Early, Classical and Beyond

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.

Saint-Saëns - Music for Wind Instruments
National Arts Centre Wind Quintet; Stéphane Lemelin
Naxos 8.570964

For some the name Saint-Saëns may evoke the musty ectoplasm of the Danse macabre or, likewise ghastly, the Carnival of the Animals embellished with Ogden Nash verses intoned by a tanned and taut celebrity. Actually, Saint-Saëns was a serious composer of high calibre, an extraordinary piano prodigy who wrote successfully in every genre. This disc of works for winds and piano brilliantly performed by National Arts Centre Orchestra principals reveals the wealth of expression and imagination within the composer’s classical French orientation.

In the clarinet, oboe and bassoon sonatas of 1921, the 85-year-old composer is still at his peak. Of these “swan songs” the clarinet sonata is the most extended and varied of the three, while the oboe sonata conveys a sense of antique classicism. The pure, pensive repose of the bassoon sonata is rendered effectively by Christopher Millard. Its opening movement pays homage to Saint-Saëns’ close lifelong associate Gabriel Fauré in its chromatic twists of harmony. The final movement with its slow tempi and absence of virtuosity is particularly affecting.

The early Tarantella and the Caprice on Danish and Russian Airs are unique, attractive works for upper winds with piano. Some pianists come to grief with the virtuosity of Saint-Saëns’ chamber music, but not Canadian pianist Stéphane Lemelin who is a specialist in nineteenth-century French repertoire. Immaculate ensemble work between winds and piano is notable throughout. Rounded off by the Romance arranged for horn and piano, the disc is a must-buy for woodwind and chamber music enthusiasts.