The Secret Life of Musical Notation
by Roberto Poli
Amadeus Press
264 pages, illustrations; $24.99 US

• At first, pianist Roberto Poli was simply questioning certain performance directions which he found confusing. How, he wondered, had composers actually intended performers to interpret markings that seemed to either contradict each other, like a hairpin < to pianissimo, or repeat each other, like a hairpin > with decrescendo written underneath.

Poli began to suspect that in the past the hairpins hadn’t been used just to indicate dynamics, as is usually assumed today. In fact, he realized that they could be indicating flexibility in the timing, or the shaping of a melody. With this, he was inspired to re-examine traditional ways of interpreting a number of musical signs, including stretti, pedalling, and sforzandi markings, though for reasons he doesn’t explain he doesn’t look at tempo markings, which, especially in the case of Beethoven, can be equally baffling.

At every step of this fascinating study, Poli has consulted original scores and documents. He has also looked at the instrument the composer wrote for, and the size of the room where the work would have been performed. This is all familiar territory to period instrument players. Yet Poli expresses no inclination to give up his modern piano in favour of an historical instrument. Instead, he advocates more freedom, suggesting that interpretations of composers’ markings have become too rigid during the past century. “Decades of traditions,” he writes, “have been instilling a sense of overexactness in our reading habits – a way of evaluating notation that is remote from how a composer probably imagined it.”

Poli looks at works by composers from Haydn to Prokofiev. But his main focus is on Chopin. As it happens, there’s an exhibit of original scores and letters from Chopin’s time on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. To celebrate Chopin’s 200th birthday, the ROM has pulled out some precious items from its rarely displayed collection of scores and instruments, including a splendid piano made by Pleyel, whose instruments Chopin favoured because of their clear bass register, transparent tone and sensitive action.

Poli’s quest for greater interpretive insight unfolds like the plot of a captivating mystery story. His ideas about what lies behind the notes on the printed page are made all the more persuasive by the many musical examples included in this book. n

Fryderyk Chopin & the Romantic Piano is on view at the Royal Ontario Museum in the Samuel European Galleries until March 27.

Weinzweig: Essays on His Life and Music
John Beckwith and Brian Cherney, editors
Wilfred Laurier University Press
416 pages plus CD, photos; $50.00

• The many facets of Canadian composer John Weinzweig’s life and work revealed in this collection of essays reflects the breadth of his impact on Canadian music. He created a lasting body of adventurous works, promoted Canadian music with untiring ferocity and taught many generations of composers.

Sixty years ago, as co-editor Brian Cherney points out in a discussion of Weinzweig’s irrepressible activism, Weinzweig declared that Canada’s composers “have a special distinction. We are the most unpublished, unheard, unperformed and unpaid composers in the Western world.” He devoted his life to changing that situation.

Weinzweig, who died in 2006 at the age of 93, was a rebel. But even though his pioneering use of serial techniques pushed Canadian music into the modernist ethos, he didn’t impose his own style on his students. His strongest influence was in the way he approached composing as a process of creative thinking. Throughout this book we read how he would tell his students “We don’t do it this way anymore,” when he felt the music they were writing was not daring enough. Especially in his later years, he would complain about how conservative the younger generation of composers was. Nonetheless, as John Rea observes, even when Weinzweig didn’t accept the ideas being put forward by his younger students, “he would teach others to be as eager and enthusiastic as him and, yes, teach them also to be and to become just as impatient.”

Weinzweig referred to himself as a “radical romantic.” In an essay about how to play his music, Robert Aitken writes about “his spry wit, intense irony, twinkling eyes yet steadfast seriousness of purpose.” By the end of the final essay, co-editor John Beckwith’s affectionate Weinzweig As I Knew Him, a vivid portrait has emerged from the various perspectives explored in this superb book.

This book has been produced with uncommon care, right from the cover art, through the documentation on Weinzweig’s compositions and recordings, to the enclosed CD of his music. Throughout the text there are photos of items such as a page from his first piano teacher Gertrude Anderson’s hand-written account of his early years, and a portrait by Harold Town, whose rejection of realism, as Robin Elliott shows, parallels Weinzweig’s own unswerving rejection of tonality.

The latest release from cellist Matt Haimovitz whose Matteo (Oxingale OX2018) celebrates 300 years of Italian cello, his own cello that is, a Matteo Goffriller built in 1710. I have often realized that there is more of a common sensibility between so called early music and contemporary music than with the stylistic periods which fell between the two. Haimovitz seems to share this opinion. The disc intersperses some of the earliest pieces written for solo cello - six of the seven Ricercare composed by Domenico Gabrielli in 1689 – with works firmly rooted in the music of our time. I was quite surprised when the first track, Gabrielli’s Ricercare 7, began and what I heard was the opening phrase of Bach’s Solo Cello Suite No. 2. It turns out that the first three bars of the Gabrielli, whole notes D, A and F, may, according to the liner notes, be heard as accompaniment to “an imagined melody” and in this case Haimovitz imagined the opening of Bach’s suite and subsequently improvised on that before joining Gabrielli in the fourth bar. Luciano Berio’s Sequenza XIV (2002) takes pride of place as the first contemporary work on the disc. Dedicated to Rohan de Saram, it draws extensively on the Kandyan drumming tradition of the dedicatee’s Sri Lankan heritage. The most recent work is a 2010 contribution from Haimovitz’s McGill colleague Brian Cherney whose Capriccio references many great solo cello works in a true celebration of the instrument with signature nods (in nomenclature) to Bach, Haimovitz and Goffriller along the way. Works by Luigi Dallapiccola, Salvatore Sciarrino and Claudio Ambrosini complete the disc. The playing is heartfelt and convincing, with glorious sound throughout.

The latest release from contemporary trio Toca Loca ­– Gregory Oh (Toronto) and Simon Docking (Halifax), pianos; Aiyun Huang (Montreal), percussion – entitled Shed (www.henceforthrecords.com) includes works from Canada, Japan, Switzerland and the USA all composed since 2002. Dai Fujikura’s Half-Remembered City for piano four-hands was written for a husband and wife piano duo and conceived as a depiction of intimacy in the way that the pianists have to manoeuvre and intertwine at the keyboard to realize the score, sometimes caressing adjoining notes and at others seemingly locked in territorial combat. At times comic in live performance, I am pleased to report that this disc proves you don’t have to see it played to be enthralled. All the works are strong and individual. Heinz Holliger’s Ma’Mounia for percussion solo and quintet of flute, clarinet, horn, cello and piano is kind of a signature tune for Huang who won the Geneva International Music Competition in 2002 where it was the required work. Frederic Rzewski’s Bring Them Home continues that composer’s political engagement in a set of variations on a 17^th century Irish anti-war song Siuil A Run “that speaks of the past but turns our eyes to the present.” The highlight for me is Andrew Staniland’s Adventuremusic: Love Her Madly for two prepared pianos, five pieces of wood, five temple bowls and tape. It opens with driving rhythms somewhat reminiscent of Rzewski’s classic Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues but over 15 minutes develops into a disturbing portrait of climate change as we hear the sounds of processed voice and temple bowls juxtaposed with disintegrating polar ice sheets. “Shed” will be launched with a performance at the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener-Waterloo on April 30.

On March 17 at Glenn Gould Studio Christina Petrowska Quilico releases Music of Ann Southam - Glass Houses Revisited (Centrediscs CMCCD 16511), a re-working of the “fiendishly difficult etudes” the pianist was working on with the composer at the time of her death last November. (You can read Christina’s tribute to Ann elsewhere in these pages.) Originally composed in 1981, the title Glass Houses refers to minimalist composer Philip Glass, the best known proponent of this style at the time, and to choreographer Christopher House with whom Southam worked extensively. The mostly ebullient, busily joyful pieces were revised in 2009 for Petrowska Quilico and further edited by her with the composer’s permission for this recording in 2010. The disc features nine “favourite” selections from the set of 15, arranged with four lively pieces on either side of the solitary “broody and moody” track, Glass Houses No.13. Overall they are a weaving and embroidering of various melodic motifs that, in Southam’s words “reflect the nature of traditional women’s work – repetitive, life-sustaining, requiring time and patience.” One can only imagine the patience and diligence required of Petrowska Quilico to master these complex and exhilarating gems, and master them she has, as you can hear for yourself on March 17. There is a public memorial celebration of the life and music of Ann Southam being planned for April 21.

Celebrated Vancouver pianist Jane Coop will make a rare Toronto appearance at Mooredale Concerts on March 20 performing works by Beethoven and Scriabin. We somehow overlooked her most recent CD - A Century of Piano Classics (www.skylark-music.com) - when it was released in 2009 so I’m pleased to have this opportunity to bring it to your attention. The disc includes an early Beethoven sonata from 1797, Chopin’s Ballade No.4 (1842) and four late works by Brahms from 1893. The century in question was an important one in the history of the piano, seeing it expand from a five octave instrument to its current 88 keys thanks in great part to the vision and virtuosic demands of the composers mentioned above and others such as Schumann and Liszt. Coop excels at this repertoire as this welcome disc attests. Recorded at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC, the sound is clear and resonant.

We welcome your feedback and invite submissions. CDs and comments should be sent to: The WholeNote, 503 – 720 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5S 2R4.

David Olds
DISCoveries Editor
discoveries@thewholenote.com

Orpheus in England - Dowland & Purcell
Emma Kirkby & Jakob Lindberg
BIS CD-1725

Orpheus is famed in classical mythology for his music which charmed and soothed all those who heard: be they gods, demons, humans, animals, elements, vegetation or even rocks and stones. The two English composers featured on this recording shared this ability. Recognized as “the English Orpheus” by his patron, John Dowland was sought in the European courts as both composer and performer of the finest songs for voice and lute. Performing this music with all its bittersweet tenderness requires a purity of tone from the singer combined with a deft and light touch from the lutenist. And whose sensibilities are better to deliver this more expertly than Emma Kirkby and Jacob Lindberg handling the gamut from bright pastoral delights like By a fountain where I lay to the melancholic despair of In darkness let me dwell? Interspersed are solo lute offerings such as The Earl of Essex, his galliard and Lacrimae.

While the second Orpheus Britannicus featured generally made use of larger musical forces, many of Henry Purcell’s tunes lend themselves well to Lindberg’s own transcriptions for solo lute, such as the Echo dance of the furies from Dido & Aeneas and Lillibulero. Kirkby’s diction and pacing add superb dramatic content to From Silent Shades as well as her brilliant emotive vocal ebbs and swells in Music for a while. The listener is indeed transported to a time of grace and beauty through music’s true power.

Three Baroque Tenors
Ian Bostridge; The English Concert; Bernard Labadie
EMI Classics 6 26864 2

Castrati were some of early opera’s superstars; they eventually found their supremacy challenged by the rise of the tenor, often showcased by composers such as Handel. This CD features Ian Bostridge interpreting music for three star tenors of Handel’s day – John Beard, Francesco Borosini and Annabile Po Fabri. The pieces selected reflect this showcasing, not least with Handel’s Where congeal’d the northern streams and Vivaldi’s La tiranna e avversa sorte, the latter’s musical score combining with its lyrics to drive home the determination of Tamese to rule.

Ian Bostridge chooses two consecutive pieces to show how Gasparini and Handel each depict the torment of the defeated Bajazet. Gasparini exploits the tenor register to full effect; Handel is more contemplative – contrast Bajazet’s resignation with the immediately following piece, Arne’s militaristic Rise, Glory, rise, where even loud drums can not extinguish Ian Bostridge’s inspired interpretation.

Even Handel’s frenetic D’un barbaro scortese receives Bostridge’s attention, demonstrating just how much energy could be generated by a leading baroque tenor. It should not, however, be thought that this collection is only about classical dignitaries laying down commands for mere subjects. William Boyce’s Solomon depicts plaintive scenes of love drawn from the Song of Solomon. In short, every known emotion features in the baroque tenor’s repertoire. And in Ian Bostridge’s.

Schubert - Nacht und Traume
Matthias Goerne; Alexander Schmalcz
Harmonia Mundi HMC 902063

It’s a joy to have a recording capture your attention in its opening measures and hold it effortlessly for an hour. These Schubert Lieder sung by baritone Matthias Goerne with pianist Alexander Schmalcz do so because the performers know the seductive power of Romantic lyricism and how to use it.

While death is the subject of most of these poems, Schubert has written melodic lines that are anything but relentlessly bleak portrayals of this spectre. There are a couple of wonderfully grim items on the program to be sure, but most are surprisingly lovely and accurately reflect the poets’ emotional intentions.

Goerne’s voice is smooth, pleasantly dark for the range and of medium heft. He’s generally light for the mid and upper registers, which is exactly how these Lieder should be sung. His lower range opens a powerhouse where we hear his opera stage voice several times as in Totengräberweise, D. 869 and especially in Totengräbers Heimweh, D. 842.

Goerne and Schmalcz, moreover, present an artistic collaboration that raises the piano to a status of lyrical partnership. Schmalcz is a wonderfully sensitive accompanist. He knows when Schubert hands off a melodic line by sending the voice in an unexpected direction. Through some masterful touch of the keyboard he somehow produces a near tonal match to Goerne’s baritone voice and creates a wonderful aural effect.

True fans of Schubert lieder who still hold Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as torch-bearer for the genre will recognize some of his vocal and interpretive technique in Goerne’s performance and so they should… Goerne was one of his students.

Lettere Amorose
Magdalena Kozenà; Private Musicke; Pierre Pitzl
Deutsche Grammophon 477 8764

Magdalena Kozenà is one of those increasingly rare artists, who are not afraid of their own instrument. Many singers very quickly define a niche for themselves, where their voice sounds at its best – be it bel canto, romantic repertoire, modern music or music of the Baroque. They make sure there is no chance to trip up, no danger… but also no passion. Having heard Kozenà recently at the stage of the MET as a romantic and withdrawn Mélisande, I had to adjust my ears to this recording. In a splendid collection of the early 17th century Italian songs, Kozenà just opens her mouth and lets the sound emerge, fearlessly. Maybe it’s because she has nothing to fear: her voice sounds rich, gorgeous, exciting. Kozenà herself makes a few groan-inducing statements for the liner notes: she claims it’s easy to sing these songs, as they are technically undemanding. Well, many quite accomplished artists would not be so lucky with this repertoire.

Private Musicke adds to the charm of this disc with their quirky, joyful playing. One is somewhat reminded of Custer LaRue and the Baltimore Consort, but Kozenà is simply a superior vocalist. In nothing but a goose-bump inducing tour de force, she takes us through the works of Monteverdi, D’India, Merula, Marini, Caccini and Strozzi as if it were her daily vocal exercise. If you know her as an artist, I don’t have to encourage you to buy this disc. If, for whatever reason, you have not discovered her yet, you owe it to yourself to explore it!

Fête Galante
Karina Gauvin; Marc-Andre Hamelin
ATMA ACD2 2642

Though a reissue of a recital given in 1999 in the Montreal Radio-Canada studio, this recording is well worth a second run. The original received the 2000 Opus award for Best Vocal Recording and was selected as Chamber Music America’s Recording of the Year. Fêtes galantes, or garden parties, refers to a collection of poems by Paul Verlaine inspiring some of the best loved songs of fin de siècle composers and their successors. Karina Gauvin’s voice is magical, with a depth of tone and timbre one rarely finds but which suits the emotive quality of this repertoire so well. Fauré’s Mandoline and Clair de Lune are a lovely starting point for the ever-evolving repertoire. Gauvin navigates expertly through the dizzying atmospheric nuances of Debussy, she and pianist Marc-André Hamelin ever intertwining in a mesmerizing dance of tonal spectres. The singer’s depth of expression truly transcends in Poulenc’s Metamorphosis and both singer and pianist’s precision shine in Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon and Trois poèmes de Louise Lalanne which include some lively and tongue-twisting lyrics. In Honegger’s Saluste du Bartas she manages a perfect blend of regal bearing and human frailty. And finally, in charming settings of folk music by Ravel and Vuillermoz, the garden is made complete through the inclusion of the pastorale.

Schoenberg - Gurrelieder
Deborah Voigt; Mihoko Fujimura; Stig Andersen; Herwig Pecoraro; Michael Volle; Bavarian RSO & Choirs; Maris Jansons
BR KLASSIK 900110 1 DVD, 117 minutes.

I read recently that Gurrelieder is Schoenberg’s most popular work. I doubt that. The logistics of mounting a performance are daunting and quite beyond what’s possible for most orchestras or their boards or their venues. The work is scored for a larger, much larger than large, orchestra including 10 horns, eight flutes, seven clarinets, four harps, an immense array of percussion instruments including three sets of timpani and other species of drums, iron chains (I listen for them in every recording without success... they must be drowned out) and just about everything that must be shaken or struck. The complement of choruses (better: the exultation of choruses) requires three four-part male choirs, an eight-part mixed chorus plus five soloists and finally, a Sprechstimme to tie it all off.

Record companies do not finance recording sessions of Gurrelieder but arrange to bring their equipment to a live event. The first recording was issued by RCA on 28 78rpm sides of a performance on 11 April 1932 with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra and distinguished soloists, including Rose Bampton. At the same time RCA recorded Stokowski discussing the piece for the edification of the listener. Since then, every LP and CD documents a live performance.

Schoenberg began Gurrelieder in January 1900 in response to a song writing competition. What started as some songs with piano accompaniment soon got out of hand and he began sketching on specially ordered, 28 stave manuscript paper, a three part oratorio based on poems by Danish poet Peter Jacobsen telling of the doomed, Tristanesque affair between King Waldemar and Tove, a maiden who lived in Gurre. He laid it all out and worked on orchestrating it until 1903 when he abandoned the project. He began again years later, finishing the work in November of 1911. The great triumph of his life was Gurrelieder’s first performance on February 23, 1913.

CDs, SACDs or any audio-only medium cannot convey the enormity of the work and at times the lieder-like settings reminiscent of the Old Vienna School. Jansons’ soloists do not merely sing their parts, they live them! Heldentenor Stig Andersen is a powerful and sympathetic Waldemar. Deborah Voigt, in superb voice, is perfectly cast as Tove while mezzo Mihoko Fujimura is the Wood Dove who brings the news of the death of Tove... a powerful and moving performance. Herwig Pecoraro is Klaus-Narr, the jester and Michael Volle is the peasant and the speaker, the Sprechstimme, who announces the end of the tragic story and the glory of a new day concluding with the most glorious sunrise in all music. All this is held together by Mariss Jansons who is beyond criticism, who conducts with great authority and a complete understanding of the work.

It would have been a disappointment if this, Gurrelieder’s only performance on DVD, live from the Philharmonie am Gasteig in Munich were less than the most exciting, passionate, glorious performance imaginable. Filmed in wide screen high definition video and exemplary five channel audio (with a 2 channel option) and Brian Large’s direction for TV, this production is unlikely to be equalled, let alone surpassed. Full texts enclosed, however no subtitles.

Bridge Across the Seas
Vilma Indra Vitols; Dzintra Erliha
Duplium (www.vilmavitols.com)

The joyous spirit of music-making shows no bounds as mezzo-soprano Vilma Indra Vitols and pianist Dzintra Erliha soar and dazzle in this collection commemorating the 90th anniversary of the late Latvian Canadian composer Talivaldis Kenins.

Vitols is a familiar voice on the Toronto music scene, especially for her work with urbanvessel in SLIP and Voice-Box. She has incredible clarity of diction that only her diverse vocal colour can outshine. Latvian Erliha is brilliant especially when the programmatic nature of the works require her to draw on strength of technique and subtle musicianship to create the appropriate backdrop of mood to the vocal lines.

There is a little of bit everything in the contemporary Canadian and Latvian works performed. The songs by Erik Ross, John Hawkins and Imant Raminsh are strong. Latvian Peteris Vasks’ piano solo is a tour de force in programmatic music while his settings of Latvian folk songs (with additional flute and cello) are brief yet cunning. The real star however is Talivaldis Kenins himself. His settings of two Latvian folksongs are colourful yet deeply rooted in traditional song. Melodies for Amanda (1984) comprise five bubbly songs written for the birth of the composer’s first granddaughter. Lots of characteristic Kenins wit is apparent in the performance of these light-hearted and loving works.

“Bridge Across the Seas” is a glorious release. What a wonderful tribute!

Imagining Incense - The Choral Music of R. Murray Schafer Vol.3
Vancouver Chamber Choir; Jon Washburn
Grouse 106 (www.vancouverchamberchoir.com)

This excellent recording features several major a cappella choral works by Schafer, all written over the past 20 years. These include Magic Songs (1990), Three Hymns (from Schafer’s massive Fall into Light from 2004), Imagining Incense (2001) and Three Songs from the Enchanted Forest (1996). Musically, each piece, in its own way, demonstrates Schafer’s remarkable ability to blend sophisticated vocal techniques with an eternal sense of the voice as an essential vehicle of expression; an expression that gives more meaning than mere words can convey. There is a deep spirituality to each of these pieces, but it is a spirituality unencumbered by dogma or liturgy. These are works that attempt to explore what is holy in nature, in human existence, and in social and cultural ceremonies.

The Magic Songs and the shorter Rain Chant (a piece on a theme drawn from And Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon) are ingenious original chants and the choral effects that Schafer creates in these pieces are mesmerizing and form a kind bridge between the human voice and nature in a creative way. Imagining Incense, with its description of the effects of different woods used for incense, and the hymns from Fall into Light, with their Gnostic and Hermetic texts, attempt to connect the listener with ancient ritual and devotion. All of the music on this disc confirms Schafer’s brilliant originality, craft and command of musical language.

Under Jon Washburn’s able direction, the Vancouver Chamber Choir is in top form. Their committed and energetic performances of these important pieces are a great gift.

Geminiani - Pièces de clavecin
Hank Knox
early-music.com EMCCD-7772

Francesco Geminiani arrived in London in 1714; by 1739 he had published the harpsichord music from which Hank Knox makes his selection for this CD. Geminiani probably developed his individual style in Paris, learning from Rameau and others. Hank Knox introduces us to a prelude bearing the hallmarks of this individuality. From his commentary it is clear that Geminiani never rested until he had added all the complex scoring he considered necessary. His gayment and vivement movements are demanding but reward the listener and player with lively and entertaining motifs. This is Hank Knox at his most inspired.

Geminiani’s tendrement movements are appropriately named with their pleading quality, although the movement marked gracieusement et tendrement is both more taxing on the player and far livelier than its two near-namesakes. And then for the more traditional lover of the harpsichord there are two minuets, the second lasting almost ten minutes – an early music eternity! This is baroque harpsichord at its most conventional and most complex.  Finally, an amoureusement shows just why Geminiani’s student Charles Avison so admired his master: he placed him alongside Handel (often semi-seriously styled England’s greatest composer between Purcell and Elgar) and Corelli who enjoyed cult-like status in London.

This is an enjoyable CD; Hank Knox may take a real pride in bringing Geminiani’s harpsichord music to a larger audience.

Pandolfi - The Violin Sonatas of 1660
Mark Fewer; Myron Lutzke; Kenneth Slowik
Friends of Music FoM 36-802 (www.markfewer.com)

Though little is known about the 17th century Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli, his two marvellous collections of sonatas for solo violin and continuo place him squarely in the good company of Dario Castello, Biagio Marini, Tarquinio Merula and others of what we might call the first generation of sonata-writers. Unlike the Classical multi-movement form, instrumental sonatas of the early to mid-17th century are usually in one extended movement, full of changes of mood, tempo, articulation and musical ideas. As such, they are dramatic and full of possibility for an imaginative performer. In his excellent liner notes accompanying this recording, harpsichordist Kenneth Slowik comments on how operatic these pieces are; that they could in essence be seen as instrumental “scenas” full of passion and pathos.

We should be tremendously grateful to the Friends of Music at the Smithsonian for supporting this recording and making it possible. Mark Fewer is one of Canada’s finest violinists and is possessed with a profound and open musical mind. It’s rare to find a player as comfortable in such a wide variety of musical styles as Fewer is. He tucks into these sonatas with wild abandon, though never loses sight of the good taste and stylistic know-how needed to approach this “early” music. His range of virtuosic and tender playing makes this disc of twelve sonatas an absolute pleasure to listen to from beginning to end. He’s ably supported by Slowik and cellist Myron Lutzke, though I did feel at times that the continuo colour could have been enhanced by the presence of a theorbo.

Liszt - New Discoveries Vol.3
Leslie Howard
Hyperion CDA67810

It’s hard to imagine that there could be any music by Liszt that remains unpublished and possibly even undiscovered. Somehow our modern age quietly assumes we’ve got it all, printed, bound, recorded and filed away. So it falls to the passionate scholars to continue searching for new works whose suspected existence is owed to fragmentary sketches in notebooks, allusions in letters, etc. Performers too can be such champions as is Leslie Howard, currently making a series of recordings of the entire Liszt repertoire including unpublished and newly discovered works.

Howard has recorded many of these pieces from Liszt’s original manuscripts and in a few cases has had to complete endings or otherwise fill in missing sections. The forty-eight works contained in this 2 CD set are quite short but intriguing nonetheless. Some will be familiar but many will be new to Liszt-philes. Listeners may recognize the Magnificat S182a as an early version of the more elaborate Alleluia S183/1. While Liszt seems to have discounted the early Magnificat it is an effective piece in its chorale-like simplicity with echoes of J.S. Bach throughout.

The set also includes two versions of a Romance from 1842-3, an arrangement of Schlummerlied for one of Liszt’s students, Carl Lachmund and numerous other pieces that exist only in single copy manuscripts in libraries throughout Europe.

Recorded on a Steinway in an acoustically lovely Catholic church in North East London (UK), these performances make a substantial artistic and historical contribution to the body of Liszt works.

Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique; Cléopâtre
Anna Caterina Antonacci; Rottendam Philharmonic Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin
BIS SACD-1800

Can you think of a large-scale work that embodies the spirit of French early Romanticism better than Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique? Completed in 1830, the symphony marked the 27-year-old composer’s first major success, hailed as truly revolutionary both in size and in concept. And who better to undertake such a monument than supernova conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin with the Rotterdam Philharmonic on this BIS label SACD? Nézet-Séguin’s career has catapulted to stratospheric heights in a very short time. After studying in his native Montréal, he made his European debut in 2004, and within four years had succeeded Valery Gergiev as Music Director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. He was recently named Music Director Designate of the Philadelphia Orchestra commencing in the 2012-13 season.

From the opening notes – a series of repeated Gs - the listener senses something magical about this performance. Nézet-Séguin approaches the music with a deep-rooted sensitivity, carefully shaping it at all times, and easily capturing the multi-faceted moods contained within. The orchestra – particularly the winds and strings – respond with a warm and resonant sound.

The second movement Valse is light and elegant, while the fourth movement, the March to the Scaffold is given the dramatic intensity it deserves. The finale - the Dream of a Witch’s Sabbath, in which the hero finds himself surrounded by ghostly figures, is all at once bombastic, grotesque, and terrifying. Not surprisingly, the music is adeptly handled by a perfect pairing of conductor and orchestra, who bring the mad frenzy to a rousing conclusion.

An added bonus on this CD is the short cantata La Mort de Cléopâtre written two years earlier for the Prix de Rome. Soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci gives a dramatic and sensitive performance, thus rounding out this most satisfying disc, easily among the best currently available.