Xiayin Wang has recorded nearly a dozen CDs. Tchaikovsky – Piano Concerto No.2; Khachaturian – Piano Concerto; Royal Scottish National Orchestra; Peter Oundjian (Chandos CHSA 5167) is her fifth for this label.

The Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.2 is a big play at almost 45 minutes. This recording is of the original version, not the shorter one with significant cuts by Taneyev to the second movement. Wang proves to be a very precise player with a lot of stamina for whom Tchaikovsky’s wilder passages pose no difficulty. She is also comfortable with long interpretive pauses that give better definition to the deluge of musical ideas the composer releases in the opening movement.

Very much in command of her music when pitted against the orchestra, she also plays beautifully when more exposed with only solo violin and cello, as she is in the second movement. Similarly, in the Khachaturian Piano Concerto, Wang sustains long passages of simple octaves with great discipline, always sensitive to the mystery of the work’s Asiatic atmosphere.

Toronto-born conductor Peter Oundjian leads the Royal Scottish National Orchestra of which he has been music director since 2012. The RSNO is superb and deservedly claims its reputation as one of Europe’s leading orchestras. Both concertos require a broad range of stylistic and dynamic expression which the orchestra handles beautifully. They do especially well with the often angular nature of the Khachaturian. This recording brings together a wonderful team of musicians in a pair of truly demanding works. The result is a highly energized and superb performance.

With all 32 Beethoven sonatas in his discography, Christian Leotta has now added Beethoven – Diabelli Variations (ATMA ACD2 2485) to his growing list of recordings.

The Diabelli Variations have a history of divided critical opinion. At worst, Anton Diabelli’s original theme is considered a trite offering containing very little that any composer can use for a credible variation. That Beethoven used the material to write an entire set of 33 variations, is then something of a miracle that speaks directly to the composer’s inventive gift. Regardless of the theme’s actual merits, or lack of them, a performer needs to understand what Beethoven is actually doing in each variation in order to perform them intelligently.

This is where Leotta proves his standing as a highly respected Beethoven interpreter. He understands that Beethoven uses as little as a single interval and often barely more than that, a pick-up note, an ornament or a rhythmic pattern, to construct his variations. He remains highly focused on this, and in doing so holds the set of variations together despite its diverse moments of comedy, tumult, melancholy and contemplation.

Leotta has discerned Beethoven’s deepest imprint and conveys it in each of these utterances. What he makes clear by the end of it all is that Beethoven’s creative genius is for him, supreme.

Timothy Steeves, known for his six recordings with violinist Nancy Dahl as Duo Concertante, has now released his first solo disc, Haydn Sonatas (Marquis MAR 469). Steeves admits to having a lifelong admiration for Haydn’s music and his choice of the three sonatas on this disc is meant to show Haydn’s creativity and originality. While the modern ear may have difficulty in hearing this music as original, because of its similarities to baroque and Mozartian works, a quick self-reminder as to where Haydn sits historically helps place him as the significant bridge from the baroque to the classical period.

Steeves plays with great clarity, required especially in the upper voices where Haydn tends to nest his melodies. He has a touch that demonstrates impressive control of tonal colouring, so important in the slow movements of the sonatas. The Adagio of the Sonata in A-Flat Major Hob.XVI:46 is an example of how Steeves gives the middle register a lovely dark sound while it supports a brighter upper voice. And while Haydn rarely creates the complex counterpoint we associate with Bach, Steeves pulls out inner voices whenever Haydn sends them lower down the keyboard.

The Sonata in C Minor Hob.XVI:20 opening movement is a telling example of how ornamentation remained a staple of keyboard writing style from the Renaissance, through the baroque and into the classical period. Steeves is meticulous throughout the first movement where Haydn has inserted trills and grace notes liberally. The Andante is noteworthy for the freedom Steeves takes with its phrasings, slowing a select few to a near stop to heighten the impact of their final cadence.

Steeves’ affection for Haydn is obvious and makes this a recording worth having.

Winner of the 14th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Vadym Kholodenko has released a new recording with a varied program showing his remarkable versatility. In Tchaikovsky/Balakirev/Chaplygin/Kurbatov (Melodiya MEL CD 10 02365), Kholodenko opens with Balakirev’s Sonata No.2 in B-Flat Minor Op.102, a beautiful if curious work. The first movement begins with a contrapuntal idea that could have been written by Bach, and this is exactly how Kholodenko plays it. The second and third movements become increasingly Chopinesque until the Finale leaves no doubt where Balakirev’s French stylistic influences originate.

Despite this kaleidoscope of voices, Kholodenko provides a consistent and expressive approach. His playing style feels very choreographic. His keyboard presence is graceful yet powerful but not overbearing. Videos of his performances show him to be a physically restrained pianist but highly focused on expressiveness and this is, in fact, the first and most lasting impression he makes.

Tchaikovsky’s rarely heard Six Pieces on a Single Theme, Op. 21 is the only such short cycle he wrote. It uses a 15-note series embedded in the opening bars of each piece, varied only in rhythm. Kholodenko treats each section as a distinct character piece and closes the work with an impressive and energetic Scherzo.

Little Cyprian Music (2003) by Evgeny Chaplygin is a contemporary piece that compiles a series of musical impressions of a holiday on that island. It’s richly textured and technically very demanding in some passages. Kholodenko focuses on the composer’s intent in conveying the dance-like nature and Eastern flavour of Cypriot music.

French pianist Jonas Vitaud has only a few recordings to his credit, and while he’s already in his mid-30s, his remarkable playing would suggest we should really be hearing more from him. His newest recording Tchaikovsky – Les Saisons (Mirare MIR 308) offers two starkly contrasting works.

The Seasons Op.37a is an introspective work constructed on a calendar scheme with 12 sections. The music has some programmatic content based on activities or events associated with each month of the year. It is, more significantly, marked by a constant presence of fragility that is perhaps best known in the often quoted Barcarolle representing June. Even December – Noël concludes the cycle lightly and quietly. Maintaining this emotional posture with only a few energetic releases in sections like La Chasse is a challenge that Vitaud handles beautifully. His tenderness and fragility never convey weakness but seem perfectly poised. His playing is assured, even in the most tentative of Tchaikovsky’s moments.

By contrast, the Grand Sonata in G Major Op.37 begins with huge chordal gestures of confidence. These are echoed with even greater energy in the closing movement and played at furious speed. Still, the Grand Sonata contains a remarkable moment in the second movement Andante (about a third of the way through) where Vitaud strikes a dense chord and lets it sustain with all the dampers up off the strings. The resulting resonances grow by the moment into a rich texture not achievable by any other means. It’s a stunning device that he repeats near the end of the movement with the same result. It’s brilliant and creative.

We need more recordings by this fine musician who’s definitely worth hearing.

Piano four-hands offers a texture not quite achieved in any other keyboard configuration. The possibilities for density and polyphony have enticed composers since keyboards became commonplace. Pianists Jerome Lowenthal and Michael Brown have just released Americans in Paris (Concert Artists Guild Records VEC 116 concertartists.org) and recorded some favourites including the Ravel Ma mère l’Oye that includes short bits of introductory narration to setup the fairy-tale background of each segment.

Samuel Barber’s Souvenirs Op.28 is a compilation of dances set in New York’s Plaza Hotel about 1914 and evokes the music Barber would have heard as a boy when taken there by his mother for tea. Lowenthal and Brown make an outstanding piano duo and deliver these dances, many of which have ample humour injected into them, with impeccable precision.

Plenty of piano students have played the four-hands Dolly Suite Op.56 by Gabriel Fauré. This performance is well-paced. Messieu Aoul and Le pas espagnol are especially admirable for the coordinated energy and execution they require.

The highlight of the CD is a four-hands arrangement of George Gershwin’s An American in Paris. It’s an autobiographical work recounting Gershwin’s own time there in the mid-1920s. It features some obvious references early in the work to the set of authentic Parisian taxi horns Gershwin had purchased during his trip. Lowenthal and Brown seem most at home in this piece, really feeling the deep melancholy of the blues section, as well as the jazzy syncopations that drive so much of the music.

Ernst Krenek was one of the 20th century’s most stylistically complete composers whose vocabulary gave him creative access to both historical and contemporary expression. On Ernst Krenek – Piano Music, Volume One (Toccata Classics TOCC 0298), Ukrainian-born Stanislav Khristenko performs a well-balanced program of Krenek’s compositions.

The Piano Sonata No.4 Op.114 (1948) is a work in which Khristenko demonstrates Krenek’s ability to move seamlessly between ideas that are tonally centred and others that aren’t. Khristenko not only captures the neo-romantic essence of Krenek’s language, but also the unsettling elements of the composer’s early life that express themselves in the edgy phrasing he uses to evoke the changed world emerging from the two world wars.

Khristenko’s choice of the George Washington Variations, Op.120 (1950) is especially entertaining for its use of all of Krenek’s favourite devices. Deployed as they are, they move an opening 19th-century military march through a metamorphosis of clever changes in which Khristenko never lets go of the initial musical idea.

Krenek held a lifelong devotion to the music of Franz Schubert. He spent years coming to understand the genius of Schubert’s music, its design and balance, especially as present in his lieder. Krenek’s decision to complete Schubert’s Piano Sonata in C Major D840 is based solely on the existence of sufficient thematic material in the final two movements to make credible development possible. Naturally, it’s difficult to listen to this Schubert without also listening for some Krenek.

Khristenko is also currently working on recording the complete works of Krenek as well as a recording of Soler sonatas.

It can be understandably difficult to get terribly excited about a recording of an upright piano, especially if it’s old, really old, say 1834. So why would Alex Szilasi record Chopin Berceuse, Barcarolle & Impromptus (Hungaroton HCD32473) on an old Pleyel upright? Evidently this one is special – Chopin played it. Pleyel Company archives show that Chopin played it at the factory in Paris and selected it for the Russian ambassador. He liked this particular model so much that he ordered one for himself. Both instruments were delivered to adjacent apartments at the ambassador’s residence where Chopin was a frequent guest. While Chopin’s piano was eventually lost, the other instrument has survived fully authenticated. This is its recording debut.

Chopin favoured the Pleyel piano for its soft tone. It was double-strung in its middle and upper registers and therefore softer than later triple-strung instruments. It responds to the gentlest touch to produce nearly inaudible pianissimos. Aggressive or heavy touch tends to cause distortion on these instruments, so Chopin would have favoured them for very specific repertoire, and certainly nothing terribly bombastic, hence this CD’s program of more tender compositions.

Szilasi creates some amazing effects with the instrument. The rapid chromatic runs in the right hand through the upper octaves of the keyboard sound extremely fragile like a web of silk threads, yet they remain clear although very soft. This is best heard in the Impromptu in F-Sharp Major Op.36. The familiar Fantasie-Impromptu in C-Sharp Minor Op.72 is also a dramatic contrast to the more muscular performances commonly heard on modern pianos.

Alex Szilasi has created a thought-provoking recording that gives us a glimpse of how Chopin would have heard and played his own music 180 years ago.

Alessandro Scarlatti – La Gloria di Primavera
Moore; Ograjenšek; van der Linde; Phan; Williams; Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra & Chorale; Nicholas McGegan
Philharmonia PDP-09

Alessandro Scarlatti was a major composer of the early 18th century, particularly known as a composer of opera. Since then his work has virtually disappeared. La gloria di primavera is not an opera but a serenata composed to mark the birth of the Archduke Leonard, the son of the emperor Charles VI, in 1716. Structurally the work is like an opera seria, with its alternation of recitatives and arias (mostly da capo), only one duet and few ensembles. The characters are allegories of the four seasons: Spring (the mezzo Diana Moore), Summer (the soprano Suzana Ograjenšek), Autumn (the countertenor Clint van der Linde) and Winter (the tenor Nicholas Phan). The four cannot agree on who can take the credit for the birth of the baby and they agree to ask Jove (the bass-baritone Douglas Williams) to adjudicate.

The singing and the orchestral playing on this CD are splendid but overall my sense is that the work does not represent Scarlatti at his best. The section near the end contrasting the devastation caused by the War of the Spanish Succession with the peace established in 1713 (the Peace of Utrecht) is splendid, but the basic plot strikes me as pretty flimsy.

La Pentecôte: Bach – Cantates 68, 173, 174, 184
Mauch; Bertin; Daniels; Sarragosse; Montréal Baroque; Eric Milnes
ATMA ACD2 2405

Ferdinando Bertoni – Orfeo
Genaux; Lombardi-Mazzulli; Petryka; Accademia di Santo Spirito de Ferrara; Ensemble Lorenzo da Ponte; Roberto Zarpellon
Fra Bernardo FB 1601729 (frabernardo.com)

Ferdinando Bertoni’s Orfeo ed Euridice was first performed in 1776, 14 years after Gluck’s opera on the same subject. The two operas use the same libretto (by Calzabigi) and, in both cases, the role of Orfeo was first sung by the castrato Gaetano Guadagno. Bertoni was clearly aware of the Gluck opera and the two works have a great deal in common: no more da capo arias and an increased role for the orchestra and for the chorus. No one is likely to prefer Bertoni’s work to that of Gluck: it lacks the aggressiveness of the Furies or the celestial calm of the Elysian Fields or the pathos of Orfeo’s lament when he loses Eurydice for the second time. The English 18th-century musicologist Charles Burney once wrote that Bertoni’s operas “would please and soothe by their grace and facility, but not disturb an audience by enthusiastic turbulence.” The comment is a little snarky and certainly very English but not altogether unfair.

Casting a singer for a role created by a castrato always involves problems. John Eliot Gardiner has both performed and recorded Gluck’s opera and has always used a countertenor in the main part. He argues that casting a female mezzo or alto constitutes a “deplorable” distortion. But we don’t really know what an 18th-century castrato sounded like and we have no guarantee that a modern countertenor comes closer than a female singer. In this recording the part of Orfeo is taken by the mezzo Vivica Genaux and she is splendid.

It is probably true that Bertoni “never had sufficient genius and fire to attain the sublime” (Burney again) and that he was not a major composer like Gluck. Still, there is plenty to enjoy in this recording. Recommended.

Schubert – Winterreise
Jesse Blumberg; Martin Katz
Blue Griffin Records BGR393
(bluegriffin.com)

Bizet – Carmen
Rice; Hymel; Argiris; Kovalevska; Royal Opera House; Constantinos Carydis
Opus Arte OA 1197 D

Bizet – Les Pêcheurs de perles
Ciofi; Korchak; Solari; Tagliavini; Orchestra e Coro del Teatro di San Carlo; Gabriele Ferro
Cmajor 719508

This release calls itself a film, but in reality it’s a DVD of Francesca Zambello’s 2006 staging that has seen better days like Jonas Kaufmann and Anna Caterina Antonacci, big name stars, but in another video. There were movies made of Carmen very successfully in the past with beautiful Seville as backdrop, real mountains, real bullfights, but this is nothing of the sort. It is shot in HD and even in 3D, obviously aimed at the mass market, because “Carmen sells” even for people who don’t know or care much about opera. The score is cut heavily by leaving out the “boring bits” like the intermezzos between acts, some of Bizet’s most beautiful music, making a rather short opera even shorter. The staging is traditional, expertly directed with unremarkable sets that leave lots of empty space for big crowds. There are all kinds of animals on stage, chickens, a donkey plus a beautiful black horse that carries in the torero Escamillo (Aris Argiris) who sings his big entry number on horseback. The production deserves praise for giving a chance to young singers who are attractive, enthusiastic, look the part, relaxed and athletic with fine, strong voices.

American tenor Bryan Hymel is no Alagna or Kaufmann, but has a strong, attractive voice and a certain vulnerability of character that makes him a believable Don José. His Flower Aria gets the biggest applause, deservedly. The role of Carmen is certainly what makes or breaks this opera and ROH chose mellifluous British mezzo Christine Rice who puts in an energetic and compelling performance and develops her character nicely from a seductress to tragic, defiant heroine, but the seconda donna, Maija Kovalevska (Micaela), an already highly accomplished Latvian soprano of wonderful stage presence, is a nice surprise and a joy to hear and behold.

Most likely known by the famous duet Au fond du temple saint between the two male principals, Bizet’s second most famous opera has shared the fate of Carmen by being a disastrous failure on its premiere, so totally unappreciated by the French petit bourgeoisie that it pushed its genius composer into an early grave.

Nevertheless Les Pêcheurs de perles remains an exotic, atmospheric, gorgeously melodic score, coming to us from the resplendent 18th-century San Carlo opera house of Naples that has a 250-year tradition of singing excellence. Fabio Sparvoli’s visionary staging, all in shades of beautiful blues, evokes sultry Arabian Nights. There is an ever-present ballet of sinuous dancers representing the spirits of the sea, sometimes playful, sometimes menacing as in the third act when it all turns into bloodthirsty madness.

The heroine is a beautiful priestess enslaved by the Brahmins to keep her chastity on pain of death, but she defies her fate by falling in love, bringing on the wrath of Brahma, the creator god, and the morbidly superstitious mob of the pearl fisher community. Italian spinto soprano, Patrizia Ciofi, famous for her supple, light, wonderfully expressive voice, deserves the highest praise as the priestess Leila, a role ranging from religious chant to dreamy love song in the night, a love duet and later tempestuous rage fighting for the life of her beloved. The lover, Nadir, is Russian lyric tenor sensation, Dmitry Korchak, who delivers the romance Je crois entendre encore, one of the most beloved melodies ever written and even turned into a pop song. Uruguayan baritone Dario Solari is a powerful and noble Zurga who gives up the girl he loves and brings death on himself by letting the lovers escape. Conducted with great expertise by the 80-year-old master, Gabriele Ferro. Beautiful story, enchanting music, eye-popping scenery. A moving performance.

Nielsen – Saul & David
Reuter; Riis; Petersen; Kristensen; Staugaard; Resmark; Royal Danish Orchestra and Opera Chorus; Michael Schønwandt
Dacapo 2.110412

This exciting DVD presents Carl Nielsen’s remarkable opera Saul and David (1901) recorded live at the Royal Danish Opera, in a production celebrating Nielsen’s 150th birthday. It offers a stellar cast, Michael Schønwandt’s brilliant conducting, David Pountney’s provocative stage direction and optional English or Danish subtitles. The work’s availability on DVD should gratify both Nielsen fans and novices.

Bass-baritone Johan Reuter is outstanding as the conflicted King Saul. Through powerful acting and expressive singing he defines the dominant yet crisis-ridden character effectively. Morten Staugaard, as implacable Samuel, and Susanne Resmark, as the Witch of Endor, are surely highlights. Tenors Niels Jørgen Riis (David) and Michael Kristensen (Jonathan) and soprano Ann Petersen (Michal) are strong individually and in ensemble; David grows from a tentative opening to energetic emergence as the new king. This approach, to be sure, limits his vocal effectiveness in Act One, compared to David’s harp-accompanied solo and romantic duet with Michal sung by Alexander Young and Elisabeth Søderstrom on an Opera D’Oro CD of the work.

Pountney’s production updates Saul and David to our contemporary world: people in apartments watching the action on television; witty choreography of instrumental preludes suggesting frustrating peace negotiations. The director describes Samuel as a religious fundamentalist, restricting us, I think, from considering adequately his prophetic vision for the people of Israel. By the end, though, tremendous performances of Nielsen’s stunning choruses and orchestral support do convey fully the people’s convictions.

Rautavaara – Rubaiyat; Balada; Canto V; Four Songs from Rasputin
Gerald Finley; Mika Pohjonen; Helsinki Music Centre Choir; Helsinki Philharmonic; John Storgårds
Ondine ODE 1274-2

Amongst the works that took the composer’s entire life to complete, pride of place belongs to Rubaiyat. Rautavaara vowed to set Edward FitzGerald’s 19th-century translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1949, while still a music student. It took 63 years and prodding in the form of a commission from Wigmore Hall for a song cycle destined for Gerald Finley. Well, it was well worth the wait. Rubaiyat is nothing short of a magical piece of music. Over the years, Rautavaara’s musical style transmuted from neo-classicism, dodecaphony, serialism, neo-romantic and post-modern styles into a unique synthesis of all of these, as Kimmo Korhonen writes in detailed liner notes. The music shimmers and glistens, while creating quite a challenge for the voice – the almost continuous melodic lines, requiring circular breathing. Finley, whose voice sounds even better than in the past (a small gift that Father Time dispenses to some baritones and mezzos) excels at bringing into his interpretation the philosophical stance of Khayyam. The rich mix of orchestral and vocal colour is intoxicating. This is most definitely one of those gems that will be taken out of its box and admired frequently – both by listeners and singers. The rest of the album is by no means just filler. It contains Balada, an abandoned and then truncated opera based on texts by Lorca, and arias from Rautavaara’s latest opera, Rasputin.

The young Finnish tenor, Mika Pohjonen and the Helsinki Music Centre Choir are perfect partners to Finley in this venture.

Jennifer Higdon – Cold Mountain
Gunn; Leonard; Fons; Hunter Morris; Honeywell; Santa Fe Opera; Miguel Harth-Bedoya
PentaTone PTC 5186 583

The PentaTone series continues with yet another world premiere recording, this one better known as an award-winning novel (and a Hollywood movie starring Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger). A Civil War epic detailing the desertion and journey home of confederate soldier W.P. Inman and the struggles of his faithful wife Ada, Cold Mountain is much admired by both readers and filmgoers. This creates a problem of its own – the towering libretto, faithful to the book, seems to subjugate Jennifer Higdon’s music and almost relegates it to a form of soundtrack. Higdon is a well-regarded composer and recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, a Grammy and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Here, the constraints of the opera bear heavily on her, stifling full creative freedom. She still delivers a score full of beautiful moments and mesmerizing violin writing, managing to endow each character with a musical signature of their own. While listening to this recording, one can only imagine how much greater the music could have been if only it were burdened with a lesser-known libretto.

I have no doubt that Cold Mountain was more successful on stage. In fact, the visuals would have helped greatly and perhaps this release should have been a DVD film. For listeners familiar with the book and the movie, it will be a fine reminder of their experience. For the rest of the audience, it may remain a mystery – an opera hesitant to assert itself beyond the libretto. The cast is uniformly good, and we must add a shout-out to Toronto’s own Robert Pomakov, whose agile bass is a pleasure to hear.

Pardessus de Viole
Mélisande Corriveau; Eric Milnes
ATMA ACD2 2729

The elegant music featured on this recording was written for a now largely abandoned instrument – pardessus de viole. This smallest member of the viola da gamba family originated in France at the end of the 17th century and had a brief life span of just over 100 years. While pardessus de viole exemplified French aesthetics and their sophisticated musical tastes and values, it was forsaken with the arrival of the Revolution, which did not stand for the same ideals. Featured composers – Barrière, Caix D’ Hervelois, Boismortier and Dollé – are among many prominent French composers who wrote for this instrument at the height of its popularity. However the selection of pieces on this recording is mostly unpublished and carefully chosen from the microfilm collections of the Bibliothéque nationale de France.

What grabbed me immediately was the sound of the “woman’s violin” (as it was nicknamed once upon a time) – pure, light yet robust at times, textured as a crossover between the flute and the violin. Mélisande Corriveau elicits an array of emotions out of her instrument. The virtuosic passages in Jean Barrière’s Sonata in G Major suit her very well but she is equally colourful in depicting the feelings of sorrow in Dollé’s Les Regrets. Eric Milnes is a resourceful and imaginative harpsichord player; together they offer a charming array of ornamentations, making this music a gesture of nobility from the past.

Composed to the soul: Abel; Hasse – Concerti; Quartetti; Arie
Dorothee Mields; Hamburger Ratsmusik; Simone Eckert
CPO 777 911-2

This beautifully programmed recording offers two quartets, a concerto and an aria by the esteemed 18th-century gambist Carl Friedrich Abel, and an aria by his contemporary Johann Adolf Hasse. Not household names, perhaps, but well worth a listen. The quartets, contemporary transcriptions of two standard string quartets from 1768, make for most pleasant listening. The shift in sonic balance created by giving the first violin part to the bass viol gives a welcome depth and richness to the ensemble sound. The group’s playing is expressive and focused, and it’s also nice to hear tempos that are more laid-back than today’s breakneck norm: the humour and variety of musical gesture in the Allegro con spirito of the Quartet in B Flat, for example, isn’t trumped by the technical mastery required to play it. Michael Fürst plays the solo part of Abel’s two-movement harpsichord concerto with wit and thoughtful brilliance, and his colleagues of the Hamburger Ratsmusik are stylishly eloquent throughout. Soprano Dorothee Mields joins the group for two substantial arias, Abel’s sole surviving vocal piece, Frena le belle lagrime from Sifari (1767), and an aria from Hasse’s La Didone abbandonata (1742). As always, Mields sings with extraordinary musical grace and suppleness. The latter aria is also a contemporary transcription, giving the original obbligato flute part to the viol, which Eckert plays beautifully. Composed to the soul, indeed. I’ll be listening to this one again, and I hope you do too.

1753 – Livre de Montréal
Yves-G. Préfontaine
ATMA ACD2 2717

The Last Concert: Mendelssohn – Incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Berlioz – Symphonie Fantastique
Berliner Philharmoniker; Claudio Abbado
Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings BPHR 160081

Claudio Abbado was conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from 1990 to 2002, succeeding the iconic Herbert von Karajan who had died in 1989. On an evening in May 2013 Abbado returned to conduct his last concert with the orchestra and as such it was a rather special event. What to program on such an occasion? There is no absolute answer but after hearing and seeing the concert one must agree that the choice was a right one. This wasn’t an audition for anyone but a final get-together of equals to make some music. This isn’t wishful thinking but there was a oneness between conductor and the orchestra here that produced a solidly romantic view of the shenanigans in the Mendelssohn and solidified the passing phantasmal delusions in the Berlioz. This really was a splendid event.

To commemorate the second anniversary of Abbado’s death, his last concert with them has been issued by the Berlin Philharmonic with full documentation of the evening in a very fine cloth-covered hardcover edition, 24.5cm X 15.5cmX 2.3cm. Inside are two CDs and a Blu-ray disc containing the complete concert in HD audio plus an HD video of the event with choice of stereo or 5.1 surround sound. On the same Blu-ray disc are bonus videos including full documentaries, Claudio Abbado in Berlin – The First Year and Members of the Berlin Philharmonic Remember Claudio Abbado. There are lots of discussions, rehearsals and human interest events plus the reason Abbado had to wait eight months after assuming the post to receive a contract. A personal code to download high resolution audio files is also included.

A well-produced 56-page multilingual booklet the size of the package contains information about the two works on the program and how they are tied together. There are interesting articles with many colour photographs. Also there are the names of the personnel of the orchestra in May 2013.

Schoenberg – Pierrot Lunaire; Max Kowalsky – Pierrot Lunaire
Ingrid Schmithüsen
ATMA ACD2 2734

Noravank: Petros Shoujounian – String Quartets 3-6
Quatuor Molinari
ATMA ACD2 2737

Composed to mark the centenary of the Armenian genocide, Noravank’s title is derived from a homeland monastery that was Petros Shoujounian’s inspiration. Its 14 sections, divided into string quartets of three, three, three and five movements, are symbolically named after rivers and are based on liturgical chants.

Quartet No.3 was the most affecting for me, through its tiny echoes of melodies and treatments heard in Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe and Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel; it concludes with the provocative Dzoraget. The contradictions of Quartet No.4’s depressive second movement, the energetic third and Quartet No.5’s lamentoso first movement brought to mind the power of nature and the current plight of evacuated Fort McMurray folks – if that’s not the musical equivalent of theological proof-texting. The balance of Quartet No.5 and all of No.6 more overtly reflect the influence of eastern folk songs, both in the keys and the lilts they comprise. Another memory of song, from Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude in D-Flat Major No.15 Op.28, is heard in the onomatopoeic burbling waters of the Vedi.

This CD was suggested to me, a Pärt fanatic, as a possibly similarly contemplative recording. While these aren’t tracks for mindful meditation, there is an introspective quality to all the movements. Maybe the invoked theme of migration is apt, after all: fires, oppression, the liturgical life – these all involve movement and change. But this introvert was soothed rather than discomfited via the talent of the Quatuor Molinari, who commissioned this work that is ultimately about renewal. Fine liner-note editing and the eponymous cover photograph round out a very marketable product.