Early, Classical and Beyond

Bach - Famous Works on Pedal Harpsichord

Luc Beauséjour

Analekta AN 2 9970

This fascinating recording celebrates the essential triumvirate of a complete and satisfying musical experience: composer/performer/instrument. Recorded entirely on a pedal harpsichord completed in 2009 by the brilliant and prolific Montreal instrument-maker Yves Beaupré, the program tours some of Bach’s best-loved keyboard works.

The excellent French Canadian harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour enjoys an international career and is known for his virtuosity, as well as being a probing and thoughtful performer. He dives boldly into the full and rich sound world of the pedal harpsichord, a robust and powerful instrument that makes up in heft and colour what it lacks in delicacy.

From the profound and familiar opening notes of the D minor Toccata, Beauséjour’s playing sparkles with precision, intensity and beauty. Two substantial Prelude and Fugue sets (BWV 541 and 535) and a generous selection of chorale preludes follow. In the latter it is at times difficult to apprehend the chorale tunes in the midst of the surrounding material, the sound colours being so identical. The recording concludes however with a spectacular performance of the monumental C Minor Passacaille, BWV 582.

There is a relentless intensity to the sound of the pedal harpsichord which may make this recording not to everyone’s taste, but the remarkably free and deeply musical playing of Beauséjour carries the day for me, making this CD a unique and valuable effort.

Bach - Flute Sonatas

Joshua Smith; Jory Vinikour; Ann Marie Morgan; Allison Guest Edberg

Delos DE 3408

This is Joshua Smith’s second disc of Bach’s flute music, the first of which covered the sonatas with obbligato harpsichord (Delos 3402). This newer offering features the E major, E minor and C major sonatas for flute and basso continuo. Smith does a remarkable job with these, which so often suffer from heavy-handedness and lack of imagination when performed on the modern flute. His playing is delightfully devoid of extreme vibrato and heavy-handed articulation, and displays a consistently thoughtful understanding of the music’s underlying harmonic structure. In some of the faster movements the passagework could perhaps use a little more variety in its shaping, and some of the allegros were too close to presto for my taste. But Smith’s attentive phrasing and expressive delicacy, particularly in the slower movements, more than make up for these small caveats. He is also brilliantly accompanied by colleagues Jory Vinikour, harpsichord, and Ann Marie Morgan, baroque cello, and the trio’s teamwork is pretty close to flawless.

An extra treat included on this recording is the C minor trio sonata from the Musical Offering (BWV 1079), in which Smith, Vinikour and Morgan are joined by baroque violinist Allison Guest Edberg. Theirs is a first-rate recording of this magnificent piece, in which the bigger arcs of structure and harmony happily coincide with deftly outlined musical nuance.

It’s not every day that a modern flutist gives Bach a performance that makes a traverso player happy, but Joshua Smith does so with consummate skill and aplomb.

Moonlight Fantasies - Beethoven; Schumann; Chopin

Ian Parker

Azica ACD-71264

In Canadian music circles the name Parker has almost come to be synonymous with high standards of excellence in the field of piano performance, all stemming from the renowned Vancouver-based pedagogue Edward Parker. Edward’s two nephews, Jon Kimura and James, have already earned international reputations. Now Ian, his son, continues the tradition, and this new recording “Moonlight Fantasies” proves that he is indeed a worthy follower in the family footsteps.

Ian began studying the piano with his father, and later continued at the Juilliard School, where he was the winner of the Gina Bachauer Piano Scholarship Competition. He made his debut at Lincoln Centre in 2004, and has since gone on to perform throughout North America and Europe. This disc, which features music by Beethoven, Schumann, and Chopin, is a delight. Beethoven’s two sonatas Op.27, including the famous “Moonlight,” show a polished and sensitive approach, while the great Fantasie in C Op. 17 by Robert Schumann combines a technical brilliance with deeply-rooted sensitivity. Whether or not Chopin’s Fantasie Op.49 is his greatest work is open to debate, but Parker’s interpretation would surely meet with the approval of all Chopin aficionados, myself included. My only quibble – and it’s a minor one- is the speed at which he takes the thrice–heard lyrical secondary theme in this piece. Although I would have preferred a little easing up of tempo, this is a minor point, and in no way mars an exemplary performance.

Well done, Mr. Parker. Like your older cousins, you have proved yourself a credit to the family name.

Bruckner - Symphony No.8

Orchestre Metropolitain du Grand Montreal; Yannick Nézet-Séguin

ATMA ACD2 2513

Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a young, very talented French Canadian conductor from Montreal, student of the great Giulini, who in a short few years has had a meteoric rise: first as Gergiev’s appointed successor for the Rotterdam Philharmonic and now as Chef d’Orchestre for the prestigious Philadelphia Orchestra. Last fall he was invited to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic and with rousing success.

The Canadian recording company ATMA Classique has been lucky to snap him up and made several recordings with him, all given high esteem and international prizes. One of these is Bruckner’s immense 8th Symphony, a formidable task for even the most experienced conductor, and the result is spectacular.

“Bruckner is all about space” says the artist and the recording makes us feel it with its reverberant church acoustics. Nowhere have I heard the ending, where Bruckner’s gods make their triumphant entry to Walhalla, so full, so uplifting, and all bells ringing, like the whole universe coming together. “No, it’s not an end,” says the conductor, “but heralds a beginning of a new era” perhaps unintentionally paraphrasing Winston Churchill. There are many exquisite moments, like the pp fleeting rush of strings that introduce the scherzo theme, a theme that’s repeated endlessly, never twice the same, in a steady crescendo. Or the prayer-like, hushed Adagio, one of the most intensely beautiful selections of music ever written that builds over 23 minutes to an earth shattering ff climax.

A triumphant recording. Best yet in his Bruckner cycle.

Mahler - Symphony No.2

Kate Royal; Magdalena Kožená; Rundfunkchor; Berliner Philharmoniker; Simon Rattle

EMI 6 47363 2

Mahler - Des Knaben Wunderhorn

Sarah Connolly; Dietrich Henschel; Orchestre des Champs-Élysées; Philippe Herreweghe

Harmonia Mundi HMX 2901920

Mahler’s Second Symphony has a preeminent significance to Simon Rattle; it was the work that inspired him to become a conductor. Rattle’s interpretation of the work has always been refreshingly distinctive, with an organic plasticity that never descends into mere taffy-pulling. He takes some interpretive risks here, milking the impressive dissonance that heralds the recapitulation in the first movement at a very deliberate, stentorian pace while elsewhere revealing an obsession with details that are seldom heard in lesser interpretations. The Berlin musicians play like gods throughout. Rattle’s well-regarded 1987 EMI recording with the Birmingham SO is still revered for the presence of Arleen Auger and Dame Janet Baker as the vocal soloists. Alas, they don’t make voices like that these days; here the singers are Kate Royal and Magdalena Kožená (Sir Simon’s second wife), the latter quickly becoming a ubiquitous presence in several recent high-profile Mahler recordings. The symphony is spread over two discs, with the first movement alone occupying the first of these. The live performance (mercifully without applause or other audience intrusions) is exceptionally well recorded.

Harmonia Mundi has re-issued at a budget price Philippe Herreweghe’s 2006 recording of the orchestral songs from Mahler’s settings of folk poetry from the popular 19th century anthology known in English as The Youth’s Magic Horn. The string section of Philippe Herreweghe’s Champs-Élysées orchestra is a reduced ensemble that performs in the imperturbable, “historically informed” manner, lending an exceptional transparency to the orchestral texture – though it must be said that Mahler himself cared little for interpretive historical precedents. The powerful voice of Dieter Henschel brings a swaggering authority in the military songs while Sarah Conolly’s honey-hued tone provides ample rustic charm to the lighter numbers. While Herreweghe’s precise accompaniment falls a bit short dramatically in comparison to the classic Szell, Bernstein or Abbado performances this unique and admirably recorded disc is nonetheless well worth owning.