Early, Classical and Beyond

Mozart & Brahms – Clarinet Quintets
Anthony McGill; Pacifica Quartet
Cedille CDR 90000 147

Mozart and Brahms, more or less a century apart, wrote quintets for clarinet and string quartet during their most mature creative period. While liner notes for this latest recording draw interesting parallels between them, the pieces are quite distinct. More interesting than material similarities is that both works sprang from the composers’ admiration and affection for particular clarinetists. It is left to the contemporary performer to step into the shoes of Anton Stadler (Mozart) and Richard Muhlfeld (Brahms), to represent an aesthetic span of a century in the manner of one’s performance.

A greater challenge still is making the pieces sound new. Mozart’s K581 is perhaps too well-known for that. McGill and company keep tempi brisk, eschew vibrato, remain in tune; they even affect a Viennese waltz in the second trio. The clarinet tone is clear and yet warm: crystal velvet. The string playing is assured, all gut strings and clear understatement. It is nice to hear a different cadenza in the finale, uttered with flair. Still, I’m left feeling that what we have here is another fine rendition of a treasured yet worn part of the repertoire, even as I admire the heck out of the musicianship.

Brahms’ longer and darker work is more daunting for performer and listener alike. In Steppenwolf Hermann Hesse imagines an encounter with these composers in the afterlife: Brahms is a Jacob Marley figure (burdened by notes instead of chains); Mozart is the perfect Buddha, free of overstatement. Never mind! The opening of Op.115 is such a tremendous joy to hear in all its melancholic beauty, I forgive the composer his excesses. What a totally ravishing performance is given on this disc. Bittersweet romance blooms. The pacing is vital and flexible. Inner voices sing, hemiolas rock. The finale leads to ineluctable tragedy, beautifully. McGill opts for restraint for too much of the rhapsodic section of the adagio, but on the whole he and the quartet remain true to Brahms’ passionate expression. Buy this recording.

Schubert – The Late Piano Sonatas
Paul Lewis
Harmonia Mundi HMC 902165.66

For explicable reasons I have a special affinity for Schubert’s piano works, including the Impromptus, the Moments Musicaux and others, but especially the sonatas. Particularly the final three which were all composed in 1828, the year following his visit to the dying Beethoven. Schubert himself was deathly ill but in his last months he also managed to complete the C Major Symphony, the song cycle Schwanengesang and give a concert on the anniversary of the death of Beethoven. He died on November 19, 1828 aged 31 and was buried, as he had wished, very close to Beethoven in Wahring. In the 1860s both bodies were disinterred and taken to Vienna where they lie, side by side in the Central Cemetery.

Lewis is a front-rank interpreter of Beethoven as his recordings of the five concertos and the complete piano sonatas will attest, but his realizations of Schubert are no less commanding. He recorded the D784 and D958 in 2013 and the last two in 2002. Lewis does far more than give us exactly what is written in the score, seeming to express the composer’s own thoughts. This is nowhere more evident than in the opening movement of the D960. A couple of comparisons: Clifford Curzon is smooth, fluid and melodic while Radu Lupu is somewhat thoughtful. Neither those nor others has the innigkeit (sincerity, honesty, warmth, intensity and intimacy) displayed by Lewis. And so it is across the four sonatas. For Lewis there are no throwaways; every note is significant and important and placed exactly right. An essential recording of this repertoire.

In the Night
Stephen Hough
Hyperion CDA67996

Pianist Stephen Hough is absolutely brilliant in his solo release In the Night where the many aspects of night, from nightmares to insomnia to deep sleep to bliss, are given a pianistic rendition. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in C sharp minor “Moonlight” is an obvious inclusion here. Hough begins with thoughtful reflection and a mournful lyrical melodic statement which weaves around a steady rhythmic framework and sets the stage for an emotionally dark yet hopeful performance. Likewise his performances of Frederic Chopin’s Two Nocturnes Op.27 are charged and driven by deep musical maturity. Both Robert Schumann’s In der Nacht from Fantasiestucke, Op.12 and Carnaval are performed with technical and musical wizardry.

The pianist’s own composition Piano Sonata No.2 “notturno luminoso” is a tour de force. It is always such a joy to hear composers perform their own work. Though clearly steeped in romantic attributes, Hough chooses more modern jazz-evoking harmonies, witty repartees between high and low pitches, and excursions into sharp, flat and natural sections to evoke the many sides of nighttime living. From crashing percussion chords which never overwhelm, to sudden silences, to a soothing final cadence lulling one to sleep, Hough musically evokes nighttime at its very, very best and very, very worst.

Superb production qualities, well-written liner notes, a great performer and a great choice in repertoire make In the Night piano music to listen to any time of day.

Tchaikovsky – The Seasons
Pavel Kolesnikov
Hyperion CDA68028

While Tchaikovsky is most famous for his ballets, operas and orchestral music, he also completed a large number of pieces for solo piano. These may not be as well known, but they bear the same attention to detail and finely crafted melodies as his larger works – and these characteristics are very evident in the two sets Op.37b and Op.19 found on this Hyperion recording performed by Siberian-born pianist Pavel Kolesnikov.

Still only in his early 20s, Kolesnikov was a first-prize winner in the Honens piano competition in 2012, and is currently pursuing musical studies at Moscow State Conservatory in addition to private lessons with Maria João Pires in Brussels. To date, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus and the Banff Summer Festival.

The Seasons (1876) initially appeared as individual movements in a musical journal spanning the course of a year, each one representing a different month. Charming and graceful music, each movement is characterized by its own unique character, from the quiet reflection of “January (By the fireside)” and the exuberance of “February (Carnaval)” to the gracefulness of “December (Valse).” Kolesnikov’s approach to the music is thoughtful and intuitive, demonstrating an understated sensitivity combined with a formidable technique.

The Six Morceaux, composed three years earlier, is also a study in contrasts. Once again, Kolesnikov effortlessly conveys the ever-changing moods, right up until the striking “Thème original et Variations” which concludes the set and the disc with a fine flourish.

Well done, young man, you’ve already accomplished much in your short life and if this fine recording is any indication, you’re headed for greatness.

Caccini – L’Euridice
Soloists; Concerto Italiano; Rinaldo Alessandrini
Naïve OP 30552

In 1607 Carlo Magno wrote to his brother that there would soon be a performance of “a piece that will be unique because all the performers speak musically.” The piece was Monteverdi’s Orfeo and the letter clearly shows that a work that was sung throughout or, as we would call it, an opera, was felt to be a new thing. The earliest opera was Jacopo Peri’s Dafne (1597 or 1598) but, since the music for that work has not survived, opera is generally thought to begin with the two Eurydice operas (written to the same libretto) by Peri and Giulio Caccini, both of which date from 1600. Musicologists have usually dismissed the Caccini version. On the other hand, the printed material that comes with an earlier recording of the Caccini (conducted by Nicholas Achten, on the Ricercar label) claims that Caccini, not Peri, was the true founder of the new genre.

The musical language of Caccini’s opera, the stile rappresentativo, is based on the impassioned speech of the solo voice. It is more melodious than mere recitative but it never develops into aria. Nor does it have the musical inventiveness or instrumental variety that characterize Monteverdi’s opera only a few years later. Whether or not the Caccini is inferior to Peri’s version, it has a great deal of dramatic power and is certainly worth listening to, especially when it is sung and played as well as it is here. Rinaldo Alessandrini and the Concerto Italiano have given us many fine recordings, particularly of the Monteverdi Madrigals, and this CD does not disappoint.