Early, Classical and Beyond

Rachmaninov - Symphony No.2; Dances from Aleko
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; Vasily Petrenko
EMI Classics 9154732

Early in his career Rachmaninov was regarded as a gifted pianist, an occupation that supported the unrecognized composer. By his last decade, living in the United States, he was recognized both as a composer and an extraordinary concert pianist. I was told by a friend who was a member of the New York Philharmonic during the Toscanini era that the maestro asserted that Rachmaninov’s performance in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto in 1933 remained peerless. The Second Symphony was written in during 1906 and 1907, half a dozen years after the now signature Piano Concerto No.2 and is solidly of the romantic era, full of great tunes in the recognizable Russian tradition. Performances were often truncated in order not to burden audiences with a 60-minute symphony. Into the LP era, too, shortened versions were recorded.

 Under an unsympathetic baton, the first movement can seem endless and tiresome, an impression put to rest by some fine recorded performances, none more convincing than this one.

Here Petrenko’s penetration into the score produces a reading of unusual empathy that quickly draws the listener’s attention to the composer’s sensitivity and yearning, tension and release. There is Russian lushness aplenty from musicians who clearly love what they are playing.

The second movement, marked Allegro Molto in the opening, is given a perceptibly broader tempo than is favoured by others but, to my ears, it has panache.

The third movement, Adagio, is quite exquisite as Petrenko preserves the tranquility and nostalgia implicit in the score with wistful memories of the first movement. The triumphant rush of the last movement brings this superb recording to a rousing finale. If you are up for some orchestral thrills and a startlingly real recording with dramatic dynamics and astonishing body from the very quietest passages to ravishing tuttis then this recording is a must, even if it duplicates other performances in your collection.

Lugano Concertos
Martha Argerich and Friends
Deutsche Grammophon 477 9884

Martha Argerich! For lovers of piano music such as myself, the very name conjures up feelings of near reverence for a veritable icon in the world of classical music. Ever since she wandered into an EMI recording studio in London in 1965, aged 24, to record her first major album, she has rightfully enjoyed an international reputation as a charismatic pianist and recording artist. Since 2002, Argerich has also assumed the role of impresario, annually gathering musicians for the Martha Argerich Project, part of the Lugano Festival held every June – and it’s from this event that her latest offering is based, a fine four-disc set of live recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label titled Martha Argerich Lugano Concertos.

This is a beautifully packaged collection, with extensive notes and photographs in book-in-sleeve format. Drawn from past festivals, the music was recorded over seven summers, with repertoire spanning a period of 150 years. Not all the other artists taking part are well known but included in the group are pianists Paul Gulda and Gabriela Montero, the Lugano Percussion Group and the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana under a number of different conductors including Gabriela Chmura, Ion Marin and her one-time husband, Charles Dutoit.

At first impression, the listener is immediately struck by the set’s eclecticism. Yes, they all involve ensembles of various sizes, but the music comprises a myriad of styles and periods, with works by such diverse composers as Beethoven, Schumann, Bartok, Brahms, Milhaud and Stravinsky. The set opens with the classically refined Piano Concerto No.1 by Beethoven, music from around 1800. Here, Argerich demonstrates her typically flawless technique and a certain robust quality that seems particularly suitable for the music of a young composer on the verge of fame. In complete contrast is the Concerto for Two Pianos by Francis Poulenc, where she and her pianist partner Alexander Gurning along with the Swiss-Italian Orchestra conducted by Ersmo Capilla easily capture the cheeky and exuberant spirit of this music written in 1932.

Not all the pieces involve large ensembles. For example, the Divertissement à la Hongroise by Schubert finds Argerich on stage with pianist Alexander Mogilevsky in a thoughtful interpretation of Schubert’s homage to the Hungarian folk idiom. For a delightful 2005 performance of the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes, she’s joined by pianist Gabriela Montero and the Swiss Radio Television Chorus directed by Diego Fasolis.

Martha Argerich Lugano Concertos is indeed a fine testimony not only to Argerich’s talents as a performer, but also to her skill at gathering and showcasing talent, both well known and less familiar. All have come together for the purpose of making music on a very high level – and what a perfect holiday gift the set would make for the music lover on your list!

Violinist Jacques Israelievitch has been active with a solo and chamber career since stepping down from his 20-year stint as concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2008. He has compiled a fascinating CD catalogue on the Fleur de Son Classics label over the past 12 years, and two new issues were received this month. Well, one new issue and one not quite so new, by the look of it.

French Violin Sonatas (FDS 58005), in which Israelievitch is ably accompanied by the outstanding pianist Kanae Matsumoto, is certainly new – it’s scheduled for release on November 13 and at the time of writing is not even listed on the label’s website – but it was recorded more than two years ago at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state. Israelievitch is, not surprisingly, very comfortable with these four works from his native country. He has a quite distinctive style, with a gentleness and a sweet softness to his playing that makes the violin very much a feminine instrument in his hands. That’s not to say that it lacks intensity or strength, though, as the spiky opening of the lovely Poulenc sonata proves.

The rarely-heard sonata by Gabriel Pierné is a cyclical, post-Franck work from 1900 that apparently did much to establish the violin sonata as a serious chamber music form in a French music world that was dominated by opera.

The Debussy sonata was the last work that the composer was to complete; the 1917 premiere with the young violinist Gaston Poulet was also Debussy’s last public performance. There’s a direct link here: in 1944 Poulet became a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, where one of his future pupils would be a certain Jacques Israelievitch.

A fine performance of the Ravel sonata completes a fascinating CD, beautifully presented in a glossy digi-pack.

The New Arts Trio has been the trio-in-residence at the Chautauqua Institution since 1978. Pianist Rebecca Penneys is the only original member; cellist Arie Lipsky joined in 1996 and Jacques Israelievitch in 1999.

Their 30^th Anniversary Recital is available on New Arts Trio at Chautauqua (FDS 58000), just received but apparently issued in 2010. There are solid if not spectacular performances of Dvořák’s “Dumky” Piano Trio and Astor Piazzolla’s Primavera Porteña, along with two works written for the Trio in 2008 – Michael Colina’s Idoru and Ella Milch-Sheriff’s Credo. The Dumky is by far the major work here, though, both in content and in length.

The Brahms Clarinet Quintet has long been one of my favourite works, and you can usually tell within the first few bars what sort of performance it’s going to be. The greatest praise I can give the performance by the Tokyo String Quartet with clarinettist Jon Manasse on the new harmonia mundi CD Brahms Quintets Op.34 & Op.115 (HMU 807558) is that after the opening bars I wrote “Glorious opening – wistful, warm, autumnal – clarinet tone just right – strings beautifully judged” and then spent the next 38 minutes basking in as engrossing and satisfying a performance of this wonderful work as I can remember.

The same high standard continues with the Piano Quintet, Op.34 where the Tokyo Quartet is joined by Jon Nakamatsu in another perfectly-judged performance. Again one to cherish.

Sometimes, as a reviewer, you just stop listening critically and simply get lost in the performances. That’s what happened here, and what can possibly top that?

The excellent Hyperion series The Romantic Violin Concerto reaches Volume 13 with another outstanding CD, this time featuring Anthony Marwood and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Douglas Boyd in the Schumann Violin Concertos in D Minor and A Minor – the latter a direct transcription by the composer of his Cello Concerto – and the Phantasie in C Major (CDA67847).

There seems to be renewed interest in these works, which for many years – until 1937 for the D Minor and 1987 for the A Minor – remained unplayed and unheard; this is the second set I’ve received in just over a year, following Ulf Wallin’s meticulously researched performances on the BIS label, reviewed in September 2011.

Marwood, as usual, is simply outstanding in this, his third contribution to the highly acclaimed series.

There is more Schumann, this time the Piano Quartet, Piano Quintet and the Märchenerzählungen, on a new Naxos CD by the Fine Arts Quartet with Xiayin Wang on piano (8.572661).

The Quartet and Quintet were written in 1842, Schumann’s “year of chamber music”, and are given the level of performance you would expect from musicians of this standing. The Fine Arts, after all, have been around since 1946, although obviously none of the current players is an original member. Until just last year, however, three of the four members – the two violinists and the cellist – had been together for 30 years.

The Märchenerzählungen (Fairy Tale Narrations) Op.132 was written in 1853, a mere four months before Schumann’s failed suicide attempt, although there is nothing in the music to suggest this. It is a work that is new to me, and is played here in Schumann’s optional version for Violin, Viola and Piano, the violin replacing the clarinet of the original. Quartet members Ralph Evans and Nicoló Eugelmi join Wang in bringing out all the warmth of these four charming pieces.

The recordings were made two years ago (apparently it often seems to take a long time for CDs to reach the market). Since then cellist Wolfgang Laufer has been replaced by Robert Cohen.

The six string quartets of Haydn’s Op.33 are featured on a new 2CD set from Analekta in performances by the Eybler Quartet (AN 2 9842-3). The performers – violinists Aisslinn Nosky and Julia Wedman, violist Patrick Jordan and cellist Margaret Gay – are all well-known on the Canadian early music scene through their affiliation with groups such as Tafelmusik and I Furiosi, so there’s no doubting that we are in good hands here from a stylistic point of view.

On first hearing, I did find the tone to be a bit thin, but then for me it’s the usual question of competing balances with period performances: purity of tone versus a thinness of sound; lack of – or sparingly used – vibrato versus a lack of warmth. It all comes down to a matter of personal taste, and if you’re used to a fuller sound in your Haydn quartets – even if it’s not really appropriate – then this might not be for you. There is no doubting, however, that these are highly enjoyable, technically sound performances and idiomatic interpretations, lovingly played and beautifully recorded at Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.

The order of the individual quartets is a bit strange, given that the timings for the six works don’t vary that much and the keys are all different: CD1 has quartets five, one and six, while CD2 has quartets two, four and three.

Music from the Eton Choirbook
Tonus Peregrinus
Naxos 8.572840

The Eton College Choirbook is one of pre-Reformation England’s greatest glories. English composers rejoiced in their settings of music that were as joyful as the architecture in which they were performed was lofty. The Choirbook required the skins of “112 average-sized calves” to produce; none died in vain, as this recording proves.

Two composers included here, Lambe and Browne, probably had connections with Eton. Lambe’s Nesciens mater a 5 is so exhilarating it could be used at any modern service — and the Choirbook likely dates from 1500!

William, Monk of Stratford, gave his Magnificat a 4 an ebullient character. Tonus Peregrinus uses 13 voices, five upper and eight lower, initially alternating but ultimately combined. Occasionally William’s polyphony uses strange examples of either lost or extra beats — is the lost beat between “the rich” and “he hath sent away empty” a deliberate ploy?

A second Magnificat, by Hugh Kellyk, is not as strident as William’s. It is nonetheless very demanding on the higher voices. Tonus Peregrinus’ already high reputation is only enhanced by its interpretations of the Eton Choirbook.

The opening pages of Richard Davy’s St. Matthew Passion have been lost. Jesus stands before Pilate and the events leading to crucifixion are recounted. Davy uses the arrangement soprano, alto, tenor, bass for both Pilate and Pilate’s wife. The bass part for both characters is, perhaps strangely, sung by one singer, Nick Flower. This certainly does not detract from the sheer forcefulness of Davy’s interpretation.

John Browne’s Stabat mater also uses 13 voices. Emphasis is placed on the soprano voices in what is a very powerful setting; mention must be made, however, of the bass parts, which are omnipresent if somewhat overshadowed.

Naxos is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It describes this recording as “perhaps the jewel in the crown of its series of Milestones of Western music.” Only “perhaps?”

Chauvon – Les nouveaux bijoux
Washington McClean; Alison Melville;
Julia Wedman; Michael McCraw;
Charlotte Nediger
early-music.com EMCCD-7773
www.early-music.com

A virtual who’s who of North American early music specialists jump headfirst into the clever and charming world of French baroque composer François Chauvon, whose name may be unfamiliar to the reader. A student of Couperin, he composed a small number of chamber and vocal works between 1710 and 1740.

Tibiades (1717) is a collection of suites for baroque oboe and flute, with some suites including violin. Influenced by the Italian concertato texture style of the time, the instruments to be played were specified, but which line for each was not indicated. The performers are at liberty to choose their part, and when to play tutti and solo. Here, the performers not only choose their parts, but expand their choices by the addition of bassoon and continuo. The resulting instrumentation creates charming and distinct settings.

Eight suites are featured. Each is short in duration, with the occasional movement under one minute. The 44 second “Arpégement, le Pièche (gracieusement)” is a memorable harpsichord interlude from the Première Suite. Chauvon also dabbled with programmatic titles. The “la Mélancholique” movement from the Troisième Suite is slow and somewhat glum in notation and the selected instrumentation.

As to be expected, all the performers are spectacular. I especially marvel at Alison Melville’s breath control on recorders and traverse flute and harpsichordist Charlotte Nediger’s extraordinary continuo expertise. This recording is early music at its best.