CD and Other Review

Review: British Cello Sonatas (Watkins & Watkins)

The third volume of Paul and Huw Watkins’ survey of British cello music turns to sonatas written after 1945 by Edmund Rubbra, Alan Rawsthorne, and EJ Moeran. All three are works that haven’t entered mainstream repertoire, but this CD makes a compelling argument that they should. Rubbra’s Sonata in G Minor shows his preoccupation with counterpoint and the music of the 16th century, even extending to authoring a short but fascinating book entitled Counterpoint – A Survey (now, disappointingly, out of print). Cello and piano work together in a way that’s reminiscent of the Renaissance masters of polyphony, but with a piquant 20th-century touch. By contrast, Rawsthorne’s work is highly chromatic and passionate, with moments of crystalline delicacy as well as shattering power. Similarly, Moeran’s Sonata is a stirring piece, sounding at times like a more chromatically dense Brahms. There are hints at his interest in folk music, particularly in the dark and roiling first movement. All three works are finely played and recorded but I have reservations about programming. Rawsthorne and Moeran back-to-back results in a solid 35 minutes of similar weight; both Rubbra and Moeran wrote short works that could have been added to cleanse the palate. A…

July 8, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Brahms: Piano Concerto No 2 (Pollini, Staatskapelle Dresden)

Maurizio Pollini’s two previous recordings of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, both conducted by Abbado, are the stuff of legend – the 1995 live recording in particular often being regarded as simply the greatest ever made of this strangely-structured but ultimately deeply revealing insight into the composer’s complex psychology.  So why record it yet again? Well, because Pollini’s towering musical genius (and yes, that description is offered by way of sober assessment) just grows and grows with time. Indeed, nearly 20 years is too long to wait for this, his latest State-of-the-Musical-Union address on what makes this four-movement work in B Flat such a compelling experience, even when it doesn’t quite have the bravura or colour-and-movement of its D Minor predecessor. And again, Pollini, now in his 70s, delivers with everything we’ve come to expect from him – the poetry most of all, especially as the piano enters after the famous cello melody at the start of the slow movement. Then there’s the humanity of it – you can tell just from the sound that there is a great, compassionate spirit animating it. And of course, for all the magnificence of Pollini’s playing, it still sounds simply like a direct line…

July 8, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Khachaturian: Violin Concerto (Ehnes)

I’ve always thought Khachaturian’s ballet music superior to his concertos. Even James Ehnes’ customary fusion of virtuosity and insight cannot convince me otherwise. Despite the contribution David Oistrakh made to its composition, if I had to sum up the Violin Concerto in one word, I’m afraid it would be “racketty”. Even the “exotic” arabesques, which must have seemed original in the 1930s were much better when used by composers like Dmitri Tiomkin and Miklós Rózsa in 1950s “sword and sandal” epics. Ehnes ennobles virtually every piece of music he performs but I think his prodigious talent is wasted on this work.  The rest of the disc contains string quartets performed by Ehnes’ eponymous quartet, a curious juxtaposition because, while the Khachaturian has never really entered the “canon” of great violin concertos, it certainly does have audience appeal. Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet is his only work in this genre to have gained permanent status in the repertoire, but it’s still a hard nut to crack for the uninitiated listener. It’s a work of emotional extremes, although the very opening is played here with a warmth I’ve never heard before. The second movement is demented (even by Shostakovich’s standards) but these wonderful…

July 8, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Donizetti: Rita (The Hallé/Elder)

A comic opera about wife beating? Not sure how it would go down today but in 1841, Donizetti penned Rita, a one act, to a French libretto. Due to various vicissitudes, not the least of which must have been the composer’s advancing case of the clap, it was never performed in Donizetti’s lifetime, premiering posthumously at Paris’ Opéra-Comique in 1860. It’s a slight affair. Believing her husband Gasparo drowned at sea, Rita has married the timorous Pepe. Gasparo used to beat Rita, she now beats her new spouse. When Gasparo, who fancies wedding another hapless maid in Canada, turns up hoping to destroy his old marriage certificate, Pepe sees his chance to escape his matrimonial obligations. Several farcical twists and turns involving games of chance and fake disabilities end in a duel, at which point Rita sees the value of Pepe after all and Gasparo heads into the sunset advising Rita to keep her fists primed for the future. Opera Rara have done their usual superb job with recording and packaging but it can’t quite disguise the thinness of the material. It’s late Donizetti, therefore it’s tuneful and crafted fare. The orchestra and conductor couldn’t be bettered and the three…

July 1, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Schubert: Winterreise (Finley, Drake)

Canadian baritone Gerald Finley teams up with one of today’s finest accompanists, Julius Drake, to tackle what many deem the greatest song cycle ever written, Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter Journey). Winterreise, completed in 1827, can be seen as a sequel of sorts to his 1823 setting of Wilhelm Müller’s Die Schöne Müllerin. Here, the lovelorn miller who drowns himself in a brook becomes the lovelorn poet who drowns himself in his own tears as his icy journey exacerbates rather than assuages the desolation in his heart.  As the cycle plunges deeper into the dark recesses of that heart, it becomes apparent that Finley’s limber baritone and Drake’s seemingly orchestral palette not only admit of an infinite number of colours and shadings; in songs such as Auf dem Flusse, Der Greise Kopf and Der Leiermann they reveal an acute psychological understanding of how Schubert’s delicate art finds fertile soil in the penumbral regions where reality and dream become one.  Schubert’s cycle was originally conceived for tenor (and tenor du jour Jonas Kaufmann has recently recorded Winterreise), but there is something in Finley and Drake’s febrile introspection and collective musical and poetic intelligence that recall Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten’s classic 1963 recording,…

June 26, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Szymanowski: Masques, Métopes, Études (Tiberghien)

When the war came, Szymanowski wanted to get away from German influences. The answer lay in the music of France and the dreamy harmonic language of Debussy and Ravel. How fitting, then, that this disc of largely wartime works is performed by a Frenchman.  Cédric Tiberghien treats the impressive colouristic range of this music with great sensitivity and deftness of touch. The Opus 33 Études are short, whimsical splashes of inspiration carried effortlessly by Tiberghien’s agile playing. The performance is expertly nuanced, and captures the quicksilver transience of the music.  You could call this music flagrant fantasy, and Szymanowski was nothing if not a dreamer. Following trips to Italy, Sicily and North Africa, the Polish composer developed a fascination with exotic locales that demanded expression. The Masques and Métopes, written between 1915 and 1916, draw on characters and stories from the mythic traditions of Greece, Northern Europe and the Middle East. Tiberghien’s take on the Métopes are particularly expressive. Calypso is like magic.  The vibrant wash is overkill at times, making the four Études of 1902 a welcome sojourn. Bridging the Masques and Métopes, the Op. 4 Études bear an affinity with the language of Scriabin, and reveal a younger…

June 26, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Paganini, Kreisler: Mister Paganini (Paris Chamber Orchestra/Kantorow)

Cementing his place as one of the most exciting violinists of his day, Laurent Korcia has delved into the tradition of the great virtuosi for his latest release. The 50-year-old Frenchman takes on Paganini, Kreisler and Ysäye and he comes out well ahead of rivals on points. The opener is Fritz Kreisler’s transcription of the first movement of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No 1. Even the excellent Chamber Orchestra of Paris can’t disguise the weaknesses in Kreisler’s orchestration which descends into schmaltziness and shows little evidence of his studies with Bruckner. The violin part, however, is pure Paganini and gives Korcia no difficulties. He is in similar sparkling form with Eugene Ysäye’s gemlike variations on the famous 24th Caprice accompanied by Haruko Ueda on piano. There’s more Kreisler – his transcription of Albéniz’s Malaguena, La Gitana and the impressionistic Petite Valse for Solo Piano, featuring Ueda again – before Paganini’s own variations on Di Tanti Palpiti from Rossini’s Tancredi brings this charming disc to a stirring close. Articulation, intonation and bowing are faultless; pyrotechnics handled with aplomb and taste – he knows better than to be flashy and vulgar. His ‘Zahn’ Stradivarius sounds stunning thanks to the Naïve production team who…

June 26, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Donizetti: Belisario (BBC Symphony Orchestra/Elder)

Let me say at the very outset that musically Belisario is one of Donizetti’s very finest works. Dating from 1836, it came hot on the heels of Maria Stuarda and Lucia di Lammermoor and it finds the composer at the height of his lyrical powers. It had a bumpy ride to opening night (see the excellent booklet) but despite cast problems and a libretto that had been turned down by a previous management Donizetti enjoyed something of a triumph. The young librettist, Salvadore Cammerano, was to become one of the century’s greatest, but here he fails to make everything add up to a satisfying dramatic whole. Belisario’s embittered wife, who in the first act looks set to be the prima donna, fails to put in an appearance in Act Two, while the tenor who turns out to be her long-lost child is an old saw long past its sell-by. The composer too made the odd slip – the perky second tune of the overture for example is at odds with the tragic nature of Belisario’s fall from grace, blinding and eventual demise. BUT, that aside, there are some superb scenes to be relished, especially in a performance as compelling as the one delivered here by the…

June 21, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Pfitzner: Cello Concertos (Gerhardt, Berlin Royal SO/Weigle)

A mere five years younger than Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner has had a problematic history as Michael Kater has amply suggested in his books on music under the Third Reich. A Romantic conservative, Pfitzner remained firmly associated with the musical trends of his youth (Brahms and Schumann) and given his vacillating anti-Semitism, has remained persona non grata. His only regularly performed work has remained the opera Palestrina, its three Preludes with their scintillating use of age-old modes keeping his name alive within the orchestral repertoire. The three cello concertos are very attractive in their way but conservative in composition, and in all of them the soloist Alban Gerhardt, Sebastian Weigle and the ever reliable Berlin Radio Symphony are equally responsible for maintaining a perfect balance between the cello and its accompanying orchestral forces.  The opening concerto in A Minor is a student work criticised by his teachers and lost during his lifetime, only receiving its premiere in 1977. Perhaps the best of the works is the often delicate G Major concerto Op. 42 which was written for the virtuoso Cassado with assured writing that never drowns the soloist. There is an earlier CPO recording of these concerti with David Geringas however…

June 18, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Handel: Tamerlano (Il Pomo d’Oro/Minassi)

Handel’s Tamerlano, written for the Royal Academy in 1724, is something of a secret pleasure for fans of 18th-century Italian opera. Lacking the magical stage machinery of the likes of Rinaldo, and with a low quotient of showcase arias to tickle the sensation seeker’s ear, it nevertheless has a claim to greatness. Why? It has one of the composer’s most grimly determined plots and a set of characters upon which Handel lavishes his utmost psychological insight.  In 1402, the Mongol herdsman Timur defeated his enemy, the Turkish sultan Bayezid, who history relates he had carted around in a cage for months afterwards. In the opera, the wicked (i.e. Eastern) tyrant Tamerlano has designs on Bajazet’s daughter, Asteria, and sends his ally, the Greek (hence noble) Andronico to convey his desires to the maiden and her vengeful father. Unbeknownst to Tamerlano, Andronico is himself in love with Asteria and from these complications a tense, potentially bloody political opera ensues.  Handel wrote the work at speed, as was his wont, but revised it at his leisure on more than one occasion in order to create as tight a musical drama as he was capable of. It culminates in a thrilling scene of…

June 15, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Holst: Orchestral Works (BBC Symphony Orchestra/Davis)

How good it is to have such excellent accounts of two major works for voice and orchestra by Holst. The first, dating from 1904 (and revised eight years later) is The Mystic Trumpeter, a setting of Walt Whitman featuring a soprano solo, and the second is the First Choral Symphony, a four-movement work with texts by Keats for soprano, chorus and orchestra. This recording might have come to light some years ago were it not for the untimely death of Richard Hickox in 2008, who passed away just as the project was beginning. Andrew Davis has more than ably assumed Hickox’s mantle and with Susan Gritton (who had begun work with the late conductor) he invests these works with all the colour and drama they demand. In The Mystic Trumpeter the overtly musical references of Whitman’s text help give shape and coherence to Holst’s musical language, allowing the composer to distance himself further from the Wagnerian idioms of which he was overly fond and edge closer to a unique personal style. The varied and often delicate nature of the orchestration allows a clear and effective presentation of Whitman’s paean to love, freedom and joy. Lasting just under 20 minutes, the…

June 15, 2014
CD and Other Review

Review: Beethoven: Piano works (Brautigam)

Hearing Beethoven’s piano works played on instruments he would have known was an exciting novelty 40 years ago thanks to the early experiments by Paul Badura-Skoda and Jörg Demus (on not-terribly-well restored Conrad Grafs and Broadwoods), which despite their jangling tone and rattly action gave us the startling revelation of the true “una corda” pedal and the sensation of the wild composer-pianist stretching the possibilities of the instrument to near breaking point.  Thanks to the advances in sensitive restoration, and some marvellous craftsmen building impeccable copies, we now have more sense of the peculiar characteristic beauties that were lost in the search for improvements in volume and evenly graduated tone while the more polished results carry their own musical validity.  Ronald Brautigam has proven this with his marvellous survey of the complete works played on superb sounding copies by Paul McNulty. With the masterworks now all dealt with we are coming to the fag end of the series, but there are still plenty of delights revealed in fresh colours and the particular tonal qualities and domestic nature of the fortepiano elevates the most slight of Beethoven’s scribblings. This volume might seem a mere completist appendix but makes a delightful 68-minute…

June 15, 2014