02 ClementiClementi - Symphonies 1 & 2
Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma; Francesco La Vecchia
Naxos 8.573071

Although we tend to think of Muzio Clementi primarily as the composer of utilitarian exercises for the piano, this disc reminds us of his considerable gifts as a symphonist and the liner notes succinctly lay out the impressive details of his remarkable and influential career. His playing, conducting and teaching brought him into contact with leading composers of his generation and in 1813 he founded – together with Viotti – the Philharmonic Society of London. He was also active in music publishing and the manufacturing of pianos.

Written somewhere between 1805 and 1820 (the exact dates of composition are a matter of speculation), these orchestral pieces invite comparison to the masterpieces of the form by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and the results are favourable. It’s clear that Clementi’s studies and travels – which took him from Rome to Paris, Vienna, Lyon and, eventually, London – equipped him with a formidable musical knowledge and technique. Thematic interest, clever orchestration and powerful drama make the case that these works should be more widely known.

This excellent recording will help in that regard. La Vecchia coaxes energetic and spirited performances from his orchestra, featuring particularly fine wind playing.     

06 SzymanowskiSzymanowski - Symphonies 2 & 4 “Symphonie Concertante”
Louis Lortie; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Edward Gardner
Chandos CHSA 5115

Following many masterful performances of standard repertoire on Chandos, celebrated pianist Louis Lortie has branched out. In addition to his Lutoslawski Piano Concerto (Chandos CHSA 5098), there is now Karol Szymanowski’s Symphony No.4, Op.60 (“Symphonie Concertante,” 1932), a modernist concerto dedicated to Szymanowski’s friend Arthur Rubenstein. Lortie makes the most of solo opportunities, delivering the first movement cadenza with expressive rubato and drama. In a second movement including both romantic-nocturne and Bartókian night-music elements, he accompanies lovely flute and violin solos with tastefully shaped treble figuration. Edward Gardner`s orchestral pacing builds the performance steadily before a return to the original uneasy pastoral mood. The finale is an oberek, a wild Polish dance; here technique and ensemble between Lortie and orchestra are impeccable.

Comparing the work with Szymanowski’s early, derivative Straussian Concert Overture, Op.12 (1905) demonstrates his moving away from German models towards influences from Eastern Europe. Gardner and the BBC Symphony give the latter a rousing performance that shows the 23-year-old composer’s mastery of compositional and orchestral technique. Symphony No.2 (1909-10, re-orchestrated 1927-36) continues his earlier Austro-German direction, reminding me of Zemlinsky and the tonal Schoenberg. The conducting of the dramatic opening movement conveys long, wide-ranging leading and subsidiary lines, with appropriate tempo fluctuations. In the middle movement, each variation is a lyrical gem and the BBC strings shine. An adventurous fugal finale concludes this impressive disc.

 

01 Ehnes BartokThe wonderful James Ehnes is back with more top-notch performances in Bartók: Works for Violin and Piano, Volume 2, with the equally terrific Andrew Armstrong at the piano (CHANDOS CHAN 10752). Volume 1 (CHAN 10705) featured sonatas and rhapsodies; this new CD features sonatas and folk dances.

Despite the CD’s title, it’s the Solo Sonata from 1944 that opens the recital, and Ehnes gives a commanding performance, perhaps not as edgy as some, but with a great sense of line and energy. The Sonata in E Minor is an early work from 1903 and is perhaps stylistically closer to Brahms than to the composer Bartók was to become. Well worth hearing, it was apparently shelved after its first performance in 1904 and remained both unplayed and unpublished until the 1960s.

Three shorter works complete a generous — almost 80 minutes — CD. The Hungarian Folksongs and Hungarian Folk Tunes were both transcribed from the piano collection For Children, and the more recognizable Romanian Folk Dances are transcriptions of the solo piano pieces of the same name.

02 Baiba SkrideThe Latvian violinist Baiba Skride is another player in great form on her latest CD Stravinsky & Martin Violin Concertos, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Thierry Fischer (ORFEO C 849 121 A). There is some beautifully spiky playing in the neo-classical Stravinsky concerto, but the longest work here – and the real gem – is the 1951 concerto by the Swiss composer Frank Martin. It’s a simply lovely work that really should be much better known. The orchestra shines in the Two Symphonic Movements from the mid-1920s by Martin’s fellow countryman Arthur Honegger: the startlingly effective Pacific 231, as good a representation of the physical power of a steam locomotive as you will ever hear and Rugby, which attempts to convey the cut and thrust of the sport. Stravinsky’s short Circus Polka rounds out a highly enjoyable CD.

03 Rachmaninoff celloCellist Steven Doane and pianist Barry Snyder combine for a quite astonishing Rachmaninoff recital on the Bridge label (BRIDGE 9347). It’s astonishing for two reasons: the recordings were made in 1996 and have simply (and inexplicably) sat on the shelf for the past 16 years; and the playing is quite extraordinary. The brief Danse Orientale Op.2, No.2 opens the disc and is followed by an absolutely riveting performance of the Cello Sonata in G Minor. There is a wonderful balance here, with both players producing a full, rich tonal quality.

What comes next is even better, when Snyder performs the complete Études-Tableaux Op.39 for solo piano; not only is his playing quite stunning, the nine pieces were apparently recorded in a single continuous take, with only a few extraneous sounds over-dubbed after the event. Remarkable.

After back-to-back performances like those, the very brief (2:07) Lied for cello and piano that ends the CD almost seems like an afterthought. The recorded sound throughout is superb.

Sixteen years?? Difficult to explain, but boy, was this ever worth waiting for!

04 KnussenTwo imported compilation CDs afford the opportunity to hear three string concertos by contemporary British composers. Oliver Knussen’s 2002 Violin Concerto is included on Autumnal (NMC D178) in a definitive performance by Leila Josefowicz and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, with the composer conducting. The CD also includes Alexandra Wood playing Secret Psalm for solo violin and Wood with Hugh Watkins (piano) performing the CD’s title work. Works for orchestra, solo piano, voice and piano and voice and orchestra complete a fascinating look at this 60-year-old composer’s work over 40 years.

05 TurnageMark-Anthony Turnage, although only eight years younger, was once a composition student of Knussen’s. The London Philharmonic Orchestra has already issued two CDs dedicated to Turnage on its own label and this third self-titled CD (LPO-0066) features première recordings of five Turnage works. Mambo, Blues and Tarantella: concerto for violin and orchestra is a live recording of the September 2008 world première performance by Christian Tetzlaff, with Vladimir Jurowski conducting. On Opened Ground: concerto for viola and orchestra dates from 2001, and is played here by Lawrence Power, with Markus Stenz conducting. Both works provide ample evidence of Turnage’s blending of jazz and blues influences with classical traditions. Two short orchestral works and the clarinet concerto Riffs and Refrains complete the disc.

06a Brahms BergRenaud Capuçon is back with an interesting pairing of two giant concertos from the Austro-German repertoire, the Brahms and the Berg, on his latest Virgin Classics CD (50999 60265326). The disc realizes Capuçon’s long-time wish to record with the Wiener Philharmoniker, conducted here by the excellent Daniel Harding, and it’s one that will certainly please his many admirers.

Capuçon has been playing these works in public for 15 years, and he is clearly at ease with them. I was particularly interested in his interpretation of the Berg, a particular favourite of mine and a concerto that the soloist considers to be the great violin concerto of the 20th century. It’s hard to disagree. My first reaction was that Capuçon’s smooth, almost genteel approach missed some of the harsh, tragic depth of this very emotional work, but the more I listened the more he convinced me that his approach was the correct one, especially in the Bach chorale in the concerto’s final section.

06b FaustThe Capuçon CD gave me the opportunity to compare his performance of the Berg with one on an excellent disc that I meant to review last year, but somehow managed to overlook, that featured Isabelle Faust and the Orchestra Mozart under Claudio Abbado (harmonia mundi HMC 902105). Faust’s approach is much more gritty and acerbic, even in the quiet opening, although the orchestral detail is more clearly defined. The orchestral sound in the Capuçon disc is surprisingly indistinct at times, especially in the middle range and the percussion.

What really makes the Faust CD a great buy is her terrific performance of the Beethoven concerto. Her fairly fast vibrato is more effective here than in the Berg; the outer movements move along at a really bright tempo and the slow movement is beautifully and sensitively drawn out, with lovely dynamics. The lengthy first movement cadenza, complete with timpani accompaniment, is presumably an arrangement of Beethoven’s own cadenza for his piano transcription of the concerto; several violinists from Eugène Ysaÿe to Christian Tetzlaff have arranged the piano cadenza for violin and timpani, but there is no confirmation of this in the booklet notes. The orchestral support and recorded sound are outstanding.

07 Schubert Quintet TakacsThere’s yet another fine recording of the wonderful Schubert String Quintet in C major, D956, this time by the Takacs Quartet with Ralph Kirshbaum on the always-reliable Hyperion label (CDA67864). Written just a few months before the composer’s death in 1828, it’s a work of great range and depth and one which always seems to draw the best out of its performers. I reviewed an excellent CD of the same work by the Arcanto Quartett just last November, and this latest issue is of an equally high standard. Schubert’s Quartettsatz, the String Quartet Movement in C minor, D703, completes the disc; it was the only completed movement of a string quartet both started and abandoned in 1820.

01 SchumannSchumann at Pier 2 – The Symphonies
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen; Paavo Järvi
Cmajor 712004

At last; an exultation of Schumann (my favourite composer) that finally and decisively disproves the myth that he was an inept orchestrator. Järvi’s brilliant, no-holds-barred performances are realizations of Schumann’s four symphonies without any editing and “corrections” by others (including Mahler) to suit their taste, an accepted practice that has tainted performances for generations. These indispensible performances radiate from the inside… exciting, highly charged and, where called for, meltingly poetic. Textures are sinewy but never lean. Audio and video are state of the art. 

In addition to four definitive performances there is an appreciation of these original scores. Movement by movement, we are treated to extracts from the rehearsals with observations and illustrations from some of the players but most informative and enlightening are Jarvi’s discerning thoughts and annotations:

“If you only use your brain to dictate the choices you will never actually get to the bottom of what Schumann’s music is all about because the music comes from the heart. It is incredibly emotional. You have this sense of neurotic extreme and you have to allow yourself to feel it in performance otherwise it will not fly, it will not explode, it will not make you cry… One of the problems is that we need to have enough courage to actually go with what Schumann writes because sometimes one thinks that, wait a minute, it cannot possibly be that impulsive, it cannot be so neurotic, it cannot possibly be so, um, extreme… I don’t think that I know of any other composer, even from the same period that brings that type of energy and that type of extreme into music… and that is something that all the great old maestros tried to fix. They tried to make it more academic, closer to Brahms, more correct. All the corners that were a little too sharp they tried to make smoother and what we end up with is a sort of a smooth correct, improved – quote, unquote – version of Schumann that takes away the essence which is the incredible neurotic energy… with all the insecurities and all the doubts, you know that Schumann knew, somehow, that he was one of the great voices.

“After performing the whole cycle of Schumann symphonies, you come away from that experience knowing that everything that you have been taught in school in the beginning is just nonsense. Basically, Schumann’s symphonic music is truly great. If one goes into it with complete commitment and one has courage to forget a little bit about so-called tradition and really see what’s in the music, you realize that this is absolutely stunningly original, touching and emotionally powerful music.”

The proof is here to be heard.

 

04a Casella OrchWorks LaVecchia04b Casella 2Alfredo Casella – Concerto for Orchestra
Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma; Francesco La Vecchia
Naxos 8.573004

Alfredo Casella – La Donna Serpente; Introduzione, aria e toccata; Partita
Sun Hee You; Orchestra Sinfonica di Roma; Francesco La Vecchia
Naxos 8.573005

These two discs present world premiere recordings (except for the Partita) of Alfredo Casella’s music. They join a series of his complete orchestral works on Naxos, a stellar accomplishment by conductor Francesco La Vecchia and the Rome Symphony Orchestra. Piano prodigy and gifted conductor, Casella (1883-1947) was a leading instrumental composer in opera-soaked Italy.

 The excellent first disc includes music from three phases of Casella’s career. Modal harmony and 18th century dance genres in the early neo-classical Suite reflecthis teacher Fauré’s influence. The lively Overture, pensive extended Sarabande, and assertive Bourée are all delivered impeccably by the Rome Symphony. The ensemble is equally adept in the more adventurous five miniatures of Pagine di Guerra (War Pages). Startling sounds bombard us with the mechanical horror of World War I; perfectly-tuned wind chords subtly evoke dissonant cathedral bell timbres. The three-movement Concerto for Orchestra is the disc’shighlight, which according to David Gallagher’s fine program notes Casella considered his most mature orchestral achievement. Particularly moving is the epiphanic ninth variation of the Passacaglia where high violins linger deliciously over a procession of brass and wind solos.

The second disc’s Introduction, Aria and Toccata has both strengths and weaknesses. His easy way with a long line make the Aria a delight; La Vecchia captures its tasteful sentiment and tender moments.Strings are appropriately biting in the outer movements, which unfortunately also illustrate the composer’s penchant for lumpy Mussolini-era marches. Casella was piano soloist in the premiere of the Partita in 1925, where Stravinsky’s neo-baroque influence shows. In the Sinfonia, pandiatonicism (simultaneous sounding of any notes in a major scale), prominent use of winds and detaché strings are all Stravinskian, but rhythms are more four-square. Pianist Sun Hee You delivers a clear, spiky performance with impeccable ensemble throughout; the orchestra’s trumpet trio shines in the rapid-fire Burlesca. La donna serpente (1928-31) which presents orchestral fragments from Casella’s opera based on a fabulous drama about a snake-woman by Gozzi, evokes a very different world. From the sumptuous strings in the opening Music for King Altidòr’s Dream onward, La Vecchia balances well blocks of orchestral sound with instrumental solos. The War March showcases a fine horn section; the Battle and Finale abounds with exciting ensemble flourishes supported by ample percussion.

The neglect of Casella’s orchestral music after the Second World War had several possible causes: his troubling support for Il Duce’s regime even after racial laws were imposed in 1938; his too-numerous musical influences; and his re-working of compositions in later works. Keeping these important caveats in mind I am still very partial to this music’s bright liveliness and range of feeling, recommending especially the first disc for the curious.

 

03 Schmitt PianoFlorent Schmitt – Complete Original Works for Piano Duet and Duo 1
Invencia Piano Duo
Grand Piano GP621

The lengthy career of the Alsatian-born French composer Florent Schmitt (1870-1958) began quite auspiciously at the beginning of the 20th century. Awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1900, his early orchestral work La Tragédie de Salomé (1907) and his setting for chorus and orchestra of Psalm 47 (1904) met with great praise and are still performed today. By the 1930s however he had completely fallen out of favour; it did not help matters that he had since developed a reputation as a notoriously vituperative music critic and shameless German sympathizer. Be that as it may, for a nominally late Romantic composer Schmitt’s progressive tendencies remain compelling and at his best he reveals the voice of a true original.

Schmitt contributed some 88 pieces to the duo piano repertoire written between 1893 and 1912. The Virginia-based pianists Andrei Kasparov and Oksana Lutsyshyn, known collectively as the Invencia Piano Duo, have made it their mission to record all of these works in a series of four CDs to be released sequentially on the Grand Piano label distributed by Naxos. Volume One offers a familiar work followed by two world premiere recordings. The first item, the Trois Rapsodies for two pianos Op.53 (1903-1904), receives its fifth recording on disc. It is vintage Schmitt, rhythmically supple, harmonically inventive, and beautifully scored with telling thematic interchanges between the two pianos. The earlier Sept Pièces, Op.15 (1889) dates from Schmitt’s student days. Scored for two pianists at a single piano, the sonorities are more intimate and homophonic. Though it seems to me that Schmitt has either not quite found or is intentionally suppressing his distinctive creative voice here for academic reasons, this low-key, Schumann-esque multi-movement work is winningly genial and technically assured in every respect. The final item, the Rhapsodie Parisienne, also for four-hand piano, makes a stronger visceral impact. A spirited, asymmetric and impulsive waltz, the manuscript of this unpublished work from 1900 may have been intended to become a larger orchestral work presaging Ravel’s later La Valse. I look forward to future unknown gems from this very interesting composer.

 

02 Division MusickeDivision-Musicke – English duos for viol and lute
Susanna Pell; Jacob Heringman
Pellingmans’ Saraband PS001

According to Christopher Simpson in the 1659 publication The Division Violist, as quoted in the Harvard Dictionary of Music, the term Division refers to the prevailingly English practice of a harpsichordist playing a ground bass to which a viol or flute player, “having the said ground before his eye, plays such a variety of descant or division in concordance thereto as his skill and present invention do then suggest to him.” Pellingmans’ Saraband perform eighteen divisions on this, their maiden CD. They adventurously describe playing these often complex and demanding divisions as the equivalent of jazz improvisation!

 No one can fault their dedication to the art of the division. Barafostus’ Dream is truly testing – Susanna Pell rises to the challenge of the solo version specifically scored for treble viol. On the CD she follows with the exhilarating divisions based anonymously on Greensleeves.

 The divisions selected were written between the late 16th century and the early 18th. Two factors the pieces have in common are the complexity of their divisions and the sense of joyfulness with which they are played. This is certainly true of Gottfried Finger’s Divisions, where Pell’s spirited playing livens up more formal compositions.

 Very often, the collection features popular dance tunes which were arranged by established composers. The names of some of these composers have come down to us. Others remain anonymous, but Jacob Heringman plays Green Garters with sympathy and zest; Pell’s Paul’s Steeple, which immediately follows, equals it in both qualities.

 The divisions are not confined to English composers. London-based Giovanni Battista Draghi’s aptly named Italian Ground is sensitively performed by both musicians. The same is true of three pieces by Solomon Eccles, who was one of the last composers of divisions before Italian sonatas became popular.

 Both musicians tackle their divisions with relish. The Leaves be Green always demands virtuosic skills; Heringman obliges. Pell responds with A New Division to a Ground by Eccles. This compilation also comprises some more Elizabethan favourites such as Go From My Window, but a division by Christopher Simpson scored for bass viol looks towards the Baroque future. Note: physical copies of these CDs are exclusively available from www.heringman.com and www.pellingman.co.uk.

 

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