01 Ehnes VivaldiOur own James Ehnes is back with a CD of early 18th century works on Vivaldi Four Seasons (Onyx 4134), with his regular partner Andrew Armstrong at the piano for Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata and Leclair’s Tambourin Sonata, and the Sydney Symphony under Ehnes’ direction providing the support for the title work. It’s the first time Ehnes has recorded The Four Seasons, and it was certainly worth the wait. The playing is everything you would expect from him: it’s warm, intelligent and beautifully judged, with sensitive and very effective orchestral accompaniment.

The Tartini and Leclair sonatas are the opening works on the CD, with Ehnes using the Kreisler edition of the Devil’s Trill sonata that ends with the challenging cadenza that Kreisler added to the work. Again, the playing by both performers is outstanding.

02 Prokofiev MullovaAnother Onyx CD features live concert recordings of violin music by Sergei Prokofiev in terrific Frankfurt performances by Viktoria Mullova (ONYX 4142). The Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi provides the support in the lovely Concerto No.2 in G, Op.63, recorded over two days in May 2012. Mullova is equally at home in the work’s beautiful slow movement and in the music’s spikier passages.

Prokofiev’s two unaccompanied violin sonatas – the Sonata for Two Violins in C, Op.56 and the Solo Violin Sonata in D, Op.115 – were recorded in December 2014. Tedi Papavrami joins Mullova in the former. The recorded ambience is full and resonant, especially in the concerto, and there is no real sign of audience presence other than the applause at the end of the works, which fades out after a few seconds.

03 Rivka GolaniThere’s more live Prokofiev, as well as Shostakovich and Rachmaninov on Russian Concert, a 2-CD recording of the March 28, 2006 concert in Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio by the outstanding violist Rivka Golani and pianist John Lenehan (Hungaroton HCD 32743-44). The concert opens and closes with pieces (six on CD1, five on CD2) from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet, transcribed for viola and piano, with the composer’s permission, by the Russian violist Vadim Borisovsky. Violist Douglas Perry joins Golani and Lenehan for the final two pieces.

CD1 ends with a brooding performance of the Shostakovich Sonata for Viola and Piano Op.147, the only work in the concert in its original form, but the heart of the recital is the transcription – again by Borisovsky – of Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata in G Minor Op.19. More than anything else on the two CDs this brings impassioned playing from both performers, with the piano often predominant in a role that is far from being merely an accompaniment. Despite the wonderful viola playing, however, it’s difficult to ignore the fact that the instrument’s pitch is higher and somewhat thinner than the cello’s, and the absence of the latter’s strength, depth and richness, particularly in the lower strings, alters the tonal relationship with the piano; at times here, the music just seems to be too big for the instrument. Still, what a performance!

04 Isserlis GambaThe ever-reliable English cellist Steven Isserlis is back with yet another delightful CD, this time with harpsichordist Richard Egarr on Bach, Handel and Scarlatti Gamba Sonatas (Hyperion CDA68045).

Bach’s three sonatas – in G Major BWV1027, D Major BWV1028 and G Minor BWV1029 – are programmed around Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in D Minor Kk90 and Handel’s Violin Sonata in G Minor HWV364b. The Handel here relies on an authentic manuscript version that shows the opening of the violin part lowered an octave and indicated as for viola da gamba. In this work and the Scarlatti the players are joined by Robin Michael on cello continuo.

Isserlis points out that playing with a harpsichord allows him “to play as lightly as possible without ever courting inaudibility,” and the result is playing of grace, lightness and warmth. Add the usual intelligent and insightful booklet notes written by Isserlis in his inimitable style – he even quotes Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel at one point – and the whole package is another winner.

05 Four CenturiesThe often-asked question “How could I not have heard them play before?” raised its head again this month when I played Four Centuries, a new CD from pianist Susan Merdinger and violinist David Yonan featuring works by Mozart, Schumann, Bloch and the Chicago-based contemporary composer Ilya Levinson (Sheridan Music Studio susanmerdinger.org). Both players have impressive résumés, but the Berlin-born Yonan made his recital debut in Berlin, Moscow and St. Petersburg at the age of 11. He also studied with the legendary Dorothy DeLay at Juilliard. He has impeccable technique, a sumptuous tone and a real depth to his playing.

A lovely performance of Mozart’s Sonata No.13 in B-flat Major, K454 opens the disc, with the fine balance between the instruments reminding us that the work was written as being “for Piano and Violin.”

Schumann’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No.1 in A Minor, Op.105 is also beautifully played, but it is the 20th century work, Bloch’s Suite Hébraïque that really steals the show here. “It is the Jewish soul that interests me,” said Bloch, and it’s that soul which is at the heart of this three-movement suite and given a brilliant realization by Yonan. It’s stunning playing.

The final work is the world premiere recording of Levinson’s Elegy: Crossing the Bridge, a short piece dedicated to David Yonan, who gave the world premiere in Chicago in 2011. Susan Merdinger is a terrific partner throughout a highly satisfying CD.

06 Janacek SmetanaThree of the great Czech string quartets are featured on Janáček & Smetana String Quartets, the latest CD from the Takács Quartet (Hyperion CDA67997). All three works, while being strongly nationalistic, are also intensely personal.

Smetana openly admitted that his Quartet No.1 in E Minor, From My Life, was a tone picture of his life: the first movement is his youthful yearnings; the second the dance music of his youth; the third his first love – his future wife, whom he would lose to tuberculosis; and the fourth his joy in incorporating nationalism in his mature music, a joy that would be terminated by his growing deafness, represented in the score by the sudden ominous high E harmonic pitch that sounded in the composer’s ear. It’s obvious from the passionate opening that this will be a rewarding performance, and it never disappoints.

Janáček’s two quartets, subtitled The Kreutzer Sonata and Intimate Letters, were both written late in his life, when he had found his decidedly individual voice and was experiencing a late surge in his career. In particular, he was deeply involved in an intensely passionate – though essentially unrequited – friendship with the young Kamila Stősslová, and the second quartet specifically represents events in Janáček’s relationship with her; despite his age, it’s full of the passion and yearning of a youthful man.

The performances of both works here are all that you could want them to be.

07 St Helens QuartetAmerican Dreams is the title of a lovely new CD from the St. Helens String Quartet (Navona Records NV6004) as well as the subtitle of the opening work, Peter Schickele’s String Quartet No.1 from 1983.

Schickele, who turned 80 this year, has enjoyed a long career as a composer and performer when not busy with his alter ego P.D.Q. Bach. This quartet, the major work on the CD, is beautifully written, moving in an arch from an Appalachian start through jazz, blues and fiddle styles and a Navajo song back to the dulcimer-like Appalachian tune from the opening.

Ken Benshoof (born 1933), Bern Herbolsheimer (born 1948) and Janice Giteck (born1946) are the other composers, represented by a variety of short works. Benshoof’s Swing Low from 2004 is eight views of the famous spiritual, and his Remember is a nostalgic sketch from 1977. His Diversions from 2005 – six pieces in various moods, including Blue Grass and Raggedy Blues – are for violin and piano, with pianist Lisa Bergman providing the accompaniment.

Botanas, Herbolsheimer’s five-movement work from 2008, is named for the appetizers served in Mexican bars and cafes. The two pieces by Giteck are Ricercare (Dream Upon Arrival) from 2012 and Where can one live safely, then? In surrender, written for the St. Helens Quartet in 2005. There is nothing here that is hard to assimilate, and a great deal that is thought-provoking and highly enjoyable. The playing throughout is warm and idiomatic, the recording quality excellent.

08 Feral Icons for Viola

Also from Navona Records is Feral Icons, a suite of six movements for solo viola by Peter Vukmirovic Stevens performed by Mara Gearman (NV6008). The work was written for Gearman in 2013-14, and according to the very sparse booklet notes employs Stevens’ signature sound of extended tonality and isometric rhythms.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure what that means in this particular context. We’re told that Stevens, who studied with Bern Herbolsheimer among others, has a compositional approach that strips away the extraneous to reveal simplicity, and certainly the writing here seems to be mostly tonal and quite accessible, with a fairly standard use of the instrument. There’s not a great deal of dynamic, rhythmic or tonal range though, and Gearman’s vibrato never seems to vary much. Still, she’s more than up to any technical challenges the work presents.

09 CellophonyJudging by the number of cello ensembles around these days, cellists must love company. Vibrez is the first release on the UK’s Edition Classics label by the London-based cello octet Cellophony (EDN1047), featuring a program of nine arrangements by octet member Richard Birchall and one original composition. The eclectic list includes Wagner’s Prelude to Act 1 of Tristan und Isolde, three Schubert songs, Liszt’s La Lugubre Gondola, Wieniawski’s Scherzo-Tarantelle (in a particularly dazzling performance), Mendelssohn’s Ave Maria, a Bach Prelude and Barber’s Adagio Op.11, the famousAdagio for Strings.” The original composition Violoncelles, Vibrez! by the contemporary Italian composer and cellist Giovanni Sollima completes a charming and entertaining disc.

10 Sarah PlumMusic for a New Century is a new and intriguing CD of Violin Concertos by the American composers Sidney Corbett and Christopher Adler, performed by Sarah Plum (Blue Griffin Recording BGR371).

The Chamber Music Midwest Festival Orchestra under Akira Mori joins Plum in a live recording of Corbett’s Yaël at its June 5, 2011 North American premiere in Wisconsin, while Nicholas Deyoe conducts San Diego New Music in the world premiere of the Adler concerto, commissioned by Plum specifically to pair with the Corbett on this CD release.

While both works are clearly very strong neither is an easy first listen, with a good deal of unrelenting toughness that tends to act like a suit of emotional armour, keeping you at bay. Plum, however, calls them “beautiful, original and quite striking,” and says that she is “confident that they will enter the repertoire and be played for many years to come.” I really hope she’s right, but I won’t be putting any money on it; these are works that are not immediately audience friendly in the traditional sense, even on repeated hearings, and might prove difficult to program.

Mind you, it’s difficult to imagine a better flag bearer for them than Sarah Plum, who is quite brilliant here, or better performances or recordings. This is still an indispensable addition to the contemporary American violin concerto discography.

01 Tallis ScholarsPerfect Polyphony – Peter Phillips’ Favourites
Tallis Scholars
Gimell CDGIM 213

Coming up to 2000 concerts and 56 albums, director Peter Phillips has chosen to celebrate the Tallis Scholars by compiling his favourite recordings from 40 years of their stellar performances of Renaissance polyphony. Appropriately, the disc begins with Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, which also happens to be the very first piece the group ever recorded, and is followed by a lovely 1987 recording of Victoria’s Versa est in luctum. Tackling Gesualdo’s intense and harmonically challenging Ave, dulcissima Maria highlights the high level of precision these singers can execute. Particularly moving are the two sets of Lamentations of Jeremiah by Thomas Tallis, with Brumel and Ferrabosco’s settings following. Repetition, however, is not an issue: each composer’s treatment (and selection of text) is quite different. The opening of Josquin’s Missa Ave maris stella is resplendent with purity of tone, particularly in the women’s voices, and is lovely in its canonic pursuit from start to finish. The Tallis Scholars’ perfect intonation is enhanced by their uncanny ability to imbue the performance with meaning and beauty, never departing from the true spiritual significance of these works.

Concert note: The Chamber Music Orillia Chamber Choir performs Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli and works by Rachmaninoff, Fauré and Bach under Jeffrey Moellman’s direction on November 8, at St. James' Anglican Church, Orillia.

02 Vale of TearsThe Vale of Tears
Theatre of Early Music; Schola Cantorum; Daniel Taylor
Analekta AN 2 9144

Many years ago I discovered Heinrich Schütz’s funeral cantata, the Musikalische Exequien at an early music workshop in Amherst, Massachusetts. I am not exaggerating when I say that this was one of the most stunning musical experiences which have come my way. The week ended with a performance which was recorded. Naturally I rushed out to obtain the tape. It proved truly awful. Fortunately I discovered a fine professional performance conducted by Hans-Martin Linde on LP (it never made it to CD). Since then there have been others. I do not myself care for the very extroverted disc conducted by John Eliot Gardiner (Archiv) but there is a superb rendering by Vox Luminis on Ricercar, conducted by Lionel Meunier, who is also one of the bass soloists.

I am not going to claim that this new recording led by Daniel Taylor is even better, but it certainly runs close. It gets off to a very good start with the Intonation sung by Rufus Müller, who is terrific throughout. The singing is very fine and besides Müller I very much enjoyed the soprano soloists, Agnes Zsigovics and Ellen McAteer. The CD also contains two short movements from a mass by Michael Praetorius as well as a cantata by Bach (O heiliges Geist- und Wasserbad, BWV165). That cantata has a solo quartet consisting of Zsigovics, Müller, Daniel Taylor (alto) and Alexander Dobson (baritone). They are very good as are some of the obbligato players, notably the violinist Cristina Zacharias and the cellist Christina Mahler. Highly recommended.

Concert note: The Theatre of Early Music Choir and Students of the Schola Cantorum led by Daniel Taylor, are featured in The Lamb: An A Cappella Christmas Concert at Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building, University of Toronto, on November 29.

03 Concert Royal de la NuitLe Concert Royal de la Nuit
Ensemble Correspondances; Sébastien Daucé
harmonia mundi HMC 952223.24

The ballet Le Concert Royal de la Nuit was first performed in 1653. It can be seen as an act of homage to the young French king, the then 15-year old Louis XIV, who also danced the main part, that of the rising sun. A complete list of the performers has survived: it includes 24 princes and aristocrats, four courtiers and five children. We know that the author of the text was Isaac de Benserade. Jean de Cambefort was the most prominent composer of the music. The vocal music has been preserved but the instrumental music is based on a copy by Philidor, made half a century after the ballet’s performance. Philidor wrote out the top line and sometimes the bass line. It was left to the conductor, Sébastien Daucé, to reconstruct the implied but missing inner lines.

Often now record companies try to economize on the material provided. That is not the case here where the CDs come with a richly documented book of almost 200 pages that includes illustrations of the original performers and their costumes, illustrations taken from the material preserved at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire. In one of his notes, Daucé mentions that he had originally intended to create a complete reconstruction of the original ballet, but that was not feasible. Instead, we have here all the vocal music as well as 51 of the original 77 dance sequences. This music is juxtaposed with selections from two Italian operas written for Paris: Ercole amante by Francesco Cavalli and Orfeo by Luigi Rossi. These operatic sequences are written in a rather different idiom than that of the dance music but they go together surprisingly well. The record also contains some earlier airs by Antoine Boesset (who had died in 1643): these provide an interesting contrast with the slightly later dance music. The music requires large forces to do it justice: I counted 16 singers and 34 instrumentalists. Everything is beautifully done.

01 stephane TetreaultHaydn; Schubert; Brahms
Stéphane Tétrault; Marie-Ève Scarfone
Analekta AN 2 9994

This cello disc comprises three significant works by Viennese masters. Haydn’s delighful Divertimento in D Major was arranged for cello and piano by Gregor Piatigorsky from the original, composed for the viol-related baryton, viola and cello. Cellist Stéphane Tétreault is heartfelt in the opening Adagio’s melodies, still achieving classical poise with pianist Marie-Ève Scarfone. They convey the Menuet’s classicism and match the finale’s brightness and geniality. For me the disc’s highlight is Schubert’s Sonata in A Minor for the six-stringed, bowed arpeggione (1824), now usually played on the cello. The duo’s reading is impassioned, its expression tasteful. Dramatic arpeggios and leaps suggest agitation and crying. The Adagio’s emotional opening cello melody carries forward into a well-shaped long line. There is plenty of colour in Tétreault’s playing, with flexibility of tempo and perfect ensemble by the duo.

Lucie Renaud’s fine program notes point out nostalgic and historical elements in Brahms’ Sonata in E Minor (1871) – for example the second movement’s minuet and third movement’s fugato – and connections to the disc’s previous works. After the Schubert, I was struck by this piece’s analogous leaping cello cries in the first movement’s opening theme. And Brahms-like Schubert is a master at mixing major- and minor-key inflections that evoke shifting moods. The performers are neither routine nor precious in their expressive reading of the Menuetto. And Scarfone comes to the fore in the finale, playing its contrapuntal passages with fire and conviction. 

02 Schumann Heras CasadoSchumann – Piano Concerto in A minor; Piano Trio No.2
Alexander Melnikov; Isabelle Faust; Jean-Guihen Queyras; Freiburger Barockorchester; Pablo Heras-Casado
harmonia mundi HMC 902198

This is the second installment of Schumann’s three trios and concertos. The first (HMC 902196) contained the violin concerto and the third trio Op.110 in performances that were game changing with a soft attack and sensitive textures.

This orchestra as we know by now, with their aesthetic firmly based, seeks to recreate the sound of early music in its time. The open mesh to their sound illuminates this middle-romantic deployment of pre-modern instruments. With valveless horns and trumpets, woodier woodwinds, sinewy gut strings and taut percussion, this must be the sound the composer knew wherein no instrument is buried. Schumann in his concertos sought to harmonize the sound of soloist and orchestra rather than throw them against each other as Brahms did later. The pianoforte employed in this concert performance, recorded in the Berlin Philharmonie, is an 1837 Érard. The enthusiastic performance is a revelation, driven by Spanish conductor Heras-Casado’s well-paced tempi, always attentive to the felicities of Schumann’s score. All aspects considered, this is decidedly a benchmark account.

Exactly as I noted in my May 2015 WholeNote review of their performance of the Third Trio, “Faust and her colleagues radiate ardor and optimism, performing with sensitivity, sincere musicality and flawless ensemble that hold the listener’s attention.” Their choice of instruments is interesting: Melnikov’s pianoforte is again the Streicher (1847 Vienna), Faust’s violin the 1704 Strad and Queras’ cello the 1696 Gioffredo Cappa.

Mahler – Symphony No.5
Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra; Myung-Whun Chung
Deutsche Grammophon 481 154-0

Mahler – Symphony No.10
Orchestre Metropolitain; Yannick Nézet-Séguin
ATMA ACD2 2711

03a Mahler 5 ChungTwo very different recordings pose the question: how “live” is a live performance? The Korean conductor Myung-Whun Chung has brought the Seoul Philharmonic to the world’s attention thanks to his recording contract with the venerable yellow label and the orchestra certainly sounds fabulous in this latest DG recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Though it is difficult to say precisely whether the credit lies entirely with the conductor or the German Tonmeister team, the results are sonically exceptional. It is, after all, quite unusual to detect the grainy sound of contrabassoon doublings so distinctly in the concert hall or to apprehend orchestral balances this clearly in real life live performances. In any case, Chung proves himself a master of this familiar work, conducted from memory and sensitively interpreted with a convincing Viennese lilt in the lengthy third movement Scherzo and a moving yet not maudlin performance of the celebrated Adagietto. The challenge of the Rondo finale is adroitly solved by taking a middle-ground tempo that binds together the ever-shifting tempi of the disparate sections.

Review

03b Mahler 10

From the outset of his Tenth Symphony it is clear that Mahler was tentatively entering into a new sonic realm of expanded chromaticism and rhythmic freedom, tragically cut short by his untimely death at the age of 50. He left behind skeletal sketches of the entire work which has been reconstructed several times, the most familiar of these being the third Deryck Cooke version presented here. For the most part the Orchestre Métropolitain delivers an impressive performance save for some occasionally ragged playing by the brass section. Though the normal OM string section has been doubled in strength for this performance, they still fall 17 players short of the Seoul forces and the difference is telling. Nonetheless Nézet-Séguin uses this to his advantage, bringing forth a beautifully veiled pianissimo behind the exquisite flute solo in the moving finale of the work. ATMA’s production is far less interventionist, spliced (not altogether seamlessly) together from multiple performances in long takes with a modest array of microphones. Despite the disparate production values of these two releases it is the ATMA recording I find myself returning to most often; Nézet-Séguin clearly has something special to say about this least familiar Mahler symphony and I am willing to forgive its relatively minor shortcomings.

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