Gabetta and Ursuleasa. It is intensified in tension and made more weighty until it becomes unruly bordering on stormy. By contrast the second theme is cloaked in lush yearning Romanticism. Gabetta’s glorious tone is outstanding and Ursuleasa revels in the long warm lines. An Allegro the second movement is a countryside romp that Gabetta and Ursuleasa develop into the manner of an excitable folk dance. Sombre and mournful in the third movement Largo Gabetta’s cello sounds as if it is sobbing. The intensity becomes heavier with the cello reaching down to its deepest register. In the skittish and scampering Rondo: Finale the piano has abundant opportunity to shine with Ursuleasa demonstrating her assurance in a number of dazzling runs. It is Gabetta’s relatively restrained cello part that keeps the merriment in check.
For both the splendid playing as well being an important music document I admire the version of the Sonata played by cellist Daniil Shafran and the composer on piano. Recorded in 1956 I have the performance on Revelation RV10017. (c/w Rachmaninov Cello Sonata). I also play often the account from cellist Leonid Gorokhov and pianist Nikolai Demidenko. This satisfying version was recorded at Champs Hill, Pulborough, Sussex in 2004 on ASV Gold GLD4006.
I was perfectly happy with this RCA Victor Red Seal recording in both the concerto and sonata. Gabetta’s cello is placed well forward and is vividly clear. I know of no more dramatic and beautifully played account of the Concerto.
-- Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International
C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin / Podger, Bezuidenhout
Channel Classics
SACD
$23.99
Apr 28, 2023
The Baroque dream team of Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout interpret the astonishing music of C.P.E. Bach’s Violin Sonatas in C Minor, B Minor, D Major and G Minor. The two early sonatas here from the 1730s resemble the older style of his father. Listening to these works, you can imagine J.S. Bach glancing over Emanuel's shoulders while he wrote them as a teenager at home in Leipzig. The later sonatas, written 30 to 50 years later, reveal an emancipated composer whose developed musical language embodies the 'Empfindsamer Stil', the directly emotional and rhetorical style characteristic of northern-german music of the time.
Rachel Podger writes: “It was wonderful to delve into the specific musical world that belongs to C.P.E. Bach for this recording with Kris. These violin sonatas are (quite unfortunately!) largely overshadowed by the classical Viennese sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven. Part of his genius is that he is full of surprises and unpredictable turns, and this was hugely enjoyable for me during the musical partnership with the wonderful Kristian Bezuidenhout.”
REVIEWS:
Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout are performers of the highest level of technical polish, and I am especially impressed by Bezuidenhout’s imaginative and assertive pianism. Podger’s violin was built by the Genoese maker Antonio Pazarini (Pesarinius) in 1739. Excellent sound from Channel as usual.
-- American Record Guide
Across the later sonatas Kristian Bezuidenhout and Rachel Podger savor the qualities of coaxing, pleading, playfulness, and arresting quirkiness that signal their identification with the so-called Empfindsamer Stil. But nothing is ever cut and dried. The keyboard opening of the B minor Sonata, composed some three decades after its G minor cousin, sounds like a throwback to the teenage work. And, rich in Empfindsamer fingerprints, the Arioso with five variations proves to be a 1780 respray of an earlier work.
At one level, Bezuidenhout and Podger help to pinpoint the chronology, allotting a handsome-sounding copy of an 1805 Walther fortepiano to the later works and a Taskin-inspired harpsichord to the products of the 1730s. It’s just one example of the thoughtfulness with which they approach a set of performances that are as equally persuasive in the bustling, youthful incisiveness of the G minor and D major Sonatas, as in the pristinely-paced, probingly expressive whimsy of the Arioso. Their music-making is infectiously spontaneous yet tellingly ‘considered’ – seamless rapport and impeccably-judged articulation delighting in a stream of illuminating felicities. CPE Bach’s free-spirited sonatas have surely found their free-spirited match.
-- BBC Music Magazine
This is how it’s done, my friends. A completely scrumptious new release from the queen of the Baroque violin, Rachel Podger. In partnership with keyboardist Kristian Bezuidenhout, Rachel gives to us a bit over an hour of completely entrancing music by the often underestimated Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788), fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach.
There should be nothing underestimated about these keyboard and violin sonatas. They are imaginative, innovative, sublime. Add to this the impeccable performances, with that breath of life Rachel delivers so well in all of her performances, the excellent partnership with Kristian Bezuidenhout, and the utterly delightful recording quality from Jared Sacks, and one has an album to savor again and again. It is a must listen recording.
There is pure joy in Podger's performances, one feels her connection with music, the composer, and her audience. Kristian Bezuidenhout is her perfect partner in these works, As with Podger, his playing is not tied to a metronome. He plays, as does she, with a degree of improvisational exploration that makes these works far more interesting than in many other hands.
Listening to them together, one feels their connection in this music. I was particularly struck by this in their excellent performance of the Sonata in C minor which fairly danced with barely contained energy in the final Presto movement – their timing together is exquisite.
The shift from harpsichord to fortepiano and back again adds great interest to the recital. With the change in instruments, the texture of the sound changes. The balance of the violin and the keyboard shifts. Hard to accomplish in a live performance, but a delightful gift across the breadth of this recording.
-- Paul Rushton of Positive Feedback
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29, 'Hammerklavier' - Eroica Variations / Aimard
PENTATONE
CD
$14.99
$19.99
Save 25%
Jul 02, 2021
After his acclaimed interpretation of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard returns to PENTATONE with a recording of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Eroica Variations. The Hammerklavier Sonata is one of the pinnacles of Beethoven’s creative output, and arguably one of the highest mountains to climb for any pianist. To Aimard, it poses one of the most frightening tests of a performer’s life, but one that is as irresistible as it is insurmountable. The dazzling Eroica Variations are nicknamed after Beethoven’s iconoclastic Third Symphony, and employ the melody he would later use as the main theme of the symphony’s finale. Beethoven’s fondness for this melody is evident, as he also used it in his ballet music for The Creatures of Prometheus, as well as in the seventh of his 12 Contredanses. Widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time and as a uniquely significant interpreter of piano repertoire from every age, Pierre-Laurent Aimard enjoys an internationally celebrated career. He started his exclusive engagement to PENTATONE with a complete recording of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (2018).
REVIEW:
Having heard Pierre-Laurent Aimard give several intense and impassioned live performances of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier sonata over the past several seasons, his studio recording generally seems reserved and even foursquare by comparison.
To be certain, his exemplary technique allows for no vagaries of voice leading or textural misfires, while Pentatone’s production values do justice to Aimard’s tonal clarity and transparency at quieter dynamic levels. Still, there’s a pre-planned quality about nearly every breath pause, tenuto, caesura, and dynamic hairpin that somewhat dissipates the outer movements’ continuity and momentum. This is not a function of Aimard’s generally conservative tempos, although the fugal finale becomes heavier and less timbrally alluring as the music unfolds (this is true about most performances, to be fair).
Interestingly, in concert Aimard’s outer movements went for broke, while the Adagio sostenuto came off sounding relatively reserved and reticent. Here, however, Aimard’s expressive palette opens up, with a controlled freedom to the rubatos that culminates in a devastating climax. In the rising chain of broken fifths and sixths between hands just before the first-movement recapitulation (measures 224-226), Aimard reads the lower note upbeat as A-natural, rather than the so-called “inspired misprint” A-sharp, vis-à-vis Kempff, Petri, Brendel, and Perahia; I personally prefer A-sharp, as do Schnabel, Solomon, Arrau, and Levit.
Years ago during a public master class I heard Aimard spontaneously launch into a most inspired and unified reading of Beethoven’s 32 Variations in C minor. Similar inspiration and unity abound throughout his Eroica Variations, with more than a few audacious touches.
I like the force of his right-hand triplets in Variation 2, buttoned by brash left-hand accents at phrase endings, as much as No. 5’s ruminative delicacy. In No. 6, Aimard’s suave, effortlessly dispatched broken octaves enable the offbeat accents their due without pressing the point. All the more surprising that No. 13’s triplet chords and witty melodic appogiaturas don’t match the insouciant thrust one hears from Clifford Curzon. Yet the concluding Fugue has the variety of character and articulation that I expected to encounter more consistently throughout Aimard’s Hammerklavier Fugue.
– ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)
Haydn 2032, Vol. 16 - The Surprise (LP)
Alpha
Vinyl
$39.99
Aug 28, 2026
Joseph Haydn not only liked surprising his audiences, he also enjoyed a laugh, writes Christian Moritz-Bauer in the introduction to this sixteenth volume of the Haydn2032 complete recording of the symphonies. Take, for instance, the false conclusion of Symphony No. 90, composed in 1788: the music seems to have reached the last chord but, after a pause, the movement resumes to end with a powerful coda. Another example of Haydn's mischievous wit is the famous Andante "with the drumstroke" that forms the "surprise" of Symphony No. 94, a fortissimo chord designed to wake up audiences who dozed off towards the end of his concerts. In this volume focused on humour, Giovanni Antonini pays tribute to a great admirer of Haydn, Gioachino Rossini, by recording the sparkling opening Sinfonia of La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder), a one-act opera written in 1812.
Haydn: Symphonies 35, 38, 39, 49, 58, & 59 / Solomons, L'Estro Armonico
CBS Masterworks
CD
$24.99
Jul 08, 2010
These performances are distinguished by their clean textures, rhythmic precision, and some spectacular high horn-playing. It would be hard to imagine performances of more freshness and conviction.
The most remarkable of [these works] are the two minor-key symphonies that reflect the influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") movement in German literature of the time: the impassioned No. 39 in G minor with its four horns, which inspired similar works in the same key by J. C. Bach, Vanhal and Mozart, and the sombre No, 49 in F minor, known as La passione and the last and greatest of Haydn's symphonies in the form of the sonata do chiesa (with the slow movement placed first). Of the other four works, No. 38 in C - in Haydn's festive manner - with trumpets and drums and C alto horns, is particularly striking not least because of its stunning, concertonle oboe solo in the finale, probably written, as H. C. Robbins Landon suggests in the accompanying booklet, to show oft the Esterházy orchestra's new oboist Vittorino Colombazzo. No. 59 in A, known as the Fire for reasons that remain obscure, is full of excitement and dramatic surprises, such as the totally unexpected entry of the oboes and horns two-thirds of the way through the slow movement, and the extraordinary fortissimo horn call that interrupts the return of the main theme a few bars later. No. 35 in B flat is on the whole a sunny, exuberant work, though with an unexpected outburst of passionate counterpoint in the first movement's development section; and No. 58 in F has an almost chamber-musical intimacy and boasts an amusing menuet alla zoppa ("Limping Minuet") that frames a dark-hued Trio that sounds, in Landon's words,, "rather as if a group of slightly sinister Gypsies had suddently entered the feast".
The performances are distinguished by their clean textures, rhythmic precision and nice feeling for tempo; there is a tasteful, and never obtrusive, harpsichord continuo and some spectacular high horn-playing. Perhaps the two minor-key symphonies could do with rather more weight and intensity, but on the whole it would be hard to imagine performances of more freshness and conviction. Even the tendency towards short-breathed phrases in the slow movements and to vibrato-less bulges in the string playing seem less noticeable than before. The recording is every bit as vivid as were the earlier ones [released on Saga Records, now unavailable]—and that is high praise.
-- Gramophone [7/1982]
The most remarkable of [these works] are the two minor-key symphonies that reflect the influence of the Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") movement in German literature of the time: the impassioned No. 39 in G minor with its four horns, which inspired similar works in the same key by J. C. Bach, Vanhal and Mozart, and the sombre No, 49 in F minor, known as La passione and the last and greatest of Haydn's symphonies in the form of the sonata do chiesa (with the slow movement placed first). Of the other four works, No. 38 in C - in Haydn's festive manner - with trumpets and drums and C alto horns, is particularly striking not least because of its stunning, concertonle oboe solo in the finale, probably written, as H. C. Robbins Landon suggests in the accompanying booklet, to show oft the Esterházy orchestra's new oboist Vittorino Colombazzo. No. 59 in A, known as the Fire for reasons that remain obscure, is full of excitement and dramatic surprises, such as the totally unexpected entry of the oboes and horns two-thirds of the way through the slow movement, and the extraordinary fortissimo horn call that interrupts the return of the main theme a few bars later. No. 35 in B flat is on the whole a sunny, exuberant work, though with an unexpected outburst of passionate counterpoint in the first movement's development section; and No. 58 in F has an almost chamber-musical intimacy and boasts an amusing menuet alla zoppa ("Limping Minuet") that frames a dark-hued Trio that sounds, in Landon's words,, "rather as if a group of slightly sinister Gypsies had suddently entered the feast".
The performances are distinguished by their clean textures, rhythmic precision and nice feeling for tempo; there is a tasteful, and never obtrusive, harpsichord continuo and some spectacular high horn-playing. Perhaps the two minor-key symphonies could do with rather more weight and intensity, but on the whole it would be hard to imagine performances of more freshness and conviction. Even the tendency towards short-breathed phrases in the slow movements and to vibrato-less bulges in the string playing seem less noticeable than before. The recording is every bit as vivid as were the earlier ones [released on Saga Records, now unavailable]—and that is high praise.
-- Gramophone [7/1982]
E . T. A. Hoffmann: Missa; Miserere / Rupert Huber, Wdr Symphony Orchestra Cologne
CPO
CD
$18.99
Feb 25, 2014
E. T. A. HOFFMANN Mass in d, AV 18. Miserere in b?, AV 42 • Rupert Huber, cond; Sibylla Rubens, Jutta Böhnert (sop); Rebecca Martin (mez); Thomas Cooley (ten); York Felix Speer (bs); WDR Radio Ch; WDR SO • CPO 777832 (62:01 Text and Translation)
Butcher, baker, candlestick maker? Well, not exactly, but it wouldn’t be off the mark to call E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822) a polymath, for he was one of Germany’s greatest early Romantic writers of fantasy fiction and horror tales, a lawyer and a jurist, a draftsman and a caricaturist, and a music critic and serious writer on the art of music and its aesthetics. And, oh yes, by the way, did I mention that in his spare time he was a composer? His output includes a symphony, several stage works, a handful of piano sonatas, a piano trio, a harp quintet, and of course, the concerted choral-orchestral Mass and Miserere on this disc.
Hoffmann’s literary works are commonly cited as the inspiration for Schumann’s Kreisleriana and Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, but less often noted is that Hoffmann’s novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King was the basis for Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, and that Léo Delibes’s ballet Coppélia is also based on stories by Hoffmann.
Hoffmann’s literary works had more of an influence on 19th-century composers and the Romantic movement than his musical compositions did, for his abilities as a composer were judged to be more modest than his talent for the written word. Add to that his relatively small output, and it’s hardly surprising that there’s not a lot of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s music on disc. In light of this, what’s perhaps surprising is that this is at least the third recording of the Miserere I’m aware of. A performance on Koch-Schwann/Music Sacra with a different conductor and cast of vocal soloists, but the same chorus and, I believe, the same orchestra was reviewed by David Johnson in 12:4. And yet another recording, also on Koch Schwann, but this time with an entirely different cast of singers, players, and conductor—Rolf Beck, leading the Southwest German Vocal Ensemble and the Concerto Bamberg—was released in 1997, 10 years later.
Johnson was mightily impressed by the Miserere, calling it “a work of genuine, even astonishing power and beauty,” an assessment with which I wholly concur. The piece wasn’t published in Hoffmann’s lifetime, and the exact date of composition isn’t given. It can be deduced, however, that Hoffmann had to have completed it towards the end of 1806 or the beginning of 1807, for the work was to have been performed at the ceremonies earlier in 1806 when Archduke Ferdinand of Austria became the Grand Duke of Würzburg, but the score wasn’t ready in time. It didn’t receive its first performance until Good Friday, 1809.
It’s important to keep in mind when listening to this masterful piece of choral/orchestral writing that its date of composition coincides with that of Beethoven’s C-Major Mass, op. 86. Yet if I had to make a comparison to Hoffmann’s Miserere, it wouldn’t be to Beethoven’s chronologically contemporary Mass, but to a work of 17 or so years earlier, Mozart’s Requiem. Whether Hoffmann was consciously imitating the musical style of that work or not, it’s impossible to say, but the similarities are striking.
Listen to the sighs in the strings just seconds into the opening movement, and tell me you don’t expect to hear the mournful entry of the basset horns. Or tell me there isn’t a resemblance between the Miserere’s “Ecce enim in veritatem” and the Offertorium of the Requiem in the Süssmayer completion.
Understand that in no way am I diminishing Hoffmann’s effort. His Miserere is a gorgeous work, and there’s much in it that postdates Mozart stylistically, specifically the vocal solos, which tend to be more ornate and less liturgical sounding than what Mozart would have considered proper for a sacred setting of such a solemn text, and also in the more symphonic scoring and treatment of the orchestral parts. But as noted by Johnson, Hoffmann additionally takes great pains to fully demonstrate his contrapuntal skills, composing “grand choral double fugues that Bach, himself, could have found no fault with.”
However you hear Hoffmann’s Miserere—whether as an echo of Mozart, a sympathetic vibration with Beethoven, or a precursor to Verdi—it doesn’t matter, as long as you hear it, because it’s a stunning work, which really ought to spark a reassessment of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s output in general.
The Mass in D Minor is a little earlier than the Miserere, dating from between 1803 and 1805, but it’s composed on an equally grand scale. The solemn introductory measures followed by a running fugue is reminiscent of the type of Baroque overture one hears at the beginning of Handel’s Messiah, and simultaneously anticipatory of the overture to Mendelssohn’s Elijah.
As in the Miserere, Mozart looms large over major portions of the Mass. Listen, for example, to the Kyrie, which once again reverberates with recollections of Mozart’s Requiem. But now Haydn takes a bow in the joyful Gloria. Yet through it all, a new Romantic spirit infuses Hoffmann’s work. It’s not as daring as Beethoven’s adventures of the same timeframe, but then whose were?
One thing that deserves some criticism, in my opinion, is Hoffmann’s over-reliance on fugue. At first, one marvels at his aptitude for counterpoint, but when a fugue appears in practically every movement, not only does one begin to wonder if Hoffmann isn’t short on arrows in his quiver, but the recurring fugal textures begin to become a bit tiresome. Remember Saint-Saëns’s dictum: “A fugue is a piece where the voices come in and the audience goes out one at a time.”
Koch-Schwann seems to have taken more than a passing interest in E. T. A. Hoffmann back in the 1990s, for in addition to the above-cited recordings of the Miserere, the label also released a recording of this Mass in 1999, featuring the chorus and orchestra of the Capella Cracoviensis, led by Roland Bader. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard that one either, so I have no basis for comparing different versions of the works on this disc. CPO, however, rarely disappoints in its releases, and the soloists, chorus, and orchestra heard in these performances sound secure in execution and thoroughly engaged in the moment of the music. The recording, too, is excellent—open, spacious, bright, and detailed, without any reverb to muddy the singers’ diction. Very strongly recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas No 8, 14 & 23 / Freddy Kempf
BIS
SACD
$21.99
Jan 01, 2005
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
A generation of strict musicologists, literalist critics, and unimaginative performers will be offended by Freddy Kempf’s traversal of Beethoven’s three most approachable “name” sonatas, because the young Englishman is by no means strict, literal, or unimaginative. He seems to be goading us with the very first chord of the “Pathétique,” sustaining only the left-hand notes, creating an unexpectedly blunt strike against the keyboard (an effect he reproduces every time that passage repeats). The introductory material is full of hesitations and rubato that call to mind C. P. E. Bach, and the main theme takes off like the proverbial bat out of hell. Never does Kempf’s handling of the music seem arbitrary, but it is surprising enough to keep jaded listeners alert.
There’s tenderness and repose here, too, notably in the second movement of the “Pathétique,” although this movement also has its odd dull moments. The over-famous first movement of the “Moonlight” sonata is full of unexpected detail, although it is neither sentimentalized nor excessively dramatized. The final movement is fleet and assertive, with immaculate passagework, all the while Kempf proving that it’s not necessary to hammer the klavier. The “Appassionata” has fewer surprises, yet it’s keenly organized (listen to his absolutely right transition into the final presto pages), and fiery in the outer movements. In DSD surround mode, the recorded sound is close in a reverberant space, perhaps a bit harder in forte passages than is ideal; it’s more generalized and quite solid in two-channel CD playback.
Kempf’s Beethoven, while by no means outlandish (certainly not by the standards of a century ago), will not please listeners who frown on any little departure from the printed score. But it’s full of panache that never misrepresents Beethoven, and it’s that rarest of things, a new standard-rep recording individual enough to justify being released into a crowded market.
James Reel, FANFARE
A generation of strict musicologists, literalist critics, and unimaginative performers will be offended by Freddy Kempf’s traversal of Beethoven’s three most approachable “name” sonatas, because the young Englishman is by no means strict, literal, or unimaginative. He seems to be goading us with the very first chord of the “Pathétique,” sustaining only the left-hand notes, creating an unexpectedly blunt strike against the keyboard (an effect he reproduces every time that passage repeats). The introductory material is full of hesitations and rubato that call to mind C. P. E. Bach, and the main theme takes off like the proverbial bat out of hell. Never does Kempf’s handling of the music seem arbitrary, but it is surprising enough to keep jaded listeners alert.
There’s tenderness and repose here, too, notably in the second movement of the “Pathétique,” although this movement also has its odd dull moments. The over-famous first movement of the “Moonlight” sonata is full of unexpected detail, although it is neither sentimentalized nor excessively dramatized. The final movement is fleet and assertive, with immaculate passagework, all the while Kempf proving that it’s not necessary to hammer the klavier. The “Appassionata” has fewer surprises, yet it’s keenly organized (listen to his absolutely right transition into the final presto pages), and fiery in the outer movements. In DSD surround mode, the recorded sound is close in a reverberant space, perhaps a bit harder in forte passages than is ideal; it’s more generalized and quite solid in two-channel CD playback.
Kempf’s Beethoven, while by no means outlandish (certainly not by the standards of a century ago), will not please listeners who frown on any little departure from the printed score. But it’s full of panache that never misrepresents Beethoven, and it’s that rarest of things, a new standard-rep recording individual enough to justify being released into a crowded market.
James Reel, FANFARE
Nuit a Venise
Alpha
CD
$20.99
Apr 28, 2023
Venice was surely the capital of music and the arts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and one of the most coveted positions in the city was that of maestro di cappella at St. Mark’s Basilica. A few lucky chosen candidates succeeded one another in bringing to life the musical splendour of the basilica, all of them fabulous musicians and composers prolonging the legacy of the great Claudio Monteverdi. For its third recording on Alpha, the ensemble Les Surprises has chosen to sail towards Venetian waters and mix with these geniuses of affect, word-setting and theatre, exploring music that ranges from grandiose double choruses to intimate duets or trios combining sacred and profane.
Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Op 10, No 1, 2 & 3 / Mari Kodama
PENTATONE
SACD
$16.99
$21.99
Save 20%
Mar 29, 2011
BEETHOVEN Piano Sonatas , op. 10/1–3 • Mari Kodama (pn) • PENTATONE 5186 377 (SACD: 59:20)
This is the latest installment of a cycle-in-progress (though new to me) by Mari Kodama, a Japanese student of Nikolayeva and Brendel. Her playing is impressive in its refinement and control, if occasionally a little predictable. The three op. 10s make for a satisfying program, though they’re curiously presented in reverse order here (Beethoven’s own is more logical, with the biggest, most ambitious work placed last).
No. 1 in C Minor goes well, with few surprises. Kodama generally lets the outer movements speak for themselves—straight, incisive, dramatic, forceful, with effective lyrical contrasts. Tension is well maintained, with a convincing sense of real performance (vs. a recording-studio run-through). The Adagio is straightforward, perhaps to a fault—here I miss the imaginative flexibility and expressive depths others bring to the music (e.g., Schiff/ECM, Lewis/Harmonia Mundi, or the recently reviewed Ohlsson/Bridge and Ehlen/Azica). The recorded sound of her Steinway is rich, resonant, and close, but a little “plummy” for my taste, with a pronounced resonant overhang. Her playing is certainly not over-pedaled, but a real staccato articulation is in short supply.
This is a bigger drawback in the first movement of No. 2 in F where, for all the poise and polish, Beethoven’s numerous injunctions to very short articulations (e.g., at the beginning, bars 38 ff., and 47 ff.) are rarely effectively realized. The development has a slightly stolid feel (the second repeat is observed). The F-Minor Allegretto is taken slowly, to rather dour effect, with (for my taste) an insufficient variety of texture and attack; the Presto finale is kept well under control at a moderate tempo. In the last resort, I find this all a little too uneventful.
The big D Major receives the most consistently satisfying performance of the three. The opening Presto is richly varied, supple and sinuous, with an exciting surging momentum. The Largo e mesto is all dark, glinting marble, and in this instance the finale finds her relishing the music’s wide-ranging phrase and textural discontinuities.
So, a slightly mixed bag. But there’s much playing of real distinction here, and anyone wanting a high-quality version of the three op. 10s in state-of-the-art sound won’t go wrong. For the general collector, perhaps not a first choice (see alternatives mentioned above), but I’ll be keeping this in my collection, and can see returning to the first and third sonatas.
FANFARE: Boyd Pomeroy
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Satie Surprises
OUR Recordings
CD
$16.99
Jun 06, 2025
Erik Satie's influence, once barely acknowledged, has now permeated nearly every corner of modern music. Best known for the sensual simplicity of his tender Gymnopedies, such seeming naivety masked a colorful, and frequently, complex life and artistic vision. The experimental composer John Cage famously called Satie "indispensable," citing him as a profound inspiration for his own groundbreaking work. Satie's eccentricities were part of his charm, and this whimsy often seeped into his work. In Embryons desseches (Dried Embryos), for instance, he included absurd instructions in the score, phrases like "on the tip of your tongue" or "open your head," as well as giving his works absurd titles like Effronterie and Prelude canin, gleefully written to deflate the precious seriousness of classical music traditions. In contrast, there are works like Pieces froides (1897) that anticipate the rhythmic minimalism of Philip Glass and his visionary 5 Nocturnes (1919), the final series of his cyclically organized piano pieces composed using a highly complex system rigorously guiding the interplay of melody (right hand) and harmonic accompaniment (left hand). Even today, there are many surprises to be discovered in Satie's oeuvre. This specially curated program is brilliantly realized by Christina Bjorkoe, one of Denmark's leading musicians. Much in demand as a recitalist, chamber musician, and soloist with symphony orchestras, ClassicsToday praised Bjorkoe for her dynamism and passion. Her extensive discography includes critically acclaimed recordings of works spanning the piano repertoire from Beethoven to Borup-Jorgensen.
Ries: Grande Sonata Fantasia"l'Infortunee"; Fantasies
Piano Classics
CD
$21.99
Sep 06, 2024
New recordings of large-scale but little-known works by one of Beethoven's most influential students. Born like his teacher-to-be in the German city of Bonn, Ferdinand Ries studied with Beethoven in Vienna for several years during the first decade of the 19th century. He also worked for Beethoven as a copyist and secretary, and in 1838, shortly before his own death at the age of 53, published the first authoritative account of his master's life. But Ries was far more than a mere amanuensis, as a series of releases on Brilliant Classics has documented, with valuable modern recordings of solo, chamber and instrumental music. Ries's own instrument was naturally the piano, and his catalogue of works for the instrument spans light-hearted miniatures and ambitiously scaled, dramatic sonatas, much as Beethoven's did. In the latter category falls the Grande Sonata Fantasia which Ries composed in 1811 (the same year as Beethoven's Seventh Symphony). It is easy enough to hear the turbulent textures and melodic shapes of his teacher's famous 'Pathetique' Sonata in the background, but Ries could exercise his own imagination, which in any case was shaped by travel far beyond the lands around Vienna, unlike Beethoven. The weight of the sonata's singular form falls on the huge Presto finale, making considerable demands on the artist, which Gianluca Faragli conquers with the aid of a superbly conditioned modern Fazioli piano. The sonata's designation as a 'fantasia' indicates that Ries was anticipating the Romantic era's preoccupation with personal expression as the over-riding concern of creative art, and Faragli has coupled Op.26 with three more fantasies. Two of them are based on themes from Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro': display pieces, but by no means frivolous, any more than the darker subject of Schiller's poem 'Resignation' which inspired Ries to compose one of his most inwardly affecting works, written in the south London suburb of Clapham in 1821. In a lighter vein, Faragli adds the gypsy-style Introduction and Rondo composed once Ries had returned to Vienna with his English wife and three children. Thus the album surveys the course of Ries's creative life, as the pianist Alessandro Taverna elucidates in a detailed booklet essay. - Ferdinand Ries (1784-1838) was born in Bonn and moved to Vienna in 1801, where his life became closely related to that of Ludwig van Beethoven (also a native of Bonn.). Ries studied piano with him, copied his scores and was the interpreter of several new works, notably the premiere of the Third Piano Concerto. Ries also wrote the first biography of Beethoven, an invaluable source of first-hand information. - Ries' style inevitably is modeled on that of his master Beethoven, he was however strong enough to stand on his own. Ries also enjoyed a brilliant career as a virtuoso pianist. "Ries is rightly celebrated as one of the finest piano performers of the present day", a London reviewer declared. "His hand is powerful and his manner confident and often surprising. But it is his way of playing that makes him stand out from all the others, above all for his romantic wildness". - This new recording presents original piano works by Ries: the substantial "Grande Sonata Fantasia "L'Infortunee", Op.26, a Fantasia on Schiller's pem Resignation, a Fantasia on Mozart's Nozze Di Figaro and an exciting Introduction and Rondo Zingaresco. Music of great pianistic invention and instrumental brilliance! - Played by the young Italian pianist Gianluca Faragli on a modern instrument.
Beethoven: Early Piano Sonatas, Opp. 2-7-10
Brilliant Classics
CD
$16.99
Mar 20, 2026
An experienced early-keyboard specialist brings his expertise to the 'New Testament' of the piano repertoire. 'Period' performances of Beethoven sonatas have become relatively mainstream during the present century, through artists such as Robert Levin and Ronald Brautigam. Through them, we have learnt, or rediscovered, that the turns of phrase in Beethoven's musical thinking take on a particular shape and agility when played and heard on the kind of instrument for which he was writing. All the same, most modern fortepianos are exactly that: modern. In this bold new project, Simone Pierini presents the first nine of Beethoven's sonatas-from Op.2 to Op.10-on fully original instruments of the period. These instruments are identified as the work of piano-makers Johann Haselmann (end of 18th century-early 19th century), Matthias Müller (1822), and Conrad Graf (1830). Simone Pierini complements the sonatas with several standalone pieces: the Allegretto in C minor WoO53, Andante Favori WoO57, Bagatelle in B flat WoO60, the Rondos Op.51, Variations in D Op.76 and the Polonaise in C Op.89. The set thus surveys the first 20 years of Beethoven's career as a composer, from the Op.2 sonatas of 1795 to the Polonaise which he wrote in 1814-15. During those two decades, his style underwent far-reaching changes, which in themselves have come to define the passage from the Classical to the Romantic style in music. All the same, Beethoven was and is Beethoven all the way through, as inimitable and distinct in the coursing momentum and sometimes surprising breadth of Op.2 as in the inward gaze of the Andante favori and the sideways look at popular dances in the Polonaise: all of them, in their way, inheritances from and developments of Haydn's style. Simone Pierini's previous fortepiano albums for Brilliant Classics include sets of sonatas by Luigi Cherubini, JB Cramer (Beethoven's publisher in London) and Helene de Montgeroult. He brings to this repertoire a deep understanding of both it's context and the nature of the instruments on which these composers were working at the turn of the 18th to the 19th centuries: equipped with a lighter touch than many modern pianos, and a more intimate tone. Reviewing the album of de Montgeroult, the Fanfare critic remarked that Pierini 'plays with tremendous energy and conviction.'
The Beethoven Violin Sonatas: Live at Library of Congress
Doremi
CD
$45.99
$60.99
Save 25%
Mar 17, 2017
This outstanding release was recorded live at The Library of Congress on January 28, 30, and February 1 1946, and this is the first time they have ever been available to the public! Beethoven’s 10 Sonatas for Violin and Piano are performed by Henri Temianka and Leonard Shure, two of the finest musicians of the first half of the twentieth century. This remastered recording has received glimmering reviews: “The performances are magnificent: bold and fresh, technically fluid and musically insightful… exciting…elegant…exceptional grace… this duo balances formidable power with magisterial command.” (The New York Times) “A great hit in the Beethoven discography… one of the most beautiful surprises to the discophile in recent years… makes you hold your breath constantly… A priceless treasure.” (Diapason)
C.P.E. Bach: Flute Sonatas
Haenssler Classic
CD
$12.49
$24.99
Save 50%
Sep 11, 2015
A highly fashionable instrument in the 18th c., C.P.E. Bach used the flute in his compositions throughout his life. His works for the instrument, including the complete sonatas for flute featured on this 2CD set, frequently betray the influence of Friedrich II (Frederick the Great), yet the distinctive traits – surprising twists, sensitivity, expressiveness and new compositional approaches – of a composer as great as C.P.E. Bach often surface. Dorothea Seel plays a copy of a late-Baroque Transverse flute; Keyboardist Christoph Hammer on period fortepiano provides the accompaniment.
C. P. E. Bach: Berlin Symphonies / Zacharias, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra
MDG
SACD
$24.99
Nov 01, 2013
C. P. E. BACH Symphonies, Wq 174–75, 178–81 • Christian Zacharias, cond; CO de Lausanne • MDG 9401824 (SACD: 68:49)
Students and fans of C. P. E. Bach will rejoice in this recording of six of his short but feisty and innovative symphonies from the late 1700s. Although the performances aren’t quite as dynamic or lively as those by Hartmut Haenchen with the C. P. E. Bach Chamber Orchestra (Berlin Classics) or Gustav Leonhardt with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Virgin), they are certainly beautifully phrased and well articulated. The Andante and Largo movements, in particular, have a lovely sense of repose that Haenchen does not always achieve.
As the liner notes explain, the three-movement concert symphony began in Crown Prince Frederick’s small court orchestra. What the notes don’t explain is that it was essentially an outgrowth of the tripartite “overture” style developed by both French and German composers. This may explain C. P. E. Bach’s penchant for linking movements, something that was certainly ahead of its time, but it’s interesting to note that when other composers such as Haydn and Mozart began to emulate this style, they usually wrote three completely separate movements, thus un-linking the music. But, of course, there’s a lot more to Bach’s music here than just linked movements. The harmonic audacity (for its time), angular melodic structure ( far ahead of its time), and quirky pauses in the flow of the music (copied to some extent by Haydn, but largely unique to him) make his music much more than museum pieces. One example among many of his audacity and originality: listen to the agitated string figures in the first movement of the Symphony Wq 178, with their frequent and audacious upward key changes. They sound almost identical to the music with which Gluck introduces his “storm” music in the first scene of Iphigénie en Tauride. To be honest, I’m surprised that C. P. E. Bach’s music isn’t programmed more often in modern-day symphony concerts. It certainly holds up well and, in fact, makes a better complement to any 20th-century works that may also be in the same concert.
This is one of those cases where saying little about a disc actually says a lot. Any attempt to over-analyze this music or over-praise the performances would be futile, since this is primarily an auditory experience. Nevertheless, as I have tried to make clear, these are very good performances of some truly outstanding music.
FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley
Haydn2032, Vol. 16 - The Surprise
Alpha
CD
$20.99
Nov 01, 2024
'Joseph Haydn not only liked surprising his audiences, he also enjoyed a laugh', writes Christian Moritz-Bauer in the introduction to this sixteenth volume of the Haydn2032 complete recording of the symphonies. Take, for instance, the false conclusion of Symphony No. 90, composed in 1788: the music seems to have reached the last chord but, after a pause, the movement resumes to end with a powerful coda. Another example of Haydn's mischievous wit is the famous Andante 'with the drumstroke' that forms the 'surprise' of Symphony No. 94, a fortissimo chord designed to wake up audiences who dozed off towards the end of his concerts... In this volume focused on humour, Giovanni Antonini pays tribute to a great admirer of Haydn, Gioachino Rossini, by recording the sparkling opening Sinfonia of La scala di seta (The silken ladder), a one-act opera written in 1812.
Saint-Saens: Piano Concertos / Descharmes, Soustrot, Malmo Symphony
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Mar 10, 2017
Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release
Soustrot’s Saint-Saëns symphony cycle was quite good, and this new project looks to be similarly successful. For my money, the five piano concertos remain one of the most underrated groups of major works in the entire romantic repertoire. Yes, Nos. 2 and 4 get played more often than the rest, but there isn’t a dud in the bunch. It’s really only prejudice against the French aesthetic–the formal freedom, love of color, flash, and the dance–that prevents the music from getting the recognition that it deserves. That, and perhaps the fact that the melodious ease that informs all of Saint-Saëns’ writing makes a mockery of German pretensions to ownership of instrumental music in large forms.
These performances demonstrate a thoroughly “French” sensibility. Romain Descharmes savors the music’s charm and brilliance without indulging in excessive sentimentality. The First Concerto, with its surprising wiring for horns, has a breezy freshness that completely disarming. It’s played with joyful directness and a complete lack of affectation. I enjoy fast and dazzling versions of the Second Symphony, with its whirlwind finale, but Descharmes treats the piece with almost epicurean relish, nowhere more so than in this sassy, witty account of the central scherzo. There’s no lack of virtuosity, but also time to savor the music’s many harmonic delights.
Through it all, Soustrot accompanies with total confidence, and the sonics are terrific. A disc to savor.
– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)
Soustrot’s Saint-Saëns symphony cycle was quite good, and this new project looks to be similarly successful. For my money, the five piano concertos remain one of the most underrated groups of major works in the entire romantic repertoire. Yes, Nos. 2 and 4 get played more often than the rest, but there isn’t a dud in the bunch. It’s really only prejudice against the French aesthetic–the formal freedom, love of color, flash, and the dance–that prevents the music from getting the recognition that it deserves. That, and perhaps the fact that the melodious ease that informs all of Saint-Saëns’ writing makes a mockery of German pretensions to ownership of instrumental music in large forms.
These performances demonstrate a thoroughly “French” sensibility. Romain Descharmes savors the music’s charm and brilliance without indulging in excessive sentimentality. The First Concerto, with its surprising wiring for horns, has a breezy freshness that completely disarming. It’s played with joyful directness and a complete lack of affectation. I enjoy fast and dazzling versions of the Second Symphony, with its whirlwind finale, but Descharmes treats the piece with almost epicurean relish, nowhere more so than in this sassy, witty account of the central scherzo. There’s no lack of virtuosity, but also time to savor the music’s many harmonic delights.
Through it all, Soustrot accompanies with total confidence, and the sonics are terrific. A disc to savor.
– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)
Violin Sonatas: Strauss, Respighi / Little, Lane
Chandos
CD
$10.99
$21.99
Save 50%
Nov 13, 2012
R. STRAUSS Violin Sonata, Op. 18. RESPIGHI Violin Sonata in b. Six Pieces: Melodia; Valse caressante; Serenata • Tasmin Little (vn); Piers Lane (pn) • CHANDOS 10749 (65:50)
Violinist Tasmin Little has amassed a very respectable discography on a number of different labels, though of late, she seems to have settled in as one of Chandos’s house artists. Her recent recording of Delius’s Violin Concerto received an urgent recommendation from me in 35:4, so I really looked forward to receiving her latest release of these two late romantic sonatas.
On the surface, Richard Strauss and Respighi may not seem to have a lot in common, but their respective violin sonatas have been paired on disc before, notably by Kyung-Wha Chung and Krystian Zimerman for Deutsche Grammophon and by Frank Almond and William Wolfram for Avie. Strauss composed his sonata in 1887 at the age of 23. It’s an inspired outpouring of youth hardly recognizable as music by the composer that Strauss would become. Respighi’s B-Minor Sonata—an earlier sonata in D Minor dates from the composer’s teens—was written in 1917, exactly 30 years later than Strauss’s sonata, by a more mature composer of 38.
Strauss’s sonata will no doubt be permanently associated with Heifetz, not because he championed it and twice recorded it, but because of his callous and stubborn determination to perform the piece in 1953 before an Israeli audience that still considered Strauss a Nazi collaborator and whose emotions were still raw from the Holocaust. That little stunt nearly cost Heifetz his career when an assailant attacked him outside his hotel, striking his right arm with an iron bar. While I don’t condone the death threats and violence against him, I understand the intensity of feelings that were aroused. Heifetz had no one to blame but himself for his own arrogance and intractable insensitivity. He canceled his last concert and departed Israel post haste, not to return there again until 1970.
The shame of it all is that Strauss’s sonata was written half a century before Hitler rose to power, and the piece is a passionate and deeply touching reflection of the late 19th-century German musical culture in which Strauss came of age. Unsurprisingly, Liszt and Wagner, both recently dead, appear as frequent ghosts throughout the sonata’s pages, but another guest one meets, less frequently perhaps but still very much alive when Strauss wrote the piece, is Brahms.
Respighi is not an easy composer to categorize. Some see him, as they see Strauss, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, and Sibelius as manifestations of a resistant strain of late romanticism that persisted well into the 20th century, while others have referred to Respighi as an Impressionist. I think one could support either view. There’s no question but that Respighi’s sonata is the more modern of the two works on the disc, at least in terms of its approach to harmony and tonality, but it remains an essentially romantic work in its gestural language—i.e., in its sweeping vistas and appeal to the emotions, both public and private.
The last time I reviewed a recording of Strauss’s violin sonata was in 32:3. That Atma CD also contained violin and piano works by Elgar and Ravel in performances by Jonathan Crow and Paul Stewart which I called “a desideratum of indescribably beautiful music matched by indescribably beautiful playing.” Pardon the pun, but Tasmin Little brings more than a little of Crow’s eloquent and elegant playing to the Strauss, but I would also have to say that in some of the sonata’s more technically taxing passages, she can sound ever so slightly flustered; and while the notes never actually get away from her, one senses she’s making an effort to stay on top of them. Next to Crow’s Strauss, another performance I’ve long liked is that by Dmitri Sitkovetsky on Virgin Classics. He has the technical chops to pull it off smoothly, but I don’t find him quite as emotionally engaged as either Crow or Little. Whatever the reason, Respighi’s sonata seems to suit Little a little better, both technically and temperamentally. Her performance of the piece is lithe and fully responsive to the score’s rapidly shifting moods and colors. In my opinion, it easily outclasses Tanja Becker-Bender on Hyperion, whose reading I find somewhat flighty and rudderless.
Overall, this has to be rated a very fine effort, and not just by Little, but also by Piers Lane who partners her most excellently on the piano, and by Chandos, which provides its usual deep and vivid sound. This may not be the absolute best Strauss out there, but it’s definitely among the very best of the Respighis, and the extra three encores from Respighi’s Six Pieces for Violin and Piano make for a most enriching program. Easily recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
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Chandos have prided themselves on having a deep and long-term available back catalogue. Though distantly separated in time the present CD can be seen as an adjunct to two of the grand Chandos series of the 1980s and 1990s. The first was the Respighi orchestral music edition built around the Edward Downes BBCPO symphonies and concertos but supplemented by earlier discs conducted by Geoffrey Simon - still truly splendid - and later ones from Hickox and Noseda. The Downes and Simon discs would shine anew if issued in a box or boxes. The second comprised the half dozen discs they issued in the 1980s golden days of Järvi conducting the then SNO in the major orchestral works of Richard Strauss.
These two violin and piano works have previously appeared - although separately - on Chandos. There were in fact two CDs of the Strauss Sonata – one from Lydia Mordkovitch and the other from Sasha Rozhdestvensky. It comes as no surprise that the Respighi was also recorded by Mordkovitch. She contributed so much to the label that I have every reason to expect that, one of these days, there will be a complete Mordkovitch Chandos Edition. It’s certainly deserved – at least as much as a Takako Nishizaki edition for Naxos.
Little and Lane’s Strauss Sonata is flooded with melodic light and surges and muses with all the eruptive and serenading romance of the same composer’s Don Juan. Both Tasmin Little and Piers Lane are obviously up for it and flatter the 1887 Strauss with a most inward reading which makes it appear a greater work than perhaps it is. The stormy romance of the outer movements of the 1917 Respighi Sonata is emphasised by the utterly peaceful and romantically centred Sargasso calm of the Andante second movement. It stands head and shoulders above the other sonata movements on this disc, masterfully treading that febrile line between poetry and self-conscious sentimentality. Both Little and Lane have every right to be proud of their achievement here. Speaking of that mood we have three movements from the salon-destined and designed Sei Pezzi. I lament that the other three Kreislerian movements were not included – there was space. A puzzling and regretted omission.
With thanks to Chandos for commissioning a liner-note from the inspired Jessica Duchen. Such a fine writer and one whose Korngold book (Phaidon Press) has been unjustly eclipsed by the ‘major definitive biography’. The Duchen is much more than a valid alternative. Indeed, Korngold is a far from irrelevant comparison in the company of the two composers so nobly represented on this disc.
– Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International
Galuppi: Keyboard Sonatas No 1 / Matteo Napoli
Naxos
CD
$19.99
Feb 22, 2011
Galuppi is an original and Napoli's performance makes this a good choice for connoisseurs of 18th century keyboard music.
Galuppi is an original and Napoli's performance makes this a good choice for connoisseurs of 18th century keyboard music.
Though Baldassare Galuppi is rightly famed for his huge contribution to opera buffa, he was also a prolific and popular composer of keyboard music, particularly sonatas. When British pianist Peter Seivewright released on the Divine Art label a programme of Galuppi's keyboard sonatas in 1999 it was the first volume in a projected complete set running to ten discs and 90 sonatas. So far, and possibly because of ill health (see footnote), Seivewright appears to have got no further than volume 3 but in the last decade more sonatas have been unearthed, and there are now known to be over 130. This is the first Naxos CD devoted to Galuppi's music, and volume 1 of his keyboard sonatas. Volume 2 has not yet been released on CD, but is available as a download.
One immediate question about this recording - major or minor, depending on individual sensitivities - is the choice of a modern pianoforte (Steinway D). There will doubtless be many who feel that Galuppi's sonatas belong on a period instrument - whether harpsichord or fortepiano. The sonorities, slender textures and delicate ornamentations of his alternately late-Baroque and forward-looking pre-Galant music are sometimes partially lost in the lush, deep sound of Napoli's piano. Nevertheless, within these self-imposed limitations, Napoli's performance here is creditable - plenty of sensitivity, no misplaced showmanship.
There is no question, however, about Galuppi's masterly, mellifluous musicianship. Sonata after sonata is packed with beautiful melody and fluent invention, and it comes as no surprise that it was not only his opera music that was in great demand. But though Galuppi was himself a keyboard virtuoso, this is idiomatic music written with an eye on, or an ear to, the amateur player - it is varied, beautiful and rewarding, without being technically overwhelming.
Often the music is quite reminiscent of Domenico Scarlatti - the outer movements of the superbly imaginative Sonata in D, for example (incidentally incorrectly catalogued by Hedda Illy in E), or the ebullient two-and-a-half minute, one-movement Sonata in C, Illy 98. There are also reverberations of C.P.E. Bach, as in the refined Sonata in F and the thoughtful Sonata in F minor, and even of J.S. Bach, as in the Sonata in G.
But Galuppi is an original, without doubt, and Napoli's performance makes this altogether a good choice for connoisseurs of 18th century keyboard music, particularly those for whom the idiosyncratic colour of the harpsichord or fortepiano holds little attraction.
Sound quality is generally high, although the Sonata in C, Illy 57 does have a couple of minor imperfections that sound suspiciously like edit joins.
-- Byzantion, MusicWeb International Footnote The reviewer refers to Peter Seivewright’s ongoing series having halted at volume 3 ‘possibly due to ill health’. I want to point out for the benefit of potential customers (and the music industry) that Peter is very well indeed – he did in fact undergo surgery not too long ago but is doing very well; his projects (which include several CDs of Bach, a Reger disc and a series of American Piano Sonatas, have also been held up due to his work commitments – he moved from Scotland to help set up and manage the new Department of Music at the University of Trinidad and Tobago. His fourth volume of Galuppi has been recorded and will appear in due course, hopefully with the other projected volumes to follow a little more quickly than heretofore. Stephen Sutton (Divine Art)
Galuppi is an original and Napoli's performance makes this a good choice for connoisseurs of 18th century keyboard music.
Though Baldassare Galuppi is rightly famed for his huge contribution to opera buffa, he was also a prolific and popular composer of keyboard music, particularly sonatas. When British pianist Peter Seivewright released on the Divine Art label a programme of Galuppi's keyboard sonatas in 1999 it was the first volume in a projected complete set running to ten discs and 90 sonatas. So far, and possibly because of ill health (see footnote), Seivewright appears to have got no further than volume 3 but in the last decade more sonatas have been unearthed, and there are now known to be over 130. This is the first Naxos CD devoted to Galuppi's music, and volume 1 of his keyboard sonatas. Volume 2 has not yet been released on CD, but is available as a download.
One immediate question about this recording - major or minor, depending on individual sensitivities - is the choice of a modern pianoforte (Steinway D). There will doubtless be many who feel that Galuppi's sonatas belong on a period instrument - whether harpsichord or fortepiano. The sonorities, slender textures and delicate ornamentations of his alternately late-Baroque and forward-looking pre-Galant music are sometimes partially lost in the lush, deep sound of Napoli's piano. Nevertheless, within these self-imposed limitations, Napoli's performance here is creditable - plenty of sensitivity, no misplaced showmanship.
There is no question, however, about Galuppi's masterly, mellifluous musicianship. Sonata after sonata is packed with beautiful melody and fluent invention, and it comes as no surprise that it was not only his opera music that was in great demand. But though Galuppi was himself a keyboard virtuoso, this is idiomatic music written with an eye on, or an ear to, the amateur player - it is varied, beautiful and rewarding, without being technically overwhelming.
Often the music is quite reminiscent of Domenico Scarlatti - the outer movements of the superbly imaginative Sonata in D, for example (incidentally incorrectly catalogued by Hedda Illy in E), or the ebullient two-and-a-half minute, one-movement Sonata in C, Illy 98. There are also reverberations of C.P.E. Bach, as in the refined Sonata in F and the thoughtful Sonata in F minor, and even of J.S. Bach, as in the Sonata in G.
But Galuppi is an original, without doubt, and Napoli's performance makes this altogether a good choice for connoisseurs of 18th century keyboard music, particularly those for whom the idiosyncratic colour of the harpsichord or fortepiano holds little attraction.
Sound quality is generally high, although the Sonata in C, Illy 57 does have a couple of minor imperfections that sound suspiciously like edit joins.
-- Byzantion, MusicWeb International Footnote The reviewer refers to Peter Seivewright’s ongoing series having halted at volume 3 ‘possibly due to ill health’. I want to point out for the benefit of potential customers (and the music industry) that Peter is very well indeed – he did in fact undergo surgery not too long ago but is doing very well; his projects (which include several CDs of Bach, a Reger disc and a series of American Piano Sonatas, have also been held up due to his work commitments – he moved from Scotland to help set up and manage the new Department of Music at the University of Trinidad and Tobago. His fourth volume of Galuppi has been recorded and will appear in due course, hopefully with the other projected volumes to follow a little more quickly than heretofore. Stephen Sutton (Divine Art)
Pejacevic: Symphony, Op. 41; Phantasie Concertante / Rasilainen, Banfield, Rheinland-pfalz State Philharmonic
CPO
CD
$18.99
May 31, 2011
PEJA?EVI? Symphony in f?. Phantasie Concertante for Piano and Orchestra • Ari Rasilainen, cond; Volker Banfield (pn); Rheinland-Pfalz St PO • CPO 777418 (62:42)
Cpo, a label noted for ferreting out obscure repertoire, has outdone itself this time by digging up not just another female composer—that alone wouldn’t be so rare—but a Croatian one to boot. Heretofore, I don’t think I could have named a single Croatian composer of any gender, but now I can. Short-lived Dora Peja?evi? (1885–1923) was actually born in Budapest, the daughter of a Croatian father and a Hungarian mother, the Countess Lilla Vay de Vaya, an accomplished pianist and Dora’s first teacher. On her father’s side, Dora was descended from a distinguished noble family in Slavonia, the eastern region of Croatia. In composition, she was largely self-taught, but she did receive some private instruction in Zagreb, Dresden, and Munich. She died at 38 following complications of childbirth.
During her short life, she produced 58 documented works. That number isn’t particularly noteworthy compared to other composers who died even younger and wrote much more, but what is worth mentioning is that like another female composer, the French Louise Farrenc (1804–75), Peja?evi? competed with the boys in the arena of large symphonic, concerted orchestral, and chamber works. In addition to the symphony and concert fantasy on this disc, known and/or published works include a piano concerto, sonatas for piano, violin, and cello, and a piano quintet. During her life, her music was not entirely unknown in the music capitals of Europe; it was heard in Vienna, Munich, Budapest, and Prague.
The works Peja?evi? left behind, to the extent they were acknowledged at all, must have seemed hopelessly outdated by a musical intelligentsia preoccupied with the latest compositional novelties. It’s not just that she embraced a musical vocabulary practically indistinguishable from any number of late 19th-century Romantic composers, but by the time she came to begin her F?-Minor Symphony in 1916, completing it a year later, the era of the big Romantic symphony was on life support, or at least on recuperative leave. Mahler had pretty much seen to that a decade earlier. Last-stand efforts by Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, Franz Schmidt, and a number of others didn’t change the fact that the symphony, as inherited from the 19th century, was about to take on new forms and modes of expression in the 20th.
Peja?evi?’s symphony, like Rachmaninoff’s Second, may have been written in the 20th century, but it belongs to the 19th. It’s your standard-issue four-movement effusively romantic affair—a rich tapestry spun from strands of long-breathed chromatically enhanced melody, luxuriant harmony, and opulent orchestration. It doesn’t seem to be much influenced by the Mahler-Zemlinsky-Schoenberg axis, though perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise considering the very complex cultural cross-pollination of Croatia’s history by Hungarian, Italian, and even Russian influences. In fact, isolated passages throughout Peja?evi?’s symphony remind me a bit of Glazunov. But there are so many other crosscurrents going on in the score, not least of which is a passage at 7:54 in the first movement that sounds like it escaped from Dukas’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice . But it quickly morphs into something that sounds like it was lifted from Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony.
If there’s any surprise at all in Peja?evi?’s piece it’s how upbeat and optimistic it sounds for a work ostensibly in a minor key. Her melodies have an almost Italianate character to them in their lithe and graceful manner, and if the title and notes didn’t identify the piece as being in minor, I’d bet the farm it was in major.
The piano Phantasie Concertante came two years after completion of the symphony. In a single movement lasting almost 15 minutes, the piece is a virtuoso vehicle that alternates between Gershwin-like bluesy harmonies and jazzy rhythms on the one hand and keyboard figuration right out of Rachmaninoff on the other. Just listen to the broad, lush melody beginning in the cellos at 6:12 and the florid passagework in the piano weaving around and entwining with it. It could have come from the first movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto. I hope someone from Hyperion is reading this, because Peja?evi?’s Phantasie and probably her piano concerto as well are ideal candidates for the next volume of the Romantic Piano Concerto series.
When you hear this piece you will wonder how Peja?evi? could have been forgotten. If the climax to the lengthy aforementioned passage doesn’t sweep you away, I can’t think of much else that will. The fact that Peja?evi? could develop, build, and sustain a musical paragraph of such length is evidence in itself that the woman could write circles around many of her peers, male or female.
Pianist Volker Banfield is stunning, as are conductor Ari Rasilainen and his Rheinland-Pfalz State Philharmonic forces. Cpo has done it again. I thought I’d already settled on my annual Want List selections, but this dark horse entry is just going to have to push another pick aside. Urgently recommended.
FANFARE: Jerry Dubins
Romantic Viola Sonatas / Togawa, Grigoryan
Naxos
CD
$13.99
$19.99
Save 30%
Jan 12, 2018
These three works together constitute an attractive and generous programme. All three are little known although all have been recorded, if not necessarily on particularly high profile releases. There is not an abundance of chamber works involving solo viola and this disc certainly adds to our understanding of how a repertoire for the instrument emerged during the early years of what we now regard as the Romantic era. It also introduces a young recitalist who plays with an assured technique and no little passion. She is the German-born and trained violist Hiyoli Togawa who also has Japanese and Australian roots. Her well-matched accompanist is the Armenian Lilit Grigoryan. There is an interesting and rather confessional interview with Ms Togawa on the Naxos website in which she explains the appeal of these pieces and her philosophy in terms of their performance. To cut to the chase she characterises the works pithily as follows: “Onslow’s sonata reflects …..cheerfulness as well. …..Onslow’s sonata has nothing of Kalliwoda’s dreaminess nor does it have the deep seriousness of Mendelssohn’s sonata.”
Onslow’s Sonata is in fact his own transcription for viola of the first of his three Cello Sonatas Op 16. I have previously expressed enthusiasm for Onslow on this site, and this interesting sonata proves as imaginatively conceived and executed as his String Quintets which are currently being recorded by the Elan Quintet and released systematically by Naxos. While this sonata is not especially earth-shattering it is unusually democratic as the instrumental protagonists are clearly treated as equal collaborators. The opening Allegro is pleasing enough, amiable if rather conventional. The work’s true heart and highlight is the gorgeous Andante. It is odd how individual movements in Onslow’s large and unfamiliar output sometimes make one stop in one’s tracks. Such is the case with this limpid and tender Andante where violist and pianist demonstrate a deeply intuitive sympathy. Onslow’s stylistic influences tended to be Beethoven and Schubert but this early work hasn’t fully absorbed the spirit of these Romantic giants and I find there is something rather Gallic about it. Focusing on Grigoryan’s restrained accompaniment it’s possible to perceive something of French music’s future; it has a weirdly wistful and melancholic Faurean hue. The final Allegretto is contrastingly light as air and full of a youthful joie de vivre. It’s enjoyable, delightfully played and cleanly recorded.
There follows a rare outing for Mendelssohn’s Viola Sonata. I can hear some readers reacting with surprise – “Mendelssohn wrote a Viola Sonata??” Not only A viola sonata. In terms of the viola as we know it, ie not the viola d’amore, my research has thus far failed to turn up an earlier example of this form. (I’m sure somebody reading this will be far better informed….) It dates from 1824 when Mendelssohn was in teenage prodigy mode, although it has no opus number and wasn’t in fact published until 1966. It’s a dark inspiration and it nails its colours to the mast from the first bar of the opening Adagio-Allegro. Its gloomy countenance is tackled with great restraint by Hiyoli Tagowa as if to emphasise the contrast with the more conventional Allegro section which follows although this is not without its own moments of introspection (an 1820s example of teenage angst?). The melodic lines are unusually chromatic. The way the music simply fades at the conclusion of this movement is most novel, and beautifully managed by both players. Indeed the entire work is full of original touches and consequently its relative neglect is puzzling to me. It is scarcely believable that this sonata, with its unusual but utterly convincing structure and especially the brooding darkness of its melodic content could possibly have been produced by a boy of 15. The following Menuetto-Allegro molto will be familiar to anyone on nodding terms with Mendelssohn’s First Symphony (also in C minor) which followed soon after the sonata in March 1824 as it was reworked as the symphony’s third movement. The ensemble between the two players is again outstanding, the instruments have been very closely recorded but this doesn’t detract from the overall sound, which is truthful but never excessively so. The finale is more typically Mendelssohnian and employs his beloved variation form, though the final Allegro forms a kind of independent coda to the whole work, and sort of acts as a counterweight for the first movement fade-out. Another truly individual touch is the piano solo which dominates the final variation. This is lovingly played by Lilit Grigoryan who truly makes the most of her moment. It also underlines the fact that just as in the Onslow work, piano and viola are equals here. While this sonata is not necessarily a masterpiece of Octet proportions the viola repertoire is hardly overflowing and Mendelssohn’s early contribution to the form should surely be better known. It seems the most significant rival to this new recording is the one by Paul Coletti and Leslie Howard on a Hyperion disc from 1998 (CDA 66946), but this is a superlative account from Togawa and Grigoryan, the highlight of the disc for me.
It concludes with the equally unfamiliar set of Six Nocturnes Op 186 by the prolific Johann Kalliwoda, born in Prague in 1801. The notes tell us that these little pieces were among the works that kept his name alive at the start of the twentieth century, not least because they could be used for intimate family chamber performances. Nor do they appear to fulfil the stereotype of the ‘nocturne’ in the sense that the set alternates between slow and fast pieces. The fact that they were written a generation later than the Onslow and Mendelssohn works is reflected in a style that occasionally brings Schumann to mind, most notably in the last of the group which opens with a notably dark and chromatic flourish. Togawa most certainly does not hold back here, and the close microphones capture her 1749 Testore viola in really vivid sound which actually suits these brief and closely argued pieces admirably.
This is a terrific disc. My concern is that issues with generic titles like ‘Romantic Viola Sonatas’ often get overlooked by the record-buying public. I hope this review provides readers with the necessary encouragement to acquire it. It showcases another deeply impressive young violist (I was fortunate to be asked to review Ellen Nisbeth’s superb BIS disc of English repertoire late last year) doing her bit for the instrument. She also has the benefit of a sympathetic and generous accompanist and a warm, if close recording. While the Mendelssohn work is a standout, its companions here are far from makeweights.
– MusicWeb International (Richard Hanlon)
Onslow’s Sonata is in fact his own transcription for viola of the first of his three Cello Sonatas Op 16. I have previously expressed enthusiasm for Onslow on this site, and this interesting sonata proves as imaginatively conceived and executed as his String Quintets which are currently being recorded by the Elan Quintet and released systematically by Naxos. While this sonata is not especially earth-shattering it is unusually democratic as the instrumental protagonists are clearly treated as equal collaborators. The opening Allegro is pleasing enough, amiable if rather conventional. The work’s true heart and highlight is the gorgeous Andante. It is odd how individual movements in Onslow’s large and unfamiliar output sometimes make one stop in one’s tracks. Such is the case with this limpid and tender Andante where violist and pianist demonstrate a deeply intuitive sympathy. Onslow’s stylistic influences tended to be Beethoven and Schubert but this early work hasn’t fully absorbed the spirit of these Romantic giants and I find there is something rather Gallic about it. Focusing on Grigoryan’s restrained accompaniment it’s possible to perceive something of French music’s future; it has a weirdly wistful and melancholic Faurean hue. The final Allegretto is contrastingly light as air and full of a youthful joie de vivre. It’s enjoyable, delightfully played and cleanly recorded.
There follows a rare outing for Mendelssohn’s Viola Sonata. I can hear some readers reacting with surprise – “Mendelssohn wrote a Viola Sonata??” Not only A viola sonata. In terms of the viola as we know it, ie not the viola d’amore, my research has thus far failed to turn up an earlier example of this form. (I’m sure somebody reading this will be far better informed….) It dates from 1824 when Mendelssohn was in teenage prodigy mode, although it has no opus number and wasn’t in fact published until 1966. It’s a dark inspiration and it nails its colours to the mast from the first bar of the opening Adagio-Allegro. Its gloomy countenance is tackled with great restraint by Hiyoli Tagowa as if to emphasise the contrast with the more conventional Allegro section which follows although this is not without its own moments of introspection (an 1820s example of teenage angst?). The melodic lines are unusually chromatic. The way the music simply fades at the conclusion of this movement is most novel, and beautifully managed by both players. Indeed the entire work is full of original touches and consequently its relative neglect is puzzling to me. It is scarcely believable that this sonata, with its unusual but utterly convincing structure and especially the brooding darkness of its melodic content could possibly have been produced by a boy of 15. The following Menuetto-Allegro molto will be familiar to anyone on nodding terms with Mendelssohn’s First Symphony (also in C minor) which followed soon after the sonata in March 1824 as it was reworked as the symphony’s third movement. The ensemble between the two players is again outstanding, the instruments have been very closely recorded but this doesn’t detract from the overall sound, which is truthful but never excessively so. The finale is more typically Mendelssohnian and employs his beloved variation form, though the final Allegro forms a kind of independent coda to the whole work, and sort of acts as a counterweight for the first movement fade-out. Another truly individual touch is the piano solo which dominates the final variation. This is lovingly played by Lilit Grigoryan who truly makes the most of her moment. It also underlines the fact that just as in the Onslow work, piano and viola are equals here. While this sonata is not necessarily a masterpiece of Octet proportions the viola repertoire is hardly overflowing and Mendelssohn’s early contribution to the form should surely be better known. It seems the most significant rival to this new recording is the one by Paul Coletti and Leslie Howard on a Hyperion disc from 1998 (CDA 66946), but this is a superlative account from Togawa and Grigoryan, the highlight of the disc for me.
It concludes with the equally unfamiliar set of Six Nocturnes Op 186 by the prolific Johann Kalliwoda, born in Prague in 1801. The notes tell us that these little pieces were among the works that kept his name alive at the start of the twentieth century, not least because they could be used for intimate family chamber performances. Nor do they appear to fulfil the stereotype of the ‘nocturne’ in the sense that the set alternates between slow and fast pieces. The fact that they were written a generation later than the Onslow and Mendelssohn works is reflected in a style that occasionally brings Schumann to mind, most notably in the last of the group which opens with a notably dark and chromatic flourish. Togawa most certainly does not hold back here, and the close microphones capture her 1749 Testore viola in really vivid sound which actually suits these brief and closely argued pieces admirably.
This is a terrific disc. My concern is that issues with generic titles like ‘Romantic Viola Sonatas’ often get overlooked by the record-buying public. I hope this review provides readers with the necessary encouragement to acquire it. It showcases another deeply impressive young violist (I was fortunate to be asked to review Ellen Nisbeth’s superb BIS disc of English repertoire late last year) doing her bit for the instrument. She also has the benefit of a sympathetic and generous accompanist and a warm, if close recording. While the Mendelssohn work is a standout, its companions here are far from makeweights.
– MusicWeb International (Richard Hanlon)
Blondeau: Quatuors / Quatuors Ad Fontes
Alpha
CD
$8.99
Sep 01, 2007
From experience, I have learned to have high expectations whenever I am dealing with a CD released by Alpha. In every single disc I have gotten from them so far, I note extreme care in all the aspects of production: exquisite art design, a beautiful detail of an excellent painting on the cover, informative liner notes (always including a lengthy explanation of the aforementioned painting itself, which never ceases to delight me!), exciting repertoire, marvelously performed and equally well recorded.
The present CD is no exception to the rule, and it has an extra bonus: it presents a very curious and almost unknown version of three Beethoven sonatas, skillfully transcribed by Pierre-Auguste-Louis Blondeau, who published them in 1808–09, for the benefit of the refined amateur. I would tell you more about this forgotten master, but you know what? You should really get this CD, and read the text: it will not only give you a very good idea about the composer and his artistic milieu, as well as a step-by-step commentary on the movements of each sonata (Michelle Garnier-Panafieu wrote the liner notes), but will also provide you with a knowledgeable article (by Denis Grenier) on the painting by Marie Éléonore Godefroid which graces the cover. To hear Beethoven in this new guise is fascinating and fun. At the same time, a surprise and an experience in déjà vu. No matter how much Beethoven himself used to condemn such transcriptions, somehow the music fits very well for the string quartet, and engages our interest right away. Evidently, a large part of the merit belongs to the musicians of Quatuor ad Fontes, who play with real zest and just the right touch of grittiness. After hearing the CD, I wondered whether I would not find the original version of these works a little bit subdued, from now on.
This is a very good recording, which should be valuable to anyone who loves Beethoven, as well as for those who hate him (maybe they will enjoy Blondeau more than they do the Viennese master). It is a must for all who are interested in the early Romantic period, or in transposition, or in string quartet repertoire, or who simply want to acquire a beautifully presented CD as a gift to someone special. In short: for practically everybody!
Laura Rónai, FANFARE
The present CD is no exception to the rule, and it has an extra bonus: it presents a very curious and almost unknown version of three Beethoven sonatas, skillfully transcribed by Pierre-Auguste-Louis Blondeau, who published them in 1808–09, for the benefit of the refined amateur. I would tell you more about this forgotten master, but you know what? You should really get this CD, and read the text: it will not only give you a very good idea about the composer and his artistic milieu, as well as a step-by-step commentary on the movements of each sonata (Michelle Garnier-Panafieu wrote the liner notes), but will also provide you with a knowledgeable article (by Denis Grenier) on the painting by Marie Éléonore Godefroid which graces the cover. To hear Beethoven in this new guise is fascinating and fun. At the same time, a surprise and an experience in déjà vu. No matter how much Beethoven himself used to condemn such transcriptions, somehow the music fits very well for the string quartet, and engages our interest right away. Evidently, a large part of the merit belongs to the musicians of Quatuor ad Fontes, who play with real zest and just the right touch of grittiness. After hearing the CD, I wondered whether I would not find the original version of these works a little bit subdued, from now on.
This is a very good recording, which should be valuable to anyone who loves Beethoven, as well as for those who hate him (maybe they will enjoy Blondeau more than they do the Viennese master). It is a must for all who are interested in the early Romantic period, or in transposition, or in string quartet repertoire, or who simply want to acquire a beautifully presented CD as a gift to someone special. In short: for practically everybody!
Laura Rónai, FANFARE
Composer's Collection - Schwantner / Corporon, North Texas
GIA
CD
$27.99
Jan 01, 2006
An excellent companion to the recent Schwantner release from Hyperion is this compendium of the composer’s music for wind symphony: four original works (composed between 1977 and 2004) plus a transcription of his sensational and justly popular Percussion Concerto. Not surprisingly, my general comments about Schwantner’s work in the review of the Hyperion release apply here as well, so I will refrain from repeating myself. The chief difference, however, is that while the orchestral repertoire, which sustains itself through an immortal canon of “masterpieces,” strenuously resists new entrants, the wind-ensemble repertoire, younger and more flexible, welcomes newcomers readily. Hence, most of the pieces featured here have already developed widespread reputations through frequent performances.
The earliest work is . . . and the mountains rising nowhere. By the time this review appears, the piece will be 30 years old. It represented an important turning point in Schwantner’s creative development as he emerged from the academic world of serial composition into his own more poetic and evocative musical language. Its premiere by the Eastman Wind Ensemble at a conference of the College Band Directors National Association in 1977 reportedly made a stunning impact on the many band conductors in attendance, and gave birth to a new approach in composing for winds and percussion, one that left the neo-Classicism of much of the mid-20th-century band repertoire far behind. James Popejoy’s program notes for this GIA release state, “This work in particular has had a profound effect on the wind ensemble movement since its premiere and is generally considered as one of the most important and pivotal compositions for winds and percussion of the last thirty years.” . . . and the mountains rising nowhere is scored for amplified piano, 50 percussion instruments, orchestral winds and brass, and tuned glass crystals. The players are expected to sing and whistle as well. So strikingly original is Schwantner’s treatment of the ensemble that one is not immediately aware of the absence of strings, or that one is listening to a band. The performance here is extraordinary and breathtaking. The amplified piano plays a strong role in the work, as it does in each of the four compositions for wind ensemble. The brilliant Polish-born pianist Adam Wodnicki is credited as soloist in mountains. It is not clear from the notes whether he fills this role in the other pieces as well.
. . . and the mountains rising nowhere is so accessible that its impact is immediate, so it’s no surprise that it spawned so many similar works in its wake. Of course, some of these similar works came from the pen of Schwantner himself. From a Dark Millennium (1980), written for the Mid-America Conference Band Directors Association, is one such, and it almost outdoes its predecessor with regard to fantastic sonic imagery. This work also exists in a reduced scoring for chamber ensemble, with the title Sanctuary.
Schwantner’s next wind ensemble effort was In evening’s stillness . . .. Composed in 1996 on commission from the Illinois College Band Directors Association, it is very much like the two preceding pieces in overall concept, although, to its credit, it remains fresh and effective. In fact, Schwantner envisions that the three pieces could be performed as a single work in three sections.
The most recent piece presented here is Recoil, composed in 2004 for the University of Connecticut Wind Ensemble. It calls for a somewhat larger ensemble than the previous works, and is also a more active, exciting piece, with lots of rhythmic energy. All four of these works are immediate in their impact and vivid in their imagery, calling to mind visions ranging from ancient rituals of mysterious sorcerers to futuristic landscapes of other worlds.
The remaining work is the transcription for band of Schwantner’s 1994 Percussion Concerto, which he had dedicated to the memory of Stephen Albert, the gifted composer who died in a car accident in 1992 at the age of 51. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic on behalf of its principal percussionist Christopher Lamb, who gave the first performance, under the direction of Leonard Slatkin. The Concerto was recorded in 1998 by the celebrated percussionist Evelyn Glennie, with Slatkin leading the National Symphony Orchestra (reviewed in Fanfare 21:6) in a stupendous performance. It has since been performed numerous times throughout the world. In 1997, Andrew Boysen, Jr. transcribed the work for wind symphony, under Schwantner’s supervision, making it available for performance by the many highly proficient college wind ensembles. Like Recoil, just described, and A Sudden Rainbow (on the Hyperion disc), the Percussion Concerto displays the sense of direction and forward momentum often missing from Schwantner’s music, with the result that these three are among his most effective and fully satisfying compositions. The Concerto’s tremendously exciting first movement seems to show the influence of Steve Reich in its use of irregularly accented ostinato patterns. The elegiac second movement is the emotional core of the work—intensely evocative, conjuring an atmosphere of dark mystery, against which a soft, heartbeat-like motif grows gradually to a tremendous climax. The third movement returns to the rapid, rhythmically aggressive manner of the first movement, with a lengthy, partly improvised, cadenza. The transcription for band is highly effective on its own terms, giving no indication of anything “missing,” although I must admit to a preference for the orchestral version, when the two are placed in direct comparison. But the key factor here may not be the transcription, but, rather, the performance: although soloist Christopher Deane, a member of the percussion faculty of the University of North Texas, does an excellent job on the whole, he takes a curiously slow tempo in the finale, making that movement alone four minutes longer than in the Glennie performance, with the result that the finale seems a bit of a letdown. However, that is really the only criticism I have about any of the performances on this two-CD set. Throughout the set, the North Texas Wind Symphony plays brilliantly, and the sound quality of the recording is breathtaking.
As I stated in my review of the Hyperion release, enthusiasts of Schwantner’s music will definitely enjoy this recording, which may be ordered from www.archivmusic.com. However, some prospective purchasers may balk at being asked to pay $24 for a set that lasts only 83 minutes.
FANFARE: Walter Simmons
The earliest work is . . . and the mountains rising nowhere. By the time this review appears, the piece will be 30 years old. It represented an important turning point in Schwantner’s creative development as he emerged from the academic world of serial composition into his own more poetic and evocative musical language. Its premiere by the Eastman Wind Ensemble at a conference of the College Band Directors National Association in 1977 reportedly made a stunning impact on the many band conductors in attendance, and gave birth to a new approach in composing for winds and percussion, one that left the neo-Classicism of much of the mid-20th-century band repertoire far behind. James Popejoy’s program notes for this GIA release state, “This work in particular has had a profound effect on the wind ensemble movement since its premiere and is generally considered as one of the most important and pivotal compositions for winds and percussion of the last thirty years.” . . . and the mountains rising nowhere is scored for amplified piano, 50 percussion instruments, orchestral winds and brass, and tuned glass crystals. The players are expected to sing and whistle as well. So strikingly original is Schwantner’s treatment of the ensemble that one is not immediately aware of the absence of strings, or that one is listening to a band. The performance here is extraordinary and breathtaking. The amplified piano plays a strong role in the work, as it does in each of the four compositions for wind ensemble. The brilliant Polish-born pianist Adam Wodnicki is credited as soloist in mountains. It is not clear from the notes whether he fills this role in the other pieces as well.
. . . and the mountains rising nowhere is so accessible that its impact is immediate, so it’s no surprise that it spawned so many similar works in its wake. Of course, some of these similar works came from the pen of Schwantner himself. From a Dark Millennium (1980), written for the Mid-America Conference Band Directors Association, is one such, and it almost outdoes its predecessor with regard to fantastic sonic imagery. This work also exists in a reduced scoring for chamber ensemble, with the title Sanctuary.
Schwantner’s next wind ensemble effort was In evening’s stillness . . .. Composed in 1996 on commission from the Illinois College Band Directors Association, it is very much like the two preceding pieces in overall concept, although, to its credit, it remains fresh and effective. In fact, Schwantner envisions that the three pieces could be performed as a single work in three sections.
The most recent piece presented here is Recoil, composed in 2004 for the University of Connecticut Wind Ensemble. It calls for a somewhat larger ensemble than the previous works, and is also a more active, exciting piece, with lots of rhythmic energy. All four of these works are immediate in their impact and vivid in their imagery, calling to mind visions ranging from ancient rituals of mysterious sorcerers to futuristic landscapes of other worlds.
The remaining work is the transcription for band of Schwantner’s 1994 Percussion Concerto, which he had dedicated to the memory of Stephen Albert, the gifted composer who died in a car accident in 1992 at the age of 51. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic on behalf of its principal percussionist Christopher Lamb, who gave the first performance, under the direction of Leonard Slatkin. The Concerto was recorded in 1998 by the celebrated percussionist Evelyn Glennie, with Slatkin leading the National Symphony Orchestra (reviewed in Fanfare 21:6) in a stupendous performance. It has since been performed numerous times throughout the world. In 1997, Andrew Boysen, Jr. transcribed the work for wind symphony, under Schwantner’s supervision, making it available for performance by the many highly proficient college wind ensembles. Like Recoil, just described, and A Sudden Rainbow (on the Hyperion disc), the Percussion Concerto displays the sense of direction and forward momentum often missing from Schwantner’s music, with the result that these three are among his most effective and fully satisfying compositions. The Concerto’s tremendously exciting first movement seems to show the influence of Steve Reich in its use of irregularly accented ostinato patterns. The elegiac second movement is the emotional core of the work—intensely evocative, conjuring an atmosphere of dark mystery, against which a soft, heartbeat-like motif grows gradually to a tremendous climax. The third movement returns to the rapid, rhythmically aggressive manner of the first movement, with a lengthy, partly improvised, cadenza. The transcription for band is highly effective on its own terms, giving no indication of anything “missing,” although I must admit to a preference for the orchestral version, when the two are placed in direct comparison. But the key factor here may not be the transcription, but, rather, the performance: although soloist Christopher Deane, a member of the percussion faculty of the University of North Texas, does an excellent job on the whole, he takes a curiously slow tempo in the finale, making that movement alone four minutes longer than in the Glennie performance, with the result that the finale seems a bit of a letdown. However, that is really the only criticism I have about any of the performances on this two-CD set. Throughout the set, the North Texas Wind Symphony plays brilliantly, and the sound quality of the recording is breathtaking.
As I stated in my review of the Hyperion release, enthusiasts of Schwantner’s music will definitely enjoy this recording, which may be ordered from www.archivmusic.com. However, some prospective purchasers may balk at being asked to pay $24 for a set that lasts only 83 minutes.
FANFARE: Walter Simmons
