Slavonic Reflections - Greenturnip web

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Wigmore Hall, is a highly personal selection of piano music containing Mazurkas byChopin and Janáček’s cycle In the Mists, as well as encores by Medtner and Liadov.

The programme breathes a melancholic air of sadness, while simultaneouslyshowing an equally Slavonic passion for dance and nature.

Discover here: smarturl.it/SlavonicReflections

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Nelly Akopian-TamarinaBrahms - Ballades Op. 10 / Variations & Fugue on a theme by Handel

“Revelatory Brahmsfrom another age”BBC Music Magazine

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Alfred Brendel at 90:looking back overa glorious careerGerard Schwarzcelebrates America’simmigrant composers

The virtuoso records aheartfelt tribute to Paris

Est 1923 . FEBRUARY 2021THE WORLD’S BEST CLASSICAL MUSIC REVIEWS

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A special eight-page section focusing on recent recordings from the US and CanadaCunningham ‘Proscenium Moments’ Cunningham A Bach Pre-Symphonya. Counter Currents, Op 16bb. Impromptus, Op 149cc. Symphony No 7, ‘A Cummings Synchrony’, Op 293c. Time Frame, Op 90ab. TransActions, Op 90bb Fauré Nocturne No 6, Op 63 (arr Cunningham)a aJanáček Philharmonic Orchestra /

Stanislav Vavřínek; bcMoravian Philharmonic

Orchestra / bPetr Vronský, cPavel Šnajdr

Navona F NV6314 (70’ • DDD)

I welcomed Navona Records’ ninth disc devoted to the music of Michael G

Cunningham (b1937) last May, archival recordings of chamber and instrumental pieces composed in 1969-72 when he was teaching at Indiana University. This new album features orchestral works written, with one exception, after that time in adroitly turned-out renditions from the Moravian and Janá∂ek Philharmonic Orchestras, two of Navona’s Czech Republic-based house bands, recorded between June 2018 and March 2020.

Navona’s publicity suggests Cunningham’s works are ‘nestled in style between early Prokofiev and late Shostakovich’, a statement that does him no favours. There are influences and resonances of other composers here, for sure, as in the earliest work, Counter Currents (1966). Given here in its string-orchestral version, it sounds like a vivid, compelling essay from a composer who has listened to and learnt from Bernard Herrmann. Time Frame and TransActions (both 1980) are more advanced and edgy in tone, forming a contrasted pair of studiesin sonority, whereas the two Impromptus (1999) – ‘Glimmerings’ and ‘Gambol’ – are more of a diptych.

TransActions appeared on an earlier Navona disc (‘Paragonia’, NV5982); so, too, have the Impromptus and Symphony No 7, paired on the mixed-composer ‘Dimensions, Vol 3’ (NV6311). The Symphony, subtitled here A Cummings

Synchrony (but not so on the earlier disc), is inspired by four poems by EE Cummings, traversing the four elements – Wind, Fire, Rain and Earth – and designed to accompany recitations of the verses. If the definition of a symphony as ‘the large-scale integration of contrasts’ holds true, then these four brief atmospheric studies do not pass muster. A Bach Pre-Symphony is more engaging, a neat reworking of a trio sonata as a string-orchestral score, contrasting nicely with the arrangement for wind ensemble of the Fauré Nocturne. Navona’s sound is crisp and clear. Guy Rickards

Dehlinger ‘At That Hour’ Amore e ’l cor gentil sono una cosa. A Dream. Fragrance. The Mount. Ten Poems of James Joyce. Questa fiamma. Requiescat. Shir Hashirim Danielle Talamantes sop Kerry Wilkerson bass-bar

Henry Dehlinger pf

Avie F AV2424 (63’ • DDD •T/t)

Henry Dehlinger is a gifted and versatile musician. As a pianist of

exceptional fluency, he has teamed with soprano Danielle Talamantes on recordings of works by Spanish composers and his own arrangements of songs by Duke Ellington. On Dehlinger’s newest disc, ‘At That Hour’, he collaborates with Talamantes and another dynamic singer, bass-baritone Kerry Wilkerson, in his recorded debut as a composer of art songs, whose verses he has transformed through disarming music.

Among the poets is James Joyce, who receives lavish treatment by Dehlinger, a master of myriad styles planted largely in tonal soil. Ten Poems of James Joyce takes up half of the album, the songs assigned evenly to soprano and bass-baritone. Each piece reveals the fastidious way Dehlinger shapes music to illuminate the meaning of the text. The songs are diverse in atmosphere and harmonic language, as

Brahms Piano Pieces – Op 117; Op 118; Op 119 Victor Rosenbaum pf

Bridge F BRIDGE9545 (65’ • DDD)

Victor Rosenbaum begins the first of Brahms’s Op 117 Intermezzos at

a brisk pace, bringing cross-rhythmic lines to the fore. However, expressive emendations assiduously add up like extra kilos over the holidays, resulting in the main theme recapitulating nearly twice as slowly. The pianist similarly probes No 2 for detail, yet falls short of Arthur Rubinstein’s centred focus and directness. By contrast, No 3’s dark undercurrents absorb Rosenbaum’s propensity for wiggle room.

If you share my view that Op 118 No 1’s main theme is one of Brahms’s most annoying creations, Rosenbaum’s inflated rhetoric will turn you off as well. Yet subtle variations in touch and nuance keep the pianist’s slow tempo in No 2 afloat – by the skin of its teeth! No 3 unfolds at a prosaic chug, while No 4’s interplay between the hands lacks the suppleness and momentum we hear from Kempff, Katchen, Hough, Perahia and dozens of others.

But Rosenbaum’s poetic shaping of the polyphony in No 5’s central episode is nothing less than gorgeous, while he justifies his deliberation over No 6 by intelligent dynamic scaling and allowing the climaxes to fully resonate. The same can be said for Op 119 No 1, although the pianist’s laying into No 2’s accents somewhat pacifies the music’s agitato nature. Unfortunately, Rosenbaum pretentiously underlines and over-points No 3, eradicating any trace of grazioso. He imparts a welcome sense of line to No 4’s block chords but weighs down on the détaché left-hand writing; here Emanuel Ax (Sony, 6/96) achieves better balances between the hands and more overall fluidity. In short, Rosenbaum plays Brahms best when he avoids expounding. Jed Distler

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befits the narratives, and the writing is rich,often rapturous, as voices and piano meld with urgent purpose.

Joyce’s English texts give way to two songs set to Italian verses by Dante Alighieri. The first, ‘Questa fiamma’, is drawn from Dehlinger’s rhapsody for voice and orchestra, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, based on the TS Eliot poem, which employs the Dante verses. In ‘Amore e ’l cor gentil sono una cosa’, soprano and baritone intertwine lines to celebrate a wedding, apropos here with married couple Talamantes and Wilkerson caressing phrases.

They use their vibrant voices to similarly lustrous effect in the remaining finely honed Dehlinger mini-dramas: ‘A Dream’, set to a sonnet by Edgar Allan Poe; two songs, ‘The Mount’ and ‘Fragrance’, with texts by the album’s only living poet, Mark Riddle; ‘Shir Hashirim’ (‘Song of Songs’), biblical Hebrew verses shaded by ancient modal influences; and a jazzy take on Oscar Wilde’s ‘Requiescat’, about the writer’s dead sister, that likely would raise Wilde’s eyebrows in ironic delight. Recorded with crystalline clarity at Sono Luminus Studios in Boyce, Virginia, the performances whet the appetite for further Dehlinger repertoire. Donald Rosenberg

Gifted and versatile: Henry Dehlinger accompanies two singers, soprano Danielle Talamantes and bass-baritone Kerry Wilkerson, on an album of his own songs

Karchin ‘Five Compositions’ Barcarole Variationsa. Chamber Symphonyb. Postludec. Questd. Rochester Celebrationa dAlice Teyssier fl cSam Jones tpt aRenée Jolles vn dAshley Jackson, aSusan Jolles hp cHan Chen, eMargaret Kampmeier pf bThe Washington

Square Ensemble

Bridge F BRIDGE9543 (54’ • DDD)

While all of Louis Karchin’s music here is highly enjoyable and rewarding for

both participants and listeners, the most memorable moments occur in his Barcarole Variations (2015) for violin and harp, each a jewel, which stands out even beyond its automatic recommendation to all violin-harp duos on the circuit. Dedicatees Renée and Susan Jolles, the daughter-and-mother combination from the Eastman and Manhattan Schools of Music, give performances that are virtuoso in an intimate way, alert to every change in sound and nuance.

Not that Karchin’s Chamber Symphony from 2009 isn’t full of wonderful cascades of similarly inventive sound on a larger scale. It is recorded here by the

commissioning Washington Square Ensemble – 14-strong, with no viola, plus conductor for the occasion – in a performance that demonstrates why, despite an occasional sense of standing around, it has been played at Indiana University, the University of Iowa and the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood.

Static movement becomes less of an issue in the shorter pieces. Karchin’s lovely Postlude for trumpet and piano is the second of two works the composer has written for Sam Jones, in this case with a bucket mute. The rolling waves of his Rochester Celebration, commissioned by the Eastman School of Music to honour Barry Snyder, is played with rich, romantic freedom by Snyder’s student Margaret Kampmeier.

The recordings, which were made in and around New York City, each capture the vivid palette of musical sounds that Karchin wields so effortlessly. Christopher Carey’s booklet notes give a detailed account of the music. Laurence Vittes

‘Playing on the Edge 2’ Babcock Watcher of the Sky Burwasser Puck’s Game Fong Variations on Emotions GJ Harris String Quartet No 1, ‘Landscapes’ Kinney The Canary Who Sang Summers String Quartet – 1st movt

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Sirius Quartet

Navona F NV6315 (54’ • DDD)

I warmly commended the Sirius Quartet’s previous album, ‘Playing on the Edge’

(11/19US), for their fine ensemble and innovative programming, and this successor issue does not disappoint on either count. I had not encountered music by any of these composers, so this release has been a revelation, especially with such exhilarating performances.

Bruce Babcock’s Watcher of the Sky (2018) is a bracing, if brief suite

celebrating the sesquicentennial of astronomer George Ellery Hale, with whom the composer’s grandfather worked. The four movements mark key events in his career, culminating in ‘Palomar’, the site of Hale’s great 200-inch reflecting telescope. The tonal language is in the tradition of Copland, Roy Harris and Mennin, and the quartets by John Summers and Gregory J Harris occupy similar stylistic terrain. Harris’s First, subtitled Landscapes, takes the listener through an array of volatile, dark psychological states, though the concluding ‘A Wild Wind’ is rather tame. Only the impressive, cogently argued first movement of Summers’s String Quartet is included here; a great shame. I hope

the Sirius give us the entire work in due course.

The remaining three works are, in their very different ways, also compelling single-movement designs. Dayton Kinney’s The Canary Who Sang (2016) is a beautifully paced allegory about political whistle-blowers, Roger Fong’s Variations on Emotions a witty panoply of human emotions that would not be out of place in an early Shostakovich score. The pick of the bunch, though, is Daniel Burwasser’s Puck’s Game (2019), a vividly scored, rhythmic tour de force that catches the mercurial quality of the sprite from The Tempest to a tee. With fine sound, there is much to enjoy here. Guy Rickards

Our monthly guide to North American venues

Bing Concert Hall, Stanford University, California Year opened 2013Architect Richard Olcott / Ennead Architects Capacity 842-932

If democracy itself seems to be facing unexpected perils of late, a resonant, reaffirming metaphor for democratic ideals can be found in the design concept that has found favour especially over the past decade. This concept, known as ‘vineyard style’, is embodied by Stanford University’s Bing Concert Hall. Other structures of similar vintage include Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Helzberg Hall at the Kauffman Center in Kansas City, the New World Center in Miami and the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin (the most recent of these, which opened in 2017).

Vineyard style replaces the hierarchical classifications accentuated by traditional opera house and concert hall architecture with a more equitably distributed experience. A primary model for the vineyard concept overall has been the Berlin Philharmonie, in operation since 1963. In the case of smaller, chamber-size halls like Bing Hall (with a seating capacity of 842-932), the design serves to enhance the intimacy of communication. Architect Richard Olcott’s layout ensures that the maximum distance between audience members and performers is only 75 feet. The acoustical design by Yasuhisa Toyota of Nagata Acoustics (likewise responsible for several of the aforementioned halls) works in tandem with visual cues of convex-shaped sails (which double as projection surfaces) to provide an ambience of total immersion and shared communication.

Indeed, the Berlin Philharmonie’s visionary architect Hans Scharoun wrote of promoting ‘a community of listeners’ that supersedes the opposition between ‘producers and consumers’ of music, as Stanford-based musicologist Stephen Hinton observes. He cites a speech in which Scharoun laid out the organic, nature-affirming metaphor of this type of space – and the origin of the name it goes by: ‘The auditorium is conceived as a valley, and there at its floor, the orchestra resides, surrounded by the rising “terraces” of a vineyard.’

Built for $112 million and named after Peter Bing (Stanford Class of 1955) and his wife Helen, Bing Concert Hall opened in 2013 and has added significantly to the larger Bay Area’s cultural life, attracting some 60 per cent of its audience from beyond the Stanford University community. Bing Hall’s flexibility is manifested by the range of projects and multicultural initiatives that find a home in this oval space, from classical recitals to world premieres of hybrid theatrical experiments.

The keystone of this public mission is the international series curated by Stanford Live. Chris Lorway, executive director of that organisation as well as of Bing Concert Hall, observes that it has hosted memorable performances by such full-scale orchestras as the Philharmonia and the Czech Philharmonic – even if the intimacy of the space suggests that it is specifically tailored for smaller ensembles. A system of automated risers enables variations in the configuration of the hall to mirror a wide spectrum of acoustical and dramaturgical approaches. Says Lorway: ‘It has been an adventure to test the hall’s versatility and how we can use it for different types of performance.’ Thomas May

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We pay tribute toMariss Jansons andStephen Cleobury

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Beethoven’s music andthe history of recordingThe mighty Hammerklavier:the best version to ownSimon Callow: whatBeethoven means to me

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In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray wakes up everymorning to learn that it’s February 2 all over again. And again.Likewise, I wake day after day and we’re still on pause. Yes,New York is doing infinitely better pandemic-wise than most

other states, and we’re on the cusp of the vaccine. But live-musiclimbo persists.

I reported in April how sheltering-in-place changed mundaneroutines into monumental events, which now have becomeparadigm shifts and new habits. A casual retooling of my musicstudio evolved into a complete overhaul. We installed new shelvesin my studio, where I laboriously organised and alphabetised mymusic and score libraries for maximum efficiency and minimumclutter. When my gym closed in March, I half-heartedly embracedyoga via Zoom sessions. Now I’m addicted and I take three tofour classes per week. Together with yoga, I changed my nutritionstrategy and so far I’ve lost27 kilos.

However, my music collectionkeeps bulking up because therecording industry refuses tolock down. The box-set businessbooms more than ever: over thepast year I wrote for Gramophone about Warner’s Samson Françoisbox (1/21), and Universal’s Wilhelm Backhaus (4/20) and WilhelmKempff (12/20) sets. I have just finished annotating Universal’sforthcoming Friedrich Gulda and Eden and Tamir boxes, with anessay for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra’s complete DeutscheGrammophon recordings on the back burner.

And Beethoven’s 250th anniversary sometimes managed towrestle attention away from Covid, Brexit and the US election.Every pianist on the planet, so it seemed, recorded a sonata cycle,every conductor in the known universe recorded all ninesymphonies multiple times, while YouTube exploded withvirtual choirs barking out the ‘Ode to Joy’.

Seriously, though, several major piano projects are worth noting.In 2013 my colleague Susanne Kessel initiated 250 Piano Piecesfor Beethoven, where she commissioned 250 composers from allover the world each to write a short piano piece inspired byBeethoven. The complete collection is available in sheet-musicform from Editions Musica Ferrum, accompanied by Kessel’srecordings, which you can purchase via Bandcamp and willeventually appear on CD. I’m impressed with the amazing stylisticrange that these pieces encompass, and each one is a surprise,including the little bagatelle that I myself contributed: see250-piano-pieces-for-beethoven.com/en/by-susanne-kessel/.

In fact, Susanne inspired me to launch my own Beethovenproject. I’m composing 1,827 Bagatelles for the 200th anniversaryof Beethoven’s death in 2027, God willing. Each bagatelle isdedicated to a different musician or music industry-related friendand colleague (I have a database of dedicatees).

The Israeli/American pianist Yael Weiss was a recent gueston my weekly WWFM radio programme Between the Keys to talk

about 32 Bright Clouds: BeethovenConversations Around the World:yaelweiss.com/32brightclouds/. Forher project Weiss asked 32 composers, each from a country experiencing conflict or unrest, to create a new piece of music. ‘Each of the 32 compositions is inspired by one of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas,’ Weiss told me. ‘They are unique to each country and composer, but what unifies each of them is the “Dona nobis pacem” motif from the Missa solemnis.’ Weiss presented a marathon virtual event on December 16 featuring some of these works and I joined her to play some of my bagatelles, as well as discuss the history of recorded Beethoven piano sonata cycles, from the earliest to latest, and the best to the worst.

However, for video discussions about the best and worst recordings, as well as off-the-beaten-track repertoire, I am

positively addicted to Classicstoday Executive Editor David Hurwitz’s YouTube channel, which he launched last May. Hurwitz’s highly opinionated yet consistently informative, illuminating and

entertaining talks introduced me to the inventive and beautifully scored orchestral works by Norwegian composer Ludvig Irgens-Jensen, Einar Englund’s Violin Concerto, boatloads of Boccherini, Karl Weigl’s harrowing Fifth Symphony and EJ Moeran’s poignantly expressive G Minor Symphony. Hurwitz and I waxed enthusiastically over a release from Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project devoted to one of America’s most overlooked and underrated composers, Harold Shapero, whose 2020 centenary transpired with little fanfare. Shapero used classical forms to create unique and original works packed with substance, ingenious scoring and real humour (see my Gramophone review, 12/20).

I should perhaps have nominated this Shapero album for the 2020 Gramophone Critics’ Choice, yet I got sidetracked by SWR’s superb transfers of Hans Rosbaud’s Mahler symphony transmissions, again thanks to Hurwitz’s heads-up. Rosbaud knew these works intimately and looked Mahler’s complex detail and emotional extremes straight in the eye, so to speak. Although German radio orchestras barely knew this repertoire in the 1950s, Rosbaud inspired his musicians to step outside their comfort zone and play like demons.

Regarding standard fare, Hurwitz proves equally provocative when compiling his ‘ideal’ cycles. For example, he’ll create a list of all 15 Shostakovich symphonies recommending a different conductor for each work, with no weak links. Dave has done this for the Brahms, Sibelius and Beethoven symphonies and the canonical Wagner operas. This summer he began working his way through the Haydn symphonies in numerical order. Hopefully the pandemic will end before he reaches Symphony No 104!

A LETTER FROM New YorkJed Distler reflects on projects that have occupied him over recent months, from composition to yoga

Every pianist on the planet, so it seemed, recorded a Beethoven sonata cycle, every conductor recorded all nine symphonies

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Founded in 1923 by Sir Compton Mackenzie and Christopher Stone as ‘an organ of candid opinion for the numerous possessors of gramophones’

It’s either escapist or depressing to think about travel at a time of lockdown. But musicians willtravel again, just as they always have. Sometimes such moves are permanent: Gerard Schwarz’s

feature this issue remembers composers who fl ed fascism to settle in America, fi nding freedom and safety from persecution, and indelibly enriching their adoptive home’s life. As with his article on American composers for us in 2019, there is much music to discover, and I urge you to do so.

More generally, though, today’s artists recall the enriching experience of collaborating with colleagues in corners of the world far removed from one’s own. But as we contemplate a post-pandemic world, how might the nature of such activity change? All artists are desperate to work again, but the enforced pause is leading some to refl ect on the nature of their often exhausting globe-trotting lives, the positives and negatives, and where the balance should, or could, lie. I’m reminded of the 2018 fi lm about Yuja Wang, Through the eyes of Yuja, which movingly depicts the extraordinary but also often lonely life of an ever-travelling star pianist.

Perhaps artists assessing the impact of constant travel might consider Sir Simon Rattle’s decision to leave the LSO in 2023 and return to Germany as Chief Conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony – much nearer to his Berlin-based family. While many have speculated on the factors behind his decision, he gave them as ‘entirely personal, enabling me to better manage the balance of my work and be close enough to home to be present for my children in a meaningful

Travel and touring in a post-pandemic world

‘As the son of

two Austrian

immigrants, I’m

fascinated by the

cultural impact of

immigrants

coming to the US,’

says the author of our fascinating

feature, conductor GERARD

SCHWARZ . ‘What did moving here

mean to composers? Shedding light

on those mid-20th-century artists

has been hugely enjoyable.’

‘I had a good

feeling Hilary

Hahn would know

how to operate

Zoom, given she’s

been using the

internet longer

than most of us,’ says ANDREW

MELLOR . ‘It was fascinating to chat

with an artist whose pre-planned

time out had unwittingly coincided

with the world’s, and become

something different as a result.’

THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS

THE REVIEWERS Andrew Achenbach • Nalen Anthoni • Tim Ashley • Mike Ashman • Michelle AssayRichard Bratby • Edward Breen • Liam Cagney • Alexandra Coghlan • Rob Cowan (consultant reviewer)Jeremy Dibble • Peter Dickinson • Jed Distler • Adrian Edwards • Richard Fairman • David FallowsDavid Fanning • Andrew Farach-Colton • Iain Fenlon • Neil Fisher • Fabrice Fitch • Jonathan Freeman-AttwoodCharlotte Gardner • David Gutman • Christian Hoskins • Lindsay Kemp • Philip Kennicott • Richard LawrenceAndrew Mellor • Ivan Moody • Bryce Morrison • Hannah Nepilova • Jeremy Nicholas • Christopher NickolGeoffrey Norris • Richard Osborne • Stephen Plaistow • Mark Pullinger • Peter Quantrill • Guy RickardsMalcolm Riley • Marc Rochester • Patrick Rucker • Edward Seckerson • Mark Seow • Hugo Shirley • Pwyll ap Siôn Harriet Smith • David Patrick Stearns • David Threasher • David Vickers • John Warrack • Richard Whitehouse Arnold Whittall • Richard Wigmore • William Yeoman

Gramophone, which has

been serving the classical

music world since 1923, is

first and foremost a monthly

review magazine, delivered

today in both print and digital

formats. It boasts an eminent and

knowledgeable panel of experts,

which reviews the full range of

classical music recordings.

Its reviews are completely

independent. In addition to

reviews, its interviews and

features help readers to explore

in greater depth the recordings

that the magazine covers, as well

as offer insight into the work of

composers and performers.

It is the magazine for the classical

record collector, as well as

for the enthusiast starting a

voyage of discovery.

‘Alfred Brendel

has been in my

life since I was

seven and first

discovered an

LP of his Mozart

concertos,’ recalls

Icons author HARRIET SMITH. ‘It

was a pleasure to revisit his life as

he celebrates his 90th birthday. The

only problem was how to sum up

the manifold achievements of this

true Renaissance man.’

way.’ I think it speaks well of him, and also of our age, that a fi gure of such stature can so openly express such priorities. And while it is sad that London is losing such a high-profi le artist and articulate arts advocate at a time when UK classical music is facing formidable and multiple challenges, let us remember that thrilling orchestral eras emerge elsewhere too: think of Mirga GraΩinytė-Tyla in Birmingham – where, of course, a young Rattle once made his name.

Another issue being increasingly raised is the environmental impact of touring – air miles equal emissions, no matter how often you choose the offset option when booking tickets. How should that shape future touring? We recently published a thought-provoking piece online by the conductor Sébastien Daucé, who has founded an organisation to address this issue. One suggestion is that when touring happens, it should be justifi able, with a deep focus on what artists can contribute to a destination.

And sometimes that impact is unknown at the time. To return to Rattle, another quote from the announcement also stood out, one showing the potentially life-changing importance of international exchanges of art. He recalled a visit by the BRSO, his soon-to-be orchestra, and Rafael Kubelík to his childhood city of Liverpool, a vivid experience which, he says, ‘made a profound impression on a teenager who wished to be a conductor.’ Touring will no doubt return, and ultimately a balance between all the above will be struck – and it may well be a healthier one than existed before. [email protected]

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4 GRAMOPHONE FEBRUARY 2021 gramophone.co.uk

CONTENTSVolume 98 Number 1197

EDITORIAL

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EDITOR’S CHOICE 7The 12 most highly recommended recordings reviewed in this issue

RECORDING OF THE MONTH 28Edward Seckerson welcomes a new Rachmaninovsymphony cycle from The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin

ORCHESTRAL 30Marek Janowski’s Beethoven; Joseph Moog plays Brahms; superb Pettersson from Christian Lindberg; the New Year’s Concert from Vienna

CHAMBER 44Beethoven on the flute with Emmanuel Pahud; Saint-Saëns from Renaud Capuçon and friends

INSTRUMENTAL 54Organ transcriptions from Hansjörg Albrecht; Nicholas Angelich plays Prokofiev

VOCAL 64Christian Immler sings forgotten songs by Hans Gál; Josquin from Stile Antico

OPERA 74Donizetti’s Il paria; an ambitious children’s opera

JAZZ & WORLD MUSIC 81Reviews from our sister titles Jazzwise and Songlines

ONLINE CONCERTS & EVENTS 82Mark Pullinger reviews operas available on screen

REISSUES 84A Richard Bonynge box; the complete Karl Richter

BOX-SET ROUND-UP 89

REPLAY 90Rob Cowan on recent releases from the archives

CLASSICS RECONSIDERED 92Mark Pullinger and Hugo Shirley ask whether Karajan’s 1965 recordings of ‘Cav and Pag’ fromLa Scala still hold up today

BOOKS 94A Tallis monograph; British music after Britten

GRAMOPHONE COLLECTION 96Andrew Mellor listens to recordings of Grieg’s song-cycle Haugtussa and chooses his favourite

REVIEWS INDEX 112

FOR THE RECORD 8All the latest classical music news

HAHN: FROM PARIS WITH LOVE 14After a year-long, self-imposed sabbatical, the American violinist Hilary Hahn is releasing a Paris-inspired album on DG featuring the last work Rautavaara wrote before he died. Andrew Mellor meets her

TOP IMMIGRANT COMPOSERS 20Following on from his popular ‘Giants of American Music’ feature in 2019, conductor Gerard Schwarz champions five mid-20th-century composers who settled in the US and who deserve to be better known

MUSICIAN AND THE SCORE 42Pianist Piotr Anderszewski talks to Jed Distler about the delights and challenges of JS Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2 and reveals his criteria for choosing the 12 Preludes and Fugues that appear on his latest recording for Warner ICONS 52 Harriet Smith takes on the daunting task of paying tribute to someone she has admired since childhood – the pianist Alfred Brendel, who has just reached a milestone birthday: his 90th

CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS 62 Andrew Mellor surveys the output of the Finnish composer Paavo Heininen, ‘a creator-pedagogue who cleaves to his Serialist methods even when he appears to be concealing them’

WHAT NEXT? 72 Richard Whitehouse takes Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz as his starting point, propelling us to alternative programmatic works by composers from Richard Strauss to Heinz Winbeck HIGH FIDELITY 103 LETTERS 108

NEW RELEASES 110

MY MUSIC 114 Chef Sally Clarke on creating the perfect playlist

The beginning of a partnershipBerliner PhilharmonikerKirill Petrenko conductor5 CD · 2 Blu-ray

Bruckner‘s symphoniesBerliner Philharmoniker9 CD · 4 Blu-ray

The Berliner Philharmoniker have a long Mahler tradition that stretches back to when the composer himself conducted the orchestra. This edition brings together the nine completed symphonies of Gustav Mahler and the Adagio of the Tenth. In addition to chief conductor Kirill Petrenko and his predecessors Sir Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado, it features other outstanding Mahler interpreters from different generations.

Gustav MahlerSymphonies 1–10

Berliner PhilharmonikerClaudio AbbadoGustavo DudamelBernard HaitinkDaniel HardingAndris NelsonsZubin MehtaYannick Nézet-SéguinKirill PetrenkoSir Simon Rattle

10 CD · 4 Blu-ray

Order now at berliner-philharmoniker-recordings.com

The symphonies of Gustav Mahler


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Last issue, we explored the legacy of Rachmaninov and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin proves himself not just a brilliant custodian, but a conductor creating an era of his own.

RACHMANINOVSymphony No 1.Symphonic Dances The PhiladelphiaOrchestra / Yannick Nézet-SéguinDG

EDWARD SECKERSON’S REVIEW IS ONPAGE 28

Martin Cullingford’s pick of the finest recordings from this month’s reviews

DVD/BLU-RAYBEETHOVEN Fidelio (1806 version)

Sols; Vienna Symphony Orchestra /

Manfred Honeck

Unitel

Manfred Honeck leads his fine singers andinstrumentalists in a Fidelio that, says criticPeter Quantrill, is not to be missed.

REVIEW ON PAGE 74

‘ENGLISH MUSIC FORSTRINGS’ Sinfonia of London /

John Wilson

Chandos

Once again John Wilson draws the most glorious sound from his hand-picked orchestra, lavishing care and devotion on repertoire that could have been written for him.

REVIEW ON PAGE 38

JS BACH Das

wohltemperirte Clavier,

Book 2 – selections

Piotr Anderszewski pf

Warner Classics

Thoughtful and thought-provoking programming by Piotr Anderszewski is paired with sensitive interpretation throughout, making for a compelling Bach album.

REVIEW ON PAGE 54

BEETHOVEN. RIHM. SCHUBERT Vanitas

Georg Nigl bar

Olga Pashchenko pf

Alpha

A well-planned recitalfrom Austrian baritone Georg Nigl of songs that draw on his voice’s refl ective and humane sound, with pianist Olga Pashchenko at one with him in this journey

REVIEW ON PAGE 64

REISSUE/ARCHIVE‘THE SWR RECORDINGS 1956-84’ Henryk Szeryng vn

SWR Classic

Rob Cowan’s Replay draws our attention this month to ‘an artistically exceptional box on

SWR Classic’ of violinist Henryk Szeryng.REVIEW ON PAGE 91

BEETHOVEN Violin

Sonatas Nos 7 & 10

James Ehnes vn

Andrew Armstrong pf

Onyx

A brilliant sonataseries closes on a high: James Ehnes andAndrew Armstrong have proved themselvesplayers in perfect dialogue throughout thismemorable addition to catalogue.

REVIEW ON PAGE 44

HANDELHarpsichord Suites

Pierre Hantaï hpd

Mirare

With his exquisiteplaying on a

delightful sounding instrument (andone recorded with engaging clarity),Pierre Hantaï brings Handel’s harpsichordsuites stunningly to life.

REVIEW ON PAGE 55

BRUCKNERLatin Motets

Latvian Radio Choir /

Sigvards Kļava

Ondine

The acclaimedLatvian Radio Choir, their sound soimmediately evocative and emotive, bringsus beautiful Bruckner from the atmosphericacoustic of Riga Cathedral.

REVIEW ON PAGE 65

MOZART Gran Partita

M SIMPSON Geysir

Mark Simpson cl et al

Orchid

Another wonderful ‘Gran Partita’, from

a particaurly impressive line-up, is preceded here by a beautifully crafted work from composer and clarinettist Mark Simpson for the same forces.

REVIEW ON PAGE 46

‘VIDA BREVE’ Stephen Hough pf

Hyperion

Stephen Hough follows his Beethoven concerto album with a

more intimate, personal meditation on life and death, a journey bookended with Bach-based refl ections, and all performed with his usual intelligence and flair.

REVIEW ON PAGE 61

‘TYRANNIC LOVE’ Ensebmle Les

Surprises / Louis-Noël

Bestion de Camboulas

Alpha

A vibrant step into 18th-century English music from Ensemble Les Surprises sees the French group shine in works both familiar and lesser known from Purcell and peers.

REVIEW ON PAGE 71


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FOR THE RECORDSir Simon Rattle has been

appointed Chief Conductor of the Munich-based Bavarian

Radio Symphony Orchestra and its Chorus with effect from the 2023-24 season. The initial contract is for five years. He will step down from his role as Music Director of the LSO in 2023 and assume the title of Conductor Emeritus.

Rattle has enjoyed a close relationship with the BRSO since 2010, and together they’vegiven many concerts including Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Die Walküre as well as Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, recordings of which have been released on the BR-Klassik label.

In a statement issued by the LSO, the Berlin-based Rattle said that ‘my reasons for accepting the role of Chief Conductor in Munich are entirely personal, enabling me to better manage the balance of my work and be close enough to home to be present for my children in a meaningful way. I love the London Symphony Orchestra. I remain committed to the LSO, and we have plans for major projects in the coming years. I am thrilled that we will be making music together far into the future.’

The BRSO’s Intendant, Ulrich Wilhelm, said ‘With his passion, artistic versatility and winning charisma, he will be a most worthy successor to Mariss Jansons. Our Chorus and the

Symphonieorchester look forward enormously to developing the artistic concept for the new concert hall in Munich’s Werksviertel Mitte together with Sir Simon, who is peerless in his advocacy for bringing the joy of music to people in new ways. I see this appointment as an important and forward-looking signal, particularly in a time in which the arts have faced

unimagined challenges as a result of the ongoing pandemic.’Rattle first heard the BRSO in October 1970 when Rafael

Kubelík brought them to Liverpool to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. ‘Attending this concert changed my life,’ Rattle recalls. ‘Already a Kubelík fan, I was aware of the BRSO through many recordings I had bought. But the orchestra’s visit to Liverpool made a profound impression on a teenager who wished to be a conductor – to experience such a symbiotic relationship between conductor and players, and the unanimity of concept and philosophy was as evident as the sheer pleasure the musicians emanated. This concert became a kind of benchmark for me, a goal towards which musicians should strive.

Sir Simon Rattle will become the sixth chief conductor in the history of the BRSO, succeeding Eugen Jochum, Rafael Kubelík, Sir Colin Davis, Lorin Maazel and Mariss Jansons.

One of today’s most significant young pianists, Benjamin Grosvenor, is to continue his partnership with Decca.

Grosvenor joined the label as an exclusive artist in 2011, becoming the first British pianist to have done so for 60 years, as well as, at 18 years old, being the youngest. His February 2020 release of Chopin concertos – a category winner at last year’s Gramophone Awards – fulfilled that initial five-album deal. A year on, this month will see the release of a solo album devoted to the music of Liszt, centred around the Sonata in B minor.

‘Decca Classics has been my recording home for the last decade, and I’m pleased that we are continuing our partnership with this new release,’ said Grosvenor. ‘The music of Liszt has been central to my repertoire since I was introduced to it as a child, by my grandfather. I wanted with this recording to show the composer in his different aspects, including some of his original compositions, but also displaying the extraordinarily re-creative abilities he showed in his transcriptions.’

Dominic Fyfe, Decca Classics’ Label Director, added: ‘Decca has been a lifelong home to the legacies of such legendary pianists as Clifford Curzon, Julius Katchen, Vladimir Ashkenazy and more recently Nelson Freire. Benjamin richly deserves his place in such company. His new Liszt recital perfectly captures his compelling pianism and flair for imaginative programming.’

Rafael Payare has been named as the new Music Director of the Orchestre

Symphonique de Montréal. The Venezuelan conductor will take up the post with the 2022-23 season, though from September this year will assume the title Music Director Designate. He succeeds Kent Nagano, who was Music Director from 2006 until 2020.

Payare made his debut with the orchestra in 2018, and the rapport he’s developed with them made him the unanimous choice of the 11-member selection committee.

Payare, 40, is a graduate of the El Sistema music education programme – initially trained as a French horn player, he began conducting studies in 2004, winning the Malko International Competition for Young Conductors in 2012. From 2014-19 he served as Music Director of the Ulster Orchestra, and from 2019 has been Music Director of the San Diego Symphony, as well as, since 2015, Principal Conductor of the Castleton Festival.

‘It’s an immense honour and a pleasure to have been chosen as the next Music Director of the fantastic Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal,’ said Payare. ‘To be given the opportunity to work, create and explore new musical possibilities with the wonderful group of artists that is the OSM, is a hugely exciting prospect.’

Rattle to leave London for the Bavarian RSO

Grosvenor renews with Decca Montreal’s new Music Director

The BRSO’s Intendant, Ulrich Wilhelm, and Sir Simon sign the contract

https://avxlive.icu/


FOR THE RECORD

Hiyoli Togawa has Japanese and Australianroots but grew up in Germany, and received amaster’s degree from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Munich in 2014. As a child she played the violin, but switched to the viola and studied with Rainer Moog and Antoine Tamestit. Various awards and a budding solo career led to associations with composers including Kalevi Aho, who in 2017 composed a solo work for her (Solo XII – In memoriam EJR, in memory of Einojuhani Rautavaara who died in 2016). Togawa has recorded this work for BIS, which will be issued in May.

Before then, we can look forward to Togawa’s debut recording for BIS, out in April: ‘Songs of Solitude’ is an album born out of the seclusion of lockdown, and features music by Bach – the Sarabandes from each of the six Cello Suites, which Togawa describes as giving ‘spiritual nourishment, comfort, grounding, confidence’ – interspersed with new works commissioned by Togawa from a number of composers working in pandemic-enforced isolation around the world. As well as from Aho, she commissioned works by composers including José Serebrier, Tigran Mansurian, John Powell, Rhian Samiel and

Gabriel Prokofiev. She wanted solo works that distilled isolation in music.

That so many leading composers responded positively to her vision, and that BIS happily agreed to take the project on, says much about Togawa’s artistry. BIS’s Robert von Bahr, no stranger to identifying talent early, describes her succinctly as ‘a marvel’. So, worth remembering the name.

ONE TO WATCHHiyoli Togawa Viola

The Philadelphia Orchestra – Gramophone’s current

Orchestra of the Year – has named Nathalie Stutzmann as its Principal Guest Conductor for three years, beginning in the start of the 2021-22 season. Stutzmann ‘will spend multiple weeks each season in Philadelphia leading programmes ranging from subscription and Family Concerts to special projects, community initiatives, and more’, said a statement, adding that she ‘will also serve as a key member of the creative planning process’.

‘It is a privilege and an honour to become the Principal Guest Conductor of the iconic Philadelphia Orchestra,’ said Stutzmann. ‘Outstanding music-making, heartfelt playing, and emotional moments inhabit my soul every time I think about those marvellous musicians.’

Stutzmann, a singer long before she took up conducting, also announced details of her new album for Erato, ‘Contralto’ (to be reviewed next month), in which she explores the deep-voiced female singers of the Baroque era. ‘We shouldn’t forget that the great opera composers of the early 18th century saw the female contralto as the

equal of the male castrato,’ she says.‘The two voices were interchangeable.

A male character written for the contralto voice could be allocated to a castrato or a woman – though I’m sorry to say that a woman would only get the work when a castrato wasn’t available! Essentially, even the most brilliant female singers of the era, though they had their admirers, did not enjoy the same kind of reputation as the castrati, who were idolised by high society,’ she added.

Stutzmann’s new role and new album

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Gramophone podcastThe Gramophone Podcast is free to enjoy and available on all podcasting platforms. Recent episodes include a 90th birthday interview with the great pianist Alfred Brendel, who took some time to reflect on his career with Editor-in-Chief James Jolly.

In another new episode, Editor Martin Cullingford spoke to percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie about her latest recordings of works for percussion, by composers Alexis Alrich, Sir Karl Jenkins, Ned Rorem and Christian Lindberg.

Both of these episodes join a huge archive of fascinating interviews with artists and composers, which are all still available to enjoy.

ChartThe UK’s Oicial Specialist Classical Chart Top 20 is featured on the Gramophone website and it is a great way to explore popular new classical recordings. The chart is updated every Friday at 6pm.

Facebook, Instagram & TwitterFollow us to hear about the latest classical music news and anniversaries.

The magazine is just the beginning. Visit gramophone.co.uk for …

Alfred Brendel features on the Gramophone Podcast


FOR THE RECORD

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Back in 1989, when I was 19, I had won a couple ofcompetitions and with the money I’d gathered I wasable to reserve a 14-carat gold Brannen-Cooper flute.When it was ready a year later I went to Boston topick it up, and while I was there I tried out someheadjoints; I decided to bring back one byDana Sheridan.

Since then, I’ve acquired a few more flutes: a Braunwooden flute; a Louis Lot which belonged to one of myfirst teachers, François Binet; and a Haynes from 2013with a Faulisi headjoint. I’ll sometimes alternate flutesfrom one recording to another but, unless it’s beingrepaired, my Brannen-Cooper is still the instrumentI feel most comfortable on, especially when I’mperforming as a concert soloist. It’s the flute I knowbest, and it reacts instantly to my breath.

As an extension of my breath, the flute becomes myvoice. It’s the ultimate tool in that respect. But in theend, it’s the flute player, not the instrument, that dictatesthe sound. In my orchestra [the Berlin Philharmonic],the flute section all play on dierent instruments. For Michael Hasel, awooden flute enables him to be free; for me, wood is just too sensitive.For the Beethoven flute duo on my new Beethoven recording, SilviaCareddu was playing on a similar flute to my Brannen-Cooper but that’sonly because it was the appropriate instrument for her; with any fluteduet, you’re looking for a perfect blend of sound but at the same timeyou want to be able to identify who’s playing what. The most importantthing when playing music together is having a common idea.

I’ve been transcribing music for flute ever since I was a student, butthere are challenges – particularly with the Beethoven violin sonatas.The opening of the Spring Sonata, for example, works beautifully onthe flute but then, from the second page, the trouble starts! I chosethe ‘little’ G major Sonata because it’s a strong key for the flute andbecause, apart from the low Gs which are beyond the flute’s range,I had to change very little in order for the dialogue between flute and

piano to emerge. In fact, in this sonata the maininstrument is the piano, and Daniel Barenboimand I were really able to explore the phrasing, thestructure and the interaction of the harmonies ofthis musical conversation.

While there’s no low G, I’m glad we’re not missing thelow register altogether in this transcription. I rememberas a kid listening to people like Rampal, Nicolet andGalway – all of them had a strong low register. To beable to control the air stream in the extreme registers,both low and high, is a trademark of a master fluteplayer – as is being able to project over an orchestrawhen necessary. So much of this is down to the hall –I’ll spend hours fine-tuning every note to the spacebefore a solo performance. But it’s also about openingup the throat and chest, and about using the cavitiesbehind the eyes and the nose; string players bringtheir own ‘cage’ of resonance, but all we have asflute players is our own body.

Playing chamber music can sometimes requireadjustments to that resonance, though. In Beethoven’s Serenade forflute, violin and viola, for example, the balance can be too much infavour of the flute so, for the recording, I had to work at not being tooexplosive in the third octave. But it was wonderful playing with myBerlin colleagues who I’ve known for so many years. There’s a joy andexhilaration about making music with friends that can’t be surpassed.

I remember once giving my flute to someone to be repaired whenI was on the road and, just by changing the position of the cork inthe headjoint, he completely altered the resonance. For this reason,I always try to use the same repair specialists – I have people in Genevaand Tokyo who replace the key pads for me. Having said that, the padstend to last for up to seven years which is amazing. The flute may havebeen made in the 1980s, but the engineering was incredible and pavedthe way for other flute makers who followed.

Emmanuel Pahud’s new Beethoven recording is reviewed on page 44

ARTISTS & their INSTRUMENTSEmmanuel Pahud on his trusty 14-carat gold Brannen-Cooper flute

Artists call for EU work permit

A rtists and organisations have called for action by the British government to address the impact of Brexit on UK musicians travelling to the EU to perform.

Following the UK’s departure from the EU, while visa-free entry to the EU is guaranteed for 90 days in any 180 day period, when it comes to work permits for ‘third countries’ individual member states make their own decisions. ‘While some EU countries apply an exemption from work permit rules for cultural activity, along the lines of the UK’s Permitted Paid Engagement, not all do,’ explained the Association of British Orchestras, ‘and it is fair to say that this will make multi-country touring significantly more complicated and expensive.’ Musicians also face customs controls for instruments, and the ABO says the potential for delays means that ‘orchestras are having to plan for additional days on either side of the tour to accommodate delays and additional bureaucracy’.

A petition calling on the government ‘to negotiate a free cultural work permit’ for musicians, has attracted a quarter of a million signatures.

Arise Dame Jane!

Conductor and musicologist Jane Glover received a DBE in the New Year Honours –

a pioneer in her profession, she inspired a generation of women to pursue a conducting career. Other honours included a knighthood for founder and Artistic Director of Birmingham Opera, Graham Vick. Composer Julian Anderson, pianist and conductor Barry Douglas, conductor Daniel Harding and the CEO and founder of Grange Park Opera, Wasfi Kani, were all awarded a CBE. An OBE went to the cellist Natalie Clein and the organist, pianist and conductor Wayne Marshall. Violinist Bradley Creswick, former leader of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, received an MBE. In December, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen was awarded an honorary knighthood for services to music and to UK-Finland relations.


FOR THE RECORDP

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The definition of a piano quartet has never been as simple asjust three string instruments plus keyboard. Any numberof Baroque trio sonatas can be played by two violins,

a cello and a keyboard, but the clue’s in the name. The cello actsas an extension of the harpsichord; there are four players, but theyspeak with three voices. Only with the evolution of the morepowerful pianoforte could a string trio of violin, viola and cellomeet their keyboard colleague on equal terms as a piano quartet.

Mozart’s two piano quartets K 478 and 493 (1785 and 1787)set the standard for the form: a conversation between four playerswho nonetheless belong to two distinct sub-groups. It wasn’t aseasy as he made it sound. The very same year, the 15-year oldBeethoven wrote three piano quartets that duck the challengealtogether by acting like mini concertos for piano accompanied bystring trio. Schubert’s Adagio and Rondo concertante (1816) doesn’teven pretend to be anything else.

Mendelssohn’s three teenage piano quartets (1822-25) aimedfor something closer to Mozart’s ideal – but Schumann (1842)and Brahms, in his Opp 25 and 26 (1861) and Op 60 (1875)transformed the combination into a medium capable of bothClassical rigour and Romantic emotion on the most expansivescale. (Schumann even requires the cello to tune its C string downto a low B flat, to extend the range of expressive colour.) Dvo∑ákand Reger headed the list of late-Romantic masters who followedtheir example in central Europe; Fauré wrote two intensely poeticworks in France (1880 and 1887) and Enescu twice followed hislead (1909 and 1944).

But the spirit of the age was expansive, and as the 19th centuryended the more opulent piano quintet came to have a wider appeal.The piano quartet repertoire is dotted with youthful one-offs andincomplete torsos: Mahler (1876), Richard Strauss (1884), Walton(1919), Bartók (1898) and the unfinished masterpiece by GuillaumeLekeu (1894) all project a sense of fledgling composers testingthemselves against the medium. The British musical renaissanceseems to have been an exception, with Bridge (1910), Bliss (1915)and Howells (1916) creating powerfully original piano quartetsfor WW Cobbett’s chamber music competition.

Whether Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1941) canbe called a piano quartet (with a clarinet instead of a viola) isdebatable, but Schnittke’s Mahler-inspired essay (1988), MortonFeldman’s vast swansong Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello (1987) andmore recent works by Judith Weir (2000) and Huw Watkins(2012) all share one thing in common. They draw strength fromthe medium’s limits at the same time as engaging with its history –a uniquely stimulating challenge to the composer, and a source ofendless fascination for listener and performer alike.

GRAMOPHONE GUIDE TO …

Richard Bratby explores a form that seemsto draw strength from its apparent limitations

Pushing the boundaries of the piano quartet: score for Messiaen s 191 masterpiece

Jonathan McGovern and Soraya Mafi star in The Telephone

When the Edinburgh International Festival was forced to go digital last year as

a result of the pandemic, it opened up a unique recording opportunity. Highlights of the innovative ‘My Light Shines On’ programme, broadcast throughout the city’s Princes Street Gardens, have now been released by Linn Records, representing a new digital partnership between the festival and the label.

Three recordings, released in December, showcase the festival’s famed eclecticism. The fi rst, a world premiere, features members of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (under Music Director Thomas Søndergård, making his International Festival debut) performing Klaus Simon’s arrangement of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony for chamber orchestra.

The second features the single-act opera The Telephone by Gian Carlo Menotti, who once lived in nearby East Lothian. Soprano Soraya Mafi and baritone Jonathan McGovern star as a hapless

couple whose affair is thwarted by a telephone, accompanied by the Orchestra of Scottish Opera under Stuart Stratford.

The third recording, meanwhile, marks the fi rst ever digital compilation of highlights from the festival’s Chamber Music Series, and comprises performances by such high-calibre artists as Mark Padmore, Paul Lewis, Steven Osborne and the Elias Quartet.

Linn’s Chief Producer Philip Hobbs was keen to pay tribute to festival organisers for thinking outside the box: ‘In a year full of adversity, the industry’s fi rst question has been, ‘What can we do?’ To their great credit, the EIF managed to take this question and extend it to ask, ‘What can we do well’. The result is some wonderful performances which will stand as signifi cant contributions to the recorded catalogue for years to come.’

All three recordings are available via major downloading and streaming platforms, and in Studio Master from linnrecords.com

Linn Records pairs up with Edinburgh International Festival

Piano Quartet


FOR THE RECORD

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Our monthly series telling the story behind an orchestra

ORCHESTRA Insight …Israel Philharmonic OrchestraFounded 1936Home Charles R Bonfman Auditorium, Tel AvivMusic Director Lahav ShaniFounding Music Director William Steinberg

As Jewish musicians were fi red from European orchestras in the early 1930s, the violinist Bronisław Huberman saw the writing on the wall. By 1933 he was laying plans for an orchestra of immigrants in Palestine, arranging safe passage for them and their families. His project saw the relocation of 1000 souls, 75 of them musicians from Germany, Poland, France, Greece, Latvia and Italy. For the Palestine Symphony Orchestra’s fi rst performance in Tel Aviv on December 26, 1936, Arturo Toscanini led the orchestra, fulfi lling a promise to ‘render paternal care to the newly born’ and make a powerful point to the Nazis he so detested. Mendelssohn had pride of place on the programme.

The renamed Israel Philharmonic Orchestra has been part of the cultural and religious fabric of its country since it played Hatikvah when the state of Israel declared its independence in May 1948. Politics, accordingly, have been hard to shake off. A few months later a young Leonard Bernstein conducted the orchestra on the dunes of Beersheba, before 5000 soldiers, as Egyptian troops withdrew within earshot. Two decades on, in the aftermath of the Six Day War, Bernstein was leading Mahler’s Resurrection in the amphitheatre on Mount Scopus.

Audition procedures had been tough from the start and the high expectations extended to guests. Dozens of illustrious artists with Jewish roots worked with the ensemble but it has always been open to all. The fi gures of Bernstein and Zubin Mehta loom large. The latter effectively forced a constitutional shift

in 1977, when he was offered the Music Directorship having reached the orchestra’s then-most senior position, Music Advisor. As former Gramophone editor James Inverne has observed, in Mehta’s time the orchestra’s sound shifted in tandem with immigration patterns, from German/Polish to Russian. The conductor’s love for central European heft was consistent.

The orchestra’s fi rst recording was for Decca: Mahler symphonies under Paul Kletzki. Mehta continued the relationship with Decca and Bernstein took the orchestra to DG, making benchmark recordings of his own music. After a six-decade association with the ensemble, Mehta stood down in 2019 and was formally succeeded in 2020 by Lahav Shani, the most signifi cant change in half a century. Politics still loom large, especially when the ensemble travels abroad. The IPO’s education programme aims to reach the same ethnic and religious mix as makes up the country’s population, but the orchestra itself has drawn criticism for failing to be anywhere near it. Time, though, brings change. In 1981, the IPO played Wagner for the fi rst time and has done since – the ultimate sign of music’s ability to heal. Andrew Mellor

Listen to our special playlist on Apple Music

Piano lessonsJust out from DG is a 16-CD set called ‘Christoph Eschenbach: Piano Lessons’ which contains many of the piano pieces young players encounter when they start learning the instrument. Like Lang Lang’s recent ‘Piano Book’, ‘Piano Lessons’ gives piano beginners the chance to hear these pieces, often used for teaching, played by a major performing artist.

Recorded mainly in 1974 and ’75, the 16 CDs – many of which are being made available internationally for the first time – contain the key works of the pedagogical repertoire, from JFF Burgmüller’s 25 Studies to Carl Czerny’s The School of Velocity, from Bach’s Inventions and Sinfonias to sonatas by Clementi, Diabelli, Dussek and Kuhlau, from easier works by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to the gems that are Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words.

‘Piano Lessons’ will retail for about £55.

Arthur Grumiaux box To mark the centenary of the birth of the violinist Arthur Grumiaux (he was born on March 21, 1921), Decca is issuing a 74-CD set of all the recordings he made for Philips. The set includes a first release for Mozart’s Adagio, K261, and Rondo, K373, made with the LSO and Colin Davis in 1964.

The centenary box contains a 100-page booklet with notes by Tully Potter who, writing an Icons article about Grumiaux for Gramophone in June 2020, claimed that ‘Arthur Grumiaux was the greatest post-war Belgian violinist and one of the “perfect five” of the 1950s and ’60s, with Heifetz, Milstein, Oistrakh and Kogan. He was the fiddler for those who think they dislike the violin: his immaculate playing and supple tone won him millions of friends.’ The set includes multiple versions of many key violin works, including Grumiaux’s three recordings of the Beethoven Violin Concerto, three of the Bruch No 1, three of the Tchaikovsky and two of the Lalo Symphonie espagnole and much else. Among the many chamber recordings is an album of violin sonatas by Mozart and Brahms for which Grumiaux took both the violin and piano parts. The set will be released on March 12.


FOR THE RECORD

FROM WHERE I SITThe distinctions between musicals and operas are growing increasingly blurred, says Edward Seckerson

When it was first proposed, some years ago, that we expand the musical theatre reviews content

in Gramophone to include musicals and other less-easily definable forms of music drama, the question arose as to where they

should be placed: ‘Opera’ or ‘Vocal’? I opted for ‘Vocal’: opera by its very nature has lofty

connotations and I for one wouldn’t want to endorse the popular notion that calling something an opera elevates its status.

It is still nigh on impossible to define what makes opera opera and musicals musicals. Or indeed any other form or style within the genre. It has nothing to do with being ‘through-sung’ or in the ‘book and song’ format. Bizet’s Carmen or Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, to name but two classic titles, fall into the latter category, but even though Mozart’s Singspiel (or ‘musical’) was expressly commissioned for Emanuel Schikaneder’s popular Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden it is still possessed of an operatic nature in the style of singing required. So is it a ‘style’ thing or merely a case of where a piece is performed?

Then again, if an opera house chooses to stage Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd or Bernstein’s Candide or West Side Story do they suddenly become ‘operas’ or, worse still, pieces worthy of the higher accolade? We all know what happened when Bernstein was persuaded that West Side Story was an opera and should be cast accordingly. Stuff and nonsense.

Regular readers will know how much I admire Jake Heggie’s work in the operatic genre – but no one would deny that his pieces have the sensibility of musicals in their DNA. Next month I’m reviewing for these pages a gorgeous piece called Flowers for Mrs Harris based on the novel by Paul Gallico with music and lyrics by Richard Taylor and a book by Rachel Wagstaff. It is through-sung in the operatic manner, though with largely indiscernible ‘numbers’ morphing into a succession of songful elaborations. It is a classic case of how the musical is evolving, how styles of singing can cross-fertilise, how musicals and opera (if we’re making the distinction) can bring so much to each other.

There’s no doubt that when ‘rock opera’ (for example, Jesus Christ Superstar by Andrew Lloyd Webber) was introduced, this was an attempt to lend the pieces importance and ‘respectability’ and avoid them being branded as offensive. I once asked Lloyd Webber why he had, throughout his career, stuck so religiously (excuse the pun) to his chosen format – in this case, through-sung – and he replied that he wanted the music to drive the narrative.

I put the same question to Stephen Sondheim whose unshakable allegiance to the ‘book-song’ format flies in the face of those who mistakenly claim that Sweeney Todd is through-sung. Through-composed, certainly. His reply was that ‘the play’s the thing’. Claude-Michel Schönberg, composer of Les Misérables and Miss Saigon – both through-sung – wryly responded to the same question by insisting that he and his lyricist Alain Boublil were not clever enough to do what Mr Sondheim does!

In the meantime, Flowers for Mrs Harris goes into ‘Vocal’ because I’m not ready – or in the least inclined – to label it.

FrancescoCorti

VocesSuaves

QuartettoBernardini

Little Books

Johann Sebastian BachFrancesco Corti

harpsichord

QuartettoBernardini

−Around MozartA journey through the golden ageof the oboe quartet

Voces SuavesJohannes Strobl

German Funeral Music of the 17th CenturyMusicalische ExequienHeinrich Schütz

LittleBooksJohannSebastianBach

HeinrichSchützMusicalischeExequienGermanFuneral Musicof the 17thCentury

AroundMozartA journeythrough thegolden ageof the oboequartet

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Stream or download in Hi-Res Audio on

FROM PARIS with lo e

Hilary Hahn’s new album, which pays tribute to the French capital city, marks

the end of a year-long sabbatical that reminded her what’s worth fighting

for, writes Andrew Mellor


GRAMOPHONE FEBRUARY 2021 15

HILARY HAHN

t was the best of timing, it was the worst of timing. In September 2019, Hilary Hahn laid down her violin and started what should have been a year-long sabbatical. The idea was to withdraw from the hubbub of work and concert life; to find space for thought and reflection; to ‘look at how things are, what I really want to do going forward, and then remerge’, in the violinist’s own words.

Watching in horror as the classical music sector imploded hadn’t been

part of the plan. ‘It was a scramble, as it was for everyone,’ Hahn says of March to May, when the Covid-19 pandemic halted life as we know it. ‘At first I went into grief mode – there goes the sabbatical I’ve been planning for 10 years. As far as its processes and aims were concerned, it was over.’ Watercolour painting, college courses and the luxury of non-work travel were replaced with Hahn, her husband and their two young children ‘just supporting each other as a family’ at home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As the weeks edged past, Hahn sensedshe would not be picking up where sheleft off once she returned to her career inSeptember this year. Only then did hersabbatical begin to resurrect. ‘I realisedI could not have been taught morefrom any other version of it,’ she says;‘it became an intense, pressure-cookerinternal-growth experience, whichhad actually been the point all along.The idea had been to take away the otherstuff and really get down to the core.This experience really did that.’

When we speak online at the endof 2020, it is exactly two decades sincea 20-year-old Hahn made her firstappearance on Gramophone’s cover, andjust shy of a quarter of a century sinceshe recorded her first album. Sitting inher studio a drive away from her home,Hahn is perfectly and symmetricallyframed by the Zoom screen, her tight-necked red blouse offset by the arabesqueof patterned yellow wallpaper. The blueeyes that are known to fix their subjectswith an almost confrontational glare haveonly marginally less power on screen.

Back in 2000, Adam Sweetingintroduced Hahn in the same terms thatcould be used today: a violinist whose

informality conceals her hard nose, and whose extraordinary technique is itself hidden by wise and lucid playing. ‘No violinist currently performing makes a lovelier sound,’ wrote Rob Cowan of her 2008 coupling of Sibelius and Schoenberg concertos, reaching for more superlatives a decade later when reviewing her Recording of the Month solo Bach. But even in 2000, Hahn was evidently as serious about Bach as she was about commissioning new works. That same year, she was already using the internet to update her fans and post messages from the road.

The lightning-speed development of classical music’s digital profile during the first six months of shutdown overtook even the tech-savvy Hahn. ‘I had a bunch of catching up to do when I came back,’ she says; ‘I was like, OK, what is this streaming and self-filming world that I am in? How do I relate to that? Everything that people had been doing from March they seemed to have gotten into their systems, sorted their relationships with. I’ve been trying to

figure out my relationship with it sincethe fall – seeing if there’s stuff I can learnfrom the way people are connecting andsharing music now, that I can take withme into future seasons.’

Is that as simple as believing a straight‘filmed concert’ insufficient? ‘Well it’smaybe not very personal. You have totake into account the human experience.What people want has been changing: inthe spring I’m guessing people wanted tomaintain some of their plans, seeing stuffin whatever format. They wanted differentthings in the summer and they wantdifferent things now they have found theirroutine.’ And the industry’s famed lackof flexibility? ‘Adaptability is helpful andthat’s one thing performers and promotershave probably learned. I never understoodwhy I had to decide on recital repertoiretwo or three years in advance, when Ihad no idea what I would be passionateabout then. Maybe this will be one ofthe areas where everyone is like, OK,there is a certain value in adaptability.But you still have to understand what theaudience wants. It’s about pivoting just alittle. A full pivot is irresponsible.’

The idea of a ‘little pivot’ might notsatisfy those calling for a full revolution

‘I never understood why I had to decide on recital repertoire several years in advance. Maybe this will now be an area where there is a certain value in adaptability’

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HILARY HAHN

in the classical music sector: the decolonising of the repertoire, the cancellation of Wagner and so on. It wasn’t just Covid that happened while Hahn was temporarily lost to the world. As a progressive female and a self-confessed ‘traditional classical violinist at heart’, what angle of pivot would she prescribe to make our great institutions more representative?

‘I haven’t done an awful lot of interacting,’ she responds, drawing attention to her 15-month sequestration by way of a caveat. But the answer that follows is no less considered. ‘Our job is to make and give space to the people who have beautiful voices but who haven’t been given that space,’ she says. ‘We have to prepare the music world and the wider world for the next generation and it’s their job to be ready to walk in to what we have prepared.’ How would shequantify that – another ‘pivot’? ‘I thinkthere’s a cycle that happens. But youhave to intentionally question yourself and your assumptions, inorder to find solutions that feel right and that you can maintain.We have to find the information and educate ourselves – notmake it someone else’s job to educate us.’

Equality and representation, Hahnsays, are paramount. She should know,frequenting a violin shop whose wallsare plastered with images of greatviolinists of the past, all of them male(‘even in the female restroom’, shereports). The violinist pronounces withdelicious irony that 2020 was the yearshe at last had the opportunity to workexclusively with female conductors;it was also the year she gave onlytwo concerts, both Mozart’s ViolinConcerto No 5, both conducted byMarin Alsop. ‘It matters for girls, itmatters for women and it matters for

people of different racial and cultural backgrounds when you don’t think you have a place somewhere,’ she says.

One of the silver linings of Covid-19 is arguably that it has forced change in that regard, particularly as orchestras have had no choice but to use local talent and pick from a more naturally gender-balanced pool of conductors and soloists as a result. I ask Hahn whether the general fermata has presented an opportunity to reset. ‘It should be happening all the time; it shouldn’t be a reaction to an event,’ she responds. ‘Art always questions itself, art is always looking for ways of representing, speaking to humanity, discussing difficult things and revealing beautiful things.’

Hahn’s poise and consistency on her instrument may not align her with the radical interpretative inquisition of a Patricia Kopatchinskaja or even a Vilde Frang. She has always questioned convention in other ways.

She has explored improvisation, commissioned works via the internet, gone swimming in a concert dress and is soon to begin an artificial intelligence project with the roboticist Carol Reiley. Her performance of violin concertos filleted of all but their

solo parts – a project titled ‘Hahn Solo’ (‘I didn’t make that name up by the way, it came from the fans and I let it stick’) – is a borderline eccentric way of finding new contexts for great works. Against the odds, it is proving illuminating in its own way.

It’s on recordings that we’ve experienced the subtle, sophisticated nature of Hahn’s revisionism. We have had Sibelius presented next to the composer who so fascinated him, Schoenberg; Brahms has been combined with Stravinsky, Jennifer Higdon with Tchaikovsky; Barber’s concerto has been placed with a newly commissioned work by Edgar Meyer – and that’s to deal only with concerto recordings. Next up, and back on Deutsche Grammophon, is the recording project Hahn dreamed up when everything was ‘normal’, when she was an Artist-in-Residence with Mikko Franck’s Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in the 2018/19 season.

The album, called ‘Paris’, is a loving glance at a city Hahn has visited every year since her teens (until 2020, that is) and that saw the construction of her Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume instrument in 1865. The album’s centrepiece is Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, a favourite of Hahn’s that she held off recording until the time, place

Staying power: Hahn was our cover artist back in May 2000

Mozart in Houston, conducted by Marin Alsop – one of only two concerts Hilary Hahn performed during 2020

and orchestra were all perfectly aligned. ‘The piece has alwayshad a Parisian feel to me,’ she says. The inclusion of Chausson’sPoème might seem obvious, but its position here is reinforcedby its dedication to Eugène Ysaÿe, who taught Hahn’s ownteacher, Jascha Brodsky.

Following those is a work nobody knew existed. In 2010,having played Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Manhattan-inspiredViolin Concerto, Hahn commissioned him to write one of 27new concert ‘encores’ that were also published and issued ondisc. She then asked Mikko Franck, her long-time collaborator atRadio France, to sound out his Finnish compatriot about writinga longer piece, but nothing appeared before the composer diedin 2016. At Rautavaara’s funeral in August that year, Franck washanded an almost-finished work, Two Serenades for violin andorchestra, that it soon transpired was the new piece for Hahn.Unusually for Rautavaara, he gave its two movements Frenchtitles, ‘Sérénade pour mon amour’ and ‘Sérénade pour la vie’.

The piece, the composer’s last, holds no great revelationsand is unmistakeably late Rautavaara, from its modal harmonicshifts and colouring to a violin solo that resembles botha light source and a living creature. Perhaps there is a morethan typically pronounced feeling of underlying unease –of bittersweet nostalgia. ‘In the score there’s a moment wherethe orchestration ends in the middle of a phrase, and youknow that’s where he never got back to it,’ explains Hahn.(Kalevi Aho stepped in to complete the orchestration.)The sense of something profound leads her to slow herotherwise consistent verbal presto. ‘To be part of someone’sfinal work is an honour’.

Rautavaara’s work makes for a telling postlude after theProkofiev: so much radiating stasis after so much restlessmovement. ‘I feel like a dancer in a role that I have beendancing for decades,’ she says of the latter. ‘My body knowsit; I have a relationship with the technique as well as the

GRAMOPHONE FEBRUARY 2021 17gramophone.co.uk

HILARY HAHN

‘Playing the Prokofiev, I’m like a dancer in a role I’ve been dancing for decades; there’s a relationship with technique and music’

Exploring Rautavaara’s new work with longtime collaborator Mikko Franck


HILARY HAHN

music.’ Does it feel like ballet music? ‘Prokofiev has clearly choreographed physical expression into the technique: when you’re playing down-bows you can only be playing down-bows [she demonstrates with a series of jabbing vocal ‘de-de-de-de-des’] while at other times you’re simply hanging on with your chin [she sings an elastic, upward glissando] and hoping to get to that top note just before the orchestra. It’s an almost impossible piece but I feel I’ve developed a way of playing it that really works for me and has maximum impact.’

Her approach to the Chausson, she says, speaks of where she is with her musicality right now. ‘I’m getting good at staying in the moment, when I know where I am with a piece,’ she explains; the Chausson is about ‘acknowledging the emotional moment and not trying to build something – it builds itself’. More easily done if, as she claims, her relationship with Franck and the OPRF has reached the point of intuition. She has plenty of warm words for them, for ‘the colours, the connection’.

The actual connection, between the residency and the record, was made by Hahn herself. These days she masterminds her own recording projects and hands the results to DG, retaining the copyright in perpetuity. We’re a long way from the late ’90s, when Hahn signed her first multi-album deal with Sony Classical. ‘When it’s an exclusive contract for a number of records, I’ve found it’s hard to know what you’re going

to need at the end when you’re at the beginning,’ she says. ‘Now I prefer to work record by record, self-producing – it’s the compromise that works for me.’

Given the record industry’s almost complete transformation over the last two decades, it seems remarkable that Hahn has retained relationships with ‘the majors’ for her entire career. ‘Labels are great if you have a good relationship: they work for you, they offer collaborative experiences and the feeling of being part of a team – having people to talk to about how you’re going to roll it out and the world in which it will exist.

Intuitive relationship: in rehearsal with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France

Dallas and Houston, and the realisation that, yes, this is still thezone that I love to occupy. After the longest I have ever beenaway from it, I slipped back in but it still felt really amazing.’

Sooner or later, she says, ‘it’s all going to click back in, andthat will be the case for everyone who’s waiting to get back toperforming’. When it finally happens, what lessons will she take

with her from 2020? ‘It hastaught me a lot about whatart means to people, and whathappens when the availabilityof it changes,’ she says.‘There are these stories aboutRussia during the Second

World War, when the lights would go out in a theatre but theperformance would continue, because there was such an intenseappreciation and need for music, art and theatre. I don’t thinkthe proximity to that kind of intense threat has been universallyfelt in the venues I play in; that feeling that something could fallapart at any minute and we could experience a global trauma.Some communities go through it all the time and of coursepeople have gone through it individually. But it hasn’t beena communal thing. I think we have all discovered something inthis time when we’ve not had full, free access to everything wenormally would. We have discovered what we really need, butalso that we can have new experiences that really connect us.’

I think the majority of my records have been with DG andthere are still a lot of audiences around the world who seethat label and feel they have a relationship with it. So yousort of have them already.’

And then there’s the impressive, captive audience that Hahncounts as her own. Her social media brand, Violincase, hasa combined half a millionfollowers and she frequentlyuses it to disseminatepedagogical work andencourage young players.She became an ambassadorfor the 100 Days of Practicemovement and recently recorded the Suzuki Violin School’sBooks 1-3. That may well turn out to be her most significantrecording of all, listened to by hundreds of thousands ofaspiring young violinists around the world.

Despite her digital presence and regular vlogging, there is nosubstitute for the real thing. In a recent Instagram video, theself-isolating violinist walked through freezing, desolate fields,barely able to contain her frustration at being unable to connectphysically with her huge cohort of fans. ‘I think there’s a pointwhen you’ve had a certain amount of time off at which it’s veryeasy to just stay in the zone,’ she says now; ‘because I’m actuallyfine being off the road, I don’t lose my sense of self when I’mnot performing. Then came the Mozart with Marin Alsop in


HILARY HAHN

Hahn with her 1865 Vuillaume violin at the sessions for her new album, a tribute to the French capital – the project was conceived before lockdown and recorded for DG

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Hilary Hahn’s ‘Paris’ will be reviewed in the next issue of Gramophone

‘Lockdown has taught me a lot about what art means to people, and what happens when the availability of it changes’


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THE EUROPEAN GIANTS OF

AMERICAN MUSIC


Following on from his piece on neglected mid-20th-century US composers, conductor Gerard Schwarz turns his attention to five composers in particular who emigrated to the US around that time whose music deserves greater recognition

For the July 2019 issue of Gramophone, I wrote about some of my favourite neglected American works from the middle of the 20th century and was so happy to receive

many comments and ideas of other works and composers to include. Most were certainly worthy and I was excited to see such a lively discussion. Now I am endeavouring to tackle what is, in some ways, a more difficult article – about composers from the same period who emigrated to the United States during the first half of that century. Many of these emigrants came to the US to escape the Nazis in the 1930s and ’40s.

Some of their music had been banned by the National Socialists, others faced religious persecution or were seen as unsupportive of the direction of the German government. Economic motivations also played an important role, especially at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, in the case of composers such as Dvo∑ák and Mahler.

Unlike Dvo∑ák and Mahler, all the composers I’m focusing on here became American citizens – although many of them have to some extent been forgotten. But first, there are the unforgotten 20th-century ‘greats’ such as Bartók, Hindemith, Rachmaninov, Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Varèse, who themselves emigrated from their respective countries and became US citizens; however, in the case of Hindemith and Varèse their works are not performed as much as one would hope. Then there is the remarkable group of

immigrants who established extremely high standards as composers of film music for the big screen: Gold, Korngold, Rózsa, Steiner, Tiomkin, Waxman and many others. Some of them also wrote wonderful works for the concert stage, but their largest output was in film.

One of the giants of popular music, Irving Berlin (‘God Bless America’, ‘White Christmas’, ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’), came to the US with his family in 1893 at age five, fleeing the Russian persecution of Jews. He became a US citizen in 1918. Another of the great composers of more popular forms was Weill, who became a citizen in 1943. He came to the US in 1935 to work with writer Franz Werfel and director Max Reinhardt on the remarkable biblical drama The Eternal Road. His European life had produced two masterpieces, the opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (1929) and the ‘play with music’ Die Dreigroschenoper (1928), among other works. But when he came to America his interests were primarily focused on merging opera and the Broadway musical. I remember recording and performing highlights from The Eternal Road in Berlin in 2001 with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. After the performance, a prominent German critic complained that the music was influenced by Weill’s adopted country, which meant he had sold out to more popular forms. Of course, Weill had just arrived in New York and was excited to write music for all people, leading a revolution rather than being influenced by his new surroundings.

I must also give a brief mention to Louise Talma (1906-1996), who travelled to the US from France with her opera-singer mother at the age of three. Information regarding her early life is contradictory, but that she is now considered a pioneer in the history of women in American music is undisputed.

THE DRAW OF THE USThe group of five composers I will focus on here fall into two groups: those who came to America and made it their home, and those who stayed there for a time before moving back to Europe. It is unusual for most of these composers to be listed as American in

Main: Gerard Schwarz conducts the

All-Star Orchestra, Manhattan Center,

New York, 2012. Inset: Schwarz with

Krenek, Palm Springs, late 1980s


EUROPEAN COMPOSERS IN THE US

Ernő Dohnányi 1877-1960Dohnányi is the fi rst of fi ve composers I’d like to give greater attention to here because I believe their work is so worthy. He was, after Liszt, the leader of Hungarian composers. As well as being a great composer and pianist, he was a conductor and music director who championed the music of Kodály, Bartók and Leó Weiner. From 1939, he spent much time fi ghting against the growing Nazi infl uences. In 1941, he resigned from the

Budapest Academy to avoid following its anti-Jewish legislation. He left Hungary in 1944, after the German occupation, and in 1949 he went to the US to take up the post of pianist- and composer-in-residence at Florida State University in Tallahassee, becoming a US citizen in 1955. His chamber music is widely performed, especially the Serenade for string trio, the Sextet and Piano Quintet No 1. The two works I have performed most often are the Op 12 Konzertstück for cello and orchestra and his Suite in F sharp minor, Op 19. I often performed the Konzertstück with János Starker, and more recently I have done it with my son Julian. I also recorded it with Starker for Delos. The only other orchestral work by Dohnányi that has been performed frequently is Variations on a Nursery Song for piano and orchestra. However, I haven’t evenseen this charming work on a programme for many years. His two symphonies are also superb, but again, almost never played.

My recommendation for a neglected orchestral masterpiece ishis F sharp minor Suite. At the beginning of Dohnányi’s career

reference books such as The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. For example, Rachmaninov is usually given as Russian, Hindemith as German, Martin≤ as Czech, Castelnuovo-Tedesco as Italian, Wolpe as German. Their US citizenship is rarely noted.

There were so many composers born in the last quarter of the 19th century and the fi rst quarter of the 20th who came to the US. Each had an individual story – there are few generalisations. Some became very successful and embraced their adopted country, while others blamed America for their lack of success. Certainly, musical life in America was very different to that of middle Europe.

Ernst Krenek went to the US in 1938 and became an American citizen in 1945. He left Austria after his music was declared degenerate by the Nazis in 1938, though he wasn’t Jewish. His great success was his opera Jonny spielt auf (1925), written in an accessible jazz-infl uenced style. As he became increasingly enamoured by serial techniques, his music was performed less often. As a teacher, he held several appointments in the US, the last being at the University of California, San Diego – the music department of which he had helped set up. Krenek wasn’t by any means the only immigrant composer to make a living

through teaching at that time: Schoenberg was at the University of California; Ingolf Dahl was at the University of Southern California; Milhaud was at Mills College, Oakland, CA; and Hindemith was at Yale University.

I remember premiering a work (which was certainly not audience-friendly) by Krenek with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in Palm Springs, CA. I was able to spend time with this fascinating man, who had been at the centre of European musical life before coming to the US. He seemed somewhat embittered with the US for his lack of musical success and spoke about not feeling culturally at home either in the US or in Europe. On viewing some of his writings and interviews, one can wonder whether his lack of success was because of his music, or because of cultural tastes at the time in the US. An argument could be made for either scenario. By contrast, Weill’s music became even more accessible after he came to the US; the same can be said of Bartók’s concertos composed there: Piano Concerto No 3 and the Concerto for Orchestra. Even Schoenberg’s works in the 1940s became less severe. Was that a natural progression of their art or the infl uence of their cultural surroundings?

COMPOSER FOCUS: FIVE PROFILES

Advertisement for a concert with Dohnányi as pianist under conductor Fabien

Sevitzky. Dohnányi arrived early to a rehearsal, and Ellen Zwilich recalls Sevitzky

bowing to him, saying, ‘Maestro would you like to begin your part of the rehearsal

now?’ Dohnányi politely declined the o er. Zwilich observed how respectful

everyone was in the presence of such a great composer and pianist

My recommendation for a neglected orchestral work byMartin≤ is, indeed, his Third Symphony – a real masterpiece.Outside the Czech Republic all of his wonderful symphonies arerarely played. He wrote an incredible amount of music,especially chamber works, and in a way that becomesa problem – there being too much to study and choose from, asis the case similarly with Haydn’s symphonies, which are allwonderful but how does one choose from so many? How manydoes anyone know apart from the ones with names? Martin≤’sextensive output has a similar fate. The Third Symphony waswritten in 1944 in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and premiered byKoussevitzky in 1945. The work is full of rhythmic intensityand drama. A deep and powerful first movement is created byprolonged motivic development. The second movement is likea Baroque concerto grosso, with interesting, intense harmonicsequences and melodic material. The last movement begins likethe first, with motivic development but with a beautiful folk-likeCzech theme. Accompanying material becomes the focal pointin a mesmerising and poignant finale, utilising what sounds likea combination of new music and folk music. In the end, onegets a sense of a satisfying musical journey and arrival.

Martinů Symphony No 3BBC Symphony Orchestra / Jiří BělohlávekOnyx (10/11)This is part of a three-disc box-set of all six symphoniesthat was Gramophone’s Recording of the Month in

October 2011. Of the Third Symphony, Rob Cowan wrote in his glowingreview: ‘This new live version is surely the best we’ve had in years.’

Ernst Toch 1887-1964The next composer isToch, who came to theUS in 1935 and became acitizen in 1940. He wasamong the great numberof Jewish composers whocame to the US duringthat time. As Neil Levinhas written for the MilkenArchive: ‘With theinstallation of theNational Socialist regimein Germany, in 1933,Toch’s musicautomatically fell into thecategory of “degeneratemusic” by virtue of hisbeing a Jew, and … itsperformance outsidestrictly Jewish confines or

auspices was forbidden. As later recounted by Toch’s family,William Steinberg was in the midst of rehearsing Der Fächer inCologne when storm troopers entered the concert hall andphysically seized the baton from his hand. Subsequently, Toch’sdeliberately distorted photograph appeared alongside those offellow “forbidden” or “degenerate” composers – such asSchoenberg, Weill, Mendelssohn, Mahler, and Offenbach – ina special anti-Jewish issue of the well-known German musicjournal Die Musik, in which Hitler’s maxim was also quoted:“The Jew possesses no power or ability to create culture.” Manyof Toch’s scores, together with others by Jewish composers,were soon burned; and publishers’ plates were destroyed.’

he had the support of Brahms, and one can certainly hear hisinfluence in this work. The first movement, Andante con variazioni,is dark and rich, with wonderful orchestration and beautifulharmonies. The second, Scherzo, begins like a Mendelssohnscherzo, with lightness and elegance leading to a lovely lyricaltrio section. The third, Romanza, has a beautiful unusual themethat is developed joyfully and includes a folk-like Slavic dance.The Rondo finale begins like the rondo from a Mahler symphony,with brilliant orchestration and sweep. Studying this work againhas been a real joy for me. I recently spoke to the great Americancomposer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, who was a student at Florida StateUniversity while Dohnányi was on the faculty and was mentoredby him. He loved teaching there and embraced life in Tallahassee.

Dohnányi Suite in F sharp minor, Op 19BBC Philharmonic / Matthias BamertChandos (9/99)‘It was lovely to hear the F sharp minor Suite again,’wrote Rob Cowan in his review, ‘especially the opening

Andante con variazioni movement which seems to straddle theworlds of Dvořák and Elgar. The music is a constant delight.’

Bohuslav Martinů 1890-1959Martin≤ became anAmerican citizen in 1952.His music is certainlyplayed in the CzechRepublic, but not asmuch in the US. Therehave always been somewonderful conductorswho have championedhim, with Londonaudiences hearing hisworks more often. Butconsidering the greatnessof his six symphonies, it isa shame that they aren’tstandard repertoire. Hissuperb Double Concertofor two string orchestrasand Concerto grossowere written during

the political unrest of 1937-38. In 1940, he was blacklisted bythe Nazis and was finally able to come to New York in 1941.Serge Koussevitzky, remarkable music director of the BostonSymphony Orchestra, commissioned Martin≤ to write hisFirst Symphony, and then the composer wrote one symphonya year until 1946. His First and Third Symphonies were bothpremiered by Koussevitzky and his Boston players. The Sixthwas also premiered by the Boston SO, but with Charles Munchat the helm; the Second by Erich Leinsdorf with the ClevelandOrchestra; the Fourth by Eugene Ormandy conducting thePhiladelphia Orchestra; and the Fifth with Rafael Kubelík andthe Czech Philharmonic. Some line-up! I have signed copies ofscores of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies that were presentedby the composer to David Diamond, who told me aboutapartment-sitting for the Martin≤s one summer when they werein Connecticut. The apartment was on New York’s 58th Street,opposite the Plaza Hotel. A few years ago, when I was conductingthe Czech Philharmonic, they asked me to do Diamond’s FourthSymphony on the same programme with Martin≤’s Third, sincethey were written around the same time. It was an honour.


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a composition competition for an orchestral work by anAmerican composer on an American theme. The prize was$3000 and simultaneous premieres in December of 1928 by themajor orchestras of Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphiaand San Francisco. The judges who would conduct thewinning work were Fredrick Stock, Walter Damrosch, SergeKoussevitzky, Leopold Stokowski and Alfred Hertz. There were92 applicants and Bloch was the unanimous winner. Stokowskicalled it ‘a noble and masterly score’ and Hertz hailed it as‘a masterpiece that may well become a classic of Americansymphonic literature’. The following season, most of the otherprofessional American orchestras programmed it. The piecespans the history of the US, from pre-colonial times, through

the civil war, to thepresent (1926) andthe future. Bloch usesa unifying motif basedon the rhythm of theword ‘America’ andemploys numeroustraditional songs,anthems, Virginia reels,Native American melodies,dances, rhythms, jazzand what could becalled mechanical-inspired music for themodern age. The workculminates in a movinganthem that he hopedwould become ournational anthem.

Toch went to New York in 1935 to teach at the New Schoolfor Social Research, and went on to Hollywood in 1936. Hetaught at the University of Southern California and was a guestlecturer at Harvard, among other schools. His Cello Concertowas regularly played by Emanuel Feuermann, and WalterGieseking played his Piano Concerto more than 50 times until1933, when Hitler came to power and the pianist dropped thework, never to play it again. Toch also wrote film music and wasnominated for several Academy Awards. He is probably mostwell known for his Geographical Fugue of 1930, a contrapuntalstudy written for four-part spoken chorus without pitches andbased on place names. One could even say it was a predecessorto modern-day rap music. His Big Ben Variations, written whiletravelling from London to New York in 1934, are creativelyrical and rhythmical variations on the chimes of Big Ben.He wrote seven excellent symphonies between 1950 and 1964.The Third won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1956 and can beheard in a marvellous performance with William Steinberg andthe Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra recorded at that time. I’verecorded his Fifth Symphony (Jephta – Rhapsodic Poem) as wellas the Genesis Suite, written in 1945 by seven composers livingin the Los Angeles area; Toch contributed the sixth movement,The Covenant (The Rainbow). The other movements are bySchoenberg, Nathaniel Shilkret, Alexandre Tansman, Milhaud,Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Stravinsky.

My recommendation for a neglected orchestral work by Tochis his Cantata of the Bitter Herbs (1938). It is a work for narrator,soloists, chorus and orchestra based loosely on the PassoverHaggadah. The cantata’s title refers to the tradition of eatingbitter herbs as part of the Passover Seder to symbolise the painthe Jews suffered during their bondage in Egypt. The work isin 10 movements, is highly emotional, dramatic and trulygorgeous with a penultimate movement (‘God of Right, God ofMight’) that is as lyrically magnificent as a movement from thepen of Richard Strauss.

Toch Cantata of the Bitter HerbsSoloists; Theodore Bikel narr Prague Philharmonic Choir;Czech Philharmonic / Gerard Schwarz(7/05)‘This performance, given in the Rudolfinum in Prague

in 2000, catches the work’s many nuances,’ wrote Guy Rickards inhis positive review from July 2005. ‘Gerard Schwarz and the CzechPhilharmonic provide splendid accompaniment.’

Ernest Bloch 1880-1959The next composer is Ernest Bloch, certainly known to thegeneral music-loving world for one work, Schelomo (1916), aswell as for some solo and chamber works such as his Suite forviola and Baal Shem. His excellent Concerto grosso No 1 is alsoprogrammed on occasion, but his America: An Epic Rhapsody(1926) is forgotten as is his excellent Avodath hakodesh (1933).David Diamond would often speak glowingly of the composer’sSinfonia breve (1952).

Bloch first came to the US from Geneva in 1916, becomingan American citizen in 1924. He occupied an important place inthe development of music education institutions, especially inCleveland and San Francisco. He returned to Switzerland in1930 but as the political situation worsened in Europe he wentback to the US, settling in Agate Beach, Oregon.

My recommendation for a neglected orchestral work byBloch is America: An Epic Rhapsody, which has a fascinatinghistory. In 1925, the magazine Musical America announced


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Letter from Bloch to David Diamond: a gift to Schwarz after his performance of America


EUROPEAN COMPOSERS IN THE US

My last performance of the piece is very memorable. Weperformed it during three successive days at the Seattle OperaHouse. We inserted an instruction sheet containing the anthemmusic in each programme, and, remarkably, each night, 3000members of the audience participated; they stood and sangwith the orchestra playing. In the end, Bloch’s excellentcompositional skill makes this a hugely powerful, poignantand fascinating work.

Bloch America: An Epic RhapsodySeattle Symphony Chorale; Seattle Symphony / Gerard SchwarzNaxos (8/94)‘Schwarz directs a swift, passionate and beautifully

graded interpretation,’ wrote Rob Cowan, ‘one that beats the pioneering Stokowski version to the post by some 11 minutes.’

Herman Berlinski 1910-2001My final composer is Herman Berlinski. He was born in Leipzig and emigrated first to France in 1933 to study with Nadia Boulanger and subsequently to America in 1941. In Paris, hisassociation with La Jeune France, which included Messiaenamong its members, was very important and influential. Justas Messiaen’s works are often influenced by his Catholic faith,so he encouraged Berlinski to look to his Jewish faith in thesame way. After arriving in New York, Berlinski studied theorgan and became a virtuoso on the instrument, writing manyimportant works for it. Most of his professional life was spentin Washington DC, where he was minister of music of theWashington Hebrew Congregation.

He wrote a great deal of music: chamber, orchestral, vocal – often with Jewish subjects as a background. His masterpiece is Avodat Shabbat (1958), an elaborate setting of the complete Reform Sabbath eve liturgy for soloists (soprano, mezzo and tenor), large chorus and full symphony orchestra. I will never forget listening to Berlinski translate the Hebrew and English text into German for the young Ernst Senff Chorus in Berlin during our

recording of this marvellous work with Berlin Radio for the Milken Archive in 2000. The work has absolutely everything: drama, elegance, heartfelt depth, joy, all wonderfully realised by this great composer.

Berlinski Avodat ShabbatSoloists; Ernst Sen Chor; Berlin RSO / Gerard SchwarzNaxos ‘I don’t think I can write a piece of music, no matter what I do and what I will try, that does not have the

stamp of my Jewish existence,’ said Herman Berlinski during the recording session for this, one of only three complete Sabbath services ever written for soloists, chorus and large orchestra.

There are so many other wonderful composers whoemigrated to the US from Europe and elsewhere in the first half of the 20th century, and happily, many of them have found a place in the orchestral/choral repertoire of orchestras around the world. Among those of great note who should be mentioned are Joseph Achron, Samuel Adler, Lukas Foss, Astor Piazzolla, André Previn, Karol Rathaus, Robert Starer, Hugo Weisgall, Chou Wen-Chung, Erich Zeisl. In the second half of the 20th century there were several from outside Europe, such as Tania León, who was born in Cuba; Shulamit Ran, born in Israel; Bright Sheng, Chen Yi, Tan Dun and Zhou Long, all born in China; HeyKyung Lee from Korea, Osvaldo Golijov from Argentina, and so on.

CREATIVE ARTISTS NEED A HOMEAmerica has always opened its doors to people from other countries. My own parents were among those immigrants to America in 1939, fleeing Nazism in their Austrian homeland. They always said how grateful they were to America for allowing them entry and, through hard work, to find their own path as medical doctors on itsshores. This subject means so very much to me as I reflecton the various paths artists choose to take whether by choice or by necessity. Creative artists need homes like everyone else, and how lucky we are that all these great composers made their homes in America and contributedso significantly to cultural life in the United States.

AND THEN THERE WERE MORE …

Gerard Schwarz: generous champion of immigrant composers from all over the world PH

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With live music suspended since March 2020, tens of thousands of musicians have now been unable to earn a living for almost a year. The impact on musicians is profound, affecting their finances, creativity and mental wellbeing.

Last year our financial hardship programme reached over 24,000 professional musicians with £15m. 2021 marks our 100th year of providing support and we need your help more than ever. Please visit helpmusicians.org.uk/gift to support music’s future. Love Music? Help Musicians.

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RECORDINGOF THEMONTHEdward Seckerson hails an auspicious beginning to a Rachmaninov cycle of impeccable

pedigree from The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin

‘Yannick Nézet-Séguin’saccount of the troubledFirst Symphony is assurprising and as thrillingas any since Ormandy’

Rachmaninov Symphony No 1, Op 13a.

Symphonic Dances, Op 45b

The Philadelphia Orchestra /

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

DG F 483 9839 (81’ • DDD)

Recorded live at the Kimmel Center for the

Performing Arts, Verizon Hall, Philadelphia, bSeptember 2018; aJune 2019

There can be no underestimating the extraordinary legacy surrounding Rachmaninov and Philadelphia. That he composed the Third Symphony and Symphonic Dances with the city’s great orchestra in mind is testament to how their sound intoxicated him. The string sound in particular played into not just the precision and opulence of his writing but more importantly its obsessiveness and inherent darkness. Among Rachmaninov cognoscenti and collectors alike, the Eugene Ormandy recordings of the two pieces featured here – the beginning and end of his fabled journey – have remained pretty unassailable.

But there’s a new kid (relatively speaking) in the driving seat of this orchestra and his ability to dig into that legacy while renewing its startling innovation makes for an exciting newness. Indeed, Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s account of the troubled First Symphony is as surprising and as thrilling as any I have heard since that much-lauded Ormandy account. One starts to realise why Glazunov’s reputedly miserable fi rst performance denied it any hope of early success. In the wrong hands the piece can sound fi tful, its lyric musings

in particular halting and half-formed. I am thinking especially of the second subject group in the fi rst movement, which under Nézet-Séguin truly sounds like a creation of the moment – a bar-by-bar extemporisation born of great sadness. It’s a very particular kind of melancholy that Rachmaninov projects and in the fl ickering, sepia-tinted uncertainty of the slow movement – exquisitely realised here, with every solo woodwind telling a story of its own – you start to realise how radical this piece is striving to be.

The all-pervasive four-note motif prefacing every movement like a portent of tragedy stands out in sharp relief here and the rhythmic imperative of the performance (and fabulous incisiveness of the string-playing, often viola-led) papers over Rachmaninov’s obsessive dependency

on fugal writing to move the narrative forwards. There’s a brighter triumphalism beckoning in the familiar fanfares that kick off the fi nale but always this weighty undertow dragging things down. Just listen to the impetuous sweep of the second subject, the shine on the violins belying the saturating darkness beneath.

The culmination of the First Symphony’s anxiety – immediately following that defi ning crash of the tam-tam – comes with the huge climactic bridge into the coda where Nézet-Séguin really piles on a welter of brassy dissonance. Absolutely thrilling. All that remains is the obsessive repetition of the four-note motif and two horribly emphatic fi nal chords that stop it in its tracks.Exciting newness: Nézet-Séguin refreshes his orchestra’s legacy in Rachmaninov

RECORDING OF THE MONTH


F £10 and over

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Editor’s ChoiceMartin Cullingford’s pick of the finest recordings reviewed in this issue

Rachmaninov’s final orchestral work –Symphonic Dances – looks and sounds sodifferent on and off the page, and theoperative word in Nézet-Séguin’s readingis ‘Dances’. The sprung rhythms, theimpetus are again key – but beneath thesurface sparkle and rhythmic buoyancy isa substratum of regret and despair. What lies beneath is a barely concealed chronicle of the composer’s trials and tribulations. The alto sax at the heart of the fi rst dance – the 20th century’s instrument of choice for ‘the blues’ – reeks of homesickness but it’s the quotation from the First Symphony in the coda, transfi gured now to become something of a warm embrace, that really hits home: a wistful last laugh catching in the throat but luminous nonetheless.

Needless to say, the spectral enchantment of the central Waltz is ‘Philadelphia Central’ – where the orchestra lives and breathes. Somehow or other all the qualities of the Rachmaninov/Ormandy era have spirited their way back to create a kind of faded opulence.

I absolutely love the way that in the finalreturn of the waltz theme – beautifullymanaged in magical pianissimo by Nézet-Séguin and the orchestra – it can barelydrag itself off the floor, so heavy isits burden.

Pursued by his demons in the finale,this rush to judgement, ride to the abyss, is predictably virtuoso. But it is the keeninganxieties of the middle section that one remembers. That passage where bass clarinet draws us shyly into its confi dence is especially bleak, like a glimpse into Rachmaninov’s very soul.

Nézet-Séguin opts for the prolonged resonance of the tam-tam at the very close – a direct parallel with that pre-coda moment in the First Symphony. Of course, you can do this effectively without an audience present – very hard otherwise to stifl e the inevitable applause. But I still have my doubts that this is what Rachmaninov really wanted. For sure the notated value of the tam-tam stroke overhangs the rest of the orchestra by a whisker – but pointedly P

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A glimpse into the composer’s soul: The Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin excel in early and late Rachmaninov

he does not write laissez vibrer over the fi nal tam-tam stroke as he does a couple of bars earlier. I have to say I prefer the brutality of an abrupt cut-off. Even so, an altogether stunning album.


OrchestralRichard Osborne hails a New Year’sConcert that leaves a deep impression:

Peter Quantrill enjoys a journeythrough a transfigured night:

Barry . BeethovenBarry The Conquest of Irelanda. Viola Concertob

Beethoven Symphonies – No 4, Op 60c; No 5,Op 67c; No 6, ‘Pastoral’, Op 68d

aJoshua Bloom bass bLawrence Power va

Britten Sinfonia / Thomas Adès

Signum M b SIGCD639 (139’ • DDD • T)

Recorded live at the Barbican, London,

May c22 & ad24, 2018; bMay 21, 2019

I found ThomasAdès and theBritten Sinfonia’sinterpretations in the

first volume of their Beethoven cycle (7/20)unrelentingly hard-driven, so I heaved ahuge sigh of relief when a mere three anda half minutes into the Fourth Symphonyon this new instalment Adès relaxes thetempo as the music moves into more lyricalterritory. A year separates these liverecordings from their predecessors, andwhile there’s no loss of vigour or sinew,the significant increase in warmth andflexibility makes a world of difference.Take the slow movement of the Fifth, forinstance, where the conductor immediatelydelineates the dual nature of the mainsubject by having the woodwinds enterwith heart-melting tenderness.

Such richness of characterisation goeshand in hand with a greater attention todetails of colour and texture. Note, forinstance, how Adès has the bassoons playquasi-pizzicato as they accompany theglorious clarinet solo in the Adagio ofthe Fourth (at 2'22"), or in the Scherzoof the Fifth, where it’s as if the orchestrawere creeping on tiptoe (at 2'54"). Theperformances of both symphonies areterrific from start to finish, in fact. I lovethe outdoor, festively martial quality hegives to the Fifth, and how the codagenerates tremendous excitement whileremaining light on its feet.

I wish I could say I’m as smitten withthe Pastoral, but much of it is so fast as tofeel unsettled and the playing is noticeablyscrappier. There are some lovely moments,

like the ravishing pianissimo in the ‘Sceneby the Brook’ right after the music slipsinto G flat major (listen starting at 6'25"),and I rather like the mad scramble hemakes of the Scherzo’s Presto coda – onecan visualise the peasants scurrying hometo escape the oncoming deluge.

As for the two works here by GeraldBarry, they could not be more different,at least on their surface. The Conquest ofIreland (1995), a setting of a shockinglymundane 12th-century text, is dizzyinglychromatic and rhythmically (andmetrically) chaotic, while a great deal of theViola Concerto (2019) is purely diatonicand moves for the most part in purposefulquavers, evoking the narrow world of theinstrumental exercise – although it doesso with the composer’s unique sense ofhumour and dramatic sleight of hand.Indeed, what’s so fascinating about Barry’smusic is how it often appears too clever byhalf yet somehow always avoids glibness,and how at times the humour itselfprovides the opportunity for flashes ofpathos – as when the bass in The Conquestof Ireland sings of how the Irish are ‘abarbarous people, literally barbarous’.

The bass part is ridiculously – andsublimely – virtuoso, and sung brilliantlyhere by Joshua Bloom. Lawrence Powerdigs into the Concerto with an apt tone ofstudiousness and under Adès the BrittenSinfonia play both scores for all theirworth. Heartily recommended.Andrew Farach-Colton

BeethovenComplete SymphoniesRegine Hangler sop Wiebke Lehmkuhl contr

Christian Elsner ten Andreas Bauer Kanabas bass

WDR Radio Choir; NDR Choir; WDR Symphony

Orchestra / Marek Janowski

Pentatone S e PTC5186 860 (5h 41’ • DDD)

Listening to this new Beethoven symphony cycle alongside Jukka-Pekka Saraste’s (Profil,

6/19), it’s difficult to believe one’s hearing the same orchestra, particularly as the two sets were recorded a mere two years apart. Going from Saraste’s ‘dense, post-Wagnerian body of sound’, as Peter Quantrill put it in his Gramophone review, to the sensational transparency of Janowski’s recording made me wonder if such a stark difference should be attributed to the podium or the control booth. It’s a question worth considering, as sound quality seems to be the organising principle of Janowki’s interpretations.

Although the WDR Symphony Orchestra may lack the luxe lustre of, say, the Berlin Philharmonic, they play with exceptional tonal refinement throughout – so much so that there’s nary a rough or ugly note in the set, even when one might want a hint of rusticity or edgy intensity. Add to this a finely variegated colour palette, consistently clear articulation and exceptional care over orchestral balance (with assistance, surely, from Pentatone’s engineers), and the result is dazzling not just for its sheer loveliness but for its striking lack of indulgence and elucidation of detail. What a joy, for instance, to be able to discern every layer with which Beethoven builds the coda of the Eroica’s first movement (at 14'55"), or to encounter such a limpid stream in the Pastoral that all its multifarious swirls and eddies are visible (try at 6'33").

Janowski’s tempos are all over the place in their relation to Beethoven’s metronome marks. He pays scant attention to the majority of them (which hardly sets him apart) but then hits some, including the Menuetto of the First and the Allegretto of the Seventh, bop on the nose. And it’s not that he’s always slower, as most modern-instrument performances are; his brook in the Pastoral, for example, flows even more briskly than the composer imagined. Yet even when he’s pushing close to (or over) the mark, nothing comes out garbled or smudged. The finale of the Fourth, for example, goes at a good clip but is marvellously articulate, while the finale of the Eighth – by far my favourite

‘Rarely have I heard the melancholy, majestyand many-layered beauties of these wonderfulpieces so movingly revealed’ REVIEW ON PAGE 40

‘The naturalistic touches of moonlit rapturecome over with a delicacy missed by deeper-piled orchestral recordings’ REVIEW ON PAGE 41


performance of the cycle – is a miracleof foam and froth.

There’s warmth here, too, thanksto Janowski’s careful attention to bothdynamic and expressive markings. In hishands, the maggiore section of the Eroica’sFuneral March lights a path towards hopeand reconciliation, the central Trio of theEighth’s Menuetto looks ahead to Brahms’sserenades, and the violins’ cantilena at9'51" in the Adagio of the Ninth is anentryway to rapture. Or try the firstphrases of the Seventh’s Allegretto, wherehe demonstrates how much emotion a trueand sustained pianissimo can impart.

Such sensitivity and attentiveness makeJanowski’s tendency to smooth over themusic’s jagged edges especially frustrating.PQ, reviewing Pentatone’s single-disc issueof the Fifth and Sixth symphonies (1/20),described Janowski’s Fifth as ‘among themost literal-minded readings on record’,but I think it goes beyond an issue of just-the-facts, ma’am. When the breathlessquavers in the first movement become aneven, steady stream, so much is lost. DidBeethoven really want everything in itsright place here? And having just heardThomas Adès locate the slow movement’sexpressive duality in his recent recordingwith the Britten Sinfonia (see above),

Janowski’s seems relatively shapeless andwan. Why mute the dynamic contrasts thatare clearly written into the score? Thefinale has a powerful sense of purpose, butat that point it’s practically too late.

I find only two performances here whollysatisfying: the Fourth and Eighth. Despitememorable moments or entire movements,the remaining symphonies in the set areproverbial curate’s eggs. If only theScherzo of the Eroica wasn’t quite so suaveand sophisticated (and those wonderfultwo-to-a-bar intrusions right near the endmade to feel so uneventful), or the finaleof the Pastoral didn’t feel so harried, orthe daring harmonic surprises in the firstmovement of the Seventh registered assomething out of the ordinary, or theScherzo of the Ninth had some bite. Andspeaking of the Ninth, while the choralcontribution is quite fine and balancedso one can hear chorus and orchestra withnear-ideal clarity, the solo quartet tiltstowards the strained and screechy.

I wish Pentatone had released theFourth and Eighth symphonies as a singledisc rather than the Fifth and the Sixth.They’re not only the plums of this cycle,they stand near the top of a very tall heapof recorded performances.Andrew Farach-Colton

BrahmsPiano Concerto No 1, Op 15a.Four Piano Pieces, Op 119Joseph Moog pfaDeutsche Radio Philharmonie / Nicholas Milton

Onyx F ONYX4214 (62’ • DDD)

Joseph Moog, Nicholas Milton and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie follow

up their distinctive recording of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto (2/18) with the composer’s First. The opening ritornello is both full-bodied and texturally diverse, with particularly pungent brass and incisive bassoons to the fore. Both soloist and conductor press forwards in the lyrical F major theme, rather than ruminating over it. Moog eases his way into the cruelly exposed mini-cadenza in octaves, only to unleash the passage at full force.

Towards the end of the movement, notice, too, the contoured interplay between the soloist’s gentle triplets and the timpani strokes. The Adagio is broad yet well sustained, although Moog’s softest playing doesn’t match Arrau or Freire for shimmering delicacy. Listeners seeking a

ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS

Exceptional tonal refinement: the WDR Symphony Orchestra bring stunning transparency to Beethoven’s complete symphonies with Marek Janowski

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hard-hitting Rondo finale à la Serkin orFleisher should look elsewhere, yet themusicians’ lithe, playful chamber-likeinteraction will win you over.

Moog inflects Op 119 No 1 to alesser degree than others, letting theheartbreaking descending lines seeminglyplay themselves. The pianist’s slightaccelerations impart an unsettling nervousenergy to No 2’s short phrases in repeateddouble notes that convince more overmultiple hearings. In the ‘Myra Hess’C major No 3, Moog underlines themusic’s legato and détaché contrasts,arguably to a fault, although his tastefulrhythmic flexibility welcomely circumventsNo 4’s foursquare pomp. In short, Moog’sinterpretations admirably supplement mypersonal reference recordings with StephenHough in Op 119 and Peter Donohoe/Yevgeny Svetlanov in the D minorConcerto. Jed Distler

Piano Concerto No 1 – selected comparison:

Donohoe, Philh Orch, Svetlanov

(1/91R) (WARN) D 2435 73730-5

Piano Pieces, Op 119 – selected comparison:

Hough (1/20) (HYPE) CDA68116

BrahmsPiano Quartet No 1, Op 25 (arr Dünser)a.Variations on a Theme by Haydn,‘St Antoni Chorale’, Op 56bSilver-Garburg Piano Duo;aVienna Symphony Orchestra / Florian Krumpöck

Berlin Classics F 0301263BC (59’ • DDD)

Mindful of ArnoldSchoenberg’s 1937orchestration ofBrahms’s Op 25

Piano Quartet, Austrian composer RichardDünser was initially ambivalent abouttransforming the work into a concertofor piano four hands with string orchestra.Nevertheless, he pursued the idea withGil Garburg and Sivan Silver, hiscolleagues at the Graz University ofMusic and Performing Arts, who hadoften performed Brahms’s own four-hand version of Op 25. Dünser had alreadyarranged a concerto for Silver-Garburgbased on Schubert’s ‘Grand Duo’ Sonata,D812. This new concerto builds on atemplate created by the juxtapositionof two Brahms sources, the piano quartetand the composer’s transcription for pianofour hands, to create a concertante workwhich aims at both synthesis andfresh re-creation.

To Dünser’s credit, he successfullyavoids further thickening Brahms’s alreadydense textures. Yet the dynamic give and

take of four individual performers,so appealing in the quartet setting, isdiminished by the allocation of solostring parts to a larger ensemble. Onewonders if use of a full orchestra mighthave added variety to a rather relentlesslymonochromatic score. Moreover, twopianists seated at the same instrument,a combination inherently intimate anddomestic, thwarts any expectation thata Romantic concerto should exploit thetension between a protagonist and thecrowd. Brahms is still recognisable inthis chamber music wrapped in aconcerto’s mantle but he is glimpsedfrom a distance.

In the Haydn Variations, Silver-Garburg’s focus on the beauty, shapeand contour of the phrase is evidentthroughout, though forward momentumand the long line feel occasionallyhampered by a preoccupation withdetails. That said, this is a performanceof admirable clarity that will surely satisfydiscriminating Brahms aficionados.Patrick Rucker

Copland . R StraussCopland Appalachian Spring – Suitea. ClarinetConcertob R Strauss Capriccio – Preludec.Duett-Concertinod

bdErnst Ottensamer cl dStepan Turnovsky bncdAcademy of London; abNorthern Sinfonia /

Richard Stamp

Signum F SIGCD654 (75’ • DDD)

Recorded c1990, d1991, ab2014

The four works onthis release, two ofthem showcasingthe talents of the late

Ernst Ottensamer, were all composed inthe 1940s. Ottensamer, for many yearsprincipal clarinettist of the ViennaPhilharmonic Orchestra and the founderof a number of chamber ensembles,provides a compelling and idiomaticaccount of the Copland Concerto. Hisplaying is as deeply felt in the elegiac firstmovement as it is free and extrovert in thejazz-inspired second, and the orchestralsupport under Richard Stamp’s directionis superb.

Unlike most recordings of theAppalachian Spring Suite, which usethe arrangement for symphony orchestramade by Copland in 1945, the versionrecorded here uses the chamber scoringof the full-length ballet, completed theyear before. The original features flute,clarinet, bassoon, piano and nine stringsbut Copland’s preface to the score

authorises the use of additional strings,which is what Stamp uses, as does theversion by the Orpheus ChamberOrchestra (DG, 8/89). The latter isexceptionally fine, but Stamp’sperformance is also very persuasiveand the flute-playing during the slowerpassages is memorably poetic.

For the performance of Strauss’sDuett-Concertino, Ottensamer is joinedby bassoonist Stepan Turnovsky, alsoa longtime member of the ViennaPhilharmonic. With affectionate andhoneyed playing by the two soloists andan expressive contribution from the stringsunder Stamp, this is a top contender foranyone wanting a recording of this work.The Prelude to Capriccio also receives amost eloquent and moving performance.

The booklet note indicates the Straussworks were recorded as long ago as 1991and 1990 respectively, although as faras I can tell this is their first commercialrelease. Whatever the reason for thelong delay, it’s good that these fineperformances are now available. Thesound quality in both performances isexcellent, as it is in the Copland works,recorded more recently in 2014.Christian Hoskins

Elgar . FarrElgar Cello Concerto, Op 85Farr Cello Concerto, ‘Chemin des Dames’Sébastien Hurtaud vc New Zealand Symphony

Orchestra / Benjamin Northey

Rubicon F RCD1047 (59’ • DDD)

Three of Gareth Farr’s great-great-uncles fought and died in the First World War. The

New Zealand composer’s rhapsodic, darkly coloured Cello Concerto (2017), subtitled Chemin des Dames, pays tribute to them as well as to the women they left behind. Much of the musical material is presented in groups of three, like the opening paragraphs where the soloist’s grieving phrases float over densely delicate orchestral smoke clouds, and then again in the trio of recitative-like passages that follow.

I hear echoes of late Shostakovich in some of the most desolate sections – starting at 8'58", for example – but by and large Farr’s language and syntax are very much his own. There are some striking and effective orchestral effects, such as the grotesque growling of the lower brass at 17'43", but this is a concerto in which the spotlight is unwaveringly focused on

ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS


the soloist and whose wrenching climaxis a long, keening cadenza, after whichthe quiet, smoke-choked opening musicreturns as an epilogue. In its cyclicstructure, Farr’s Cello Concerto resemblesElgar’s – a work written in the immediateaftermath of the Great War – and in factthe two works complement one anothersurprisingly well.

Farr wrote the Concerto for SébastienHurtaud, who plays it with ferociouscommitment here. The French cellist bringsa similar intensity to the Elgar, althoughin his desire to wring every last drop ofemotion from the score he sometimes losessight of both the bigger picture and crucialdetails. So, for example, while his shapingof the first movement’s lilting Moderato tuneis aptly doleful, the dynamic markings areignored – note how the pianissimo at 1'23"is pretty much the same as the mezzo-forteat 2'55". I’d also prefer a lighter bow in thesecond movement’s repeated semiquavers,a more sustained nobilmente line in theAdagio – as Sheku Kanneh-Masondemonstrates so movingly in his recentDecca recording (2/20) – and less foursquarephrasing in the finale.

In both works, Benjamin Northey elicitscharacterful, disciplined playing from theNew Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

Recommended for the Farr, which isa significant addition to the repertoire.Andrew Farach-Colton

Gershwin . Harbison .Piston . TowerGershwin Piano Concertoa

Harbison Remembering GatsbyPiston Symphony No 5 Tower SequoiaaKevin Cole pf National Orchestral Institute

Philharmonic / David Alan Miller

Naxos American Classics B 8 559875 (76’ • DDD)

The presentrecording ofGershwin’s Concertoin F is the first to use

the George and Ira Gershwin CriticalEdition text, which derives from sourcesdirectly attributed to Gershwin, as opposedto third-party interlopers. Editor TimothyFreeze’s annotations address specific detailsof articulation and orchestration thatpurport to cast familiar passages in newlight. More importantly, however, theperformance is fabulous.

David Alan Miller’s audaciously briskyet vividly executed opening ritornellosets the stage for Kevin Cole’s vital

and direct handling of the solo part, while the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic’s principals revel in Gershwin’s sassy solo licks and syncopations. Cole manages to convey the central movement’s tender lyricism without the least trace of sentimentality, while the deft call-and-response between the piano’s rapid alternating chords and orchestral rejoinders in the finale go like gangbusters.

It’s further refreshing to find this performance coupled with equally distinctive yet utterly ‘un-Gershwin-like’ American works. Actually, John Harbison’s Remembering Gatsby is a skilful send-up of 1920s American pop idioms, although the bold tuttis smack more of early Shostakovich and the dotted rhythms are more redolent of Weill/Brecht than Paul Whiteman. Joan Tower’s Sequoia teems with soaring string melodies capped by glittering percussion and colourfully combative ensemble writing that basically updates the early Stravinsky playbook. In some respects Miller and his musicians deliver the work’s best recorded performance, which benefits from clearer woodwind lines and frequently faster tempos. However, I slightly prefer the live New York Philharmonic

ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS

Playful Brahms: Joseph Moog (right) and conductor Nicholas Milton bring a chamber-like interaction to the First Piano Concerto

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CDs, MP3 and lossless downloads of all our recordings are

available from www.hyperion-records.co.ukHYPERION RECORDS LTD, PO BOX 25, LONDON SE9 1AX · [email protected] · TEL +44 (0)20 8318 1234

Liszt & Thalberg: Operatranscriptions & fantasies

MARC-ANDRÉ HAMELIN piano

A programme ofshorter works, mostin unusual guise, tocelebrate Josquin’s500th anniversary.CDA68321Available Friday 29 January 2021

Piano sonatas by Chopin (No 2) and Hough (No 4)are the twin peaks of a typically stimulating recitalwhich—as always from Stephen Hough—spanscenturies and styles with assurance. How often doLiszt’s ‘Funérailles’ and Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’ sharethe same programme?CDA68260Available Friday 29 January 2021

Josquin des Prez:Motets & Mass movements

THE BRABANT ENSEMBLESTEPHEN RICE conductor

The summit ofHaydn’s quartet-writing, and of theclassical stringquartet mediumitself.CDA68335Available Friday 29 January 2021

Joseph Haydn: String Quartets Op 76

THE LONDON HAYDN QUARTET

Vida breveSTEPHEN HOUGH piano

C O M I N G S O O N …French duets Steven Osborne (piano), Paul Lewis (piano)Guerrero: Magnificat, Lamentations & Canciones El León de Oro, Peter Phillips (conductor)Ligeti: The 18 Études Danny Driver (piano)Mozart: The complete multipiano concertos MultiPiano Ensemble, English Chamber OrchestraMcDowall: Sacred choral music Trinity College Choir Cambridge, Stephen Layton (conductor)Music for the King of Scots The Binchois Consort, Andrew Kirkman (conductor)Isaac: Missa Wohlauff gut Gsell von hinnen & other works CinquecentoMendelssohn: The Complete Solo Piano Music, Vol. 5 Howard Shelley (piano)Vladigerov: Exotic preludes & Impressions Nadejda Vlaeva (piano)

OTHER LABELS AVAILABLE FORDOWNLOAD ON OUR WEBSITE

Gimell

‘Buy it’ GRAMOPHONE

‘Just the kind ofpianist you need tomake the most ofsome of the great19th-centuryvirtuoso pianists’entertaining operatictranscriptions’BBC RECORD REVIEW

CDA68320


recording under Zubin Mehta (12/99) for its heftier climaxes and more prominent percussion.

It used to be easy to take Walter Piston’s uncluttered craft and melodic equanimity for granted. Yet what’s not to love about the Fifth Symphony’s lucid narrative trajectory and strategically organised climaxes, or as witty and unpredictable a finale as any that Malcolm Arnold served up? We can finally retire Robert Whitney’s serviceable yet aged Louisville Symphony premiere recording (Albany/First Edition, 4/89) in favour of this new version’s modern engineering and multi-level orchestral finesse. Both conceptually and musically, this is an inspired release, well worth investigating. Jed Distler

Goldmark ‘Symphonic Poems, Vol 2’ Aus Jugendtagen – Overture. Götz von Berlichingen – Prelude. Im Frühling, Op 36. In Italien, Op 49. Ein Wintermärchen – Prelude. Zrinyi, Op 47 Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Fabrice Bollon

CPO F CPO555 251-2 (76’ • DDD)

‘The mighty king of dissonance’: that, bizarrely enough, is how the Viennese

critic Eduard Hanslick described Karl Goldmark, and when you hear Im Frühling leap, sparkling, into life at the start of this latest release in CPO’s Bamberg Goldmark series, you might wonder if you’re listening to the same composer. In fairness, even Hanslick was charmed by this delightful concert overture, and it sets the tone for an album packed with colourful, melodious Romantic orchestral music by (to paraphrase Richard Strauss) a really first-class second-rate composer.

I enjoyed the previous album in this series (1/19) and praised Bollon’s taut, energised readings and the ‘enthusiasm, understanding and collective virtuosity’ of the Bambergers. I’m glad to say that the same applies here, and that the quality of the music might be even higher. Bollon and his players find a passionate sense of yearning in the melancholy A Winter’s Tale prelude, with searching woodwind and horn solos and ardent string phrasing. The Bamberg brass are agile and sonorous, declaiming powerfully in the Götz von Berlichingen prelude, and giving a real dazzle to the jubilant final bars of In Italien – an exuberant postcard from Italy with a sensuous, almost

Straussian barcarole at its deliriously Romantic heart.

If Goldmark’s idea of Hungarian spice is a bit mild for modern palates, Bollon nonetheless keeps a firm grip on the sprawling symphonic poem Zrinyi; and nothing on this recording is ever less than vivid. The same can’t be said of the prolix and convoluted booklet note, whose authorspends the first two pages pursuing an incomprehensible academic feud with an un-named American musicologist. Well, that’s CPO booklets for you. Happily, the music – and the music-making – speaks eloquently for itself. Richard Bratby

Haydn ‘Complete Paris Symphonies’ Symphonies – No 82, ‘Bear’; No 83, ‘Hen’; No 84; No 85, ‘La Reine de France’; No 86; No 87 Paris Chamber Orchestra / Douglas Boyd

NoMadMusic F b NMM078 (136’ • DDD)

The documentation makes no reference to these being live recordings but the

atmosphere of the recorded sound gives a very ‘live’ effect all the same – beyond a range of up-beat sniffs and sounds of instruments being raised between movements. It may be just the very focusedrecording but the buzz in the air is almost palpable, along with Boyd’s audible enjoyment of the music. He has clearly worked closely with the Paris Chamber Orchestra on these six works and remarks that ‘people are often blown away when they discover this music, as the musicians of the orchestra and I ourselves were’.

You certainly hear the extent to which these six symphonies have got under the skin of Boyd and his players. Phrases are shaped and caressed to give every moment of the music a purpose and direction. Boyd keeps the music moving, not only in outer movements but also so that slow movements never drag or become weightedwith ersatz sentimentality. Minuets are on the speedy side but characterised with care. The individual sound world of each symphony is enjoyed on its own terms – the sparkle imparted by the high trumpets of No 86 or the euphoric high horns of No 87, for example.

The symphonies are arranged not in numerical order but as a well-planned programme framed by the two most outgoing works, the Hen and the Bear. The two most stately works, Nos 86 and 85, occupy the central position on each disc, while the middle of the sequence

places the two least often performedsymphonies, Nos 87 and 84, next to eachother. This draws the attention especiallyto these two works, highlighting theircrafsmanship – especially the beautifulwoodwind-writing that is so integralto them.

These are also intensely personalinterpretations, although the many touchesof individuality from Boyd and his playersseem to grow in the main from the musicitself, rather than being applied for effect.Perhaps the wilfully fast Trio of No 84 willnot be to everybody’s taste; the waltzinglilt to the Trio of No 86, however,acknowledges its Austrian provenance.The music’s flashes of bizarrerie, however,are indulged without falling intomannerism à la Harnoncourt. UnlikeHarnoncourt, Boyd and the Parisians omitsecond-half repeats in sonata movementsand minuets, fitting all six works on twodiscs rather than the Austrian’s three.‘These symphonies are not museumpieces!’ proclaims Boyd, and demonstrateshis point in performances that areconfident, vivacious and captivatingthroughout. David Threasher

Selected comparison:

Concentus Music Wien, Harnoncourt

(8/05) (DHM) 82876 60602-2

Haydn‘Symphonies, Vol 9 – L’addio’Symphonies – No 15; No 35; No 45, ‘Farewell’.Scena di Berenice, HobXXIVa:10a

aSandrine Piau sop

Il Giardino Armonico / Giovanni Antonini

Alpha F ALPHA684 (77’ • DDD • T/t)

Haydn’s early musical instance of ‘industrial action’ may have made the

Farewell (No 45, 1772) one of the most famous symphonies of his middle period but the revelations here are the slightly earlier No 35 and the much earlier No 15. The vivacity and accuracy of Giovanni Antonini and his period-instrument players can be taken for granted but their identification with these exploratory works makes this disc a standout even by the standards of the series so far.

Symphony No 35 (1767) opens with a lyrical little tune but soon becomes as agitated as any of the Sturm und Drang works of its time and afterwards, with its austere unisons and angular melodies. Treated seriously, as here, rather than as a backwards-looking, slightly primitive link in the chain, it is revealed as a vital step in

ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS


the fusion of melodic and motivic writingthat led to the development of the highClassical symphony. Even the slowmovement, which looks to older modelsin omitting the oboes and horns,demonstrates Haydn’s unparalleled texturalimagination in writing for strings alone.

Symphony No 15 (early 1760s) is oneof the most peculiar of the works fromthe beginning of Haydn’s Esterházyemployment, its first movement consistingof a through-composed Presto flankedby expansive Adagio sections. Again, inconsidering it on its own terms, ratherthan as an ‘early work’ on the way togreater things, Il Giardino Armonicooffer the most persuasive recording of itso far. It’s a bold and brash performance,brightly lit and vividly coloured by Alpha’sfocused engineering.

The Farewell is the work that comes upagainst the fiercest competition but thesemusicians need fear nothing in comparisonwith any number of other recordings.Additionally, Sandrine Piau rages andlaments as the abandoned Berenice in thescena written for the last of Haydn’s benefitconcerts in London, demonstrating that in1795 the composer had lost none of theyouthful fire evident from the three Sturmund Drang symphonies with which it is heresurrounded. David Threasher

PetterssonSymphony No 12, ‘The Dead in the Square’Eric Ericson Chamber Choir; Swedish Radio

Choir; Norrköping Symphony Orchestra /

Christian Lindberg

BIS F Í BIS2450 (56’ • DDD/DSD • T/t)

Each instalment ofChristian Lindberg’sPettersson survey hasbeen much anticipated

and the release of Pettersson’s sole choralsymphony (and, indeed, one of his fewcommissioned works) is no exception.The commission, for a choral work‘contemporary in a profound sense’,came in 1973 from the musical directorof Uppsala University, Carl Rune Larsson,to celebrate the university’s 500thanniversary four years later. Petterssonset to work with a will, choosing ninepoems by Pablo Neruda (in Swedishtranslation) and completed the 55-minutescore for large choir and large orchestrain January the following year – three yearsahead of schedule.

Superficially, the Twelfth has manypoints in common with other Petterssonsymphonies: music of extreme intensity

cast into a single, enormous movement –albeit in nine closely related sections,one per poem – that barely relents at all.Differences are quite apparent, too: theurgent, fast-moving opening for violins(Pettersson’s symphonies often build frominitially subdued openings, stealing up frombehind to overwhelm one’s senses) and thetriumphant, roof-raising close (insteadof fading quietly, all energy spent). Andthen there is the choir, who dominateproceedings for much of the work, drivenon by Neruda’s searingly powerful poems,based on the killing of Chilean protestersin 1946.

The Swedish Radio and Eric EricsonChamber Choirs are no strangers toPettersson’s idiom, having figured inearlier recordings. Lindberg’s is now thethird Twelfth to appear, the best-recordedof them and, I think, the best-sung,magnificently supported by the NorrköpingSymphony Orchestra. Larsson’s recordingmade with the premiere performers holdsup remarkably well but cannot match theurgency Manfred Honeck injected into hisrecording for CPO. Where Lindberg’sperformance scores over both is infinding more light and shade in the scorethan Honeck managed, aided by BIS’sspectacular sound. A fabulous accountof a remarkable work. Guy Rickards

Comparative versions:

Stockholm PO, Larsson (11/79R) (CAPR) CAP21369

Swedish RSO, Honeck (4/07R) (CPO) CPO777 247-2

F SchmittLégende, Op 66a. Musique sur l’eau, Op 33b.Oriane et le Prince d’Amour – Suite, Op 83bis.La tragédie de Salomé, Op 50c

bcSusan Platts mez aNikki Chooi vncWomen’s Choir of Bualo; Bualo

Philharmonic Orchestra / JoAnn Falletta

Naxos B 8 574138 (61’ • DDD • T/t)

Following on fromher well-regardedrecording of Schmitt’sAntoine et Cléopâtre

and Le palais hanté (Naxos 11/15), JoAnnFalletta now gives us four more of thecomposer’s richly scored orchestral works.The best known of these, La tragédie deSalomé, was originally composed as a balletfor chamber forces in 1907 before beingrecast a few years later as a concert workfor full orchestra and optional femalevoices. There’s no shortage of recordingsof the piece, including excellent versionsby Jean Martinon and Yan Pascal Tortelier,but Falletta’s version communicates theatmosphere, luxuriousness and power of

Schmitt’s score as well as any. Martinon’sperformance has greater savagery and firein the concluding ‘Danse de l’effroi’, butFalletta’s is more evocative and moving inthe ‘Les enchantements sur la mer’ andthe recording quality is significantly morerefined. Indeed, Naxos’s engineering isslightly to be preferred even to Chandos’srecording for Tortelier, the wordless vocalsin Part 2 in particular sounding warmerand more rapturous.

The single-movement Oriane et le Princed’Amour Suite, another work derived frommusic for a ballet, was premiered at aconcert in 1937 under Charles Munch,where it greatly impressed OlivierMessiaen. It’s a lavishly scored workwith appealingly sinuous melodies and anexciting conclusion. Falletta also includestwo works not previously recorded. Thefirst, Musique sur l’eau, is a ravishing settingof a poem by the symbolist poet AlbertSamain, composed for voice and pianoin 1898 and subsequently orchestratedin 1913, and here given an eloquentperformance by Susan Platts. The secondis Schmitt’s orchestration for violin andorchestra of his 1918 Légende, a workoriginally composed for saxophone andpiano. The solo part is performed by theBuffalo Philharmonic’s concertmasterNikki Chooi with total conviction andassurance. Altogether a most desirablerelease. Christian Hoskins

La tragédie de Salomé – selected comparisons:

ORTF Nat Orch, Martinon (7/73R) (ERAT) 9029 51532-9

São Paulo SO, Tortelier (9/11) (CHAN) CHSA5090

VasksDistant Lighta. Symphony No 1. ViatoreaStanko Madić vn

Munich Radio Orchestra / Ivan Repušić

BR-Klassik F 900334 (71’ • DDD)

The masks and social distancing evident from the booklet photos tell you this

recording was made since March even before you check the session dates (June 2020). If Vasks’s Distant Light had felt pertinent back then, it does even more now, with a vaccine for the disease that is tearing our civilisation apart beginning to roll out. A better world is on the horizon, Vasks’s violin concerto promises us.

This is a heartfelt, rooted performance of the piece from the Munich Radio Orchestra and its concertmaster that may well prove a front runner in a field more competitive than that of any other concerto by a living composer. There is a strong

ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS


sense of narrative sound from Repu≈ic’s orchestra but also from Madic, whose control of vibrato and tone colour ranges from nervous intensity to still radiance. The cantabile movements retreat without exactly relaxing, the cadenzas are determinedly articulate and the overall power is cumulative more than choreographed. The difficult-to-record ending comes off well.

Sound is embracing and clear, engendered partly by the spatial effect of the regulation two-metre distance between players. Does that bring something extra special to the other two string-only works

here? I suspect it might, especially in Viatore, which pits a ‘wandering’ theme against an ‘eternal’ chorale. This performance grows into itself, but allows the precision to generate the passion.

Vasks’s Symphony No 1 was written as the Soviet Union fell, a journey from silence and back into it, whose concern over an environmental catastrophe in the extensive middle movement proves that Vasks has never been one to celebrate short-term gains. Like so much Vasks, it calls on a chorale theme that emerges in the first movement and returns in the last. In between, the torso of the work teems

with animal life (this orchestra and its producers capture a ‘swarming’ string sound very well indeed), slipping into overproduction, overwork and a world gone mad. One of the remedies is a very Baltic cadence in which the ensemble is spatchcocked in contrary motion towards a luminous chord, another moment caught wondrously by Bavarian Radio. Recommended as a string-only immersion in Vasks’s world, a competitive account of his most famous work or just something to keep you going until the light actually returns. Andrew Mellor

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talks to ...

Christian LindbergThe versatile conductor (and trombonist and composer) discusses the latest recording in his outstanding survey of Allan Pettersson’s symphonies

friendship and mutual understanding of the challenge was very important for the end result. Regarding the balance of the orchestra and choir, the absolutely essential thing for me was to be extremely demanding and not to allow any compromise when it came to following Pettersson’s instructions for dynamics. He knew both voices and instruments very well, but nevertheless he really pushed things to the limit when it came to demanding pianissimo in the sopranos’ top register and fortissimos in the low bass parts, as well as rapid changes between these dynamic extremes.

The Norrköping Symphony Orchestra have of course recorded a lot of Petterson’s music, and they sound fully in tune with his distinctive language. Do you perform each symphony in concert before recording them?We do. Because the music is so diicult, complex and demanding we always perform the symphonies in concert at least two months prior to the recording. At that time we rehearse very intensively but nevertheless just basically scratch the surface. We record the live concert, and I make sure everyone gets comments from me on this live recording so that they can prepare for a more thorough interpretation during the recording sessions.

In the beginning the orchestra felt a lot of pressure with this procedure, but now they are totally comfortable with it and always thoroughly prepared and motivated. This is essential to the end result.

There are just a handful of symphonies still to record in your Pettersson cycle. What can we look forward to next?We have just recorded No 15, which is my personal favourite, together with the Viola Concerto, and next season we are recording the magnificent No 8. After that we just have Nos 3, 10 and 11 to do. If everything goes to plan we should be able to issue a complete box in 2023, and hopefully we will be able to invite an international audience to a Pettersson gala/festival for his birthday on September 19, 2023.

How does Petterson’s Symphony No 12 – his only choral symphony – compare with the rest of his symphonic output?I believe it is surprisingly similar to the other symphonies, but with the addition of some fantastic composing for choir. It’s beautiful! The orchestral writing is as usual very well crafted, with lots of challenging passages for all instruments. It is quite impressive that on top of that Pettersson creates a full eight-part choral realisation of this beautiful text by Pablo Neruda. For me this is possibly Pettersson’s greatest work, full of colours, beautiful melodies, and powerful C major chords mixed with some very complicated atonal dissonances in the choir.

The choral writing sounds very demanding. Was this a challenge to record, and how easy is it for you to balance the chorus and orchestra in the overall sound?Having heard the two previous recordings of the piece with the Stockholm Philharmonic and Swedish Radio orchestras I was well aware of the extremely diicult writing for the choir, and we therefore planned this recording many years ago. I contacted the choirs and warned everyone well in advance that we need to prepare in a very special manner to get everything properly on tape, in tune, in rhythm and with the right dynamics. The singers in the Swedish Radio Choir as well as the Eric Ericsson Choir are the best you can get, and many of them are close friends from my time at the Academy. This


Vaughan WilliamsJob: A Masque for Dancing. Songs of Travela

aNeal Davies bass-bar

Hallé Orchestra / Sir Mark Elder

Hallé F CDHLL7556 (70’ • DDD • T)

It’s always a treatto encounter a reallyfine performance ofVaughan Williams’s

Songs of Travel in their alternativeorchestral garb, and I’m happy to reportthat Neal Davies proves a memorablyardent, articulate and scrupulously sensitiveexponent. Granted, his vocal timbre maynot be quite as ingratiating or his tone asgloriously firm as, say, Roderick Williams’s(whose recent version with Martin Yatesand the RSNO – Dutton, 8/19 – left suchan enduring impression), but any fleetingreservations are soon banished by hisdeeply touching responsiveness to RVW’smelodic fecundity and achingly expressivetreatment of Robert Louis Stevenson’spoems (not for nothing was Davies awardedthe Lieder Prize at the BBC’s prestigiousCardiff Singer of the World competitionback in 1991). He is fortunate, too, inreceiving such splendidly stylish andsympathetic backing from the Halléunder Mark Elder, who shows an acuteunderstanding of the composer’s cannilyresourceful scheme.

Turning to the main course, Elderpresides over a reading of Job conspicuousfor its unruffled composure, stronginterpretative profile and perceptiveobservation. So we find that those initialominous stirrings of Satan’s music emergeall the more arrestingly in the context ofsuch a stately, powerfully atmosphericintroduction, while the ‘Saraband of theSons of God’ combines flowing majestyand lustrous glow. There’s bite and maliceaplenty in ‘Satan’s Dance of Triumph’ –and how good to hear the violins’ bustlingsemiquavers cutting through the texturefrom two bars after fig Ff or 3'47" in the‘Dance of Plague, Pestilence, Famine andBattle’. I very much like, too, the distinctlyHolstian luminosity of the ensuing ‘Danceof the Messengers’ – and fancy thecomposer himself would also haveapproved. If scene 6’s vision of ‘Satanenthroned, surrounded by the hosts ofHell’ doesn’t quite generate the terrifyingimpact it has on, say, Vernon Handley’sDecember 1983 account with the LPO(CfP, 3/93 – and it’s a shame, by the way,about those missing brass ‘jabs’ on thisnewcomer earlier on at five before fig Ooor 1'43"), ‘Elihu’s Dance of Youth and

Beauty’ conveys a chaste poise that comesclose to the ideal (exquisite work here fromguest leader David Adams). Thereafter,Elder invests the ‘Galliard of the Sonsof the Morning’ with breezy zest andagreeable spring, though the work’s final,heart-stopping switch into B flat majorbrings with it rather less of a sense ofbenedictory leave-taking than somemay like.

Summing up, Elder’s refreshing viewrewardingly supplements Adrian Boult’smagnificently authoritative 1946 and 1970versions (with the BBC SO and LSOrespectively – the first and last of Boult’sfour commercial recordings), the Handley(still hard to beat for selfless dedicationand spine-tingling commitment) andAndrew Davis’s splendiferously engineeredBergen PO account (Chandos, 3/17).Boasting excitingly detailed andwide-ranging Bridgewater Hall sound,admirable booklet notes by Andrew Burnand full texts, this represents yet anothernotable addition to the RVW discographyfrom these accomplished artists.Andrew Achenbach

Vladigerov‘Orchestral Works, Vol 1’Symphonies – No 1, Op 33; No 2, ‘May’, Op 44.Autumn Elegy, Op 15. Concert Overture, ‘Earth’,Op 27. Heroic Overture, Op 45Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra /

Alexander Vladigerov

Capriccio F (two discs for the price of one)

C8050 (131’ • ADD)

Recorded 1970-75

Hardly a prophetwithout honour in hisown country, PanchoVladigerov (1899-

1979) remains little heard outside Bulgaria,despite building a reputation in Berlin andVienna between the wars. All credit, then,to Capriccio for releasing these keynoterecordings as part of an edition (thefive piano concertos were issued inSeptember) which will eventuallyamount to 18 CDs.

Written at the time Bulgaria wascoerced into siding with the Axis powers,Vladigerov’s First Symphony (1940)recalls Soviet works from this era. Outermovements feature introductions that arenot a little portentous, then sonata designsthat juxtapose rather than integratecontrasting themes – on the way, inthe finale, to a triumphal if overbearingapotheosis. The Scherzo has energy andcharm that recalls the composer’s folk-

inflected dances, but the Adagio proves thehighlight in its eloquent languor. Finer isthe Second Symphony (1948), its subtitlereferring to the Day of Youth marked incommunist nations but otherwise free ofpolemic; the scoring for strings imparts alustre but also astringency to music whoseaffirmation is never contrived. A winsomelyelegant slow movement and the suave waltzthat follows are the highlights.

Akin to tone poems in their discursiveprogress, the Concert Overture (1933) isa declaration of intent on Vladigerov’shomecoming that explains its Earthsubtitle, while the Heroic Overture (1949)bears the inscription ‘9th September’to mark the Soviet ‘liberation’ in vividwhile not unduly hubristic terms. AutumnElegy (1922/37) confirms his poetic andruminative side as also his most personal.Directed by the composer’s son Alexander,the playing of the Bulgarian NationalRadio Symphony has unfailing energyand flair, with the cinematic scope andimmediacy of these 1970s recordingsconveyed in full measure by theremastering. Those who are partialto Glière and Khachaturian will enjoyVladigerov’s engagingly OTT music.Richard Whitehouse

‘English Music for Strings’L Berkeley Serenade for Strings, Op 12 BlissMusic for Strings Bridge Lament (Catherine,aged 9, ‘Lusitania’ 1915) Britten Variations ona Theme of Frank Bridge, Op 10Sinfonia of London / John Wilson

Chandos F ÍCHSA5264 (65’ • DDD/DSD)

John Wilson’s reverence for Sir John Barbirolli’s iconic disc of ‘English String

Music’ with the now reborn Sinfonia of London (Warner, 5/63) is no great secret. In reclaiming the name and the ethos of the orchestra he could be seen as somehow repaying the gratitude. The players may have changed but the spirit has not. And the sound. Sumptuous is one word – but because this is Wilson that goes hand-in-hand with the keenest articulation. There’s a rosiny immediacy about it all, like being on the podium, or better yet inside the sound.

Britten’s dazzling Frank BridgeVariations show us how it’s done, a spooky ability even in his youth to evoke so much from so little. You look at the page and think ‘how does he do that?’ The reach and invention come from an instinctive understanding of mood and atmosphere.

ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS

J.S. Bach Diepenbrock AlkanEnglish Suites BWV806-811 Complete Songs Paraphrases, Marches & Symphonie

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Geraldine Mucha Scriabin Le PlaintifChamber Music Mazurkas Poemes & Impromptus Doleful Music of the French Grand Siècle

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Complete Music for Fortepiano

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The romantic enchantment of the Adagio,the swagger of the ‘Bourrée classique’, thefiery coloratura of ‘Alla italiana’ taken atan insanely showy lick. And the emotionalheart of the piece – the ‘Funeral March’ –where the intensity of the searing upperreaches of the violins is at once a responseto the drum-like throbbing of the basses.The stillness of the closing pages resonatesin this performance long after the soundhas faded from our hearing. And there is,of course, great kinship with the quietlydevastating Bridge Lament that follows –a piano piece turned intimate GreatWar memorial.

Lennox Berkeley’s Serenade for Stringsis another precocious masterwork – notperhaps as conspicuously ‘out there’ inthe way Britten hears the string sonority,but elegant as befits a pupil of NadiaBoulanger and marked by the audacity tosubvert our expectations of a conventionalstring serenade by ending with an anxiousand intense Lento. The 1930s were fastdrawing to a close when Berkeley movedinto The Old Mill at Snape with Britten –and with the gathering clouds of warcame this music for an uncertain future.Berkeley’s mournful Lento and the ‘FuneralMarch’ from Britten’s Bridge Variationsare products of a very particular timeand place.

And then there is Arthur Bliss’s ultra-romantic Music for Strings, which seemsto channel the flamboyance of his score forAlexander Korda’s movie Things to Come(written just before it) and revel in thefreedom to make music for its own sake.Wilson and the Sinfonia of London stringspoint up its inventive spirit – not least thesoloistic writing at the close of the firstmovement (a nod perhaps to Elgar’sIntroduction and Allegro), where solo bassestransition to a slow movement markedmolto sostenuto. That’s the kind of markingthat Wilson and his strings live for and towhich they lend their most sonorous tone.Note the ostentatious flourishes within thismovement – no extravagance spared – andnote too the filmic elaboration towardsthe close of the finale.

Wilson’s way with strings has come along way from Hollywood – but the lustreis inescapable. Edward Seckerson

‘In Motion’Boccherini String Quintet, ‘La musica notturnadelle strade di Madrid’, Op 30 No 6 G324a

Corrales Señores, les voy a contarb Farr StringQuartet No 2, ‘Mondo Rondo’a HindsonMaralingac Schubert Quartettsatz, D703a

cAmalia Hall vn United Strings of Europe /aJulian Azkoul, bcFranck Fontcouberte

BIS F Í BIS2529 (51’ • DDD/DSD)

This superblyplayed and vividlyengineered release,featuring works

from three continents and four differentcenturies, is the debut album of theLondon-based United Strings of Europe.Three of the performances are led fromwithin the ensemble by the violinistJulian Azkoul, who also provides thearrangements used. That of Schubert’ssingle-movement Quartettsatz involves theaddition of a double bass and additionalstrings at key points, but with only13 players in the ensemble, the changes aremodest and the performance is lithe andpowerful. The arrangement of Boccherini’sMusica notturna, evoking the sounds ofMadrid of the 1780s, is also circumspect,eschewing the castanets and otherpercussion instruments added in someother recordings. Instead, the thirdmovement gains a violin improvisationevoking Spain’s Islamic history and thecello solo in the fourth movement receivesembellishments in a country music style,and highly effective they are too.

Matthew Hindson’s Maralinga,completed in 2011, references theenvironmental and human impact of thenuclear tests carried out by the Britishgovernment in the composer’s nativeAustralia in the 1950s and ’60s. Scored forviolin and orchestra, the work contrastsepisodes of visceral urgency with momentsof hushed expectancy before concludingwith a lyrical epilogue of great poignancy.Dating from a year earlier, ArturoCorrales’s Señores, les voy a contar is a briefbut rhythmically complex piece based ona song learnt from his grandmother inEl Salvador. Both works receive animatedand gripping interpretations under thebaton of Franck Fontcouberte, with animpressive performance from soloistAmalia Hall in the former. Rounding offthe programme is New Zealand composerGareth Farr’s Mondo Rondo, originallycomposed for string quartet in 1997 andhere expanded to use all the players of theensemble. Farr’s playful and inventivewriting makes an excellent curtain-closerfor the group’s impressive first recording.Christian Hoskins

‘New Year’s Concert 2021’Millöcker In Saus und Braus Komzák II Bad’nerMad’ln, Op 257 Josef Strauss Margherita-Polka,Op 244. Ohne Sorgen, Op 271 J Strauss IRadetzky-Marsch, Op 228. Venetianer-Galopp,Op 74 J Strauss II An der schönen blauen

Donau, Op 314. Frühlingsstimmen, Op 410.Furioso-Polka, Op 260. Im Krapfenwald’l,Op 336. Kaiserwalzer, Op 437. Neue Melodien-Quadrille, Op 254. Niko-Polka, Op 228.Schallwellen, Op 148. Stürmisch in Lieb’und Tanz, Op 393 Suppé Dichter und Bauer –Overture. Fatinitza-Marsch Zeller GrubenlichterVienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Riccardo Muti

Sony Classical F (two discs for the price of one)

19439 84016-2 (105’ • DDD)

Recorded live at the Musikverein, Vienna,

January 1, 2021

There can have been no stranger occasion in the New Year’s Concert’s 80-year

history than this: the Vienna Philharmonic playing from an empty hall in a half-closed city to a similarly afflicted audience scattered across half the nations of the world. Riccardo’s Muti’s remarkable address (happily retained here) will already have imprinted itself on minds and imaginations. But so, too, will the music-making. For this is a concert that grows to greatness.

For the musical hors d’oeuvres that traditionally make up the shorter first half, Muti and the orchestra have assembled a pleasing array of rarities, including music by two hitherto neglected Carls – Zeller and Millöcker – both born in 1842, the same year as the Philharmonic itself. Josef Strauss’s quick polka Ohne Sorgen is the most familiar of these preprandial treats. In what would be the final year of his all-too-short life, Josef Strauss was far from being ‘Without Worry’. But the band played on. It was a telling choice for this year’s concert. The second half is always the more substantial, but never has a programme built to its own private apotheosis as surely as this, with lofty yet almost unbearably moving accounts of the Emperor Waltz and the Blue Danube itself.

There are many delights on the way, not least the charming and occasionally uproarious Bad’ner Mad’ln (‘Girls of Baden’) by Austria’s most admired bandmaster Karl Komzák II – it was one of Hans Knappertsbusch’s favourite party pieces – or the charming juxtaposition of Voices of Spring and the birdsong-laden Im Krapfenwald’l. There is much to enjoy, too, in a sequence of Italian items that includes Johann Strauss’s Verdi-inspired Neue Melodien-Quadrille. This takes me back 50 years to Muti’s debut with the Vienna Philharmonic and a 1971 Salzburg Festival production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale

ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS


during which he managed to turn thisaugust ensemble (with advantage) into aplausible version of an Italian town band.

But it is to those two great concertwaltzes that one returns. Rarely haveI heard the melancholy, majesty and many-layered beauties of these wonderful piecesso movingly revealed. It takes a masterconductor to guide an orchestra of thePhilharmonic’s pedigree and powerto heights of which even it can onlyoccasionally dream; but that is whatit is our privilege to experience here.A DVD is imminent. Richard Osborne

‘Verklärte Nacht’Fried Verklärte Nacht, Op 9a KorngoldLieder des Abschieds, Op 14b Lehár Fieberb

Schoenberg Verklärte Nacht, Op 4aChristine Rice mez abStuart Skelton ten

BBC Symphony Orchestra / Edward Gardner

Chandos F Í CHSA5243 (64’ • DDD/DSD • T/t)

Hard as it may be in2021 to read past thesticky paternalism ofRichard Dehmel’s

best-known poem, early 20th-centuryreaders (male ones, anyway) of ‘VerklärteNacht’ experienced in it the frisson of ‘a

new, anti-bourgeois sexual morality’.Though he could not persuade Mahler,Strauss or Zemlinsky to set his texts tomusic, Dehmel sought to prevent lessercomposers from doing likewise. Whilehis delight and surprise at Schoenberg’sinstrumental setting are recorded in acorrespondence between the two men,we can only guess at his reaction to OskarFried’s lush but more straightforwardtreatment, staging the nocturnal encounterwith the voices of both the penitent womanand the man who promises that their love‘will transfigure the other’s child; you willbear it for me’. Its second-act Parsifalcadences sound more alien in the contextof Fried’s supercharged Brahmsianorchestration and triumphalist ending.

By comparison, Schoenberg’s tone poemis a model of discretion, especially in aperformance such as this one that seemsso tied to the details and contours ofDehmel’s text. The woman’s vulnerabilityis caught by Bergen’s solo strings astouchingly as the man’s broad reassurancesare underplayed, and the naturalistictouches of their moonlit rapture comeover with a delicacy missed by deeper-piled orchestral recordings.

The sole miscalculation in this carefullyconceived and entirely original collectionof edgy Liebestoden, it seems to me, comes

in assigning Korngold’s Songs of Farewell (‘for medium voice’ according to the publisher, and not ‘for tenor’ as the track-list suggests) to Stuart Skelton rather than Christine Rice. The baritonal stretches of the third song demand the most hushed and sympathetic support from Edward Gardner’s direction, which gently points up all of Korngold’s Mahlerian echoes, from the obvious (Das Lied von der Erde) to the peculiar, such as the finale of the Fourth Symphony popping up in the ‘resigned’ but by no means doomed farewell that closes out the album on a lighter note.

However, the opening Fieber finds Skelton in his element, and anyone enlightened (as I was) by Richard Bratby’s cover story on operetta in the December issue will find ample confirmation here of Lehár’s extraordinary versatility. Composed in 1915, midway between Pierrot lunaire and La valse, it paints an expressionist musical canvas of a wounded and delirious soldier in hospital, with fragments of waltz, march, parlando and futile heroic gestures underscored by a sinister fanfare leitmotif. At the height of his fever, he exclaims ‘So you are here as well, mother … what a surprise!’, and it speaks volumes for Skelton and Gardner that the moment sounds more chilling than unintentionally comic. Peter Quantrill

ORCHESTRAL REVIEWS

A concert that grows to greatness: Riccardo Muti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic’s traditional New Year’s Concert in an empty Musikverein

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THE MUSICIAN AND THE SCORE

Bach’s keyboard works hold a key position in Piotr Anderszewski’s repertoire. His first commercial solo CD, released in 1999

as part of Harmonia Mundi’s Les Nouveaux Interprètes series, featured the French Overture and Fifth French Suite. For Warner Classics and its affiliated labels the pianist has recorded four English Suites and three Partitas. If anything, Anderszewski’s thoughtful musicianship and high pianistic craft operates at even fuller capacity in a selection of 12 Preludes and Fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, his new release on Warner.

Speaking from his Paris home via Zoom, Anderszewski discussed how his way with Bach reflects a wide gamut of influences. ‘As a teenager I was under the spell of Glenn Gould; I mean, who wasn’t? Yet when I tried emulating his dry style with almost no pedal, I realised that it didn’t speak to me. And for all my admiration for Gould’s genius, I’m not really interested in listening to that kind of approach. But when I heard Edwin Fischer’s Well-Tempered Clavier for the first time, I found it so free, so poetic and really touching. And I was also fascinated by Bach’s large vocal works, and became obsessed with the B minor Mass. I loved John Eliot Gardiner’s interpretations for the clarity of their textures. It’s basically an accumulation of influences, and from these ingredients I made my own “stylistic cooking” for Bach.’

Eclecticism also characterises the pieces in Book 2, in Anderszewski’s view. ‘While Book 1 was composed in a shorter span of time, in the sense that each piece follows one another in a kind of logical progression, Book 2 is a mixture of late and early pieces, and therefore less finite as an entity. But I also find that the Book 2 fugues often convey a lightness or a dance-like character that you find less in Book 1. It’s probably because I’ve played so many of the Partitas and Suites that I notice this. For me, the last one, the B minor Fugue, is a passepied. The F major Fugue is absolutely a gigue, and the F minor one is a bourée.

‘The danger, however, is when you have a conception based on what you’ve heard throughout your whole life and then that conception becomes more important than the result.’ When Anderszewski cited the E major Fugue as a case in point, we immediately referred to Glenn Gould’s slow and introspective 1980 video performance. ‘I also tried to play this fugue very contemplatively, but over time I felt less and less convinced, no matter how hard I tried to make it work. It wound up too studied, with too much artifice.

‘But when I heard a piece similar to the fugue in a cantata performance from John Eliot Gardiner, I realised that the

Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2Piotr Anderszewski talks to Jed Distler about his selection process for 12 Preludes and Fugues

issue was not so much tempo as it was phrasing, in terms of how one gives a sense of closure at the end of the theme. In other words, you have to tell a story within the melodic line, especially when the textures grow thicker, as in the various stretti. When I arrived at the fugue’s central and densest section, I lost the linear structure at an overly slow tempo. Yet with proper phrasing and a faster tempo, the fugue finally took shape, and I started to hear it as vocal music. In general, I feel that the Book 2 fugues gain character and life when there is more acceleration. When I was younger, again, I had this “conception” that a fugue had to follow the prelude attacca with the same pulsation.’

Noticing Anderszewski’s variety of touch and timbre throughout the gnarly G minor Fugue, I asked him if its close-lying counterpoint seemed particularly difficult to untangle and voice. ‘The secret is rhythmic articulation,’ the pianist explained to me. ‘Because the theme begins on the second beat of a three-four measure, your phrasing must clarify where the downbeat of the measure is. Once you do that, the music more or less falls into place. It’s like

Evolution: since his first solo CD in 1999, Anderszewski has made his own ‘stylistic cooking’ for Bach


THE MUSICIAN AND THE SCOREif your posture is properly aligned, it then becomes easier to stand or walk straight!’

Anderszewski confessed that the process of selecting which 12 Preludes and Fugues to record transpired over three years. ‘From the beginning I wanted my favourites: A flat major, G sharp minor, E major and B minor. And I knew I’d start with the C major, which I’ve been playing for a long time. I admit being hesitant over the B flat minor; at first I thought the fugue was not that inspired, and maybe a little academic. Yet after restudying it, I now appreciate Bach’s incredible chromatic invention and how he builds to an almost catastrophic climax.’

When I asked how Anderszewski determined the album’s running order, he showed me handwritten lists, all filled up with possible sequences. ‘I had at least five different running orders in my mind,’ he admitted. During the editing process, a strong division into three groups of four pieces began to manifest, like the three acts of a play. ‘I like the contrast between the assertive opening C major and the F minor that follows,’ the pianist explained. ‘And the A flat major is also very different from the D sharp minor. After the incredibly beautiful yet complex D sharp minor Fugue, we take a little pause before introducing a completely new quality in the F major. Then I couldn’t resist more big contrasts, from the B flat minor to the E flat major to the G minor. Then we have a longer break leading into the E major, the G sharp minor, the B major and the B minor. So my order actually begins and ends in the same way as Bach’s original 24 Preludes and Fugues.’

Most printed editions derive from two primary sources:Version A is the ‘London Original’ dating between 1739 and1742, while Version B is the 19th-century Bach-Gessellschaftedition based on a 1744 copy mainly written down by Bach’sson-in-law Johann Christoph Altnickol. Anderszewski usesBärenreiter’s edition, which draws from both Versions Aand B and provides reasons for certain text readings aswell as alternate options. The pianist also works out hisornamentation in advance, although he admits that he’srelatively conservative in this regard. Still, he relishes theopen-ended aspects of Bach’s idiom.

‘When I was in my mid-twenties, I used to be incrediblymeticulous, even over-meticulous about everything that iswritten in the score, especially in a work like the WebernVariations Op 27 where every detail is so precisely laid out.And because of this, I found myself at a dead end. On theother hand, with Bach we have incredible freedom. Of coursewe have to be aware of the style, of the instruments of thetime. Although taste is a hard thing to measure, I do believethat it exists. So with Bach I found I could allow myself to befree. Yet to have this freedom makes the music more difficult.Because you are confronted with choices – you know, I reallycannot stand choice! But when you find your way, Bach givessuch great satisfaction. It took me some time to give myselfpermission and the authority to be free with this music.And yet surely no composer gives you that permission tothe same extent as Bach. To read our review of Anderszewski’s Bach recording, turn to page 54

‘With Bach, I found I could allow myself to be free. Yet to have this freedom makes the music more dicult’

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Richard Bratby welcomes an albumof string quintets by Stanford:

Andrew Farach-Colton enjoys anengaging tribute to Nadia Boulanger:

Beach . Clarke . IvesBeach Piano Trio, Op 150 Clarke Piano TrioIves Piano Trio The Gould Piano Trio

Resonus F RES10264 (61’ • DDD)

A welcome releasefrom The GouldPiano Trio, nowinto its third decade,

whose repertoire stretches right across thismedium. It opens with the Piano Trio(1938) by Amy Beach – its concisemovements taking in a wistful ‘songwithout words’, a deft amalgam ofintermezzo and scherzo, then an animatedfi nale which, as with its predecessor,makes spirited use of an Inuit folk song.Coincidentally, perhaps, the piece looksback several decades to an era whoseRomantic poise was engagingly assaultedby Charles Ives in his own Piano Trio(1911). The earnest dialogue of its initialmovement serves as foil to a scherzo wherecheerfully colliding allusion to popular andcollegiate songs are thrown into relief bythe fi nale; here, the studious build-ups tohymnlike perorations suggest an underlyingseriousness present throughout.

Rebecca Clarke was equallymisunderstood (and for not entirelymusical reasons), her Piano Trio (1921)one of several pieces destined to remainthe peak of her achievement. Influencesfrom Debussy and Ravel are often cited;more signifi cant is the way that these,along with the vehemence of Bartók,combine in a highly distinctive idiom –whether the emotional volatility of theopening Moderato, fraught eloquence ofthe Andante or the driving impetus of thefi nal Allegro, whose powerful culminationleads into a coda of mingled resignationand defi ance.

Readers may well have encounteredthese pieces via the tautly incisive NeaveTrio, quirkily capricious Bekova Sistersor appealingly lucid Hartley Trio. Theexcellence of the Gould’s playing, with

sound a model of clarity and balance, yetearns this album a firm recommendation.Richard Whitehouse

Beach, Clarke – selected comparison:

Neave Trio (11/19) (CHAN) CHAN20139

Beach, Ives – selected comparison:

Hartley Trio (6/94R) (DALS) DSPRCD057

Clarke, Ives – selected comparison:

Bekova Sisters (11/00) (CHAN) CHAN9844

BeethovenAllegro and Minuet, WoO26a. Serenade, Op 25b.Sonata No 8, Op 30 No 3c. Trio concertante,WoO37d

Emmanuel Pahud, aSilvia Careddu fldSophie Dervaux bn bDaishin Kashimoto vnbAmihai Grosz va cdDaniel Barenboim pf

Warner Classics F 9029 51397-3 (78’ • DDD)

Beethoven’s outputof chamber musicforegrounding theflute is early and not

extensive, so flautists understandablyappropriate arrangements of works forother instruments. Emmanuel Pahudhas alighted on the ‘little’ G major ViolinSonata, which appears to respond wellto the change of idiom. The problemsthrown up in the transfer – the violin’slower range and double-stopping ability –are surmounted largely satisfactorily inPahud’s arrangement. But would youwant to hear a work so unshakeablywedded to its original form performed ina compromised version? Without a doubt,given the remarkable musicianship of itssoloist. If it takes a minute or two to fallfully into step, by the exposition repeat ithas truly found its groove, both allegro andassai; the slow movement shows off Pahud’sgorgeous lower register and the finale isfull of chattering vivacity.

A recent recording of a similarprogramme (MDG, 4/20) found muchof the original Beethoven flute repertoirenot among his most immortal. Perhaps thepresent disc does not dispel that impressionbut even the most threadbare music

benefits from the kind of advocacythat can be given by a wind-and-stringensemble comprising Berlin and ViennaPhilharmonic principals. The Serenade,Op 25, is revealed to be a worthy if notweighty counterpart to its string-trionamesake, Op 8, and the two duos ofWoO26 less throwaway than they mayappear. The Trio concertante for flute,bassoon and piano is testament to theburgeoning ambition and ability of theprecocious teenager.

Pahud is the star but never outshines hispartners. Barenboim’s presence is that offacilitator, éminence grise and ever-reliableaccompanist. For Beethoven minus theheaven-storming, nothing could be finer.David Threasher

BeethovenViolin Sonatas – No 7, Op 30 No 2; No 10, Op 96James Ehnes vn Andrew Armstrong pf

Onyx F ONYX4209 (52’ • DDD)

It’s been said before but it’s worth restating: Beethoven described both of

the works on this album as sonatas for pianoforte and violin, in that order. So, given that the piano opens each movement of Op 30 No 2, it’s captivating to hear what Andrew Armstrong does with his spotlight. He has a wonderful ability to create an atmosphere in an instant, as if he’s pulling the music out of the air – a quality on display throughout his Beethoven cycle with James Ehnes, but particularly striking in this black diamond of a C minor masterpiece.

And it really does sparkle. It’s diffi cult to write about the focused intimacy with which Ehnes joins in the Adagio, or the way the players balance their musical lines against each other in near-ideal dialogue, without implying that these intelligent, refi ned performances are somehow precious or mannered. Nothing could be further from the truth. The conversation

‘What strikes me is the freshness, spontaneityand instinctive “rightness” of Stanford’swriting for strings’ REVIEW ON PAGE 50

‘In Carter’s Cello Sonata, instead ofpummelling, Siranossian and Gouinmake the music dance’ REVIEW ON PAGE 50

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is spontaneous, the storytelling is packedwith character, and both sonatas are playedwith an alertness that might feel impatientif it wasn’t so affectionate. Op 30 No 2 iscontemporary with the Second Symphony:Armstrong and Ehnes never let you forgetthat this is young man’s music.

In the sublime opening movement ofOp 96 (Ehnes starts things off this time)there’s an almost improvisational quality:tenderness leavened by a humour thatturns deliciously deadpan in the Scherzo.The finale plays out with just as much ofa sense of adventure: not a valediction tothe violin sonata, but an open question.That Armstrong and Ehnes achieve thisin the context of a performance that is sosatisfying on its own terms is the measureof their achievement – and a wonderfullypositive conclusion to a life-enhancingcycle. Richard Bratby

HaydnAnonymous The Burning of the Piper’s Hut. DaFull Rigged Ship/Da New Rigged Ship CooperMiss Gordon of Gight Gow Coilsfield House.Drunk at Night, Dry in the Morning Haydn ThreeString Quartets, Op 74 Marshall The Marquis ofHuntly NicFhionnlaigh Fear a’ BhàtaMaxwell Quartet

Linn F CKD641 (82’ • DDD)

Whereas Haydn’s earlier quartets were designed for players and a small

group of connoisseurs, his Opp 71 and 74 were tailored for public performance in London’s Hanover Square Rooms. If anything, the Op 74 trilogy goes even further than Op 71 in its dramatic contrasts of texture, register and, especially, key. Haydn here surpasses even himself in his theatrical plunges on to alien chords. In the powerful opening Allegros of Nos 1 and 2 he seems to set himself the challenge of simulating orchestral sonorities without overstepping the bounds of true chamber style. The racy finale of No 1 breaks into a riot of skirling bagpipes, while at the other end of the spectrum the Largo assai of No 3 is paradoxically music of extreme inwardness and extreme textural flamboyance.

As in their debut disc of Op 71 (5/19), the Maxwell Quartet respond eagerly to the boldness and brilliance of these predominantly extrovert works. While alive to the moments of mystery in the fast movements – say, the soft dip from C

to A flat near the end of the first movement of No 1 – they always seem to be playing to an imaginary audience. Their precision and contrapuntal clarity at speed match all comers in the finales of Nos 1 and 2, where Haydn puts the lower instruments through their paces. The minuets have a lively kick. No 2’s, with no tempo marking, is a swinging allegro; and here and elsewhere leader Colin Scobie decorates repeats and pauses with playful embellishments which I suspect would have delighted Haydn.

While the Maxwell’s steady pacing for No 2’s first movement makes for a chunky, muscular reading – the blithely tripping opening theme is deceptive – the outer movements of the Rider, No 3, seem a mite cautious. The Lindsays (ASV, 12/05) may be less technically perfect. But what Duncan Druce called their ‘controlled wildness’ makes the finale of No 3 a thrilling roller-coaster ride. Throughout, The Lindsays tend to probe extremes, living more dangerously than the Maxwell in the finales, and making the trios of Nos 1 and 2, both in remote keys, dream interludes amid their forthright minuets. And while No 1’s serenading Andantino has a perky charm in the Maxwell’s hands, The Lindsays give it a gentler, more affectionate cast. That said, the Maxwell realise all the

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Life-enhancing Beethoven: James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong complete their superlative cycle of the violin sonatas

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majesty and strangeness of No 3’s Largoassai, whether in their shrouded pianissimoin the theme’s second half, or the leader’stheatrical swoops and plunges in thereprise – controlled wildness, indeed.

As on their Op 71 recording, theMaxwell – Scottish to a man – interleavethe three quartets with their ownarrangements of Scottish reels, jigs andpipe marches. The juxtaposition seemsspecially apt when the transfiguredbagpipes of ‘Coilsfield House’ follow theraucous folk-fest of No 1’s finale. In theirlively note the players lament that Haydnnever visited Scotland (he never venturednorth of the Home Counties) to experienceits folk tradition at first hand. He did,though, make dozens of Scottish folk-songarrangements, while his (probable) loverin London, Rebecca Schroeter, was ofScottish blood. Some consolation, surely.Richard Wigmore

C MasonZwischen den SternenEnsemble Recherche

Winter & Winter F 910 267-2 (39’ • DDD)

C Mason . Tagaq‘Songbooks, Vol 1’C Mason Sardinian Songbook. Tuvan SongbookTagaq Sivunittinni (The Future Ones)Traditional Sai Ma (Racing Horses, arr Mason)Ligeti Quartet

Nonclassical F NONCLSS039 (54’ • DDD)

‘Zwischen den Sternen’ – ‘Between thestars’ – are the opening words of one ofRainer Maria Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus.Rilke explores the strangeness of trying tomeasure outer space in human terms, andalso touches on ideas about language –communication – that extend beyond themerely human into the wider world ofnature. Nothing is immovably fixed ineither time or space, and Christian Mason’sZwischen den Sternen (2019) for eightplayers is similarly dedicated to exploringpossibilities in circumstances wheremobility is fundamental.

Although musical communication cantake place when a score-reader silentlytranslates written symbols on the pageinto imagined sounds in the inner ear,the transmission of sounds by performersacross the space between them and anaudience is how communication, as acommunal activity, is usually understood.

Mason acknowledges this image of a ‘spacebetween’ in several recent compositionsthat question the convention of performersand listeners occupying separate, fixedpositions; and in one work (In the Midst ofthe Sonorous Islands, 2016) he even breachesthe usual barrier between performers andlisteners by inviting audience members tomake musical sounds.

In Zwischen den Sternen the playersmove on to, around and away from theperformance space, features a domesticlistening set-up cannot literally reproduce.But the kind of subtle balancing to be heardon this fine recording suggests differentdegrees of distancing and reflects how theplayers’ materials require a kind of mobilityquite different from the settled tuning andregular rhythmic patternings of moretraditional musical writing. Althoughthe performers are allowed considerablefreedom in what and how they play,Zwischen den Sternen does not seek tomatch the easy-going, improvisatory ethosof much postmodern experimentalism.Mason’s affinities with Scelsi and Grisey –two composers mentioned in theperformance instructions – signify acommitment to a ritualised intensity,moving between rawness and refinementto fit with the choice of phrases from theRilke sonnet as movement titles.

The overwhelming mysteriousnessof stars in space is conveyed by a smallcollection of instruments rich in extremecontrasts – like the steel drums and thecello at the beginning, bass oboe andharmonicas elsewhere. This is not so mucha ‘music of the spheres’, after the modelof Stockhausen’s Sternklang, more a ritual,the human contemplation of something noindividual can fully understand – a stateof mind encapsulated by the brief, simplecello tune heard at the end. But Mason hasalso explored the very different musicalconsequences of making and sharingsounds that represent potentiallyharmonious relationships between natureand humanity. His two sets of Songbooksfor string quartet, in magnificently vividperformances by the Ligeti Quartet, offerboldly sculpted interpretations of vocalmusic – by Tuvan throat singers and theSardinian ‘tenores di Bitti’ – that replacethe troubling mysteries of outer space withthe earthy embrace of vibrant communalcelebration. As Mason writes in the bookletnotes, these musics seem ‘pure and rough’at the same time, and his rethinkingsacknowledge such polarities, yet thepredominant characteristic – unmistakablein these high-powered, closely focusedrecordings – is sheer, unadulteratedexuberance. Arnold Whittall

Mozart . M SimpsonMozart Serenade No 10, ‘Gran Partita’, K361M Simpson GeysirNicholas Daniel, Emma Fielding obs Mark

Simpson, Fraser Langton cls Oliver Pashley,

Ausiàs Garrigós Morant basset-hns Amy Harman,

Dom Tyler bns Ben Goldscheider, Angela Barnes,

James Pillai, Fabian van de Geest hns

David Stark db

Orchid F ORC100150 (58’ • DDD)

‘Glorious and grand, magnifi cent and sublime’, ran a contemporary

verdict on Mozart’s Gran Partita, music that both crowns and transcends the 18th-century tradition of wind-band music. In later centuries this sumptuous banquet of a piece inspired wind serenades by Dvo∑ák, Richard Strauss (his two late sonatinas) and others. Most recently, British composer and clarinettist Mark Simpson was commissioned by the Britten Sinfonia to create a short partner work to the Gran Partita, using the same forces of 12 winds plus double bass.

Simpson only added the title Geysir – the Icelandic word for ‘geyser’ – at the suggestion of the dedicatee, Simon Holt. But it encapsulates a work that begins in tense, threatened stillness, then builds slowly to a shattering eruption before subsiding in luminous mystery. The ‘bubbling’ clarinets in Variation 5 of Mozart’s penultimate movement provided the cue for the subterranean murmurings of Geysir’s opening but Simpson’s seething, pulsating musical landscape, embracing violent extremes of texture, register and dynamics, exploits the ensemble’s potential in ways undreamt of by Mozart. Using the four horns far more lavishly, Simpson’s sound world veers between the darkly lurid, the garish and (at the close) the ethereal. At the volcanic climax, oboe and clarinet shriek acridly high above swirling fl urries of sound, ‘like an old-fashioned kettle at a furious boil’, as Benjamin Poore puts it in his illuminating note.

Simpson sums up Geysir, with some understatement, as ‘a fl urry of colour and harmonic shifts’. His elite players, led by oboist Nicholas Daniel and the composer himself, do him proud, in a performance of risk-taking virtuosity, recorded in the ideal ambience of Saffron Hall. They are just as convincing in the more companionable world of the Gran

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Partita, a work that, on disc at least, rarely fails to elicit the best in its players. With crisp rhythms and pointed accents they bring out the martial background of the opening Allegro. Both Minuets are bright and bouncy, their contrasting Trios well characterised (I loved the prominence of the smoky basset-horn in the first Trio of the first Minuet); and the variations are delightfully vivid, from the frisky buffo banter of Var 1 to the keening oboe over undulating clarinets and basset-horns in Var 5.

In their superb recent recording, the wind soloists of the Concertgebouw (BIS, 1/21) bring a more operatic expressiveness, and an undercurrent of disturbance, to the famous Adagio. But in their slightly cooler way Daniel, Simpson and basset-hornist Oliver Pashley are hardly less persuasive, dovetailing seamlessly and floating Mozart’s long melodic spans across the bar lines. In a teeming catalogue, this new Gran Partita more than holds its own. But the clinching factor for many will be Mark Simpson’s companion piece: a tour de force of wind colour and carefully controlled tension that makes an immediate impact and reveals more and more on repeated hearings. Richard Wigmore

NonoLa lontananza nostalgica utopica futuraMarco Fusi vn Pierluigi Billone tape

Kairos F 0015086KAI (61’ • DDD)

Nono’s late style brings music to the verge of silence. The dynamic strays above

pianissimo only occasionally. Pitch material is less important than instrumental tactility – the noise, say, of the hair scraping the catgut. Through this, we are brought to reside in a microscopic sound world. Brief works like À Pierre for contrabass flute and contrabass clarinet will allow you to dip your toe in Nono’s late style before taking on one of the more forbidding works, such as the monumental La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura.

La lontananza – the English translation is a Marxian mouthful, ‘The Nostalgic Utopian Future Distance’ – was written for Gidon Kremer. An hour long, it is scored for solo violin and a sound projectionist navigating eight channels of pre-recorded violin parts. The soloist walks around six music stands on the stage, enacting the music’s ‘wandering’. The projectionist fades the taped parts in and out, not always

necessarily with prior communication with the soloist. Speakers surround the audience, immersing them in sound. Each tape channel has a general character, from densely overlaid harmonic material to high melodic material and fast tremolos. In addition to the violin sounds, two of the channels feature ambient noise (doors opening), human voice (laughter and coughing) and other sonorities.

Marco Fusi and Pierluigi Billone’s new realisation distinguishes itself as perspicuous, spirited and faithful to Nono’s vision. Ahead of their realisation of this haunted quasi-madrigal, Fusi and Billone did exegetical work analysing Nono’s score and tape parts. Billone spectrally decomposed and catalogued the recordings and, through intensive listening, he and Fusi gradually developed their realisation. The first section is characterised by sforzando paroxysms and tenuto long notes. The second section introduces fragmented cantabile. The third section is more meditative.

The dryness and lack of variety can make it hard going at times. Whether or not La lontananza’s post-serialism appeals is something you will probably know in advance, though I will say it is worth taking a punt on regardless, and especially listening to it late at night. Liam Cagney

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Saint-SaënsViolin Sonata No 1, Op 75a. Cello Sonata No 1,Op 32b. Piano Trio No 2, Op 92c

acRenaud Capuçon vn bcEdgar Moreau vc

Bertrand Chamayou pf

Erato F 9029 51671-0 (76’ • DDD)

Bertrand Chamayou,whose performancesof Saint-Saëns’sSecond and Fifth

Piano Concertos with the French NationalOrchestra and Emmanuel Krivine wonGramophone’s Recording of the Year Awardin 2019, turns to the composer’s chambermusic for his latest album. He’s joined byRenaud Capuçon and Edgar Moreau fora sonata apiece, followed by the E minorPiano Trio, the disc’s high point, abeautifully proportioned, wonderfullyeven-handed performance, done withan understated virtuosity that allowsthe work’s emotional ambiguities tofully register.

Saint-Saëns’s piano-writing is nothingif not exacting here, but where someinterpreters can be overemphatic at thestart, Chamayou really does play theopening chords très légerement (thus thescore), giving the strings space to breatheand sing, before the movement reaches a

climax that seems immense without beingunduly weighty. The bittersweet mood ofthe inner movements is finely captured,with the 5/8 Allegretto broadening fromhesitancy to lyricism, the Andante con motoall wistful nostalgia and the lilting Graziosomore waltz than scherzo. The finale, fugaland anti-Romantic, can sometimes feel likea peremptory call to order after what hasgone before, though Chamayou, Capuçonand Moreau find wit and brilliance amidthe counterpoint. It’s a superbly engaging,at times challenging interpretation thatranks among the finest: whether you preferthe warmer lyricism of the Florestan Trioin this work (Hyperion, 5/06) or thealtogether darker tone of The Gould Trio(Champs Hill, 7/18) is ultimately a matterof taste.

The understated virtuosity thatcharacterises the Trio also extends toits companion pieces. With Chamayoumatching him phrase for phrase,Capuçon’s way with the D minorViolin Sonata is utterly compelling inits combination of lyricism, reined-in(if at times fierce) articulation, and drive,his dark sweetness of tone proving utterlybeguiling in the grand theme that formsthe opening movement’s secondsubject before returning at the climaxof the finale, which he plays with superbdexterity here.

I was fractionally less convinced, though, by Moreau in the C minor Cello Sonata. The issue, I suspect, is one of scale. Saint-Saëns’s earliest string sonata, it dates from 1872, and it needs, perhaps, the grander, more overtly dramatic approach of Mats Lidström and Bengt Forsberg (Hyperion, 5/00). In a beautifully written booklet note, Tully Potter outlines the difficult personal circumstances in which the work was composed and describes the cello-writing as ‘almost grumpy at times’. Moreau certainly sounds gruff in places, and the slow movement, with its chorale theme shuttled between the two players, is most beautifully done. But elsewhere we could do with more warmth in the cello tone, and a broader emotional palette in the lyrical passages that offset the disquiet. It remains an impressive disc, nevertheless, though one to which you might find yourself returning for the Piano Trio above all. Tim Ashley

Schumann . Shaw . Shostakovich ‘Babel’ Schumann String Quartet No 3, Op 41 No 3 Shaw Three Essays Shostakovich String Quartet No 9, Op 117 Calidore Quartet

Signum F SIGCD650 (72’ • DDD)

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Risk-taking virtuosity: Mark Simpson takes his place in a line-up of elite players for thrilling performances of Mozart and his own music – see review on page 46

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Robert Schumann,the American PulitzerPrize and GrammyAward-winner

Caroline Shaw and Shostakovich maynot seem obvious string quartet bedfellows,but the focus of the Calidore Quartet’sthought-provoking programme is ‘toexplore the innate human drive forcommunication’. In all three works there issome element of encoding or misdirectionof true feelings, whether in the doubt-ladenAdagio molto of Schumann’s otherwisesunlit Third Quartet, or Shostakovich’sNinth with its web of references to Jewishmusic, including klezmer, and – in thecentral Allegretto – Rossini.

Caroline Shaw’s Three Essays (2017-18)lie at the epicentre of the Calidore’s focuson communication; they were composedas a direct response to the unrest followingPresident Trump’s election in 2016, andthe use of language and social media to‘spread confusion and misinformation’.In the first, ‘Nimrod’ (no Elgarian nobilityhere), Shaw uses the example of the Towerof Babel’s legendary founder to weave acompelling fantasia on the fragmentationof language (whether spoken or musical),while the central ‘Echo’ toys with severalmanifestations of the name, from an echochamber to a programming language.Computing overshadows the final essay,too, since ‘Ruby’ is not just a gemstonebut an influential Japanese object-orientedprogramming language. Ironically, it is theleast effective part of the triptych.

The Calidore’s performances are assharp (I don’t mean their intonation!)as the intelligence of their concept.The Schumann is quite beautifullyrendered, and if not quite the equal ofthe Zehetmair’s or Doric’s accounts, fullof life yet exploratory in the Adagio molto.The quartet are fully equal to Shaw’s attimes dislocated textures, drawing thethreads together convincingly as thecomposer intended. They are alert toShostakovich’s inner intricacies, too, andif this is not the first-choice account (goto the Borodin or Emerson for that) itis still very competitive, and in the contextof the album, fascinating. Signum’s soundis beautifully clear and spacious.Guy Rickards

Schumann – selected comparisons:

Zehetmair Qt (6/03) (ECM) 472 169-2

Doric Qt (12/11) (CHAN) CHAN10692

Shostakovich – selected comparisons:

Borodin Qt (3/86R) (MELO) MELCD100 1077

Emerson Qt (6/00R) (DG) 475 7407DC5

SimakuString Quartetsa – No 4; No 5. Catena Ib.con-ri-sonanzac. Hommage à Kurtágb.L’image oubliée d’après Debussyb

bcJoseph Houston pf acDiotima Quartet

BIS F Í BIS2449 (81’ • DDD/DSD)

The music ofAlbanian-born,York-basedcomposer Thomas

Simaku (b1958) is something of a well-kept secret, though two discs of hischamber and instrumental works onNaxos have helped spread awarenessof an idiom modernist in approach ifby no means hermetic in spirit.

The two most recent of his stringquartets are cases in point. The Fourth(2011) falls into four movements, thesecond and third each followed byinterludes and playing continuously suchthat the outer movements stand apart –the first initiating a play of ideas whichthe finale steers over its eventful courseto an almost intangible resolution. TheFifth Quartet (2015) focuses on duality:two contrasted movements, the secondin two parts (separately tracked) of whichthe latter effects a synthesis the moretelling for its being the realisation ofa ‘2+2=5’ conceit.

Simaku’s piano pieces are equallyintriguing. L’image oubliée d’aprèsDebussy takes its cue from the first ofthe composer’s posthumous set,drawing on its melodic and rhythmiccontent for a fantasia fluid in form andtexture, while Hommage à Kurtág takesthose ‘musical’ letters of the composer’sname as sonic pillars that support theensuing incident before bringing itssudden cessation. Catena I (2019)favours rather a chain-like evolution,its central movements playing withabandon on those gestures the first hadbrought haltingly into focus and thefifth will disintegrate in heady fashion.Piano and quartet combine in the title-piece, con-ri-sonanza (2018) beinga memorial to music publisher BillColleran – a chordal motto derivedfrom his name sustained throughoutthe resultant activity in a subtleaffirmation of ‘unity in diversity’.

The playing is as assured asexpected from such artists as QuatuorDiotima and Joseph Houston, andthose who doubted the continuedviability of a modernist aestheticmay well be surprised.Richard Whitehouse

StanfordString Quintets – No 1, Op 85; No 2, Op 86.Three IntermezziaBenjamin Frith pf Members of

the Dante and Endellion Quartets

Somm F SOMMCD0623 (67’ • DDD)

If I might indulge myself for a moment, I remember the first time I encountered

Stanford’s First String Quintet – by playing it with friends. Two decades ago, there was no other way to hear it: so it’s worth reiterating just what a debt of gratitude lovers of British music owe to Somm and the Dante Quartet for their commitment to Stanford’s chamber music. Listening to this vibrant new recording, what struck me was exactly what struck me as a player: the freshness, the spontaneity, the instinctive ‘rightness’ of Stanford’s writing for strings. This might be the most satisfying body of work in this genre by any British composer before Frank Bridge.

The spirit of Brahms is never far from either the First Quintet or the C minor Second – recorded here for the first time, in an edition prepared by Jeremy Dibble, whose authoritative booklet essays have been one of the glories of this series. That’s unsurprising, given that both works were intended for Joseph Joachim. But Stanford brings something else to the table – a clarity, a virtuosity and a brilliant but essentially lyrical spirit that owes something to Mendelssohn, as well as his own Irish roots.

So there’s an operatic sense of drama in the finale of the First Quintet, and a sweeping, almost symphonic emotional range in the Second. If the combined Dante and Endellion players don’t quite convince as a unit in the First Quintet, leader Krysia Osostowicz is frequently thrilling, and by the Second, with its deep, melancholy nocturne of an Andante, they’re wholly inside this sincere and strikingly passionate score. Cellist Richard Jenkinson and pianist Benjamin Frith play the Schumannesque Three Intermezzi with unaffected warmth; a lovely bonus on a highly rewarding album. Richard Bratby

‘Dear Mademoiselle’ ‘A Tribute to Nadia Boulanger’ N Boulanger Three Piecesa Carter Cello Sonata Glass Tissue No 7 Q Jones Soul Bossa Nova Legrand Medley Piazzolla Le Grand Tango Stravinsky Suite italienne (arr Piatigorsky) Astrig Siranossian vc Nathanaël Gouin, aDaniel Barenboim pf

Alpha F ALPHA635 (72’ • DDD)

CHAMBER REVIEWS


Nadia Boulanger(1887-1979) taughtso many composersand musicians that

a list of her pupils reads like a who’s whoof 20th-century music – and her influencespread well beyond the classical realm.Astrig Siranossian and Nathanaël Gouinbegin their tribute to Boulanger with athrillingly passionate performance ofPiazzolla’s Le Grand Tango (composed forRostropovich). From the taut, syncopatedrhythms of the opening section, themusicians gradually ratchet up theemotional temperature. Gouin isparticularly impressive in the finalminutes, playing with such abandon thatit sometimes seems he’s improvising thepiano part (listen starting around 8'57").

In parts of Stravinsky’s Suite italienne,I’m fairly certain I hear the musiciansgiving an aristocratic nod to Boulanger’sown expressively restrained interpretativestyle. Note, for instance, how suavely

Siranossian rounds off the sharp edgesof the Introduzione, or to the delicacyand dry humour both musicians bringto the Aria. More to the point, perhaps,Siranossian and Daniel Barenboim (aBoulanger pupil) convinced me that thecharms of three youthful compositionsby the Mademoiselle herself are not asslender as they might appear. Indeed,with their evocation of Fauré’s latechamber works, the first two piecesconvey a wealth of feeling withastonishing succinctness.

The prize here, in many respects, isElliott Carter’s 1948 Cello Sonata. Onfirst hearing, I missed the boldness JoelKrosnick and Gilbert Kalish (Arabesque)bring to this craggy score, a keytransitional work in Carter’s output,and one in which myriad influences(Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Copland andIves) have not quite gelled. (I’d argue thatthis stylistic battle is part of what makesthe Sonata so exhilarating.) Yet themore I listened the more I appreciatedSiranossian and Gouin’s lighter touch.Instead of pummelling, they make the

music dance, and somehow manage to maintain an unbroken line through each movement, even in the daunting rhythmic and metric complexities of the finale.

There are three brief encores, all arranged by the performers. The Glass is straightforward (and typical of the composer in a lyrical vein), but the tuneful Legrand medley is as elaborate and flashy as a Liszt paraphrase, while the Quincy Jones transcription retains both the playfulness and dynamism of the big-band original.

All in all, then, a terrifically satisfying recital, and a fitting tribute to a formidable musical icon. Andrew Farach-Colton

CHAMBER REVIEWS

The cellist Astrig Siranossian and pianist Nathanaël Gouin oer a varied and fitting tribute to Nadia Boulanger

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A lfred Brendel celebrated his 90th birthday on January 5 and for me his icon status goes back to my childhood. Among my parents’ sparse record

collection was a Turnabout recording of Mozart concertos – K453 in G being my preferred side over K459 in F. I suspect I was as enchanted by the LP’s cover of an elegant woman seated at a keyboard wearing the most fabulously flowery hat as I was by the performance itself, in which Brendel was partnered by the Orchestra of the Vienna Volksoper and Paul Angerer. Nevertheless, it played an important part in my own short-lived dreams of being a pianist, as K453 was the first concerto I ever played in public. I digress …

Brendel’s journey from small-town Czechoslovakia to globetrotting pianist had more than a few twists and turns. For starters, his family was not musical nor particularly ambitious, and he recalls, ‘Before my 15th year I had not witnessed a symphonic concert, a piano recital or the performance of an opera.’

He had just two teachers, studying from the age of six with Sofija Deelic in Zagreb, and then in his early teens at the Graz Conservatory with Ludovika von Kaan, who had studied with Liszt pupil Bernhard Stavenhagen. This all ended around 16, apart from the occasionalmasterclass – most notably with Edwin Fischer, who remained a major influence. But even by this point Brendel’s character and interests (which included composition and painting as well as the piano) seem to have been pretty fully developed. That sense of his being an autodidact has allowed him a freedom of thinking in terms of his own approach to music-making, listening not only to other pianists (as well as his own recordings) but also to singersand conductors.

Recording has formed a major strand of Brendel’s music-making ever since the earliest days, when he found himself, aged 19, learning Prokofiev’s Fifth Concerto

Alfred Brendel In celebration of the great Austrian pianist and autodidactic Renaissance man’s 90th birthday, Harriet Smith takes a look at his fascinating, multifaceted career

in a matter of weeks. The American record label Vox was quick on the uptake and he spent around a decade recording all sorts of repertoire, but key among them was music by Liszt, whose reputation at that time was in the doldrums, Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto with Michael Gielen (which was written just 15 years previously and which he recorded twice more), and also the first ever (nearly complete) cycle of Beethoven solo piano works, including the Diabelli Variations, which at that point he had yet to

perform in a concert hall. However, the real turning

point came when Brendel gave a recital in London and found several record companies clamouring for his attention. He signed to

Philips, where he remained for the rest of his career. Perhaps it was a case of right time, right place, for it’s difficult to imagine an artist these days being given the wherewithal to re-record substantial amounts of key repertoire on the same label – with two cycles of Beethoven sonatas and three of the concertos (with Bernard Haitink, James Levine and Sir Simon Rattle), a complete set of Mozart concertos with Sir Neville Marriner and eight more with Sir Charles Mackerras, two accounts of the Liszt Sonata in B minor, the Brahms concertos and Schubert’s later sonatas. And that’s to exclude his live

recordings, which offer a veritable treasure trove.

Perhaps just as important as Brendel’s advocacy of Liszt is his relationship with Haydn, to whose music, with its ability to be deadly serious one moment and uproarious the next, he’s perfectly suited. It’s only a pity that he has recorded just 11 of the sonatas, though they were issued as a set that also includes the delectable F minor Andante and Variations, a work he featured in his final recital and which can be heard on the touching album ‘Alfred Brendel: The Farewell Concerts’.

Humour is a byword when talking about Brendel, who has described laughter as his favourite activity. He has

There’s a sense of absolute engagement in his performances, which continued to grow and deepen with the passing years

defining moments•1948 – Recital debut aged 17 In Graz, recital entitled the Fugue in Piano Literature •1951 – First recordingProkofiev’s Fifth Piano Concerto – learnt in under a month•1969 – Signs with major record label Exclusive contract with Philips, with whom he remains for the rest of his career•1976 – Publishes first book Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts – collection of writings on music•1978 – Wins first Gramophone AwardFor a disc featuring Liszt’s Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen Variations•1982–3 – Tours Beethoven complete piano sonatasGives 77 recitals in 11 cities around Europe and US; becomes first pianist since Artur Schnabel to play complete cycle at Carnegie Hall •1998 – Poetry published in English Publication of the English translation (from German) of his first volume of absurdist poetry, One Finger Too Many •2008 – A fond farewellDecember 18: farewell recital at the Musikverein, Vienna


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written extensively on the subject, too, playfully posing the question, ‘Must Classical Music Be Entirely Serious?’ And this translates also to the concert hall, whether visually – his face contorted in an expression of concentration one moment, only to be followed by a look of sheer mischief the next – or in his own interpretations of Beethoven’s more rumbustious sonata movements or the Diabelli Variations themselves. But alongside that humour, a Brendel performance is characterised by a sense of absolute engagement with whatever he’s playing. He is also fierce in his belief that the music rather than the performer should dictate the interpretation, and that’s why his performances continued to grow and deepen with the passing years. Some complain that his tone can be unbeautiful, or that he’s overly intellectual. But surely if his pianism wasmerely dry and didactic then his career would have not blossomed in the way it has done; nor would his records sell. And to complain that his range of colourand tone lack a sweetness is surely to miss this point, for he’s not playing salon music; in any case, it’s the power ofhis interpretation that unfailingly drawsyou in – just sample the slow movementof his Beethoven Fifth Piano Concerto with Rattle, moving in its profundity.

Brendel the musician is only part of this story. Just as important is his engagement with other art forms – he has long collected artworks and adored theatre. And then there’s the written word. He has been writing about music for decades (his first published collection, Musical Thoughts and Afterthoughts, came out in 1976, the most recent, The Lady from Arezzo: My Musical Life and Other Matters, in 2019), but his two volumes of absurdist poems (which thanks to the help of translator Richard Stokes read as brilliantly in English as they do in the original German) came as a wonderful surprise. Brendel the pianist may have retired but it’s still possible to see him giving poetry readings and masterclasses around the world. Do not miss the opportunity!

the essential recordingHaydn 11 Piano Sonatas. Andante and Variations in F minor etcDecca (3/87) Not for nothing did this win a Gramophone Award in 1987. To quote Stephen Plaistow: ‘Alone among the best players of the day he has been giving steady attention to Haydn, and his achievement makes you realize that it takes an exceptional artist to do justice to the sophistication, the wit, the richness of expression and the variety of this important music’ (10/87). You can’t say fairer than that!


David Fanning listens to suppleProkofiev from Nicholas Angelich:

Charlotte Gardner is enchantedby the varied riches of ‘Cello 360’:

JS BachDas wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 2 – selectionsPiotr Anderszewski pf


Piotr Anderszewskihere poses a mostintriguing question:what happens when

you take a group of 12 Preludes andFugues from Book 2 of the ‘48’ andintermingle them? To my knowledge ithasn’t been done before (I’m excludingrecitals that include only one or two) andthe result – as you might imagine with anartist of this calibre – is less of a box ofQuality Street to be consumed slumpedon the sofa and more of an invitation toa cocktail party of great sophistication.Anderszewski says in the note that heperceives them as character pieces andindeed the result has the feeling of aBaroque Carnaval.

He has wisely kept the preludes andfugues in pairs, and bookends his recitalwith the fi rst and last of the set. As everwith Anderszewski, there are interpretativesurprises along the way, but the sequenceis both natural-sounding and innatelyrefreshing, as he takes the listener ona journey freed from the weight ofexpectation that is inevitable whenthe Book is heard complete. Has theF minor Prelude ever sounded more ofa sheerly intimate conversation betweenthe hands than it does following theC major Fugue? In the F minor Fuguehe approaches its inherent gnarlinesswith a pleasing suppleness.

Highlights are many. The gently fallinglines of the B flat minor Prelude caressthe ear, while the severity of the Fugue’ssubject is ameliorated with a softness oftone quite different from Hewitt’s moreacerbic reading. The sense of playfulnessthat he brings to the E flat major Preludeadds a touch of sunlight, followed by itsaffi rmative Fugue (whose personalitybelies its brief duration) which is all

the more striking when followed bythe dramatic G minor Prelude – aFrench ouverture in all but name – inwhich he lays bare its grandeur andresists the temptation to adorn it withsurplus ornamentation.

There are some points in theprogramme where Anderszewskireally takes his time. The D sharp minorFugue becomes a thing of real majestyas it slowly unfolds; but it’s the G sharpminor Fugue that’s really going to divideopinion – Edwin Fischer’s is stately, at acomfortable walking pace, while AngelaHewitt turns it into a lolloping dance,whereas Anderszewski, taking morethan twice as long as Hewitt, rendersit daringly slow. And yet he holds theattention, partly through his long-breathed phrases, partly through sheerdetail, with many shades of piano andpianissimo. This Prelude and Fugue alsoserves as an up-beat to the last two ofthe set, which alone are left in their usualorder. After the seriousness, the dancing,bubbling qualities of the Prelude inB major are truly refreshing, followed bya Fugue of calm certainty. Anderszewski’sB minor Prelude is full of tenderness,much of it very quiet, the closing phrasesmoulded with just the right hint ofrubato, while the Fugue has an irresistiblepositivity to it that reminds us that, evenin a minor key, Bach can strike joy. Andso does Anderszewski, in a recital that isas compelling as it is beautifully recorded.Harriet Smith

Selected comparisons:

Hewitt (9/99) (HYPE) CDA67303/4

E Fischer (EMI/WARN) 623074-2

Barber . Copland . Dvořák‘From the New World’Barber Adagio (arr Strickland) CoplandPassacaglia (arr Fesperman) Dvořák Carnival,Op 92 B169 (arr Lemare). Symphony No 9, ‘Fromthe New World’, Op 95 B178 (arr Szathmáry)Hansjörg Albrecht org

Oehms F OC475 (76’ • DDD)

Played on the organ of St Michael’s Church,

Hamburg

The argument behind Hansjörg Albrecht’s latest release of transcriptions of

famous orchestral works, which he dedicates to the memory of Leopold Stokowski, is the recording location: Hamburg. The suggestion, made in his own loquacious booklet note, is that, since so many Europeans embarked on the journey to the New World from Hamburg, some, at least, might have visited one of the city’s churches and heard the organ being played. Not that any of them could have heard this mighty 2009 monster, an amalgam of two organs, one dating from 1962, the other 1914 (and in fact Dvo∑ák set sail for the New World from Bremen rather than Hamburg), but it certainly packs the kind of hefty, bone-shaking punch that calls to mind a mid-Atlantic storm.

Pride of place here are the two arguably greatest works written by a European on American soil and an American on European soil. However, these are preceded by two remarkable transcriptions. First comes a boisterous version of Dvo∑ák’s Carnival overture, made by another European emigrant to America, Edwin Lemare, which shows off Albrecht’s virtuosity. Then comes John Fesperman’s transcription of Copland’s Passacaglia, which gives us a fabulous Cook’s tour of many of the organ’s weirder and more wonderful sounds.

Barber’s Adagio for Strings works very well in this transcription by William Strickland; and while the bulk of the sound is, naturally enough, created by the string tone, Albrecht’s judicious employment of fl utes gives it a comfortable, idiomatic feel. My only reservation is the bulky pedal stop which anchors it rather too solidly.

The transcription of Dvo∑ák’s Ninth Symphony is by Zsigmond Szathmáry, and makes considerable demands on both the organ and the player. The generous

‘In the Visions fugitives his rubato is subtle andappropriate to the atmosphere, especially themoments of wistful lyricism’ REVIEW ON PAGE 57

‘Dido’s Lament is followed by Ligeti’s SoloCello Sonata, whose opening has a similarlysombre, early-music flavour’ REVIEW ON PAGE 60

Instrumental


acoustic of St Michael’s Church, Hamburg,possibly covers a multitude of sins, andperhaps some intricate detail gets lostin this highly atmospheric recording,but Albrecht has a powerful vision forthe work and is superb in recreating whatare distinctly orchestral textures. He isparticularly impressive in conveying thedancelike vigour of the final movement.Above all, he moves across the mind-boggling specification of this organ (by myreckoning, there are some 150 stops to playwith) with the fluidity of the River Elbe.Marc Rochester

Beethoven‘Appassionata – Piano Sonatas, Vol 8’Piano Sonatas – No 23, ‘Appassionata’, Op 57;No 26, ‘Les adieux’, Op 81a; No 28, Op 101Martin Roscoe pf

Deux-Elles F DXL1168 (61’ • DDD)

With Vol 8, MartinRoscoe comes withinspitting distance ofcompleting his

Beethoven sonata cycle; the ninth andfinal instalment will presumably appear

after the composer’s 250th-anniversaryfestivities die down. However, there’splenty to celebrate here. I once likenedRoscoe’s poised and scrupulous Beethoven-playing to that of Walter Gieseking andSolomon, yet the coiled intensity of hisAppassionata suggests another iconicBeethovenian: Rudolf Serkin. Note, forexample, the outer movements’ relentlessdrive, rhythmic exactitude and sheernervous energy, while the central variationsfluidly unfold by way of tightly unified yetnever rigid tempo relationships.

Conversely, Roscoe takes more leewayover the Les adieux Sonata’s first-movementintroduction and employs liberal rhetoricaldevices elsewhere including cadentialritards and emphatic accents. The onlytime the momentum sags is in the finale,where some of the rapid passageworkgrows heavier and less supple as itprogresses, in contrast to, say, StewartGoodyear’s consistently lithe and buoyantreading (Marquis).

Roscoe balances Op 101’s firstmovement’s lines with steady deliberation,as if his fingers were members of a stringquartet. Perhaps the hair-trigger accuracyof Roscoe’s dotted rhythms in the Marchsuggests more of Pollini’s purposeful

bleakness than Igor Levit’s playful audacity.The same observation applies to the fugalfinale. One can’t deny Roscoe’s evenlymatched trills and painstaking voice-leading, not to mention the cumulativegrip of his intelligently judged dynamics,resulting in powerful climaxes. To be sure,Levit’s faster and lighter approach revealsmore of the music’s joy and exhilaration,and so do the Op 101 recordings byMurray Perahia (Sony, 1/05) and RichardGoode (Nonesuch, 9/89, 3/94).

Still and all, Roscoe’s strong musicalmind often puts a fresh spin on this thrice-familiar repertoire and bodes well forVol 9’s projected centrepiece, theHammerklavier Sonata. Jed Distler

HandelSuites – HWV426; HWV427; HWV428;HWV429. Fugue, HWV610Pierre Hantaï hpd

Mirare F MIR480 (67’ • DDD)

The booklet note for this release points out some interesting

INSTRUMENTAL REVIEWS

Poetic clarity: Michele Campanella returns to Liszt, the composer he is most associated with, for a set of the complete Années de pèlerinage – see review on page 57

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BROWSE OUR RICH DIGITAL CONCERT ARCHIVE:

Giuseppe Verdi Requiem with Edward Gardner and Lise DavidsenBela Bartók Bluebeard’s Castle with Michelle DeYoung and John RelyeaHector Berlioz: Grand messe des MortsJohannes Brahms German Requiem with Camilla Tilling and Florian Bosch

Leos Janácek Glagolitic MassIgor Stravinsky The Rite of SpringMax Bruch Violin Concerto with Johan DaleneEric Whitacre Deep FieldEdvard Grieg Peer GyntArnold Schoenberg Gurre-Lieder

bergenphilive.no Our Bergenphilive app can be downloaded for free from App Store or Google Play.

BERGENPH I LHARMON ICORCHESTRA

Bergenphiliveenjoy our concerts for free, when you want and wherever you are. On the web or through our app.

Bergen Philharmonic OrchestraEdward Gardner Chief Conductor


things about the trajectory of Handel’s ‘Eight Great’ harpsichord suites from the time they were first published in 1720 up to the present day. First, that they were easily among the most admired harpsichord pieces of their time, throughout Europe; second, that they subsequently fell from favour as a result of a widespread feeling that they were not as worthy of attention as Bach’s; and third, that Pierre Hantaï was himself of that minduntil he met Sviatoslav Richter, who, wheninformed that he was a harpsichordist, asked him ‘do you play Handel?’, thereby prompting a rethink.

So thank you, Sviatoslav Teofilovich, for leading one of the very finest harpsichordists of our day to take up the challenge of bringing to life four of these suites, which depend more than most on a performer’s ability to identify the music’s bigness of character and use total mastery of the instrument to bring it out. For make no mistake, Hantaï does this. His performances are clean-cut and thought-out, full of pert little trills and mordents, tasteful rhythmic dislocations and a variety of spread-chord formulations. They are wonderfully effective in the quieter, slower movements, where his instrument sings sweetly, but the range of shrewdly used harpsichord techniques extends into the more extrovert movements too, this time to conjure energy, momentum, rhythmic excitement and sonic weight. The variations in the D minor Suite (HWV428) are, as you might expect, a fitting showpiece of Hantaï’s controlled virtuosity, but the way he can subtly articulate a vigorous fugue such as that of the F major Suite (HWV427) to give it shape and incident, or stir your blood with the sturdy dance swagger of the E minor Gigue (HWV429), is reminiscent of (and perhaps even more accomplished than) Scott Ross at his best.

Last, but not least, there is his busy and brilliant range of ornamentations, which can swell the sound, emphasise an individual moment or transform disjointed harpsichord notes into violin-like swirls and flourishes. You can be sure these last are his own, because nobody could ever write them down. And for the music of the great spur-of-the-moment artist that was Handel, what could be more perfect? Lindsay Kemp

Liszt Années de pèlerinage Michele Campanella pf

Odradek M c ODRCD391 (154’ • DDD)

Throughout his career, Michele Campanella, the Neapolitan pianist

now in his 74th year, has been identified with the music of Liszt. In the early 1970s he recorded a set of Hungarian Rhapsodies (reissued by Philips, 8/93), and the Hungarian Fantasy and Totentanz with the Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra under Aldo Ceccato (5/72). More recently, Campanellahas been one of the growing number of pianists to record Liszt on 19th-century instruments. For a 2011 recording of late works, he used an 1860 Bechstein (BrilliantClassics). A programme of the Wagner transcriptions was recorded at the Villa Wahnfried in 2012 on Wagner’s own 1876Steinway. For his first recording of the Années de pèlerinage, Campanella has chosenan 1892 Steinway from the collection of Roberto Valli.

The gem of this three-disc set is the second Année. Campanella’s straightforward approach to ‘Sposalizio’, Liszt’s evocation of Rafael, strikes just the right balance between devotion and poetry.‘Il penseroso’ speaks with simple directness,with strong harmonic direction shaping its dark atmosphere. Campanella’s little Salvator Rosa song is less spirited than most, though its relatively relaxed tempo is nonetheless effective. The three PetrarchSonnets are vividly individual and so rhetorically apt that one can easily imagine them sung. In ‘Pace non trovo’ Campanellaeschews melodrama in favour of a spacious metric stability, lending an air of grandeur,and it’s difficult to think of a more touchingly intimate reading of ‘I’ vidi in terra angelici costumi’. The same sure tread Campanella exhibits in the Sonnets serves him well in the greater complexities of the ‘Dante Sonata’. Unrushed and far from histrionic, the performance radiates clarity, abetted by the quicker decay of the 1892 Steinway. If there are moments when one might wish for greater elasticity of phrase or a more passionate forward impetus, in its own Apollonian terms this isa beautifully realised conception. What a pity that Campanella, himself a Neapolitan,chose not to record the supplement to the second Année which Liszt published three years later, Venezia e Napoli.

Unfortunately, Campanella’s Swiss Year is less assured. Following a stolidly stentorian ‘Chapelle de Guillaume Tell’, the placid ‘Au lac de Wallenstadt’ seems oddly moribund, the freshness of its melody and open harmonies collapsing

under a lethargic tempo. The gentle rocking rhythm of ‘Pastorale’ is more plausible, though its deliciously quirky contrasting section comes across as anaemic. The metronomic pulse that pervades ‘Au bord d’une source’ leaves the impression of a whirligig rather than a bubbling Alpine spring. Campanella’s judicious pedalling works well with the instrument’s less than booming bass in providing a corrective to the sonic onslaught that is so often ‘Orage’. Strangely, however, shortly before the end of the piece, Campanella expands Liszt’s four-bar rallentando to 14 bars. Did this furious Alpine storm suddenly make a quick rest stop before roaring back and dumping tons of snow over everything in sight? On the other hand, ‘Vallée d’Obermann’, save for a few moments when momentum threatens to stall completely, is noble in concept and execution. Overly cautious tempos, vague articulation and lacklustre sound rob ‘Eglogue’ of its playfulness and ‘Le mal du pays’ of its pathos. Things rally in an atmospheric ‘Les cloches de Genève’, pulling together some if not all of the purposeful loose ends that have preceded it.

If the first Année is ‘about’ nature and the second ‘about’ art, the third Année, published a quarter of a century after its predecessor, could be described as ‘monuments’. Though it presents fewer purely technical challenges than the first two Années, its musical and conceptual challenges are nonetheless formidable. Apart from a seasoned and persuasive ‘Les jeux d’eaux’, the rest of the cycle seems lacking in focus and empathy. Some see Liszt’s late works as defoliation; others argue that they represent a distillation of essences. It’s unclear where Campanella stands.

When Lazar Berman’s 1977 Années de pèlerinage appeared (DG, 12/77, 11/93), they created a sensation. It may be Alfred Brendel who has, through performances as well as various audio and video recordings, wielded greatest influence over perceptions of Liszt’s masterpiece. Of the recordings that appeared during the 2011 bicentennial, those of Bertrand Chamayou (Naïve, 3/12) and Louis Lortie (Chandos, 6/11) are standouts. Against these, and despite the fine qualities of his Deuxième année, Campanella faces some heavy headwinds. Patrick Rucker

Prokofiev Piano Sonata No 8, Op 84. Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, Op 75. Visions fugitives, Op 22 Nicholas Angelich pf



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Erato’s booklet essay quotes Poulenc’s admiring description of Prokofiev at the

piano, which notes that ‘the tempo never, never varied’. This is unfortunate: partly because it is not true of the few recordings we have of Prokofiev in his own music (though it may have been so of the specific pieces Poulenc heard), and partly because Nicholas Angelich’s tempos are notable for their flexibility.

In the Visions fugitives this is almost entirely for the good, because his rubato is both subtle and appropriate to the atmosphere, especially the moments of wistful lyricism (a mood Prokofiev was more than familiar with via his lifelong friend, Myaskovsky). If there are any question marks to be entered, these would be – somewhat unexpectedly – over Angelich’s measured approach to pieces such as No 18, whose inquieto marking usually elicits more headlong recklessness. Yet even in such instances, there is much to welcome in his thoughtful,personalised response.

The four pieces from Romeo and Juliet are also studded with treasurable moments. I cannot ever recall a more finely graded or more touching withdrawalat the end of ‘Romeo and Juliet before Parting’, for instance. Yet there is also a disturbingly high quota of self-conscious intervention, which serves to draw attention to the pianist and away from the musical flow.

And so it proves, sadly, with the Sonata. Despite a nicely dreamy middle movement and some gold-medal gymnastics in the treacherous outer-movement codas, there istoo much expressive point-making for this to place alongside either an all-time classic such as Richter or his modern near-rival Yuja Wang. Had the opening movement been headed esitando, there would be reason to pause and reflect, perhaps even to admire.But at nearly 18 minutes overall – two minutes slower than Richter and fully four minutes behind Wang – Angelich sacrifices the drama of Prokofiev’s single most epic pianistic conception. Nor, curiously, is he inclined to insist on and properly hammer home the climactic phrases. Fine pianism and recording quality are considerable compensations, but not enough for me to want to place this disc in the top bracket. David Fanning

Piano Sonata No 8 – selected comparisons:

Richter (4/97) (DG) 449 744-2GOR

Wang (12/18) (DG) 483 6280GH2

Reicha ‘Reicha Rediscovered, Vol 3’ L’art de varier, Op 57 Ivan Ilić pf

Chandos F CHAN20195 (87’ • DDD)

Whether or not Antoine Reicha’s all-but-unknown L’art de varier, Op 57

(composed between 1802 and 1803) represents the proverbial missing link between Bach’s Goldberg and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, it’s certainly the largestvariation set to have appeared between those iconic sets. As is usually the case with Reicha, his piano-writing abounds with originality and quirkiness. The theme itself foreshadows the kind of plaintive, yearning lyricism one finds in Schumann.

Right away Reicha displays his penchant for oddball harmonic gestures in Var 2. The minor-key Var 4’s broken octaves require sturdy fingers and sheer stamina. The start-and-stop nature of Var 5’s dotted rhythms make it difficult to ascertain the pulse by ear. Var 6’s perpetualmotion patterns and restless chromatic writing again foreshadow Schumann, whileVar 17’s right-hand ‘power’ chords over a left-hand ostinato pedal point presage Elton John and Billy Joel! Var 31 might be described as a funeral march with too manyinterruptions, while Var 52 is a deliciously tongue-in-cheek gavotte. Var 45’s elaborateregistral interplay is positively Brahmsian, except for the fact that Brahms wouldn’t be born for another 30 years. As for the terse and abrupt minor-key Var 57, has there ever been a more anticlimatic ending ever composed?

In other words, don’t expect an architectural monument in the manner of Bach and Beethoven. You won’t find the Goldbergs’ numerological rigour, large-scale dramatic trajectory or cumulative sweep. Reicha instead treats variation formmuch in the way a caterer lays out a big buffet table, where choices and possibilitiestake priority over order and sequence. Furthermore, Reicha provides few dynamicand expressive directives, and usually leavestempo decisions to the performer. As a consequence, momentum materialises in fits and starts, and the music winds up persistently grabbing your attention yet never really holding on to it.

These factors may explain why L’art de varier has never found favour in the concert hall, not to mention its great length; indeed, the present recording comes in at nearly 87 minutes, generously

packed on to a single CD. However, IvanIlic makes a more compelling case for thework than Mauro Masala did in his 2001premiere recording issued by Dynamic.Ilic not only observes every repeat butalso varies his touch, voicings and phrasingson the second passes. He keeps thecontrapuntal repartee between the handsconsistently vibrant and alive, as in Var 18’spinpoint entrances. The pianist taps intothe humorous potential behind Var 25’swide dynamic contrasts, Var 27’s sardonicmusic-box evocations and Var 42’s fleetingmoods. What is more, the engineer’ssuperb concert-hall realism helps enhancethe fresh characterisations and imaginativeuse of tone colour that Ilic consistentlybrings to this fascinating opus. Thebooklet notes prove just as insightfuland entertaining as Ilic’s overall artistry.A major contribution to the catalogue.Jed Distler

‘Casta diva’Busoni Turandots Frauengemach, S249 No 7Chopin Hexaméron – Var 6 Liszt Guillaume Tell(Rossini) – Overture, S552. Réminiscences deLucia di Lammermoor, S397. Réminiscences deNorma, S394. Rigoletto Paraphrase, S434Puccini La bohème (arr Carignani) – Che gelidamanina; Quando m’en vo’. Madama Butterfly –Sailors’ Chorus (transcr Wittgenstein) RossiniIl barbiere di Siviglia – Largo al factotum (transcrGinzburg) Thalberg L’art du chant appliqué aupiano, Op 70 – No 1, Quatuor de l’opéra‘I puritani’; No 119, Casta diva de l’opéra ‘Norma’Vanessa Benelli Mosell pf

Decca F 485 5290 (67’ • DDD)

Looking back through the Gramophone archive, I see that this gifted

Italian pianist (b1987) has been appearing on and off in these pages for the past decade. She has ranged far and wide on disc, from Haydn and Rachmaninov to Stockhausen (whose music she studied with him) and the contemporary French composer Karol Beffa. Somehow, she has thus far escaped my attention.

My impression after a first hearing was rather like a Chinese meal: well prepared, delicious and filling – yet half an hour later you’re hungry again. I was less inclined to carp after a second hearing. It is, after all, a cannily chosen, well-balanced selection (recorded mid-pandemic, incidentally, in Prato, Tuscany). Mosell is blessed with a fantastic mechanical fluency – most pianists would give their eye teeth for fingers like hers – and tonally alluring in the less



virtuoso numbers such as Thalberg’stranscription of ‘Casta diva’ (the secondtime this has come my way recently) and –a first for me – in Paul Wittgenstein’sdainty arrangement for left hand alone ofthe Sailors’ Chorus from Madama Butterfly.

Anyone coming to these transcriptionsfor the first time could not help but beimpressed. And rightly so. It is when youcompare these performances with certainothers that you realise how much morethere is to be had musically. Take eitherof Marc-André Hamelin’s recordings ofthe Réminiscences de Norma (Music & Arts,1992; Hyperion, 10/20), with their super-refined passagework and variety of touchand tone, performances that have youon the edge of your seat and come toconclusions that send shivers up thespine. The keyboard simply roars. Thenthere’s Jorge Bolet in the mighty Lucia diLammermoor transcription (Marston, 7/15),bringing a depth and majesty that so farelude the talented Mosell. And she comesoff a spirited but definite second best toJean-Yves Thibaudet in the RigolettoParaphrase (Decca, 2/94), whose jeu perléruns above the main theme are staggeringlyaccomplished before dispatching the finalblaze of octaves with thrilling drama.Jeremy Nicholas

‘Cello 360’Casals El cant dels ocells Chaplin ModernTimes – Smile Dowland Lachrimae antiquaeDutilleux Trois Strophes sur le nom de SacherEscaich Cantus I Grieg Peer Gynt – Solveig’sSong La Marca/Rayann/Seigner TimelessLennon/McCartney Yesterday Ligeti Solo CelloSonata Marais Les folies d’Espagne. Les voixhumaines Purcell Dido and Aeneas – Dido’sLament Rameau Les sauvages Sainte-ColombeSuite No 4 – Prelude Sollima LamentatioTelemann Sonata, TWV40:1 – Allegro vivaceChristian-Pierre La Marca vc

Naïve F V7260 (77’ • DDD)

Whoever cameup with ‘Cello 360’as the title forChristian-Pierre

La Marca’s first album for Naïve deservesa pay rise. It’s hard to think of a moreperfect encapsulation of what he’spresented: a programme whose startingpoint was the early and modern repertoirefor solo cello and gamba, which thenexpanded to encompass multi-voice violconsort and vocal music whose partsLa Marca recorded himself over multipletakes, plus representations from the worldsof pop and film music. In short, multi-

genre, multi-century, multi-texture,showcasing both cello and cellist froma multitude of angles.

It’s interesting repertoire, too. TakeMarin Marais’s Les voix humaines for violada gamba and continuo, heard here on thecello for the first time. Or the premiererecording of Thierry Escaich’s Cantus I(2005) for solo cello. Also the electro-genreTimeless, a Covid lockdown work La Marcacreated with his partners from the 1163collective, Marie-Amélie Seigner andRayann. There’s even the odd beautifulsurprise, because while Dido’s Lamentremains multi-voiced and withoutsignificant stylistic divergence from theoriginal, Solveig’s Song from Peer Gynthas been transformed into a captivatinglyintimate solo cello number.

La Marca himself is unfailingly lyrical,stylish and thought through, whethergiving his romantic colours full reinthrough the long lines, portamentos andvibrato of Chaplin’s ‘Smile’ or boundingsmartly between the various high-speedpizzicato and bowing techniques requiredby Sollima’s Lamentatio (for which he alsoputs in an impressive vocal performance),or switching to Baroque bow and periodtuning for the Courante from Telemann’sViola da gamba Sonata TWV40:1.I especially love the occasional littleembellishments he’s brought to the melodyof Lennon/McCartney’s ‘Yesterday’,perhaps harking back to what a Baroqueplayer might have done with its simplicity.

Still, the album’s most striking aspect isactually its overall presentation. First, theordering, because it’s not chronologicalbut instead based on ‘mirroring’. TakeDido’s Lament being followed by Ligeti’sSolo Cello Sonata, whose opening has asimilarly sombre, early-music flavour, andthe result is a notable degree of seamlessflow. Then the acoustic and engineering,because La Marca and his engineer haveconsciously gone for close miking in anample church acoustic (continued inthe studio for the electro music), theiridea being ‘to bring out the details andenhance the differences in sonority’. Somelisteners may feel this spins an especiallyemotionally intense atmosphere. Othersmay find it a little overdone, and inevitablythere’s also some audible breathing. In fact,unusually, it may be the engineering morethan the contents that will ultimatelydecide whether ‘Cello 360’ is for you ornot. Either way, I fail to see how a listenwill leave you anything other than newlycaptivated by La Marca as a cellist and all-round musician, and I’m already lookingforward to seeing what he and Naïve dotogether next. Charlotte Gardner

‘Pioneers’Backer Grøndahl Albumblad, Op 35 No 2.Humoresque, Op 15 No 3 Bądarzewska-Baranowska Mazurka Beach A Hermit Thrushat Eve, Op 92 No 1. Scottish Legend, Op 54 No 1Bon Keyboard Sonata, Op 2 No 2 L BoulangerTrois Morceaux Chaminade Valse-Caprice,Op 33 Gonzaga Agua do vintém. CananéaKaprálová Andante, Op 13 No 2 E KodályValses viennoises Miyake 43˚ North: A TangoNikolayeva Album for Children, Op 19 – No 1,March; No 2, Music Box; No 3, Old WaltzPejačević Rose, Op 19 No 5 F Price Piano Sonatain E minor – Andante C Schumann Romance,Op 21 No 1Hiroko Ishimoto pf

Grand Piano F GP844 (76’ • DDD)

In this collection of 21 brief works, there is no great music, a lot of good music and a

few of which the worst that can be said is that they are derivative and lack an individual voice.

Such a one is the first item here, the charming ‘Rose’ from Blumenleben by the Hungarian-born Dora Peja∂evic (1885-1923), and the second, Chaminade’s no less attractive Valse-Caprice (c1885), reminiscent of her brother-in-law Moritz Moszkowski. After this agreeable salon froth, it is something of a jar to be thrust into the world of CPE Bach with the Sonata in B flat by the Italian Anna Bon (b c1739), so neglected that no one is exactly sure of the details of her life and death after her marriage in 1767, despite being chamber music virtuosa at the Prussian court of King Frederick the Great.

The pieces by the more famous Clara Schumann and Agathe Backer Grøndahl fail to make a strong impression; as, sadly, does a Mazurka by Tekla Badarzewska-Baranowska, best known for her once-ubiquitous The Maiden’s Prayer; Amy Beach’s A Hermit Thrush at Eve (heard in a more atmospheric performance by Cecile Licad – Danacord, A/17) and Scottish Legend are sweet MacDowell-like tone poems. It is not until we reach the Valses viennoises of Emma Kodály (Zoltán’s composer wife) and Lili Boulanger’s ‘Cortège’ that we encounter two unequivocal gems, the latter surely the liveliest cortège in all music.

So it continues. Seek out the two pieces by the Brazilian Chiquinha Gonzaga (shades of Nazareth and Lecuona) or the touching, spiritual-like Andante of Florence Price’s E minor Sonata. The most recent work is from



2019 and is also the final track, apiano version of 43˚ North: A Tango byHaruna Miyake. You may get on betterthan I did with its overt but seeminglyarbitrary fusion of tonal pastiche andatonal ‘deconstruction’ (according tothe booklet).

Hiroko Ishimoto, playing a SteinwayModel C, has been well recorded ina suitably intimate (but far fromclaustrophobic) acoustic with only theoccasional pedal thump. I should liketo have heard more variety in her tonalcolouring – and she could surely haveenjoyed herself more in the Gonzagapieces – but on the whole these are worthy,well-executed performances on an albumwith a strong appeal to pianophilerepertoire junkies. Jeremy Nicholas

‘Vida breve’Anonymous Arirang (arr Hough) JS Bach/Busoni Chaconne JS Bach/Gounod Ave Maria(arr Hough) Busoni Kammer-Fantasie überCarmen, K284 Chopin Piano Sonata No 2, Op 35Hough Piano Sonata No 4, ‘Vida breve’Liszt Bagatelle sans tonalité, S216a.Funérailles, S173 No 7Stephen Hough pf

Hyperion F CDA68260 (78’ • DDD)

To call this a conceptalbum would be todiminish its powerand timeliness. It is

both a meditation on the fragility of lifeand a Bergmanesque game of chess withDeath, for which Hough has laid out hispieces and pawns in a masterstrokeof programming.

Bach, or more precisely responses tohim, bookends the recital: from Busoni’smonumental edifice to Gounod’s spiritualmeditation, the latter in Hough’s owntranslucent arrangement. In the Chaconne,Hough realises Busoni’s gothicallyenhanced architecture with a palette oforchestral timbres from clangorous bells –making full use of the brightness of hischosen Yamaha – to the tenderest silkenthreads. A completely different spectrumof colours, this time more operatic, paintsa vivid picture of Fate in Busoni’s SonatinaChamber Fantasy on Carmen.

Between these two it is Death’smove. But first the tumultuous openingmovements of Chopin’s B flat minorSonata return us to the turbulence of life.

Despite its exhilarating intensity, there is a poised and noble feel to Hough’s Chopin, subtly embellished as it is with effortless rubatos. Listen to the Trio section of the Scherzo for a masterclass in unselfconscious artistry. Or marvel at the natural fl owing tempo for the Funeral March, supporting a cinematographic contrast of ever more invasive death knells and subdued mourning.

Those bells toll again in Liszt’s ‘Funérailles’, with all shades of black on display, followed by evil grimaces in the Bagatelle sans tonalité. Hough’s own Sonata, from which the title of the disc derives, offers a moment of introspective and melancholic refl ection, yet also one that is tempered by tight intellectual control. Five motivic cells are explored and developed contrapuntally to form two climaxes, in the second of which the fifth motif is placed in the spotlight. If this motif sounds familiar, you might be thinking of the chanson ‘En avril à Paris’, made famous by Charles Trenet in the early 1950s. Two of Hough’s own arrangements, of a Korean traditional song and of Gounod/Bach, are at once transcendental and defi ant: checkmate Death. Michelle Assay


Unfailingly lyrical: Christian-Pierre La Marca’s album ‘Cello 360’ showcases his playing in a range of styles and repertoire

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CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS

The Swedish composer Anders Eliasson told a well-wornstory about the day in 1993 when he pitched up at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, reporting for duty as

a guest professor. The Academy’s composition chair met him with an outstretched hand: ‘I’m Paavo Heininen, modernist.’

Schools and ‘isms’ were already on their way out in the ’90s,but even if Heininen knew it, he didn’t much care. He is the most uncompromising Finnish composer of his generation and perhaps of the last 70 years (‘Finland’s doughtiest modernist’, for Gramophone’s Guy Rickards) – a creator and pedagogue who cleaves to his serialist methods even when he appears to be concealing them.

Heininen was the last pupil of Aarre Merikanto, and reconstructed a number of his old teacher’s self-vandalised or unfinished pieces. In 1993, for instance, he wrote a concept piece in his memory: Tuuminki – ‘A notion … of what might have been Aarre Merikanto’s 3rd Violin Concerto’ (a work that Merikanto had destroyed). Keen to be at the heart of the avant-garde in spite of Finland’s peripheral geography, Heininen travelled to Cologne to study with Rudolf Petzold and BA Zimmermann before enrolling at the Juilliard School in New York, where he was primarily a pupil of Persichetti. He would study privately with Lutosławski later on.

Sibelius was still breathing when Heininen’s first significant work was introduced in 1957, the neoclassical Sonatina for piano. A watershed moment would come the following year. Extending a distinguished line, the first performance of Heininen’s Symphony No 1 was a calamity. The orchestra giving its premiere refused to play the middle section of the work and only the first and last movements were aired.

The event proved pivotal – traumatic enough for Heininen to consider his future, and newsworthy enough for his name to be lodged in the consciousness of the Nordic new music scene as that of an enfant terrible. But Heininen wouldn’t change direction – as such. Rather, he became aware that in some works the full implementation of his serial ideas would be more viable and indeed possible than it would be in others. Two equally important strands emerged in his oeuvre. In one, he indulged his musical imagination fully and with a stringency many found abrasive; in the other, he put his technique in the service of chiselled, distilled music that could

be appreciated as a simple,beautiful expression of the same rigorous principles.

The composer’s symphonies illustrate the difference neatly, oscillating between both strands. After the horror-show inauguration of Symphony No 1, its successor of 1962 aimed to please. It was written for a slimmed-down orchestra, is subtitled Petite symphonie joyeuse and has shades of Martin≤’s spirit and Berg’s lyricism (it recalls the latter in its instrumentation too, particularly its use of a saxophone). In truth, it probably owes more to Heininen’s time with Persichetti in New York.

Symphony No 3 (1969, rev 1977) was a stringently disciplined attempt to force potentially billowing material into tight and simple forms – a challenge for a composer known for sheer abundance of detail per unit of time. In a sense, it embodies the central paradox of Heininen’s whole compositional project: his material’s fertility and his mind’s concentration. Again, it proved technically overwhelming. Only a proportion of the score could be presented at its premiere, and debate still rages as to how many movements the full score even has. Symphony No 4 (1971) reacted once more, slimming down and simplifying. Its two movements carry the title ‘Sinfonietta’, and it has elements of both aleatoric technique and sonata form.

It took three decades for Heininen to return to the symphony, but No 5 (2002) is forbidding indeed, as if it had spent all that time straining to get out. Its successor, No 6 (2013-15), first performed in 2015, is perhaps the composer’s best attempt yet to invest serial techniques with symphonic momentum. Despite the task in hand, it is not without playfulness.

If the even-numbered symphonies are full of stress and strain, they speak of Heininen grappling with the challenge of his own self-imposed discipline. Some feel that his constraints deliver cold-hearted, empty music that argues itself into

Paavo HeininenAndrew Mellor explores the octogenarian Finn’s long quest to reconcile his stringent principles with a changing world

The central paradox of Heininen’s whole compositional project is his material’s fertility and his mind’s concentration

heininen factsBorn Helsinki, January 13, 1938 Studied composition in Helsinki (1956-60), Cologne (1960-61), New York (1961-62) and Warsaw (mid-’60s); musicology at University of HelsinkiExtracurricular activities as a pianist and an essayist; has written analytical essays on the works of colleagues Erik Bergman, Joonas Kokkonen and Einar EnglundKey quote ‘The composer is just as free as the visual artist to place his stimuli in the order of his choice, as the recipient will, in any case, learn the course of the work by heart and thus experience every part as simultaneously present’ (‘Freedom and Conformity to Laws in Music’: 1983)


CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS

corners; Gramophone’s own doyens of Nordic music DavidFanning and the late Robert Layton have both expressed reservations about major works from the composer’s pen in these pages. Time, and the march of postmodernism, have exposed qualities that have long been ignored. One of them is that very sense of strain, heard most clearly in the Mahlerian edifice for strings Arioso (1967). That piece is a good starting point for Heininen newcomers and leads naturally on to the impressive Adagio … concerto per orchestra in forma di variazioni (1963, rev 1966) – a monumental variation set in which a huge orchestra plays like a chamber ensemble, a testament to the composer’s meticulous instrumentation.

The same quality can be heard in music altogether more piquant but with the same chronology (with origins before the composer’s 30th birthday), that of the sextet Musique d’été(1963, rev 1967). Kimmo Korhonen has described the pieceas Heininen’s ‘closest approach to Serialist Constructivism’while drawing a useful comparison with its direct predecessor,Soggetto (1963) for chamber orchestra, in which sound fieldsand aleatoric elements are used (the latter piece was among thecomposer’s first widely acclaimed successes). Both devices arealso found in the Adagio and the First Piano Concerto (1964).

For a period in the 1970s, serialism in the Nordic countrieswas frowned upon – seen as defeating the purposes it set outto achieve while flying in the face of social democraticprinciples of inclusivity and public worth. Heininen’s responsewas to look into other uncompromising expressions ofmodernism that might be better understood, using spatial

elements, separated ensembles and echoing space–time techniques propagated by his kindred spirit Erik Bergman, most notably in Tritopos (1977). Not that it stopped Heininen using dodecaphonic techniques entirely. In a grand assembly of scores from 1974-75 united under the opus number 32, he included the sprawling piano sonata Poesia squillante ed incandescente, a string quartet and two shorter piano pieces. All of them, Heininen insisted, were ‘the same music’ (meaning, they were built on the same note row).

In the 1980s, Heininen would embrace computer-aided methods and follow his nervous, windswept Piano Concerto No 2 (1966) with a playful third concerto for the instrument (1981) as well as lyrical concertos for saxophone and cello (1983 and 1985 respectively). He would also move into music theatre. Silkkirumpu (‘The Damask Drum’, subtitled ‘Concerto for Singers, Players, Words, Images and Movements’; 1981-83) rests on the symbolism of an old Japanese Noh play and is conceived holistically as one large musical and dramatic crescendo; it was followed by the more dramatically conventional and musically typical Veitsi (‘The Knife’, 1985-88). The latter won Finland’s Savonlinna Opera Festival competition in 1988 and was performed the following year in celebration of the city’s 350th anniversary.

Heininen joined the faculty of the Sibelius Academy as a part-time lecturer in 1966; he was appointed a full professor in 1993 and remained in post until 2001. In both capacities he instructed a golden generation of Finnish composers including Jouni Kaipainen, Magnus Lindberg, Veli-Matti Puumala, Kaija Saariaho and Jukka Tiensuu. The individual paths pursued by those figures testify to the principle that no matter how stringently Heininen kept to his own rules, he avoided imposing them on others. And still, he hasn’t given them up: his latest recorded work, the Boston Violin Sonatas (2016), suggests his dodecaphonic method is as fresh as ever.He’s been labelled an enfant terrible, but Heininen has tried making concessions

EXPLORE HEININEN ON RECORD A wide range of works showcasing his intriguing oeuvre

Arioso. Piano Concerto No 2. Symphony No 2 Ilmo Ranta pf Helsinki PO / Ulf Söderblom

Finlandia (12/90)

This is the perfect introduction to Heininen, opening with his impassioned Arioso, continuing

with a meticulous performance of his neoclassical Piano Concerto No 2 and concluding with his most user-friendly symphony.

String Quartet No 1, Op 32c Avanti! Quartet

Ondine

Heininen’s first string quartet forms part of his Op 32 – a confection of works built on the same note row.

It is broad in duration and in scope, an exploration as much ofharmonic timbre as it is of systems, and gets a well-marinatedperformance here from a quartet with Sakari Oramo on first violin.

Flute Concerto, ‘Autrefois’Mikael Helasvuo fl Saimaa Sinfonietta / Tibor Bogányi

Alba (10/13)

Guy Rickards suggested Heininen’s Yesteryears Flute Concerto may have been an attempt by the

composer ‘to create the late-Romantic Flute Concerto Finnish music lacks’. Maybe, just maybe, the only non-modernist feature of this concerto is the noise it makes.

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VocalIvan Moody welcomes a delightful andquirky programme from Paul Hillier:

Alexandra Coghlan on an albumthat ranges from Lotti to Lauridsen:

Ayres ‘Sacred Ayres’ The angel Gabriel. Be thou my vision. Crimond(The Lord’s my shepherd). Deep river. Didn’t myLord deliver Daniel?. God be in my head. Godown Moses. Go tell it on the mountain. GrantO God thy protection. Joshua fought the battleof Jericho. Let all mortal flesh keep silence. TheLord my pasture shall prepare. The Lord myshepherd is. Motherless child. A newcommandment. On this mountain. Psalms andHymns and Spiritual Songs. Quanto sei bella.This is the day. This joyful Eastertide. When Iconsider thy heavens. When the song of theangels is stilledThe Chapel Choir of Selwyn College,

Cambridge / Sarah MacDonald with

Shanna Hart, Dāvids Heinze org

Regent F REGCD536 (77’ • DDD • T)

Although very muchembedded in the UKchoral scene, Britishcomposer Paul Ayres

writes a lot for American ensembles, andinfl uences from this tradition and itssound world are almost more evidentin this attractive collection from SarahMacDonald and the Choir of SelwynCollege, Cambridge.

Written with practicality in mind,Ayres’s anthems are all about generoussimplicity: big, juicy unison lines, warmthree- or four-part homophony andaffi rmative, tonal-with-a-scrunchharmonies. They cry out for a school orcollege choir of hundreds but are nicelyshowcased by the leaner Selwyn Choir,who have a more ingenuous, youthfulsound than their rivals Clare or Trinitythat’s well suited to the material.

Works like A new commandment, Thisis the day and When the song of the angelsis stilled demonstrate Ayres’s range andhis instinct for a graceful melody – choirsof all abilities can find something withintheir grasp. The arrangements of AmericanSpirituals are more demanding, especiallyMotherless child, which feels overstretched.

But the effective Didn’t my Lord deliverDaniel? (performed with nicely relaxedconsonants and an easy swing here) isa standout.

Ayres is an organist, and his delight incontrapuntal play, harmonic reworkingsand manipulations is given rein in a largenumber of hymn arrangements. Theserange from the effective – This joyfulEastertide gets a lovely, light-footedtreatment, and there’s a geeky pleasureto Ayres’s Bach-inspired Crimondreimagining – to the slightlyunderwhelming Let all mortal fleshand The angel Gabriel. Alexandra Coghlan

Beethoven .Rihm . Schubert‘Vanitas’Beethoven An die ferne Geliebte, Op 98 RihmVermischter Traum Schubert Abendstern,D806. An die Musik, D547. Fischerweise, D881.Die Forelle, D550. Im Freien, D880. DieSommernacht, D289. Die Sterne, D939. DieTaubenpost, D965a. Der Wanderer an denMond, D870. Wandrers Nachtlied, D768. DerWinterabend, D938. Das Zügenglöcklein, D871Georg Nigl bar Olga Pashchenko fp/pf

Alpha F ALPHA646 (83’ • DDD • T/t)

We’ve seen Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte appear in a variety of couplings

over the past year but this is surely the most original – and probably the most imaginative since Christian Gerhaher coupled it with Schoenberg and Berg (Sony, 10/12). Here Georg Nigl juxtaposes it with a striking new cycle by Wolfgang Rihm at the centre of a programme bookended by sequences of Schubert.

And that’s not all: this, the Austrian baritone explains, is an endeavour explicitly devised for recording. Microphone placement is unusually close in a way that takes a little getting used to. Olga Pashchenko plays a fortepiano (a beautifully mellow and

mellifl uous Graf replica) for the Beethoven and Schubert, and switches to a modern Steinway for the Rihm. Nigl’s approach has also been tailored to the recording process, and the voice – a distinctive instrument offering a hint of Christian Gerhaher’s refi ned artlessness and some of the pleasingly acidic tang of Wolfgang Holzmair – changes according to the accompaniment: feathery and intimate with fortepiano, declamatory and full with piano.

Much of that, of course, is also down to the nature of Rihm’s work. Designated ‘Gryphius-Stück’ for baritone and piano and written for Nigl, it comprises seven movements drawing texts from three poems by the Baroque poet Andreas Gryphius, musing on transience in the face of serious illness. It’s a powerful piece, with robust piano-writing and a vocal part that seems both to grow out of the lieder tradition and trace a line of descent, via Rihm’s own Büchner opera Jakob Lenz, from Berg’s Wozzeck – a role that Nigl has performed to critical acclaim. The baritone sings the piece with utter conviction and compelling concentration.

In the Schubert and Beethoven Nigl and Pashchenko create a sound world of striking intimacy, against whose understated delicacy dabs of interpretative colour stand out in greater relief, including very occasional ornamentation from the pianist. An die ferne Geliebte comes across, in Pashchenko and Nigl’s hands, as especially wistful: a touching performance of moving tenderness.

The Schubert selection is largely introspective. Such songs as ‘Der Wanderer an den Mond’ and ‘Das Zügenglöcklein’ are exquisitely, lovingly done, but even the normally blithe ‘Die Forelle’ and ‘Fischerweise’, in the context, seem to convey something of the gentle resignation of the album’s title.

All in all, this is a beguiling, intelligent and supremely sensitive recital, which continues to resonate long after its last note has died away. Highly recommended. Hugo Shirley

‘This album should be listened to from beginningto end, the contemporary works interspersed withthe medieval laude’ REVIEW ON PAGE 69

‘With professional men and extensively trained boys, this isn’t your average statecomprehensive school choir’ REVIEW ON PAGE 70


Bruckner‘Latin Motets’Os justi. Christus factus est, WAB11. Locus iste.Ave Maria, WAB6. Libera me, WAB21a.Kronstorfer Messe. Tantum ergo – WAB32;WAB41/2; WAB42a; WAB43a. Virga Jesse, WAB52.Pange lingua. Salvum fac populum. Tota pulchraesb. Vexilla regisbJānis Kurševs ten abKristīne Adamaite org

Latvian Radio Choir / Sigvards Kļava

Ondine F ODE1362-2 (59’ • DDD • T/t)

Sigvards Kl,ava’s latestrecording with theLatvian Radio Choirfeatures not only first-

rate performances of some of Bruckner’sbetter-known motets but also a numberof his infrequently heard early works.Bruckner was working as an assistantteacher in Kronstorf when he wrote theKronstorfer Mass, also known as the ‘Masswithout Gloria and Credo’, some timeduring 1843 and 1844. Lasting only sixminutes, this melodious, contemplativework finds the composer, not yet 21,confidently writing for unaccompaniedvoices and experimenting with unorthodoxmodulations. The lively and warm-hearted

Libera me in F, composed for choir andorgan, also dates from this time. Thecollection also includes four differentversions of Tantum ergo, including theC major setting from the set of fourdesignated WAB41, completed byBruckner in 1846 at the beginningof his stay at St Florian Monastery.

The remainder of the collectioncomprises works from Bruckner’s maturity,ranging from the exquisite Ave Maria of1861 to the last of the motets, Vexilla regis,completed in 1892. These pieces have beenrecorded multiple times before, but theunforced natural expressivity of the singingas well as the accuracy of the intonation atall dynamic levels puts this new versionvery near the top of the list. Among thefinest of the performances is that of Totapulchra es, which communicates a feelingof ineffable timelessness at the openingas well as a sense of tremendous majestyat the organ-supported climax. Similarlyimpressive is the account of Virga Jesse,with its ethereal calls of ‘in se’ sung by thesopranos and gently echoed by the rest ofthe choir. Moments such as these lingerlong in the memory. The excellentrecording, made in Riga Cathedral,suits the performances perfectly.Christian Hoskins

Gál‘Hidden Treasure – Unpublished Lieder’Five Songs, Op 33. Abendgespräch. Abendlied.Blumenlied. Der böse Tag. Dämmerstunde.Denk’ es o Seele. Frag nicht!. Eine gantz neuSchelmweys. Glaube nur!. Lady Rosa.Liebesmüde. Maimond. Minnelied.Morgengebet. Nacht. Nachts in der Kajüte –No 1; No 2; No 3. Nachtstürme. Novembertag.Rücknahme. Schäferlied. Sternenzwiesprach.Waldseligkeit. Welch ein Schweigen.Der WolkenbaumChristian Immler bass-bar Helmut Deutsch pf

BIS F Í BIS2543 (72’ • DDD/DSD • T/t)

The selection here represents a little under half of Gál’s lieder output, nearly

all of it unpublished to this day. As a fi ne scholar of Schubert as well as a fastidiously self-critical composer he knew his limitations, and he ceased writing songs for solo voice altogether after 1921, some time later selecting just fi ve of them to be published as his Op 33. His observation that ‘Vocal expression was, as it were, Schubert’s mother tongue’ could not be applied to him. All the same, listeners who

VOCAL REVIEWS

Conviction and concentration: baritone Georg Nigl programmes Wolfgang Rihm – music composed for him – alongside Beethoven and Schubert

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70th ARD International Music Competition Munich

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horn competition’s winners 2016

Ani and Nia Sulkhanishvili2nd prize piano duo 2015

Bomsori Kim2nd prize violin 2013

Further competitionSeptember 2022:piano, flute, trombone, string quartet


do not arrive anticipating a successor toWolf or a sequel to Mahler’s Rückert Liederwill not be disappointed.

Gál chose his texts carefully, avoidingoverlap or unfavourable comparison withestablished masterpieces. I sense not onlythe shadow of the Erl-King falling overGál’s Hesse setting ‘Der böse Tag’ butalso the imperative to resist cheapimitation. The piano-writing here andelsewhere feels more idiomatic than thevocal line, and in evocative scene-settingssuch as the ‘Abendlied’ the instrumentalpart would serve as an evocative tone poemin its own right, to which the sometimesawkward, expressionist angles of the songadd relatively little meaning or atmosphere.

As a melodist Gál wrote over or againstthe bar line more naturally than within it –closer to Haydn than Mozart in spirit –which may also explain why ardent orcontented voices are outnumbered byand ill at ease in the company of charactersbruised by life and, in the words of Heine,‘Liebesmüde’ (‘Tired of love’). In thisregard, his time is now; late in 2020,Christian Morgenstern’s ‘November Day’strikes an unwonted chord: ‘No onegoes out without cause; everyone fallsto meditation.’

Immler and Deutsch included Gál’sOp 33 on a 2011 AVI ‘Modern Times’recital of Schreker, Goldschmidt,Zemlinsky et al (4/12), and their equablybalanced partnership offers us the fullmeasure of these lieder, their disquiet andlopsided poetry. Immler’s baritone soundsmore parched than his Christus forMasaaki Suzuki’s Gramophone Award-winning St Matthew Passion (4/20),showing signs of strain at the top, butmoulding Gál at his most Brahmsian –such as the rueful retrospective of thealbum’s closing ‘Abend auf dem Fluss’,setting one of Bethge’s Chinese Flute lyrics –with warmth and intense sympathy.Peter Quantrill

Handel . Purcell‘Handel’s Tea Time’Handel Bacchus and The Rapture, HWV228.Concerto a quattro in D minor. Nine GermanArias – No 3, Süsser Blumen Ambraflocken,HWV204; No 6, Meine Seele hört im Sehen,HWV207; No 9, Flammende Rose, Zierde derErden. Mi palpita il cor, HWV132b. Suite,HWV430 – Air and Variations, ‘The HarmoniousBlacksmith’. Trio Sonata, HWV384. Venus andAdonis, HWV85 Purcell The Fairy Queen – O letme weep

Dorothee Mields sop Die Freitagsakademie

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi F 19439 79273-2

(76’ • DDD • T/t)

It isn’t obvious what ‘Handel’s Tea Time’ means, nor if it is a northerner’s main

meal or a southerner’s four o’clock cup of Earl Grey and slice of lemon drizzle cake, though one imagines the epicurean Handel would have cheerfully consumed all of them together. The booklet note sheds no light and contains poor inaccuracies, but the musical menu served up by Die Freitagsakademie is an ingenious mixture of predominantly arcane (and often spurious) Handelian vocal pieces in three languages interspersed with a vivacious chamber concerto in D minor (possibly by Telemann), some bits (but not all) of the so-called Harmonious Blacksmith keyboard variations, and a lively trio sonata of dubious authenticity – all played with expert delineation of textural details and moods.

Dorothee Mields makes a charming case for several English songs of uncertain authorship. The little cantata Venus

VOCAL REVIEWS

Summer sessions in St Albans: the Cathedral’s Girls Choir record Michael Haydn in 2019 under the direction of Tom Winpenny – see review on page 69

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and Adonis presents a gorgeous dialogue between the stylish soprano and oboist Katharina Suske conveying melancholic grief. The miniatures ‘Bacchus one day gayly striding’ and ‘The Rapture’ (‘When I survey Clarinda’s charms’) are surely misattributions, but I cannot remember encountering recordings of either before: ‘Bacchus’ is treated by Mields and violinist Ilia Korol with incremental comedic inebriation; ‘When I survey Clarinda’s charms’ (possibly by Geminiani) is instantly forgettable.

We are on solid terra firma with Mi palpita il cor, a cantata first composed during Handel’s early years in Britain. Given here in its original form for soprano voice with oboe obbligato, the first few phrases juxtaposing a heartbroken lover’s throbbing palpitations and virtuoso agitated soul are executed dazzlingly; the siciliano ‘Ho tanti affanni in petto’ partnersthe aching sorrow of Mields’s voice part with Suske’s soulful oboe. The singer’s expertise in Bach and Telemann (and muchelse) pays handsome dividends in three of the German arias Handel composed in London during the mid-1720s: ‘Flammende Rose, Zierde der Erden’ and ‘Süsser Blumen Ambraflocken’ are embellished impeccably, the treble obbligato part shaped mellifluously by violinist Korol, and tasteful continuo support given by cellist Balázs Máté, theorbist Jonathan Rubin and harpsichordist Sebastian Wienand. The Plaint from Purcell’s The Fairy Queen is a baffling encore but has transfixing allure. David Vickers

M Haydn Missa Sancti Nicolai Tolentini, MH109. Vesperae pro festo Sancti Innocentium. Anima nostra, MH452 Jenni Harper, Emily Owen sops Helen Charlston

mez Marko Sever org St Albans Cathedral Girls

Choir; Lawes Baroque Players / Tom Winpenny

Naxos B 8 574163 (79’ • DDD • T/t)

Having some years ago given us a pair of Masses from Mozart’s Salzburg years (4/13),

the choir of St Albans Cathedral turn now to his older colleague, Michael Haydn. Theorganist on the earlier recording, Tom Winpenny, steps up to assume Andrew Lucas’s directorial position.

Listeners familiar with Mozart’s Salzburgsacred music will not be surprised by the style of his elder contemporary: declamatory choral writing and economical

word-setting accompanied by restless violins in faster music, and no shortage of lyricism when the texts veer towards the tender. The difference is that the works here are scored only for upper voices.

Michael Haydn devoted much time and music to the Feast of the Holy Innocents (December 28), perhaps due to the death of his only child, Aloysia Josepha, before her first birthday. The gentle offertory Anima nostra sets the Proper text of the day, while the Vespers were compiled by Haydn’s collaborator and copyist Nikolaus Lang; both works would have been performed by the trebles of the cathedral choir, with one of the boys taking on the duties of the bishop – a tradition that continued from medieval times.

The Mass, on the other hand, was composed for the Augustinian monastery ofMülln, to the north of the city. St Nicholasof Tolentino was a 13th-century Italian mystic, the first Augustinian friar to be canonised, noted for miracles linked to the rescue and resuscitation of children. Haydn deploys the choral voices in unison with a pair of soprano soloists in music of graceful charm, perhaps taken a little carefully but accompanied vividly by the one-to-a-part strings and trumpets of the Lawes Baroque Players. David Threasher

Josquin . Jacquet . Vinders ‘The Golden Renaissance’ Jacquet de Mantua Dum vastos Adriae fluctus Josquin Ave Maria … Virgo serena. El grillo. Inviolata, integra et casta es. Missa Pange lingua. Salve regina a 5. Virgo salutiferi genitrix. Vivrai je tousjours Vinders O mors inevitabilis Stile Antico

Decca F 485 1340 (83’ • DDD • T/t)

To commemorate the quincentenary of Josquin’s death, Stile Antico opt for

a relatively safe but generous programme: his most frequently recorded Mass, accompanied by some of the better-known Marian motets. The Ave Maria … Virgo serena is early, while the canonic Virgo salutiferi and Inviolata, integtra et casta es are(like the Missa Pange lingua) late. The two secular pieces (including a first recording of the spurious Vivrai je tousjours) sit oddly with the overall context and general feel of the recital; not so the two laments on Josquin, which are moving and apposite.

There is a cohesion and clarity of purpose here that I’ve not always found in this ensemble’s earlier recordings. The tone is luminous, textures are admirably

clear; the ‘big’ sound I recall from previousofferings is better focused and tempos aregenerally sensible (and at any rateconsistent). The centrepiece is the latePange lingua cycle: despite the manyrecordings down the years, less than ahandful of those currently available havesopranos on the top line. One of thoseis The Tallis Scholars’, whose generalapproach Stile Antico emulate. PeterPhillips’s ensemble sound even morefocused, perhaps, but I struggle to getpast their habit of leaving leading notesunsharpened (on cadences other thanon E and C, of course). Stile Anticoimmediately give themselves an edge inthis respect, but as I’ve said, there are otherreasons for enjoying these performances.

My own preference is for more incisiveshaping of lines, less relaxed tempos andfewer obtrusive gear-changes in the longerMass movements. One remaining niggleconcerns the repetitions of words, whichobscures the music’s melismatic character(particularly in the Sanctus); but for all that,it’s hard to fault Stile Antico’s execution.In the Marian motets few of thesereservations obtain anyway: Virgo salutiferiis a model of placid lucidity, the successiveentries of plainchant in the top voicereminiscent of Obrecht. And those finallaments make a heartfelt impressionindeed. Fabrice Fitch

Missa Pange lingua – selected comparison:

Tallis Scholars, Phillips (3/87) (GIME) CDGIM009

‘… and …’Anoymous Laude di Cortona – Altissima luce;Cristo e nato; Laude novella sia cantata; Oi me,lasso, è freddo lo mio core; Sia laudato SanFrancesco; Venite a laudare C Shaw and theswallow Pärt Alleluia tropus. And I heard avoice …. Habitare fratres in unum. DreiHirtenkinder. Kleine Litanei. VirgencitaJ Wolfe Guard my tongueArs Nova Copenhagen / Paul Hillier

Naxos B 8 574281 (63’ • DDD • T/t)

This is a delightful and quirky programme (something to be expected of Paul

Hillier, of course), mixing contemporary music with Italian medieval laude. We begin with Caroline Shaw’s and the swallow, a setting of words from Psalm 84. Its lushness surprised me, having previously only heard her virtuoso Partita for Eight Voices, but what is equally evident is the sophistication of the vocal writing, exploring long-resonating chords to create an atmosphere of warmth and hope.

VOCAL REVIEWS


The other contemporary works areby Julia Wolfe – another psalm-setting,this time a verse from Psalm 34, Guardmy tongue – and a series of short piecesby Pärt. Wolfe’s piece is extremely starkand unremitting. It might be thought toresemble Pärt in some ways – most notablythe way the (very short) text dictates thechordal and melodic structure – but itssuccessive, imploring waves of soundproduce a very different effect.

Pärt’s Fátima-inspired Drei Hirtenkinder,on a verse from Psalm 8, has always struckme as somewhat enigmatic. It’s over in aflash, but full of events. Both Kleine Litaneiand Virgencita are more ‘classical’ Pärt,with their repeated invocations withfrequently unexpected cadences andcarefully balanced dissonances. Habitarefratres in unum, in spite of its Latintitle, is a setting in Church Slavonic ofPsalm 132 (133), and is another fascinatingdemonstration of the way differentlanguages affect the composer’s writing.Here there are clear echoes of the Russianchoral tradition, though no chant is usedand there is no direct quotation of anyother music. Alleluia tropus, in honour ofSt Nicholas, is also in Slavonic, a setting ofthe apolytikion or dismissal hymn for theSaint’s feast, with added Alleluias. The finalpiece on the album, Ja ma kuulsin hääle …(‘And I heard a voice …’), is a setting inEstonian of a verse from the book ofRevelation, and the clarity of that languagemeans that the work has a brightness to itthat reflects its description of the ‘voicefrom heaven’ and provides a suitablyexultant finish to the sequence.

I have spoken about the contemporarypieces as though they were groupedtogether, but in fact the way to listen tothis album is to go from beginning to end,hearing them interspersed with the laude asthey are programmed. This repertoire,being entirely monophonic but full ofmagnificent melodies, gives all kinds ofopportunity for different treatments,and Hillier uses the full range, fromunaccompanied solo voice to melody withdrone and organum-like parallel chords,and exploiting male and female voicesseparately and together. Ars Nova are, asusual, fully in command of both early andrecent styles: this is a sparkling, thought-provoking recording of great originality.Ivan Moody

‘In Paradisum’Albinoni/Giazotto The Beatitudes AllegriMiserere Bruckner Christus factus est Caccini/Vavilov Ave Maria Danna Life of Pi – TsimtsumDove Seek him that maketh the seven starsElgar Requiem aeternam (‘Nimrod’) Fauré

Requiem, Op 48 – In Paradisum Lauridsen Leschansons des roses – Dirait-on Lotti CrucifixusMozart Ave verum corpus, K618 RheinbergerAbendlied, Op 69 No 3 Rutter The Lord blessyou and keep you Shore The Lord of the Rings –In Dreams Stanford The Blue Bird, Op 119 No 3Vangelis 1492 – Conquest of Paradise VictoriaAve Maria Whitacre Lux aurumqueSchola Cantorum of the Cardinal Vaughan

Memorial School / Scott Price, Iestyn Evans

Aparté F AP228 (78’ • DDD • T/t)

A regular in theWest End, thanks toappearances at ENOand the Royal Opera,

and often heard on Hollywood soundtracksincluding Paddington and Life of Pi, theSchola Cantorum of the Cardinal VaughanMemorial School isn’t your average statecomprehensive school choir. Withprofessional men bolstering the lower linesand extensively trained boys on the top,it’s perplexing how such an experiencedensemble could produce such anuneven album.

‘In Paradisum’, the choir’s first release onAparté, is explicitly programmed to bringthe group’s two musical worlds together.So on one hand you get music by Vangelisand Howard Shore, and on the other youget anthems by Lotti, Victoria and Mozart,with some Whitacre, Rutter and Lauridsenstraddling the divide. It’s a classic easy-listening affair, aimed squarely at theClassic FM market, which would be fineif the singing was consistently excellent.

The crossover market is a crowded place,and there’s little here that hasn’t alreadybeen done better elsewhere. There’s apleasant account of Stanford’s The BlueBird – a lovely light soloist supportedby a well-blended choir – and both thecounterpoint in Rheinberger’s Abendliedand the smudgy cluster chords ofWhitacre’s Lux aurumque are carefullybalanced. But other repertoire standards –Mozart’s Ave verum, the ‘In Paradisum’from Faure’s Requiem, Victoria’s double-choir Ave Maria – struggle audibly. Treblessing consistently under the note, phrasessag and limp instead of driving through andthere’s a lack of impetus and a tendencytowards rubato that makes everything feelslow, even if it isn’t.

Choral arrangements of classicalhits such as Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’, Caccini’sAve Maria and Albinoni’s Adagio (whichall seem to sit slightly too high and demandtoo much sustained power from the uppervoices) add little to the album.Alexandra Coghlan

‘Regards sur l’infini’Debussy Proses lyriques Delbos L’âme enbourgeon – No 1, Dors; No 8, Ai-je pu t’appelerde l’ombre Dutilleux Chanson de la déportée.Quatre Mélodies – No 3, Regards sur l’infiniMessiaen Poèmes pour Mi Saariaho QuatreInstants – No 3, Parfum de l’instant. Il pleutKatharine Dain sop Sam Armstrong pf

7 Mountain Records F 7MNTN024 (69’ • DDD • T/t)

At the start of the global pandemic, a lot of people went into lockdown with family,

many escaping the big cities to join parents of whom they see little during their usual working lives. Soprano Katharine Dain did something different. She locked down in Rotterdam with her friend and recital partner, pianist Sam Armstrong, initially to buy some extra rehearsal time ahead of upcoming performances. Like many of us, they assumed it would all be over in a few weeks.

At a time when life made little sense, Dain and Armstrong sought solace in music, exploring song repertoire as a ‘meditation’, a chance to work without deadlines, fully immersing in the music. This album is the direct result. ‘Regards sur l’infini’ is a collection of songs in French written at pivotal points in the lives of the composers or poets behind them. Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi lies at its heart, immediately framed by two songs by its dedicatee, his first wife, Claire Delbos. These, in turn, are enveloped symmetrically by Debussy’s Proses lyriques, Dutilleux and Saariaho. It is in many ways a lockdown chronicle, a focus on the present. Dain provides many of the translations herself and her booklet essay is sensitively penned, honest and thoughtful.

Dain’s soprano has a slender, pure quality, fearless at altitude such as in Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Il pleut’, where her instrument is beautifully controlled over the droplets of rain falling from Armstrong’s piano accompaniment. His playing of the Debussy songs, in particular, has wonderful clarity. The fragility of the Messiaen cycle is carefully managed, Dain’s soprano floating especially well in ‘Ta voix’. The two Delbos songs from L’âme en bourgeon are rarities on disc; the cycle was premiered at the same recital as the Poèmes pour Mi. Dain and Armstrong’s performance should encourage further exploration. Dutilleux’s ‘Regards sur l’infini’ is possibly the most exquisite track on the album, melancholy, confessional.

Although many of these songs share the same mood, the same slow tempo,

VOCAL REVIEWS


the same sparseness of texture, it givesthe album an intimate, contemplativeatmosphere – one for quiet evenings ofrefl ection. Mark Pullinger

‘Tyrannic Love’Blow Poor Celadon, he sighs in vain. Venus andAdonis – Saraband for the Graces J Clarke Songon the Assumption Eccles The Comical Historyof Don Quixote: Part 1 – Sleep, poor youth (TheDirge); Part 2 – I burn, my brain consumes toashes D Purcell Pausanias – My dearest, myfairest H Purcell Anacreon’s Defeat, Z423. TheFairy Queen – Dance for the Fairies; Dance forthe Green Men; Hornpipe. A Fool’s Preferment –There’s nothing so fatal as women. The Historyof Dioclesian – Dance of the Furies. The IndianQueen – Symphony; Seek not to know; Ye twiceten hundred deities. King Arthur – Chaconne;Hornpipe. Rule a Wife and Have a Wife – There’snot a swain on the plain. Tyrannic Love – Hark!My Damilcar. The Virtuous Wife – Overture; Air;Slow Air. The Yorkshire Feast Song, Z333Ensemble Les Surprises /

Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas

Alpha F ALPHA663 (61’ • DDD • T)

Seventeenth-century English composers knew a thing or two about

epidemics, restrictions, conflicts andthe surge of cultural release that comes afterwards. There’s a sense of seize-the-day elation and urgency about this recital from Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas and Ensemble Les Surprises that would be irresistible, even if it wasn’t quite so apt.

Usually to be found exploring the less familiar names of the French Baroque, the period group have crossed the Channel for this exhilarating, no-holds-barred romp through vocal and instrumental music by Purcell, Blow, Eccles and Jeremiah Clarke. The theme is love, but there’s nothing coy or sugary about either music or performances that embrace extremes of emotion and expression.

You get a good sense of the ensemble’s vibrant sound in the opening Hornpipe from King Arthur. Oboes and bassoon buzz fruitily, their dance propelled along by glinting tambourine and guitar. But just when you think this might be a one-trick pony of a recording – all broad gestures and big rhythms – the Saraband for the Graces from Blow’s Venus and Adonis arrests you with its restraint and elegance: a dance so subtle it’s more of a thought than a movement, rocking almost imperceptibly beneath an edgily spare violin melody.

Much of this is theatre music, and in the absence of a stage Les Surprises supply all the drama. They’re joined by soprano Eugénie Lefebvre and baritone Étienne Bazola – both idiomatic English speakers who can turn their hand to comedy (Bazola’s ‘There’s nothing so fatal as woman’ walks a clever line between pantomime and mad scene, while Lefebvre’s ‘There’s not a swain in the plain’ is wonderfully arch without ever losing beauty of tone) as neatly as tragedy.

The bravura mad scene ‘I burn’ from Eccles’s The Comical History of Don Quixotetakes no prisoners in Lefebvre’s swooping, diving delivery, now distorting and chewing the text, now disarmingly simple, while Bazola’s ‘Poor Celadon’ matches the accompanying chamber organ for crooned softness and reedy melancholy. But the frank sensuality of their duet ‘My dearest, my fairest’ is, if anything, outdone by the suggestive interweaving of the oboes in the Symphony from The Indian Queen, Lucile Tessier’s matronly bassoon lingering close like an anxious chaperone.

There’s delight after delight here, both in repertoire – which includes plenty of lesser-known treasures – and performances. This is one French invasion to welcome with open arms. Alexandra Coghlan

VOCAL REVIEWS

Musical partners in lockdown: soprano Katharine Dain and pianist Sam Armstrong impress in a French programme


His encounter with Beethoven’s symphonies in the mid-1820s was a revelation for Berlioz as to what a nominallyabstract medium could express, grounded as he was in

French choral and operatic music. Going further than had anypredecessor in mapping a scenario – as inherently personal asit is increasingly graphic – onto its content, Symphonie fantastiqueis radical in the degree to which this scenario evolves throughmusical rather than pictorial or even evocative means. From herethe concept of a ‘programme symphony’ was assured for almosta century. Combining a tangible atmosphere with an unforcedawareness of authentic practice, François-Xavier Roth’s account isvery much one for these times. Les Siècles / Roth (Harmonia Mundi, 12/19)

WHAT NEXT?

ShostakovichSymphony No 15

WinbeckSymphony No 5, ‘Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes’

KnechtLe portrait musical de la nature

BeethovenSymphony No 6, ‘Pastoral’

R StraussEine Alpensinfonie

MyaskovskySymphony No 6

BrianSymphony No 2

LisztEine Faust-Symphonie

Ra Symphony No 5, ‘Lenore’

MahlerSymphony No 1

BerliozSymphonie fantastique

1

3

2

4

1 Historical precedents Knecht Le portrait musical de la nature (1783) Illustrative or ‘characteristic’ symphonies were common in the late 18th century, but Le portrait musical de la nature (or Grande simphonie) by Justin Heinrich Knecht was different. Rather than merely appending descriptive titles, its archlike design builds to a dramatic central apex before regaining its initial equability and revisiting earlier themes. It is a ‘day in the life’ of some distinction that went almost unnoticed at the time (see the Beethoven entry that follows) and waited 212 years for its fi rst recording. Berlin Akademie für Alte Musik / Forck (Harmonia Mundi, 4/20)

Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Op 14 (1830)

Do you have a favourite piece and want to explore further? Our monthly feature suggests some musical journeys that venture beyond the most familiar works, with some recommended versions. This month Richard Whitehouse’s point of departure is …


Beethoven Symphony No 6 in F, ‘Pastoral’, Op 68 (1808) Given its five movements and final set of variations, the Knecht was evidently known to Beethoven – which, of course, hardly accounts for the potent originality of the latter’s response. Descriptive titles set the scene without determining the content of each movement, Beethoven not so much taking refuge in the country as taking stock of himself in the relative isolation it offered, all trace of ego sublimated in the finale’s cosmic dance. It is a lesson in transformative oblivion that the Romantic era consciously chose to avoid. Budapest Festival Orchestra / I Fischer (Channel Classics, 1/11)

2 Kindred spirits Liszt Eine Faust-Symphonie (1854, rev 1857) The defining literary work of its era, Goethe’s Faust inspired several ambitious musical responses, not least this piece. Its subtitle, ‘in ThreeCharacter Pictures’, confirms anevocative (even proto-psychological)treatment, the three movements rendering the personalities ofFaust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles in wholly orchestral terms.Liszt’s addition of a ‘Chorus mysticus’ in the finale for the 1857premiere arguably disturbs the emotional equilibrium of a workthat encapsulates its composer as much as it does its subject(s). Blochwitz ten Hungarian Radio Chorus; Budapest FestivalOrchestra / I Fischer (Philips, 4/98)

Ra Symphony No 5 in E, ‘Lenore’ (1872) Conscious that his musicwould not outlast its 15 minutes of fame, Joachim Raff ensuredthat his Lenore Symphony came tailor-made for its time – its fourmovements mirroring Gottfried Bürger’s ballad of the happiness,parting through war then reunion in death of two lovers. Themartial third movement enjoyed revival after Raff’s death, butthe whole work languished in oblivion until occasional hearingsthese past few decades revealed an endearing period piece. Suisse Romande Orchestra / N Järvi (Chandos, 5/14)

Mahler Symphony No 1 in D, ‘Titan’ (1888, revisions to 1896)Here Mahler could easily have gone down the same route as Raff,inspired by if not beholden to the novel Titan from German authorJean Paul. Early performances made explicit reference to this in thesubtitle, but by 1896 the composer had designated it a symphonyrather than a symphonic poem and played down any literaryallusion. Musically it conflates the rebirth of the natural and humanworlds, opening in mystical stasis and ending in unalloyed triumph. Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Nott (Tudor, 8/08)

3 Personal odysseysR Strauss Eine Alpensinfonie, Op 64 (1915) Strauss had toyed withthe outline of a piece reflecting his love of the Bavarian Alps sinceat least 1899, but Mahler’s death in 1911 became the catalyst forwhat was his largest orchestral work. In a piece that is nominallya tone poem charting a day’s climbing expedition, the symphonicelement is evident from close-knit motivic evolution. The process

of ascent then descent also takes on ametaphysical aspect fromthe experiences of one who hadreached the midpoint of life. City of Birmingham SymphonyOrchestra / Nelsons (Orfeo, 6/11)

Myaskovsky Symphony No 6 in Eflat minor, Op 23 (1923) ThoughSeldom revived now, this workestablished Myaskovsky’s inter-warinternational reputation. As muchabout its composer’s coming to termswith personal loss in the wake of theRussian Revolution as it is about thetraumatic birth of the Soviet state, itincludes a tenebrous scherzo anda fervent Andante appassionato whichrank with his finest creations, framedby a powerful Allegro feroce and a finalethat quotes several Frenchrevolutionary songs – ending with thesetting of a Russian Orthodox hymnthat secures peace throughtranscendence. State Academic Russian Ch; MoscowPO / Kondrashin (Melodiya)

Brian Symphony No 2 in E minor (1931) Goethe was a lifelonginspiration to Havergal Brian, whose Symphony No 2 is based on thedrama Götz von Berlichingen. Professional mercenary in real life, itsmain protagonist here became a free spirit fighting against a corruptand overbearing system. The trajectory of its four movements ispertinent to any creative artist, not least a slow movement suffusedwith pathos and a finale of baleful eloquence. Writing in 1972, Brianreduced these extramusical connotations to: ‘man in his cosmicloneliness: ambition, loves, battles, death’. Who would argue? Royal Scottish National Orchestra / Brabbins (Dutton, A/16)

4 Valedictory summations Shostakovich Symphony No 15 in A, Op 141 (1971) Shostakovich’s first ‘abstract’ symphony in nearly two decades offered a veritable minefield of supposition and allusion (Rossini, Wagner et al), causing intrigue and perplexion ever since. Is it a statement about cultural stagnation, or indicative of a more personal disillusion? At its UK premiere in 1972, the composer was asked whether the piece was the journey of a life. Speaking through clenched teeth, he replied, under his breath, ‘You are correct.’ Berlin Symphony Orchestra / K Sanderling (Berlin Classics)

Winbeck Symphony No 5, ‘Jetzt und in der Stunde des Todes’ (2009) Unable to complete the finale of Bruckner’s Ninth, Heinz Winbeck embodied its themes in a symphony of his own. The three movements build cumulatively towards a lengthy coda where Bruckner’s chorale hovers, vision-like, then fades to silence. The most notable Austro-German symphonist of his generation, Winbeck wrote nothing more in the decade before his passing. It might seem removed from the fevered imaginings of Berlioz, but Now and in the Hour of Death yields a comparable sense of embracing past and present when approaching the future. Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Russell Davies (TYXart, 3/20)

Available to stream at Apple Music

WHAT NEXT?

Berlioz’s romantic obsessions led to the ‘programme symphony’

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OperaDavid Vickers on a reconstructionof Vivaldi’s lost Argippo:

Mark Pullinger listens to Italian ariasfrom soprano Linda Richardson:

Beethoven ◊ Y

LeonoreNathalie Paulin sop...................................................Leonore

Jean-Michel Richer ten........................................ Florestan

Matthew Scollin bass-bar......................................... Pizarro

Stephen Hegedus bass-bar ....................................... Rocco

Pascale Beaudin sop........................................... Marzelline

Keven Geddes ten ..................................................... Jaquino

Alexandre Sylvestre bass-bar.................Don Fernando

Opera Lafayette Chorus and Orchestra /

Ryan Brown

Stage director Oriol Tomas

Video director Jason Starr

Naxos F ◊ 2 110674; F Y NBD0121V

(148’ • NTSC • 16:9 • 1080i • PCM stereo • 0 • s)

Recorded live at the Kaye Playhouse, Hunter

College, New York, March 2-4, 2020

Includes synopsis

Beethoven ◊ Y

Fidelio (1806 version)

Nicole Chevalier sop ................................................Leonore

Eric Cutler ten ........................................................... Florestan

Gábor Bretz bass .......................................................... Pizarro

Christof Fischesser bass ............................................ Rocco

Mélissa Petit sop ................................................... Marzelline

Benjamin Hulett ten ................................................. Jaquino

Károly Szemerédy bar ...............................Don Fernando

Arnold Schoenberg Choir; Vienna Symphony

Orchestra / Manfred Honeck

Stage director Christoph Waltz

Video director Felix Breisach

Unitel F ◊ 803208; F Y 803304

(130’ • NTSC • 16:9 • 1080i • DTS-HD MA5.1,

DTS5.1 & PCM stereo • 0 • s)

Recorded live at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna,

March 2020

Includes synopsis

The difference in title is nominal, circumstantial and a little misleading: both of these versions of Beethoven’s only opera are still work in progress towards the piece we know as Fidelio, fi nally presented in

1814. In fact the 1806 version, revived last March at the Theater an der Wien, was the only one of the three originally presented with the composer’s preferred emphasis on the heroine’s real name, as Leonore(‘or The Triumph of Wifely Love’).

The cast for Opera Lafayette act modestly and sing well enough within a functional set and an opéra comique style that is considerably more intimate than any previous recording of the opera (in any of its versions): even including Jaquino skulking in the background of the Prisoners’ Chorus I can count the number of singers on stage with two hands. What initially comes over as a covered tone on the part of Pascale Beaudin’s Marzelline transpires to be a more general shortcoming in the boxy acoustic of a small New York theatre and over-distant recording. The wobbly camerawork also presents frustrating evidence that the skill and care of Ryan Brown’s work in the pit is not matched by other production values.

With a reconstruction of the missing material from Florestan’s scene that opened Act 3 (in 1805), Brown and his forces probably take us as close as we will ever get to an ‘original’ Fidelio. The effect of Will Crutchfi eld’s completion, however, and its natural modulation into the grave-digging scene, is somewhat compromised by both Jean-Michel Richer’s parched tone and the rather dismal applause when he fi nishes.

The efforts of Rocco and Leonore, shovelling away in the dark, offer an unfortunately apt metaphor for many Leonore/Fidelios, not only this one. The 1806 revision from Vienna would be welcome for fi lling a signifi cant gap in the discography, but it does a lot more than that. Beethoven may have cut and remodelled the score under sufferance, but Manfred Honeck and Christoph Waltz show nothing but absolute faith in the dramaturgical success of the results.

Now cast in the familiar two acts, with the fi nale of each tightened to considerable advantage, Beethoven’s second thoughts

retain the duet for Marzelline and Leonore and the fi nal scene in the dungeon. To Rocco is restored his ‘Gold’ aria (which Beethoven cut in 1806) and the dialogue has been pruned (and then brought to life) with the cinematic hand of a gardener who knows that cruelty can be kindness, that thinning out lets in air and light.

Might this make for the best of all possible compromises in a notoriously awkward piece? The circumstances – recorded in a rush for online broadcast before all the lights went out last March – played to the strengths of director Waltz. Between them, he and video director Felix Breisach have, in effect, revived the genre of TV opera best known for big-budget affairs from the 1970s such as Joseph Losey’s Don Giovanni and August Everding’s productions for Unitel. Throwing out clunky naturalism, however, has cleaned up the stage much as Beethoven cleaned up the score in 1806 (Honeck’s phrase) and allowed for any number of strikingly lit and photographed scenes (most of Act 2 takes place in a near-darkness that works much better on screen than it likely would in the theatre). There is a fi nely judged open ending to remind us, as Chris Walton observed in a recent piece for Opera, that Ministers and Pizarros alike have the habit of survival.

All the leads look and sound the part. Thoroughly run into their roles from Honeck’s concert performances in Pittsburgh shortly before the staging, Nicole Chevalier and Eric Cutler both excel, she in the even trickier fi oritureof ‘Komm Hoffnung’ than the 1814 version, he in the more shaded, less black-and-white heroism of Florestan. Christof Fischesser presents a much more rounded Rocco than for Abbado (Decca, 9/11) and Mélissa Petit makes a marvellously spirited Marzelline. Taking full advantage of his retro-enhanced part, Gábor Bretz presents a sociopath of chilling realism and caprice, got up with surely a nod to Waltz’s own latter-day success in the role of Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

‘Delphine Galou is a vociferous tour de forceas the embittered Zanaida and her singingalso has masterful subtlety’ REVIEW ON PAGE 77

‘Of the 10 roles represented here, Richardson has sung most of them on stage, so she brings plenty of experience’ REVIEW ON PAGE 78


OPERA REVIEWS

Where Brown’s direction is morenumber-orientated, attentive to the styleand conventions of each section, Honeckworks off the vocal colours of his principalsand the Wiener Symphoniker’s Beethovenstyle as newly reinvigorated by PhilippeJordan. Unlike both Brown and RenéJacobs (Harmonia Mundi, 2/20), heunderplays and integrates the blindsidedissonance after Leonore reveals herself(another regrettable but shrewdly chosenvictim to Beethoven’s red pen in 1814; heknew the wisdom of killing your darlings),but the pacing throughout is taut and sure,including a good, old-fashioned quick pulsefor ‘O namenlose Freude’. Don’t miss it.Peter Quantrill

DonizettiIl pariaMarko Mimica bass-bar...........................................Akebare

Albina Shagimuratova sop ........................................Neala

Misha Kiria bar ................................................................Zarete

René Barbera ten ...................................................... Idamore

Thomas Atkins ten .................................................Empsaele

Kathryn Rudge mez .......................................................Zaide

Opera Rara Chorus; Britten Sinfonia /

Sir Mark Elder

Opera Rara F b ORC60 (111’ • DDD)

Includes synopsis, libretto and translation

When I interviewed Roger Parker for an article on Opera Rara in the July 2018

Gramophone he spoke enthusiastically of Il paria, which the company was planning to record: ‘full of invention’, he said, ‘with Beethovenian writing for the orchestra’. And here it is, in a new edition by Parker himself, Opera Rara’s Artistic Dramaturge, and Ian Schofield.

Il paria (pronounced like ‘aria’) was premiered on January 12, 1829, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. The cast included Rubini and Lablache, two members of what was to become known as the Puritani quartet; Neala was sung by Adelaide Tosi, who went on to star in Donizetti’s Il castello di Kenilworth six months later. The singers were warmly received, but the opera was not a success and it disappeared after six performances. Bits of the score were incorporated into later operas: in his authoritative booklet note Parker cites Anna Bolena, among others, and the unfinished opera for Paris, Le duc d’Albe. Despite his avowed intention

early on to rework the opera, Donizetti clearly came to regard it as a dead duck.

The story is set in and around the Temple of Brahma in Benares, the city where to this day the dead are cremated on the banks of the Ganges. According to Parker, the Pariah of the title is Zarete; but it could equally well be his son Idamore who, concealing his lowly origins, is a victorious general fighting on behalf of the high-caste Brahmins. Their high priest is Akebare; his daughter Neala, a priestess, loves – and is loved by – Idamore. Akebare is jealous of Idamore and seeks to destroy him. The wedding of the lovers is interrupted by the discovery of Zarete, whose presence pollutes the ceremony. Idamore is revealed as a Pariah, and Akebare condemns all three to death.

So there are elements familiar to us from Norma and Aida, not to mention The Pearl Fishers and Lakmé, all of which lay in the future. The music is splendid, well worth discovering. But I must confess that, despite reading both synopsis and libretto several times, I found the plot quite baffling. Not the events themselves, which are clear enough, but the motivation. How does Akebare hope to advance his interests by announcing that the gods have decreed

An intermediate Fidelio: Manfred Honeck conducts a compelling account of the 1806 version of Beethoven’s only opera, filmed shortly before lockdown last March

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his daughter’s marriage to the hatedIdamore? Why does Neala write toIdamore that her father is offering herhand to someone she doesn’t know?

Best to put these questions aside andturn to the music. One surprise is thatboth acts culminate in an ensemble forthe soloists without the chorus. Another isthe richness of the orchestration. Idamore’scavatina is introduced by a long passage forwoodwind accompanied by triplets in thestrings; trombones interject his readingof Neala’s letter. The cantabile sectionbegins with a cello solo, the strings playingpizzicato. Zerete’s scena in Act 2 openswith an even longer, delicate preludefor horn, woodwind and, again,pizzicato strings.

Mark Elder conducts with his customaryzeal. Subtlety, too: as an example of hisear for detail, note the crescendo in thecellos and basses as Idamore tries tocomfort Neala (disc 2, track 3). AlbinaShagimuratova is superb: so delicate in themelisma on ‘tanto’ as she recounts a dream,so vivid in the syncopation of ‘No, la vita’.Akebare doesn’t have an aria but MarkoMimica makes a strong impression fromthe outset, his voice pleasingly reminiscentof Samuel Ramey’s. As Zarete, Misha Kiriastruggles a bit with the low notes, but he isthrilling when he sings out. René Barbera isbreathtakingly wonderful. In the cabalettaof his big aria he negotiates the repeateddescent from what Roger Parker calls ‘theforest of high C sharps’ without yodelling,then caps it all with a ringing top E at thecadence. The Britten Sinfonia respond toElder’s conducting with playing of greatsensitivity and beauty. Indeed, the wholeventure makes a fine conclusion to hisseven years as Opera Rara’s ArtisticDirector. Richard Lawrence

KayserScherz, List und RacheAnnika Boos sop..........................................................Scapine

Cornel Frey ten............................................................... Scapin

Florian Götz bar .............................................................Doktor

L’Arte del Mondo / Werner Ehrhardt

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi F 19439 78491-2

(124’ • DDD)


In 18th-century Venice, two sweethearts plot their revenge on the miserly

Doctor who has swindled them – first by pretending that he’s accidentally poisoned the heroine, and then by giving him the fright of his life when she returns as a

‘ghost’. That’s basically the whole plot of Philipp Christoph Kayser’s 1787 opera Scherz, List und Rache (‘Jest, Cunning and Revenge’), and with just three singers and no chorus, it’s easy to imagine it making an entertaining one-act opera buffa.

But stretched out over two hours and four acts? Unsurprisingly, it was deemed unstageable in its own time, and the basic problem was diagnosed by the librettist who admitted, years later, that it was ‘too long for an intermezzo’ and that the plot had been extended ‘almost endlessly’. So why revive it? Well, that librettist just happened to be Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Gilbert & Sullivan apart, this must be the first opera recording I’ve seen in which the librettist is given top billing, though even the most devoted literary scholar would struggle to claim greatness for the scene in which the hapless Doctor barks like a dog. This premiere recording has been judiciously cut.

And yet there’s much to enjoy, even if it’s clear that Kayser – a lifelong friend of Goethe’s, who settled in Switzerland and appears to have suffered from depression – was either too polite or too inexperienced to ask Goethe to tighten things up. There’sa Haydnesque vivacity to his melodic style, and an ebb and flow from recitative to aria that, at its best, generates a temporary momentum. He makes what he can of the ensembles, and if his melodic writing tends to the foursquare, his orchestration is playful and sometimes poetic. A plaintiveoboe coils around a pleading aria from the heroine Scapine; there’s a bravura thunderstorm and a charming arietta in which flute and strings quietly evoke a nightingale and a waterfall.

Still, it’s a lot for three singers to carry, and it’s fortunate that Annika Boos and Florian Götz (as the Doctor) enter into the spirit of the piece with such vivacity and warmth. Boos, in particular, sings with a sunlit tone and a fluid, lyrical way of phrasing that makes you wonder what a more skilled musical dramatist might have done with this libretto. The tenor Cornel Frey, as her husband Scapin, is slightly less easy on the ear; but he brings a pointed comic sensibility to the smallest of the three roles, and overall it’s a persuasive ensemble.

The conductor Werner Ehrhardt keeps it all bustling along, and the period-instrument L’Arte del Mondo orchestra contribute characterful, enjoyably earthy woodwind solos and some rather beefy tuttis. The recording is based on a semi-staged production from Leverkusen in 2019, and there are a couple of 21st-century sound effects, which

might come as a jolt. Commendably, a full libretto is included, giving you an opportunity to decide for yourself whether Scherz, List und Rache is the ‘unknown masterpiece’ the booklet claims or just a literary curiosity with quite a nice score attached. Richard Bratby

Rossini Matilde di Shabran Michele Angelini ten ............................................Corradino

Sara Blanch sop ................................... Matilde di Shabran

Shi Zong bass .............................................Raimondo Lopez

Victoria Yarovaya contr ..........................Edoardo Lopez

Emmanuel Franco bar ........................................ Aliprando

Giulio Mastrototaro bar ............................................Isidoro

Lamia Beuque mez ..................................Contessa d’Arco

Ricardo Seguel bass-bar ......................................... Ginardo

Julian Henao Gonzalez ten ................. Egoldo/Rodrigo

Górecki Chamber Choir; Passionart Orchestra /

José Miguel Pérez-Sierra

Naxos S c 8 660492/4 (3h 18’ • DDD)

Recorded live at the Trinkhalle, Bad Wildbad,

Germany, July 16, 18 & 27, 2019

Includes synopsis. Italian libretto available from

naxos.com

‘It was really enough, more than enough. The entire performance was like

an idolatrous orgy; everyone acted there as if he’d been bitten by a tarantula.’ That was in Vienna in 1822, and there’s a whiff of that about this exuberant 2019 Rossini in Wildbad festival revival of the comic-heroic romp Rossini found himself writing for the 1821 Rome Carnival. Not that this original Rome version is the same as the revised, all-Rossini Matilde di Shabran that had its prima in Naples nine months later, and would be the source of one of the great recent Rossini recordings (Decca, 10/06), now unaccountably deleted.

The facts about the Rome original, frequently misunderstood, are these. Arriving way behind schedule after seeing into production his monumental new Naples opera Maometto II, albeit with a pre-agreed subject in mind, Rossini found himself confronted by a sprawling, action-packed libretto that the ridiculously tight schedule made it impossible to rework.

He never did manage to reduce the opera’s length, though, amazingly, the 125-minute first act – the same length, famously, as the first act of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung – was completed in time for the scheduled prima on February 24. This first act is largely the same in both versions. True, the cavatina of Isidoro, the itinerant troubadour, contains a passage


OPERA REVIEWS

casually lifted from Figaro’s ‘Largo alfactotum’. But Rossini rewrote thatsoon afterwards.

Act 2, however, is a different matter.Pressed for time, Rossini co-opted fellowcomposer Giovanni Pacini. Neither Pacinimovement – a trio and a duet – can be saidto work dramatically, as Rossini himselfprobably anticipated when reading thelibretto. Nor was he happy with his owndecision to assign the second act’s sublimehorn-led lament to the bass, Raimondo,father of the imprisoned Edoardo, ratherthan to Edoardo himself, the en travestimezzo. Wildbad’s Shi Zong copes noblywith the piece, though both he and the solohorn make heavy weather of a scene whichin the Edoardo-led Naples revision is athing of rare pathos and beauty.

What the Rome version does have is theopera’s only solo number for its virulentlymisogynistic anti-hero Corradino, finelyrealised here by Michele Angelini. Sadly,Rossini had taken this from Ricciardo eZoraide (Naples, 1818), a self-borrowingthat made it a no-no where the Naplescompletion of Matilde was concerned.

That completion arrived on the modernstage at the 1996 Pesaro Festival, usingJürgen Selk’s draft Critical Edition, andfeaturing as Corradino a little-known

23-year-old Peruvian tenor, Juan DiegoFlórez. Flórez quickly made the part hisown, with particular triumphs in Pesaroin 2004, source of the Decca recording,and at Covent Garden in 2008.

Angelini, Wildbad’s latest Corradino –there was an earlier one in 1998(Bongiovanni, 8/00 – nla) – is prettygood, hampered only by the failure ofthe DeutschlandRadio Kultur recordingto keep the stage performers consistentlyon mike, as they are in Michael Seberich’salmost studio-quality Decca set.Corradino’s fearsome first appearance –as viscerally charged an entry as that ofany tenor before Verdi’s Otello – is asnothing when the singer sounds as if he’sbarely left the greenroom.

The Catalan-born soprano Sara Blanchis an excellent Matilde, with the Frenchmezzo-soprano Lamia Beuque givingstellar support as Countess d’Arco,Matilde’s grouchy rival for Corradino’saffections. The Edoardo, Russian mezzoVictoria Yarovaya, is not entirely at easewith the role, though this is less of aproblem here, given that it wasn’tuntil Naples that the character wasfully fleshed out.

Fortunately, the opera’s three greatset-piece ensembles – the powerful

Act 1 quartet, the even finer Act 1quintet (after which, rightly, theaudience goes wild), and the epic Act 2sextet – are the same in both versions.It’s here that conductor José MiguelPérez-Sierra is at his best, galvanisinginto action his admirable chorus andnot-so-admirable orchestra. That said,he overdrives the stretta to the sextet,one of a pair of fleet-of-foot movementsRossini was more than happy torefashion for use in Le Comte Ory.Richard Osborne

VivaldiArgippoEmőke Baráth sop ..................................................... Argippo

Marie Lys sop ......................................................................Osira

Delphine Galou contr ...............................................Zanaida

Marianna Pizzolato contr.........................................Silvero

Luigi De Donato bass .................................................Tisifaro

Europa Galante / Fabio Biondi

Naïve F b OP7079 (122’ • DDD)


In 2008 the harpsichordist Ond∑ej Macek made a valiant attempt to

Sensitivity and beauty: soprano Albina Shagimuratova and conductor Mark Elder shine in Opera Rara’s resuscitation of Donizetti’s opera Il paria

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reconstruct Vivaldi’s lost Argippo (Prague, 1730), itself a revision of an opera premiered in Vienna earlier the same year. Adapted from Domenico Lalli’s entirely fictitious Il Gran Mogul (Naples, 1713), printed librettos survive for both productions but directly relevant musical sources have not materialised. In 2011 a complete manuscript score was found in Darmstadt that corroborates a collection of arias preserved in Regensburg, but these relate to a heavily reconfigured pasticcio prepared some time after January 1732, probably for the Venetian Antonio Peruzzi’s itinerant Italian opera troupe that toured between cities north of the Alps.

Naïve’s track-listing uses footnotes to give scant indications about the likely authorship and origins of a dozen arias. Seven arias unattributed to other composers are therefore presumably authentic Vivaldi – and several of these sound like they couldn’t be anyone else, such as Zanaida’s turbulent ‘Se lento ancora il fulmine’ and vengeful ‘Io son rea dell’ onor mio’, Silvero’s ‘Del fallire il rimorso è la pena’ and Osira’s anxious ‘Un certo non so che’. However, the bulk of the text recorded here is a motley compilation of diverse (and sometimes murky) authorship. As Reinhard Strohm’s expert booklet note explains, some arias were appropriated from operas by Pescetti, Hasse, Porpora and Vinci; others were perhaps written by Antonio Galeazzi and Andrea Fiorè.

To up the Vivaldi quotient a notch, Europa Galante kick off proceedings with the Sinfonia RV112 – led from the front by Fabio Biondi’s fleet-footed violin-playing. Spirited recitatives are delivered rapidly. The title-role is performed adroitly by Emoke Baráth, and Argippo’s courageous wife Osira is sung with assertive fioriture and focused phrasing by Marie Lys. Delphine Galou is a vociferous tour de force as the embittered antagonist Zanaida but her singing also has masterful subtlety when tackling deceptively fiendish cantilena in arias by Hasse and Vinci. Luigi De Donato conveys the distress and fury of Tisifaro, and Silvero’s resolve to own up to his deception is expressed sweetly by Marianna Pizzolato. Even if it is perplexing what this incarnation of Argippo really is from a musicological point of view, there is plenty to enjoy. David Vickers

Comparative version:

Hofmusici, Macek (DYNA) CDS626

Wuorinen Haroun and the Sea of Stories Heather Buck sop ....................................... Haroun Khalifa

Stephen Bryant bass-bar ...........................Rashid Khalifa

Matthew DiBattista ten ............................ Snooty Buttoo

David Salsbery Fry bass .......................Butt the Hoopoe

Brian Giebler ten ..................................I the Water Genie

Wilbur Pauley bass................................. Mali/King of Gup

Michelle Trainor sop .........Oneeta/Princess Batcheat

Neal Ferreira ten ............. Mr Sengupta/Khattam-Shud

Heather Gallagher mez .............................................Soraya

Charles Blandy ten ............................................. Prince Bolo

Aaron Engebreth bar ................................... General Kitab

Thomas Oesterling ten ..............................................Bagha

Steven Goldstein ten .................................................. Goopy

Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Chorus /

Gil Rose

BMOP/sound F b Í 1075 (134’ • DDD/DSD)

Includes libretto

A 12-note opera – for children? Well, yes, and rather good it is, too! Charles

Wuorinen, who died in March 2020, was a committed adherent to serialism. For him, it was not a compositional straitjacket for his invention but provided, rather, a structure to let his invention soar aloft – and it does indeed soar in this fantastical treatment (the verse libretto is by James Fenton) of Salman Rushdie’s extraordinaryand multi-layered novel. The plot is a complex of allegory-within-allegory, where the lines between notional and representational realities are blurred and events may not be all that they seem but also aspects of a wider malaise. Most vitally,this is a tale for children with a clear message for adults.

The key event at the opening is the abduction of Soraya, mother to the eponymous hero and wife of the great storyteller, Rashid, the self-styled ‘Shah of Blah’ and ‘Guru of the Gulf of Gumption’. Soraya’s theft deprives Rashid of his ability to tell stories, an important element of life in the Sad City of Alifbay and something that local villain-of-the-piece, Khattam-Shud, wishes to suppress. Khattam-Shud’s element is Silence, so the very notion of storytelling, words, still more their source in the Sea of Stories, is anathema to him. As he cannot control it, his wish is to repress and/or poison it. With Rashid emasculated like the Fisher King, it is his son Haroun who journeys through a phantasmagorical landscape like a Grail Knight (even to the South Pole and the City of Gup), encountering a weird and wonderful array of villains, a water genie, a king and – ultimately –

Khattam-Shud himself to recover his mother, rescuing the wonderfully named Princess Batcheat along the way. In doing so, he revitalises his father, who shuts Khattam-Shud (in reality a cipher for an array of crooks) up in a story and so breaks his power.

The cast is immaculate, ranged around the excellent Heather Buck, who sings and acts the role of Haroun with disarming grace and guile, and Stephen Bryant, whose ‘Shah of Blah’ is masterly in its restraint. Of the array of supporting roles, Matthew DiBattista (Snooty Buttoo) and Neal Ferreira (Sengupta, also doubling as Khattam-Shud) are suitably sleazy and villainous, Aaron Engebreth is a powerful General Kitab, while Michelle Trainor steals the show as Princess Batcheat. The others weave in and out of view as Haroun homes in on his target, backed by the BMOP Chorus and the wonderful Boston Modern Orchestra Project itself. The recording is first-rate, with the detail of Wuorinen’s richly coruscating scoring audible at all times.

How does this work, then, as a children’s opera? I have not yet tried this excellent audio recording out on my 12-year-old daughter, but I can well imagine a staged version making a huge impression. The 12-note musical language is used by Wuorinen with such marvellous clarity that all becomes completely intelligible. In this recording, every word can be heard, a tribute to the musicality of each singer (soloist or chorus member) and Gil Rose’s sensitive and intelligent direction. Warmly recommended. Guy Rickards

‘Italian Opera Arias’ Bellini Norma – Casta diva Donizetti Anna Bolena – Piangete voi? … Al dolce guidami Puccini La bohème – D’onde lieta uscì. Madama Butterfly – Un bel dì, vedremo; Tu? Tu? Piccolo iddio!a. Suor Angelica – Senza mamma. Tosca – Vissi d’arte Verdi Un ballo in maschera – Morrò, ma prima in grazia. La forza del destino – Pace, pace, mio Dio!. Rigoletto – Caro nome. La traviata – Addio, del passato; Ah, fors’è lui … Sempre libera Linda Richardson sop aJung Soo Yun ten

Sinfonia of London / John Wilson

Chandos F CHAN20155 (70’ • DDD • T/t)

Includes texts and translations

Between 1998 and 2010 Chandos issued, under its ‘Opera in English’ banner, a


OPERA REVIEWS

series of operatic recital discs featuring a wealth of talent from Bruce Ford (Vol 1, 4/98) to Gerald Finley (Vol 22, 4/10). A few singers, such as Yvonne Kenny, Diana Montague and Thomas Allen, even recorded a second volume. But the Peter Moores Foundation, which supported the series, wound down in 2014, and Chandos hasn’t issued a disc of operatic arias since. Until now. Only this time, it’s in Italian.

Ironically, soprano Linda Richardson would have been the perfect candidate for the Opera in English recital series back then, for between 1997 and 2005 she was a company principal at English National Opera (she did record the role of Oscar in Chandos’s 2003 Masked Ball – 11/04). After that stint at the Coliseum, Richardson went on to build a reliable career, mostly with the UK’s touring companies. In recent years, she sang title-roles in Madama Butterfly and La traviata with Welsh National Opera and there was an Anna Bolena for Longborough Festival Opera.

Of the 10 roles represented here, Richardson has sung most of them on stage, so she brings plenty of experience to this album, recorded with John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London. Perhaps she

should have opened with one of those familiar roles, because her very first note here, Leonora’s long F in ‘Pace, pace, mio Dio!’ from La forza del destino, hints at a voice under strain, tackling spinto repertoire that is a size too big for her essentially lyric soprano. This is the case in Amelia’s ‘Morrò, ma prima in grazia’ (Un ballo in maschera) too, where one senses phrases sometimes ending a fraction short, or high notes pinched.

The Mad Scene from Anna Bolena is tackled well, or the parts we are presented with, for the treacherous cabaletta ‘Coppia iniqua’ is excluded (presumably because it requires a choral contribution). From Rigoletto, Richardson sings ‘Caro nome’ attractively, if not as girlishly as she would have done in her ENO days in Jonathan Miller’s production. She is also at home as those Parisian consumptives, Violetta and Mimì. She throws herself into ‘Sempre libera’ with relish and delivers a touching ‘Addio del passato’, while Mimì’s farewell to Rodolfo is sensitively sung. In general, her Puccini comes off better, including a moving Suor Angelica (a role she sang at the RNCM in 2018) that ends with a fabulously floated A.

The final scene from Madama Butterfly is remarkably effective, partly down to Richardson’s stage experience but also to the outstanding playing of the Sinfonia of London under John Wilson, who really lands the orchestral punches in a score he conducted for Glyndebourne Touring Opera. Interestingly, a tenor (Jung Soo Yun) is hired for Pinkerton’s three offstage cries of ‘Butterfly!’ but not for Alfredo’s contributions to ‘Sempre libera’.

In her booklet introduction, Richardson explains how she wanted to show ‘the huge variety of heroines that can be found in the greatest Italian operas’. She certainly pulled out all the plums, and anyone who has enjoyed her performances should be encouraged to investigate this album. Mark Pullinger

An immaculate cast are joined by the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Chorus in Charles Wuorinen’s fantastical children’s opera Haroun and the Sea of Stories

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2020

The Songlines Music Awards 2020 ceremony is now available to watch for free.Presented by Cerys Matthews with performances from all of this year’s winners

plus the announcement of the World Pioneer & Newcomer categories.

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KEFAYA + ELAHA SOROORJAMBINAI

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James Brandon LewisMolecular

Intakt F CD350

For many yearssaxophonist JamesBrandon Lewis hasimpressed in piano-lesstrios and here he maintains

high standards in a piano-full quartet. Theman at the keyboard is the very talentedCuban Aruán Ortiz, and he proves to be anessential component of the group insofar asthe wiry counterpoint that he and the leaderweave around each other is spellbinding onoccasion. Having said that this is a strikinglyarticulate, interactive ensemble in whichdrummer Chad Taylor and bassist BradJones are doing more than hold down thecentral rhythm of the material, which veersfrom the fluid riffing that is part of thebroad vocabulary of the avant-garde to the

hard metronomic thrust associated with hip-hop. Lewis is a compellingly broodingpresence throughout, particularly on lowtempo numbers such as ‘Breaking Code’ inwhich his potent crescendos and deeplaments make for a very movingperformance. The sax-led quartet has anillustrious history for any new incumbents tolive up to but the JBLQ has staked a claimto be an important contemporary keeper ofthe flame. Kevin Le Gendre

De Beren GierenLess is Endless

Sdban Ultra F SdbanUCD17

There was a justifiablebuzz on the live Europeancircuit (remember that?)about the young Belgian-based cosmic piano trio

De Beren Gieren especially in the first

half of this decade. Now onto their fifthalbum Less is Endless proves they’re stilldelivering the goods with a lot of verve andfreshly imaginative ideas. Something ofThe Bad Plus lies in their quirky humourand bold contemporary themes, butminimalistic classical-like, fragmentedpiano melodies underlined with ambientgrooves borrowed from electronica andpost-rock give them a special aura and leadthem to entirely unique territory for apiano trio. The symphonic 18-minutefinale ‘A Random Walk’ leads us into neo-noir-ish soundscapes, acoustic pianoscherzos and jolting electronica but theband’s integrative approach toimprovisation and composition is such thatyou don’t even notice the joins. On Less isEndless it’s great to hear one of the mostpowerful live contemporary Europeanpiano trios still aiming for and achievingthose creative highs. Selwyn Harris

SvängIn Trad We Trust

Galileo F GMC091

This irrepressible Finnishharmonica quartet havedelighted and astonishedus for 17 years, producingeight albums of music

ranging from Sibelius and Chopin to tango.Their latest release pays homage to whatthey call their ‘spiritual home’, Finnish folkmusic: ancient runo songs, the kantele andjouhikko traditions and the great fiddleheritage. It’s a risk to take tunes widelyknown throughout Finland. ‘Kirkonkellot jaMaanitus’ is a kantele tune based on thesound of church bells, but its cascadingrhythms come alive in Sväng’s arrangementachieved by throwing motifs around like a‘ball game’ they say, while the ‘PeltoniemenHintriikin Surumarssi’ (Funeral March of

Hintriiki Peltoniemi), a melancholymeditation on the departure of a respectedfiddler, reveals something less solitary thanthe original, more reminiscent of thechanging colours of a church organ. But welove them too for their zany fairground-likeadventures, and who wouldn’t want to jointhem in the set of quadrilles that end thealbum, ‘Katrillia, Pilkkua ja Wappua’, tunesthat leave us giddy and breathless. In Svängwe trust. Always. Fiona Talkington

Lin Shicheng & Gao HongHunting Eagles Catching Swans

ARC Music F EUCD2928

Lin Shicheng (1922-2005),the late master of thePudong School of pipaplaying, was one of themost highly regarded

performers and educators of Chinese

traditional music. This recording is aselection of pieces performed on a tour ofthe US in April-May 1996, as a duo with hisbest student Gao Hong, herself a highlyregarded performer and educator.

The album starts in lively fashion withthe Jiangnan sizhu ‘Three Six’ – theuncommon duo pipa arrangement drawingout all of the mellifluous counterpoint thetune has to offer. The solo ‘AutumnThoughts’ is of a starker, morecontemplative mood, with Lin Shicheng’sdeft left hand vibrato evoking a disquietedmind on a tranquil night. The album closeswith an arrangement of the famous wen(civil) style piece ‘Moonlight Over theSpring River’, here adapted for pipa andzhongruan. Recorded in a single, uneditedtake, this is the only recording of thisarrangement of the piece, and serves as acapstone to an essential document of pipamastery. Charlie Cawood

Jazz

World Music

Gramophone, Jazzwise and Songlines are published by MA Music, Leisure & Travel, home to the world’s best specialist music magazines. To find out more, visit gramophone.co.uk, jazzwise.com and songlines.co.uk

The Editors of Gramophone’s sister music magazines, Jazzwise and Songlines, recommend some of their favourite recordings from the past month

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Spain’s Teatro Real was the firstmajor opera house to resuscitatethe art form after the first Covid-19

lockdown, its socially distanced concert ‘staging’ of Verdi’s La traviata playing to an incredible 22,000 spectators (at 50 per cent capacity) over 27 performances last July. Audience progress across Europe has been bumpy, from a triumphant Salzburg Festival and a full programme to launch the Wiener Staatsoper season to operas performed in empty houses from Bergamo to Berlin. Artistically, the offerings have ranged from the imaginative – Finnish National Opera’s irreverent Covid fan tutte – to lacklustre fare from the Royal Opera.

One thing they’ve all had in common, though, is that their wares have been streamed. Amid the welter of archive performances, there’s been a lot of new content released on to the internet. When it comes to opera, it’s not always there for long, alas, and it’s occasionally geoblocked. Expiry dates can suddenly change too (this column was to have featured Andreas Homoki’s new Simon Boccanegra at Oper Zürich before Arte brought forwards the cut-off date by two months). But there’s operatic gold in them there streams, so I’ve fossicked some nuggets that are still available to view.

We start back in Madrid, where Herculean efforts by the Teatro Real managed to stage Christof Loy’s stylish new production of Dvo∑ák’s Rusalka – double-cast – to audiences through November. Loy places the action in a theatre of teasing ballerinas and Chaplinesque clowns, with Rusalka a crippled dancer and Vodník, her father, as the impresario. Katarina Dalayman’s Je¡ibaba, who runs the box office, applies her ‘magic’ to heal Rusalka, but she cannot relate to the real world offered by her Prince. Ironically, a pulled Achilles tendon during rehearsals put tenor Eric Cutler’s Prince on crutches, involving last-minute tweaks to Loy’s staging.

Asmik Grigorian makes an astonishing role debut as Rusalka, her dark soprano soaked with heartfelt emotion, full of

Leonor Bonilla sings a dewy Zerlina. Bothshe and Josep-Ramon Olivé (Masetto) hadto self-isolate after the second performance due to possible Covid-contact and then new local restrictions meant the run was curtailed after the third performance. Josep Pons is the dependable conductor.

For something a little off the beaten track, try Lucinda Childs’s new production of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten for L’Opéra de Nice. The American choreographer has form when it comes to this composer – she starred in the 1976 premiere of Einstein on the Beach – and she brings a graceful, hypnotic simplicity to her staging here, directed via the internet (someone carries on a screen at the end so she is able to take a virtual curtain call). Childs also recites the lines of the Scribe, her holographic head beamed on to a monochrome array of astrological symbols and hieroglyphs. The stage consists of a large disc, sometimes flooded in gold projections, which tilts and pivots. Nine dancers in billowing skirts punctuate Childs’s direction, and there are artistic overlays and crossfades in the video direction. I also liked the way the director shows a sequence of shots of the same performer – a flautist, a chorister – from multiple camera angles.

Apart from Patrizia Ciofi as Akhnaten’s mum, it’s not a starry cast, but the mezzo-soprano Julie Robard-Gendre is a notable discovery as Nefertiti, while Fabrice Di Falco is a striking pharaoh. His countertenor is a little untamed, but there are moments of real power and quality. This is a plucky effort from a small company. It doesn’t have the big budget glamour – or juggling – of Phelim McDermott’s ENO production (later seen at the Met), but those audiences converted to Glass could be just as mesmerised here.

While some houses throw in their lot with established streaming platforms, it’s heartening to see others band together. The site OperaStreaming has seen houses from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy publish their own content, live performances that are then available for six months. The festive offering

dramatic conviction as the woman whoneeds to dance again to find love. She evenhad six months of training to enable her to briefly dance en pointe. Cutler sings heroically, while Maxim Kuzmin-Karavaev is a sonorous Vodník. Karita Mattila is a glamorous super-bitch Foreign Princess, doted on by a posse of male escorts.

Nature doesn’t get much of a look-in, represented by a mass of rock protruding into the theatre’s foyer, but I really like Loy’s meta-theatrical concept, and it’s wonderfully sung and finely conducted by Ivor Bolton. (Be quick, though, as it’s only available to view until February 25.)

Loy’s uncluttered, minimalist style makeshis productions ideal for Covid restrictions. Before the Madrid Rusalka, another of his stagings had just played in Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu. Not a new production this time, but his 2014 Oper Frankfurt Don Giovanni. During the Overture, the blood-red house curtain tumbles down and we watch the white-haired Don slaying a lookalike in a fencing duel. But is Giovanni murderer or victim? Is the opera the ageing seducer’s final hours in flashback? When the Commendatore (another double) makes his reappearance, Giovanni is surrounded by dashing duellists before expiring, the opera ending before the moralising epilogue.

Christopher Maltman is vocally a little rough and ready in the title-role but he’s a magnetic actor, great in partnership with the wonderful Luca Pisaroni as the put-upon Leporello. Véronique Gens is a terrific Donna Elvira, making it a shame that ‘Mi tradì quell’alma ingrata’ was one of a number of cuts inflicted to ensure the company complied with the regional curfew. Miah Persson’s soprano sounds pushed as Donna Anna, but Ben Bliss sings tenderly as Don Ottavio, beautifully ornamenting the repeats in ‘Dalla sua pace’.

Against all odds …

ONLINE CONCERTS & EVENTSMark Pullinger enjoys a feast of European opera without leaving his house

It’s heartening to see opera houses from Italy’s Emilia- Romagna band together


from Modena’s Teatro Comunale was,appropriately enough, Rossini’sLa Cenerentola, streamed from an emptyhouse. Nicola Berloffa’s new productionplays it traditionally safe, but opera buffareally needs an audience to spark thecomedy into life and some of the plot’ssillier moments fall a bit flat. But Rossini’sirresistible ensembles still come off with aswing under Aldo Sisillo’s baton.

For a small Italian house, the principalsare strongly cast. Antonino Siragusa is areally stylish Don Ramiro and NikolayBorchev camps it up as Dandini,impersonating his princely master’s floridtenor. Paola Gardina is a reliable Angelina(Cinderella), if not especially at ease in therapid coloratura of her rondo-finale.Nicola Alaimo is a bullish Don Magnifico,his robust bass-baritone in good form.

Like many Italian houses, Milan’s Teatroalla Scala had to abandon its scheduledDecember season-opener. Instead of a newproduction of Lucia di Lammermoor, it puttogether a Gala Concert which, even withJonas Kaufmann’s last-minute withdrawal,boasted a staggering guest list. This was no

park-and-bark concert either. DirectorsDavide Livermore and Giò Forma puttogether a different ‘set’, heavily reliant onsome stunning video effects by D-WOK,for each aria or sequence of arias, such asthe trio of Don Carlo numbers which takeplace by a train compartment in a wintrylandscape, Ludovic Tézier’s fur-lined Posalooking more like Eugene Onegin.

Masked gunmen stalk Luca Salsi’sRigoletto, video feathers float aroundVittorio Grigolo’s Duke during ‘La donnaè mobile’, Carlos Álvarez’s Iago shakes thehand of the President in front of a burningWhite House before pulling away todeliver his chilling Credo. Lisette Oropesa,who was to have starred in the scheduledLucia, gives a gorgeous rendition of‘Regnava nel silenzio’ in front of extrasacting out in slow motion Jack Vettriano’spainting The Singing Butler (for whateverreason is beyond me, but it looks stylish).Aleksandra Kurzak’s Liù sings before anactress submerged à la Millais’s Ophelia.

Livermore interspersed the music withrecitations by various actors, although themost powerful came from Livermore

himself at the end, recalling how ArturoToscanini conducted ‘for the whole ofItaly’ at the first concert held at the theatreafter the Second World War. ‘Music goesbeyond political divisions. That is thepower of art. It makes us better. It givesmeaning to our humanity.’ With La Scala’sorchestra, conducted by Riccardo Chailly,occupying the stalls, this is as stellar anoccasion as any season-opening and thefinal ensemble from Guillaume Tell offersan uplifting message of hope.

THE EVENTSDvořák Rusalka Teatro Real

medici.tv (until February 25, 2021)*Mozart Don Giovanni Gran Teatre del Liceu

operavision.eu (until June 4, 2021) Glass Akhnaten L’Opéra de Nice

youtube.com Rossini La Cenerentola Teatro Comunale,

Modena operastreaming.com (until June 30, 2021)

La Scala Gala Teatro alla Scala medici.tv (until March 7, 2021)* Also available to watch on Arte and RAI

*subscription required

ONLINE CONCERTS & EVENTS

Aleksandra Kurzak as Liù in Puccini’s Turandot from the gala concert at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, conducted by Riccardo Chailly

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R ichard Bonynge turned 90 lastSeptember, an anniversary marked by the release of this set of his

complete ballet recordings (though it actually contains considerably more than that) made for Decca between 1962 and 1995. Bonynge is, of course, best known for his re-evaluation of the Italian bel canto and 19th-century French operatic repertories, undertaken in partnership with his wife, Joan Sutherland. On his own, however, he developed a parallel interest in ballet music, committing to disc more than 20 scores written or arranged for dance, together with multiple albums of extracts, divertissements and pas de deux.

Decca, meanwhile, has also added ballet music from some of his opera recordings (Faust, La favorita, Le roi de Lahore and the Trovatore ballet Verdi provided for the 1855 Paris production, which Bonynge inserted into his 1976 recording of the Italian original). There are orchestral suites by Massenet, two albums of opera overtures and even a group of rarely heard cello concertos (by Massenet, Auber and David Popper, a member of Liszt’s circle) recorded with Jascha Silberstein and the Suisse Romande Orchestra in 1971.

Bonynge’s approach to ballet was characterised by the same scholarly passion that informs his opera performances, though he was similarly circumspect in what he tackled, limiting himself to music from the 19th century, even if it was not used used for ballet until the 20th. Focusing on the French and Russian repertories, he gave us the core classics – Adam’s Giselle (twice), Delibes’s Coppélia (again twice) and Sylvia, the three Tchaikovsky ballets – along with lesser- or little-known works that enrich our understanding of both the achievements of the ballet composers of the period and the historical context which informs them.

So Giselle (1841) can be compared not only with Adam’s other ballets but also with Friedrich Burgmüller’s La péri (1843),

haunted second act, where Adam’s debt to Weber’s Der Freischütz is more than once apparent. The 1986 remake, in digital sound with the Royal Opera House Orchestra, is more securely played – the Monte-Carlo woodwind on occasion leave something to be desired – but also more relaxed in terms of tempo and pacing, lacking some of the intensity of its predecessor.

Bonynge’s two recordings of Delibes’s Coppélia elicit similar responses. The first, from 1969 with the Suisse Romande, is the finest version on disc, beautifully paced and shaped, played with superb finesse and a wonderfully authentic French sound. The second (1984) employs the National Philharmonic, founded as a recording orchestra in 1964 (originally as the RCA Victor Symphony), with which Bonynge worked regularly throughout his career. The performance, however, is less incisive, the playing less brilliant, the digital recording squeaky-clean but chilly when placed beside the warmer analogue version.

The National Philharmonic was also Bonynge’s orchestra for his Tchaikovsky cycle. The Nutcracker (1974) lacks something of Ernest Ansermet’s magic (Decca) or Valery Gergiev’s greater drive (Philips), though Bonynge’s Swan Lake, made the following year, is outstanding. Like many conductors on record, Bonynge uses the original 1877 version (rather than the 1895 Drigo reworking nowadays heard in the theatre), which comes uber-complete with the addition of the Act 3 pas de deux that Tchaikovsky added at the insistence of the ballerina Olga Sobeshchanskaya, the score of which only came to light in 1953. As with his first Giselle, the work’s gothicism is very much to the fore: the melancholy mood is immaculately sustained, tipping into near-nightmare with Rothbart and Odile’s terrifying first appearance at the Act 3 ball, and reaching genuinely tragic heights in the final scenes. It’s a tremendous performance, almost equalled by Bonynge’s 1977 Sleeping Beauty,

both choreographed by Jean Coralli tosupernatural scenarios by Théophile Gautier as vehicles for the ballerina Carlotta Grisi. Delibes’s La source (1866) was co-composed with Ludwig Minkus, whose music can sometimes be routine, though Bonynge recorded the work complete, unlike most conductors who jettison Minkus’s contribution altogether. Delibes’s influence on Tchaikovsky (who thought Swan Lake inferior to Sylvia) is well known, but Bonynge’s recordings of important, albeit uneven works by other composers for the Imperial Russian ballet, such as Minkus’s La bayadère (1877) and Riccardo Drigo’s La flûte magique (1893 – the plot has nothing to do with Mozart), serve as reminders of the formal constraints, choreographic as well as musical, within which Tchaikovsky worked.

For the classics, Bonynge reverted to original editions rather than using the now prevalent theatre scores that evolved over time as a result of the need to revise, re-choreograph or insert scenes or dances for successive casts or star performers. So both his recordings of Giselle give us the ballet as it was heard at its premiere, with the bulk of the music by Adam, but also including Burgmüller’s ‘Peasant pas de deux’, worked up at the last minute from the latter’s Souvenirs de Ratisbonne as a display piece for the ballerina Nathalie Fitzjames. The ballet’s orchestration had also been revamped over time, most notably by the composer-conductor Henri Büsser, though Bonynge reverts to Adam’s and Burgmüller’s original scoring.

His first Giselle, made in 1967 with the Monte-Carlo Opera Orchestra, remains remarkable, a grippingly theatrical account, generating real gothic frissons in the

A wonderful set that asks us to reconsider Bonynge’s achievement afresh

Richard Bonynge at the ballet

REISSUES & ARCHIVEOur monthly guide to the most exciting catalogue releases, historic issues and box-setsRICHARD BONYNGE • 84 ROB COWAN’S REPLAY • 90

KARL RICHTER • 86CLASSICS RECONSIDERED • 92

BOX-SET ROUND-UP • 89

Tim Ashley welcomes a substantial set of the conductor’s work away from the opera


magisterial and grand in its splendour, and quite ravishingly played.

Bonynge’s re-examination of little-known ballets, meanwhile, began in 1964 with Adam’s Le diable à quatre, a pointed comedy about two women – one aristocratic and ill-tempered, the other poor but sweet-natured – forced by supernatural intervention to change places for a day. Not everyone will agree with the much-voiced argument that he unearthed a fi ner score than Giselle, though it is a work of great wit and elegance, performed with wonderful panache by the LSO.

There were to be more rediscoveries over the years. Bonynge recorded Offenbach’s only ballet Le papillon early in 1972, following it with Auber’s Marco Spada later the same year, again both with the LSO. Offenbach’s slightly sinister fairy tale has bags of charm and a notably beautiful climactic pas de deux. Marco Spada follows the same narrative as one of Auber’s operas and draws its music from 10 others. It’s rip-roaringly good, and after the recording’s eventual release in 1975, the dancer Pierre Lacotte choreographed a new staging for Rudolf Nureyev, fi rst seen

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Thirty-three years of ballet recordings from Bonynge

in Rome in 1981. Bonynge’s recordings of Massenet’s two stand-alone ballets, Cigale and Le carillon with the National Philharmonic, date from 1978 and 1983 respectively. The former, based on La Fontaine’s La cigale et la fourmi (‘The grasshopper and the ant’) is the fi ner of the two; Le carillon, grander in scale, is arguably less effective, though both performances are beautifully focused.

Nowadays, however, the best-known ballet to Massenet’s music is Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon (1974), danced to arrangements by Leighton Lucas of extracts from the composer’s operas, oratorios and orchestral works, including substantial passages from the Scènes alsaciennes and Scènes dramatiques. The latter are heard here complete in high-powered performances from 1975: Bonynge’s account of the Massenet/Lucas ballet (1985with the ROH Orchestra) is sensual and dramatic, if a bit hard driven.

Manon is one of several scores included here that are effectively pasticcios of earlier

material, many of them more familiar at the time of recording than they are now. The Rossini-Respighi La boutique fantasquegets a performance from the National Philharmonic that is wonderfully crisp and energetic but doesn’t quite have the sparkle of René Leibowitz’s famous recording with the London Philharmonic. I have fond memories of seeing Massine’s lovely Mam’zelle Angot as a teenager, danced to numbers from Lecocq’s operetta La fi lle de Madame Angot arranged by Gordon Jacob; Bonynge gives us the ballet complete, though Jacob’s rescoring of the operetta’s overture comes over as brash when placed beside Lecocq’s original, which Bonynge includes on his ‘French Opera Overtures’ disc.

You have to take the rough along with the smooth at times, though there are also pleasures and surprises along the way. Some of the music is frankly uneven: La bayadère sounds much more interesting than I’ve ever experienced it in the theatre but still palls without Petipa’s extraordinary choreography. Drigo’s music, on the other

hand, struck me as utterly enchanting. La fl ûte magique is a delightful

work, as is Le réveil de fl ore, which Bonynge includes

in a two-disc set of music associated with Anna Pavlova.

Drigo is probably best known for the pas de deux from Le corsaire, an

insertion piece, in fact, for a 1899 St Petersburg production

of Adam’s fi nal (1856) ballet: Bonynge recorded the latter in 1990, omitting the Drigo,

though it gets a terrifi c performance on his 1964 ‘Pas de deux’ album, where it sounds sexy and very grand.

You could also argue that there are some omissions. Lalo’s Namouna is notably absent from a set that otherwise serves the 19th-century French ballet repertory uncommonly well. And I would also have liked Bonynge to have complemented his Tchaikovsky cycle with Glazunov’s Raymonda, the last of the great imperial Russian ballets to be premiered before Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes changed the history of dance and its music for ever. Even so, this is a wonderful set, selling for about £120, that asks us to reconsider Bonynge’s achievement afresh, and to re-examine aspects of his scholarship and artistry that many have neglected in favour of his opera recordings. Highly recommended.

THE RECORDINGComplete Ballet Recordings

Richard Bonynge Decca S (45 discs) 485 0781


The summa totalis of Karl Richter’s DG recordings (from 1959 to 1980) affords us the greatest sense

yet of an exceptional and pivotal figure in the post-war studio. Forty years after his death, Richter still divides opinion. At the start of his career, he was the byword for pioneering ‘authenticity’ – a Lutheran pastor’s son, partly reared at St Thomas’s in Leipzig, who was viewed by many as a kind of modern-day reincarnation of Bach and a beacon of hope in the demoralising aftermath of the war. As one of the great keyboard talents of his age and conductor-founder of the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra, Richter’s spiritual zeal, precision and muscular virtuosity offered a radical alternative to the many soft-centred and tired-sounding Bach performance practices of the 1940s and ’50s. For someone whose work was centred primarily on Bach (exactly two-thirds in this box), Richter survived long enough to know that towards the end his values were being challenged by a new ideal of ‘authenticity’: the ‘period’ revolution was gathering steam under his very nose at Archiv – the label that had dominated his recording career – and from the late 1970s to his death in 1981 at the age of only 54, Richter ‘left the world an embittered man’, in the words of Nicholas Anderson.

John Eliot Gardiner’s damning description of Richter’s Bach, in his book Music in the Castle of Heaven, as ‘grim, sombre, po-faced, lacking in spirit, humour and humanity’ feels very wide of the mark on the evidence of this collection of 97 CDs and three Blu-ray Audio discs. Albeit from a different era, Richter regularly advances musical insights that are both profoundly illuminating and joyous, and with an unusual inward purity and honesty, even a naivety, that is bursting with humanity. His recorded oeuvre is certainly strikingly inconsistent, and it appears especially so now when changing fashions can curiously move us closer and further away from Richter at the same time. One imagines the same to be partly true of Herbert von Karajan, the other of those prolific DG maestros on the yellow label from this period. To add to an enigma of contradictions, despite his disapproval of Richter, Gardiner’s own Mass in B minor from 1985 (on the same label) moves, consciously or otherwise, towards the visceral and large-limbed territory Richter had recently vacated.

Not dissimilar to Karajan, Richter’s greatest strengths and failings rest on the unequivocal decisions at the heart of every interpretation. Each disc here offers a richly coloured perspective, rarely diluted by either distraction or nonchalance. Richter applies a hierarchy of musical characteristics which can either grip the listener in fervent emotional engagement or lose him/her in muffled heft. Rarely does an interpretation leave you feeling indifferent. If that’s the archetypal curate’s egg – and in general Richter’s recorded output becomes less, rather than more, distinguished over the years – the mystique of the man is never far beneath the surface. In his heyday, Richter the echt master-craftsman was famously indefatigable. Living on his nerves as he gave virtuoso organ and harpsichord recitals at the same time as playing the charismatic Kapellmeister, his reputation spread fast from Europe to the US, South America, the USSR and Japan, where he achieved a status not that far behind Glenn Gould, in Bachian terms at least.

In 1995 Teldec released a box of Richter’s early forays from the mid-1950s – a combination of cantatas, Passions and solo keyboard music – but the choral recordings especially feel like a man gathering his materials for the serious DG journey to come: only a glorious trio of cantatas (Nos 67, 108 and 127), including an evergreen Peter Pears from 1959, and a characterful set of Handel organ concertos can stand alongside the best from this new collection. In fact, DG had started to record the Munich Bach Choir and Orchestra shortly before, a contract that was to run alongside Telefunken (as Teldec then was) until such time as Richter was given free rein on the yellow and silver labels.

To enjoy Richter’s Bach, you have to submit to intellectual and emotional values quite alien to the sensibilities, conceits and inflections of what has become our historical-performance mainstream. Musical truth for Richter is about the intense and direct projection of the text as he reads it. You see it in those burning eyes, shooting the meaning of the Word

with a fervour, nobility and sense of architecture that unashamedly imbue in every sinew of Richter’s being from his first down-beat. From this early period, the 1958 recording of the St Matthew Passion remains a gold standard. The final half an hour has never been bettered, complete with Fischer-Dieskau’s unforgettable ‘Mache dich’ and the abject sorrow of the final chorus. The 1979 reading is a mawkish reflection of Richter’s enervating last years, with its interminable tempos and over-embellished continuo.

In 2018 DG released Richter’s 75 cantatas – the majority recorded in the 1970s and grouped in seasons rather than cycles – in a satisfyingly compact 24-bit Blu-ray edition and they sound wonderfully sprung, with the superb balance that characterised the engineering from which Richter benefited throughout his career. Revisiting many of these performances, one is struck repeatedly by the distinction, if not always the ideal judgement, of the solo singing and almost unreservedly by the supreme obbligato playing. Richter had the magnetism to attract the very best that the Continent could offer, hence the likes of flautist Aurèle Nicolet, oboists Edgar Shann and Manfred Clement, the horn player Hermann Baumann and the trumpeter Maurice André. The latter is unforgettable in the celebrated Christmas Oratorio with Gundula Janowitz, Fritz Wunderlich et al from 1965.

If Fischer-Dieskau is ubiquitous, he is the one singer of the ‘very regulars’ (the bombproof Edith Mathis is another in this category) who can drift into automatic pilot, relying too much on his celebrated timbre and over-seasoned mannerisms. More in thrall to Richter’s direction are the tenors Ernst Haefliger and Peter Schreier, who cover almost the whole of Richter’s Bach discography. One of the glories of the latter years is the contralto Anna Reynolds, who offers a natural line and depth of sentiment that only Helen Watts (sadly, never a Richter recruit) can muster in Bach recordings of this era. The Advent, Christmas and earlier-recorded Trinity cantatas represent the pick of the bunch. Out of the 75 cantatas, at least 75 per cent contain something memorable. From this period, only Fritz Werner and the smaller output of Helmut Winschermann can really rival Richter for depth and range.

The instrumental Bach recordings are full of hits and misses. Several

REISSUES

Musical truth for Richter is about the intense and direct projection of the text

Karl Richter’s complete DG recordingsJonathan Freeman-Attwood assesses a charismatic and fearless pioneer


of them are new to CD, including asuffocating Goldberg Variations best left in its dust jacket. The finest keyboard work is dazzling – a good number of the harpsichord concertos, especially with his trusty lieutenant Hedwig Bilgram, and several of the organ preludes and toccatas. The F major Toccata from Freiburg Cathedral is awe-inspiring with its architectonic growth, rhetorical swagger and just its sheer brilliance. Helmut Walcha and Ralph Kirkpatrick respectively took the lion’s share of Archiv’s organ and harpsichord fare but there is enough here for Richter, especially alongside his earlier forays on Telefunken. The Brandenburgs and Orchestral Suites are executed with extraordinary aplomb and bravura, though with modern ears they are likely to be admired in small doses. The

pleasant surprises I had failed to pick up(in so-called ‘licensed’ releases during trips to Japan) include the six sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord with Wolfgang Schneiderhan. There’s a theatrical flair and narrative that imparts a very different

starting point to the music-making of today and yet, despite the gothic undertows in the allegros, there are moments of deeply felt poetic duetting.

The non-Bach recordings are dominated by an extraordinary miscellany of delectable surprises from Schütz to Reger (though not Bruckner, where he started

his orchestral conducting career). Not many of them, alas, involve Handel, which is a shame given how much Handel he recorded. As was de rigueur at the time, countertenor opera roles were often taken by baritones, of which the most egregious example is Fischer-Dieskau in the title-role of Giulio Cesare. Yet the problem lies more fundamentally with Richter. He seems to eschew those characteristics that bring Handel’s music alive: elegance, sprightliness, humour (I’m with Gardiner here) and heart. His two Messiahs with his own forces and the LPO stubbornly avoid Handel’s penchant – even in his sacred works – for entertainment. That Richter stayed rigidly on his own mono-dramatic Handelian course is born out in his weighty set of Op 6 Concertos, although this fastidiously compiled box

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Despite the gothic undertows there are deeply poetic moments

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Fervour and nobility: Karl Richter brought a fine sense of architecture to much of the music he conducted

88 GRAMOPHONE FEBRUARY 2021

gramophone.co.uk

(it even includes a disc where it says thatit was unlikely Richter was present at thesessions!) includes the Fritz LehmannOp 6 set from 1952 in which a youngRichter plays continuo; if only theapprentice could have absorbed the olderman’s shaping and whim. There isone Handelian exception to relish:the Fireworks Music and two Duecori concertos in which the EnglishChamber Orchestra appear to havemade a pact with Richter to leavethem to ‘do their stuff’. The result isgreater fluency, bounce and tenderness,the latter apparent in an enchantingLargo from the F major Concerto.Less than a decade later, we hadTrevor Pinnock’s Handel concertorecordings – again on the same label –and we never looked back.

Bach and Handel aside, there are otherjoys aplenty. Going against the grain ofrecent criticism (Richard Wigmore calledthis first recording of the Italian version ofGluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice ‘a travesty’ – 8/14),Richter manages to evoke a ravishingly

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amorous and limpid Arcadian world. Thesame perennial baritone – and the samescoring problem – as in Giulio Cesare appearsagain here, and yet contrary to expectationsthe galant spirit appears to suit Richter’s

quixotic temperament: CPE Bach symphonies are bristling with energy and intrigue, and nothing astounds more than the sophistication and élan of a disc of Haydn symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra – No 94 and the Clock, the latter one of the best you’ll ever hear.

This extraordinarily researched and impressive project is a considerable labour of love. Above all, it conveys a strong celebratory sense that with Karl Richter the world witnessed a phenomenal specialist and polymath rolled into one. Latterly, he got caught in the crossfire of stylistic debate and fashion over and around the composer whose music he breathed every minute: Bach. Despite a diminished end to his career, Richter was probably the most complete Bach artist since the composer himself. Among the many additional treasures included are the Blu-ray discs of all the large-scale choral works, joining the cantatas, and starting with the magnificent aforementionedSt Matthew Passion. Thenewly conditioned sound

is as exceptional as anything from over60 years ago. I quibble only that the DVDsof Richter’s four films are absent, althoughthere is a riveting rehearsal disc of theChristmas Oratorio sessions showing howRichter patiently and methodically builtup his sound with his peerless chamberorchestra (and a lovely moment whenthe soloists make a total Horlicks of thefinal recitative). Also, in otherwise finelyassembled iconographical material –including originally designed sleeves anda superb booklet – we are deprived of the1959 cover of Cantatas Nos 8 and 45 (thisis nerdy territory). This was an LP that setthe Bach world alight and acted as a catalyst

for Richter’s neo-Bach revolution. Asmall price in a truly exceptional

retrospective of this iconic butcomplex musician.

THE RECORDINGSComplete Recordings

on Archiv Produktion and Deutsche Grammophon Karl Richter

DG S (97 CDs + c Y) 483 9068

One of the great keyboard talents of his age: Karl Richter’s muscular virtuosity reinvigorated postwar Bach performance


A ccording to theFitzwilliam Museumin Cambridge, The

Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, onceknown as ‘Queen Elizabeth I’sVirginal Book’, is one of themost important treasures in themusic collection bequeathed byViscount Fitzwilliam (1745-1816), and the richest anthology of 16th-and early 17th-century English keyboardmusic in existence. Its first completerecording appears from Brilliant Classics atbudget price on 15 CDs played on variousearly instruments by Pieter-Jan Belder, oneof the world’s most respected and prolificharpsichordists, whose recording (also onBrilliant) of Scarlatti’s complete keyboardsonatas is ranked by many to be the bestavailable (‘Belder’s Scarlatti survey offershours upon hours of listening pleasure,and unquestionably constitutes a majorachievement’, according to Jed Distlerwriting in Classics Today). Here thestandard of playing is consistently high, thevariety of music on offer remarkably varied,from John Bull’s 16-minute Walsingham(based on a popular Elizabethan balladtune), played on a 1999 Cornelis Bomharpsichord after Ruckers, to the minute-long Byrd Gigue (F180), played on asonorous-sounding Adlam Burnett muselar(I’m assuming a virginal muselar), againafter Ruckers. The often astonishing rangeof compositional style here is the principaldraw, with Belder relishing every noveltwist and turn. The sound quality isexcellent and so is the comprehensiveannotation by Jon Baxendale (with anote from Belder himself).

Surely no composer has been morefrequently ‘transcribed’, ‘arranged’ or‘rearranged’ than JS Bach, starting with Bachhimself, who would regularly revisit his ownmusic for a fresh look, then moving onwardsvia Mozart, the Romantics, the fleshyrecreations of Stokowski, Cailliet and othersto more cerebral visitations from the likesof Schoenberg, Stravinsky and Kalevi Aho.And that’s hardly the tip of a very sizeableiceberg, a few valuable shards of whicharrive in the context of Brilliant Classics’stylistically varied 20-CD set of Bachtranscriptions, which includes a superb discof oboe concertos skilfully reconstructedand exceptionally well played by AndriusPuskunigis, violin concertos transcribed and

Contredanses by Beethoven, Ziehrer’sDas Landstreicher Overture, Ballszeneby the elder Josef Hellmesberger, twofine Suppé overtures (Pique Dame andBoccaccio), Lehár’s Nechledil-Marsch andWaldteufel’s evergreen España. MaybeDudamel, although worthy, needs to ‘bedin’ a little more, stylistically speaking,but performances directed by Nelsonsand Thielemann suggest a watertightrelationship with both the Viennese playersand the chosen repertoire.

Other conductors are also healthilyrepresented on these additional discs. Afinal CD features slimline performancesby section leaders of the VPO, well played,though proof that however true it is thatthis music is in the orchestra’s blood –and they can therefore virtually play itin their sleep – the presence of so manygreat conductors, from Clemens Krauss inwartime, through Willi Boskovsky, CarlosKleiber, Zubin Mehta (some of whoseperformances are especially impressive),Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado,Lorin Maazel, Nikolaus Harnoncourt andso forth, makes itself known through thesheer quality of their interpretations: eachone viable on its own terms, which reflectsthe lead from the top. One track on the‘section leaders’ programme that especiallyimpressed was the last, Johann Strauss II’soverture Der lustige Krieg, superbly played.A handsome 115-page hardback bookletis provided, and the packaging is bothattractive and sturdy.

THE RECORDINGSThe Complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book

Pieter-Jan Belder Brilliant Classics S n 95915

JS Bach Transcriptions Various artists Brilliant Classics S (20 CDs) 95943

Handel Concerti grossi ASMF / Iona Brown Hänssler Classic S d HC17036

New Year’s Concert: The Complete Works – Extended Edition VPO Sony Classical S (26 CDs) 19439 76456-2

played by organist Daniele Boccaccio, two separate versions of the Goldberg Variations as arranged respectively for recorders and strings, solo violin works arranged for guitar and, perhaps least successful, Cello Suites arranged for solo saxophone. An interesting collection nonetheless.

Moving from Bach to Handel, if you’re a regular reader you’ll know that Decca recently reissued, in the context of its Academy of St Martin in the Fields ‘60th Anniversary Edition’ (60 CDs – 9/20), Iona Brown’s vital and musically appealing 1979 Philips recordings of Handel’s complete Op 6 Concerti grossi. Now Hänssler Classic offers a bargain box of Brown’s later digital recordings with the same band (1994-95, although no recording dates are given in the booklet), adding the Op 3 Concerti grossi, the performances stylistically quite different to their predecessors (Op 6, that is), meaning less rhythmically pungent and with added woodwind lines. This later set is also less ornamental: note the curlicues in the First Concerto’s second movement that have vanished during the intervening years. I’d say that of the two this newer set is lighter on its feet, more keenly inflected and rather more in keeping with current performing practices for Baroque music. The sound is first-rate.

Another variety of update arrives courtesy of Sony Classical, which has added three new CDs to its previously released Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra collection ‘New Year’s Concert: The Complete Works’ (first released in 2015), bringing it bang up to date with new repertoire (317 compositions now become 355) – the idea being to represent every single piece performed in the concerts’ history by a representative live performance – and adding to an already strong roster of conductors Gustavo Dudamel, Andris Nelsons and Christian Thielemann. As to the extra repertoire, there are some good pieces including a group of

BOX-SETRound-upRob Cowan listens to collected editions ranging from transcriptions to New Year treats


Few commentators these days tendto speak of the Dutch conductorand pedagogue Eduard van Beinum

(1900-59). He was an exceptional musician by any standards, who in my younger years was a strong presence in the record catalogues, principally through his many recordings for Philips and Decca, most of which are gathered together in Scribendum’s well-presented but as ever annotation-free collection. First, though, a gentle word of warning. Not everything that you’d expect to hear is actually included – for example an enjoyable quartet of Rossini overtures, Reger’s Mozart Variations, a number of live recordings and various concertos with Clifford Curzon, Arthur Grumiaux and Anthony Pini. But what we do have is both musically rewarding and indicative of a stylistic curve that reached from Willem Mengelberg’s charismatic individuality to the more considered manner of van Beinum’s successor at the Concertgebouw, Bernard Haitink.

As to specifics, Bach is represented by sober accounts of the four Orchestral Suites, well played but rather dull. A stereo recording of Handel’s Water Music (Chrysander edition) is fairly satisfying, though Mozart’s Posthorn Serenade (with Symphony No 29) is better, and live recordings of Mozart’s Symphony No 40 (an electrifying rehearsal) and Beethoven symphonies (Nos 2 and 7 with the Philharmonia, No 3 with the Concertgebouw) better still. I think it’s fair to say that studio Beethoven recordings (various overtures, Prometheus ballet music, Symphony No 2) have since been superseded by later versions, though there are excellent performances of Haydn symphonies (Nos 94, 96, 97 and 100).

Tchaikovsky provides an especially telling point of reference. Wartime broadcasts of the Fourth Symphony and Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture revisit many of the interpretative gestures already familiar from Mengelberg’s pre-war Columbia recordings of the same works: the swelling climaxes, fierce sforzandos, wild tempo changes (also the severed

pity that the Cello Concerto with Anthony Pini isn’t with them. Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique (Concertgebouw) is another benchmark, the ‘Witches’ Sabbath’ finale worked into a veritable frenzy.

Van Beinum’s way with French music was, like that of his successor Haitink, celebrated, and two versions of Debussy’s La mer beg serious consideration among a plethora of rivals, the earlier (and swifter) of the two a rough-sounding dramatic wartime effort, the more relaxed later version in stereo. As to 20th-century music, Britten’s Spring Symphony can be heard in its world-premiere performance with, among other soloists, Kathleen Ferrier (the date is July 14, by the way, not July 9 as stated), and there are two performances of the Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, the earlier version of ‘Moonlight’ significantly broader than its 1953 successor. Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is among the score’s finest early recordings and there are cracking performances of his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (where the lack of stereo information hardly matters, such is the intensity and clarity of the playing), Kodály’s Háry János Suite, Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1919, recorded 1956, witness the rhythmically precise timps in ‘Kaschei’s Dance’) – there’s also a live recording from 1948 – as well as The Rite of Spring

bridge in the symphony’s first-movement coda) and the sheerfury of it all. A post-war London studio recording of the overture is nothing like as impassioned. Other live/studio comparisons include Bruckner’s Eighth, recorded within a couple of months of each other in spring 1955 and while conceptually quite similar – in general van Beinum’s Bruckner eschews broad tempos and any hint of churchly posing – the sonically inferior live version ratchets up the tension in a way that its studio successor doesn’t. Also included is a live Fifth and studio versions of the Seventh and Ninth.

Mahler is represented by an at times reckless live Sixth – the fearsomely unanimous final chord shocks like no other I’ve heard – as well as a studio Fourth (considered, if light years removed, stylistically, from Mengelberg’s malleable pre-war live version) and a take on Das Lied von der Erde that for me is notably superior to the stereo version that Eugen Jochum made for DG with the same soloists, Nan Merriman and Ernst Haefliger. Granted that Bruno Walter on Sony Classical generates more of a devil-may-care swagger in the first song (also with Haefliger) but van Beinum’s intelligence and intensity win out just as convincingly. Also included, a haunting Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with Merriman.

All four Brahms symphonies are represented, the First three times (a live version from 1951 is very special), the Second twice (again the live option is the better of the two); and as to Schubert, we’re offered Symphonies No 3 (credited as being live but which surely isn’t), No 9 (not credited as being live but which is) and Nos 4, 6 and 8, all five of which suit the conductor’s hybrid classical-romantic style. Elgar’s Wand of Youth suites and Cockaigne overture with the LPO are stunning (the gap present on some transfers of the overture has been tightened); it’s just a

Eduard van Beinum: a stylistic link from Mengelberg to Haitink

REPLAYRob Cowan’s monthly survey of historic reissues and archive recordings

Exceptional musician: Dutch conductor Eduard van Beinum


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and works by JC Bach, Mendelssohn, Respighi, Borodin, Sibelius, Schoenberg (a rather ham-fi sted Five Orchestral Pieces), Hendrik Andriessen, Thomas, Nicolai, Richard Strauss (an electrifying live Don Juan), Arnold (Beckus the Dandipratt, superbly played), Franck, Ravel (including an outstanding stereo La valse), Willem Pijper and so on. This is to my knowledge the most generous collection of van Beinum’s recordings we’ve yet had, and on that count alone is much to be prized. The transfers, taken from sundry sources, are in general excellent.

THE RECORDINGThe Art of Eduard van Beinum Scribendum S (40 CDs) SC823

Dorati in the fast laneTurning to one of van Beinum’s most dynamic younger contemporaries, Antal Dorati’s Minneapolis Symphony account of Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony takes off like a rocket, although as on roughly contemporaneous recordings by Toscanini,Beecham and Solti (in Israel) the fi rst movement’s important exposition repeat isn’t played. As to the fi nale, Dorati in Minneapolis fans fewer fl ames than does Solti. Good though the (mono) Italianis, what follows is in a quite different class: the Violin Concerto, where Dorati and a responsive LSO support Henryk Szeryng for a most memorable account, Szeryng’s tone slim, smooth and with varied expression, Dorati’s accompanimentalert to the violinist’s every gesture. The standard four-tier Midsummer Night’s Dream suite (with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra) features a gossamer account of the Overture and a quicksilver Scherzo (only Szell at the Concertgebouw, also for Philips, compares). Dorati directs a keenly animated Hebrides Overture and an attentively observed Scottish Symphony, where in the slow movement, the clarity of the strings at the beginning makes a strongimpression, meaning lyrical arco leaning against emphatic pizzicatos. The Scherzo and fi nale are terrifi c, the fi nale’s opening a swingeing attack after the close of the Adagio. Dorati’s LSO Schumann Fourth is, like his Minneapolis Italian, receiving its fi rst CD release on Decca. The swiftly played main body of the fi rst movement is rhythmically taut, as are the Scherzo and the fi nale (with repeat) which, beyond a telling transition from the Scherzo, sounds especially joyful. All the Dorati fi ngerprints

are evident throughout – lightness, incisiveness, an acute sense of rhythm and generally precise playing. Mercury’s ‘Living Presence’ sound is in the best traditions of the house, and the transfers do it full justice.

THE RECORDINGMendelssohn. Schumann Symphonies, etc Antal Dorati Decca Eloquence B b ELQ484 0506

More from SzeryngMention of Henryk Szeryng’s Mendelssohnbrings me to an artistically exceptional box on SWR Classic featuring this most aristocratic master of the bow as recorded for broadcast in Baden-Baden and the Saarregion in concertos by Bach (A minor and E major), Mozart (K216, 219 and 271a), Beethoven, Brahms, Lalo (Symphonie espagnole), Schumann, Sibelius, Berg and Szymanowski (No 2). On the rostrum, some notable maestros do the honours – Skrowaczewski, Sacher, Ristenpart, Bour (who conducts a good number of the works programmed) and Hiroyuki Iwaki, director of an imposing, broadly paced Sibelius Concerto from 1985, the latest recording included and by far the best, technically speaking. Performance-wise virtually nothing falls beneath a minimum high standard, Szerying’s tone warm yet refi ned, his phrasing musically sympatheticand his way with the faster music articulateand energetic rather than frenetic. Bour’s mastery is especially noticeable in the return to the main theme in the fi nale of Mozart’s Turkish Concerto – such tenderlyunderlined inner voices – as well as the whole of the Berg and the Schumann Concerto from 1971 – which, as it happens,has a Rosbaud-led Szeryng rival from 1957 (Hänssler, 7/15) that bizarrely is far better recorded than its stereo successor, a disappointingly muffl ed affair. Quite a few of the transfers here fall short of SWR Classic’s best for clarity but such is the magnifi cent quality of the music-making that I would recommend you employ a degree of tolerance and join me in hoping that for future productions this excellent source resists the temptation to fi lter excessively.

THE RECORDINGThe SWR Recordings1956-84 Henryk SzeryngSWR B e SWR19092CD

From heart song to art song… which is roughly how I’d describeMarston’s revealing ‘A Survey of BritishTenors Before Peter Pears’. Intelligence andpoetic enunciation were Pears’s principlevirtues, whereas the numerous singersfeatured by Marston, mostly in oratorio andEnglish repertoire, parade their ardour asfelt from the heart, sometimes with discreetexpression (Walter Glynne in Messiah,Hirwen Jones and Tom Burke in varioussongs), sometimes playing the visceral cardwith maximum impact (Tudor Davies inElgar’s King Olaf, Walter Hyde in Sullivan –note that exquisite sotte voce – Elgar, et al)but nearly always with voices that hauntthe memory. Pears probably edges closestto his forebears in the singing of JamesJohnston (Hugh the Drover), while thenotably Italianate tenor of Joseph Hislop isof an entirely different order. Although finevocalists, the likes of Hubert Eisdell andGervase Elwes are stylistically of their time,but both Dan Beddoe (pleadingly lyricalin Elijah) and the more familiar WebsterBooth (Merrie England, The Immortal Hour)would warrant a place in a hall of distinctionfor 20th-century tenors, as of course wouldJohn McCormack, and no matter wherethey hail from. Likewise Heddle Nash,whose singing of Delius and Handel (‘Wafther, angels’ from Jephtha) is so memorable,though for my money the YorkshiremanWalter Widdop pips Nash to the post inthe latter. Widdop himself is representedby more Handel (including a piano-accompanied ‘Where’er you walk’, unissuedon shellac) and a wonderful recording ofDibdin’s touching song ‘Tom Bowling’.

The set is rounded off with anotherWiddop mainstay, albeit as acousticallyrecorded by Evan Williams with heroicaddress, ‘Sound an alarm’ from Handel’sJudas Maccabaeus. Widdop, underBarbirolli, would bring you to yourfeet, just as McCormack makes a moreovertly expressive case for ‘Where’er youwalk’ than does Widdop. Still, producerStephen Clarke says, in the exceptionalbooklet provided, that he looked forwardto ‘learning about our sins of omissionand commission’. No sins, I assure you,certainly not of omission, only suggestionsfor what might be a follow-up volume tothis superbly transferred, informativelyannotated and lavishly illustrated set.

THE RECORDINGA Survey of British Tenors Before Peter Pears Marston F c 53020-2marstonrecords.com

REPLAY


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Mark Pullinger Inevitably, Edward Greenfield spends most of his review (which here appears in a drastically cut version) of this familiar operatic pairing of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci concentrating on the conducting. Love Herbert von Karajan or loathe him (or sit on the fence), this is very much his set, isn’t it?

Hugo Shirley Yes, definitely. And perhaps more than in any other of Karajan’s recordings of Italian opera you sense him trying to reclaim these scores as musical drama, not just present them as hot-blooded, sweat-and-greasepaint slices of verismo life. This feels especially so in the grand, expansive (and slow) Cav, which is miles away from anything one would be likely to hear in the theatre.

MP As EG points out, the orchestral playing is incredibly disciplined. This was my first recorded Cav & Pag, a verismo sandwich filled with Karajan’s Berlin

Philharmonic disc of opera intermezzos containing some of the lushest string sound I’ve ever heard – I’d forgotten the two operas were with the orchestra of La Scala. They make a gorgeous sound … but it makes you remember that Milan is closer to Vienna than it is to Sicily. I want something much more pungent, more earthy, especially in Cav. Karajan’s even slower than Giuseppe Sinopoli (DG)!

HS I don’t disagree, but I think EG is right to highlight what qualities Karajan does bring instead. To stick with Cav: it’s not viscerally theatrical, and those dainty, distant offstage choruses, in particular, are more of the studio than of the opera house, but you have to admire the skill and focus Karajan brings to realising his particular vision, however right or wrong it might be. And some of what he does is actually simply what’s in the score – the organ playing forte against the pianissimo strings as the intermezzo’s main tune kicks in, for example.

MP I think some of the gear changes sound contrived. The slamming on the brakes in the second verse of Alfio’s song, for example, feels a lot slower than the Andante sostenuto Mascagni requests. The Santuzza-Alfio duet takes a long time to get going, but when it does, it’s very effective. I do like EG’s suggestion that Karajan’s conducting could be described as ‘substituting one sort of vulgarity for another’.

HS Ha, yes, that’s a good line. What about the small matter of the singers? This Cav’s principals take a lot of beating …

MP I really like Fiorenza Cossotto, who is the only one occasionally to break free of Karajan’s shackles. Her young mezzo sounds fresh, with a beautiful ‘Voi lo sapete’, and if her curse isn’t quite as vicious as Renata Tebaldi’s (on Alberto Erede’s recording for Decca), then it comes pretty damn close!

Mark Pullinger and Hugo Shirley question whether

Karajan’s 1965 recordings of Cav and Pag

from La Scala, Milan, still hold up well today

Mascagni. Leoncavallo Cavalleria rusticana. PagliacciSoloists; Teatro alla Scala / Herbert von KarajanDG

Karajan gives the twins of opera a real face-lift. Traditionalists will jib at some of his calculated effects, saying that the performance lacks Italianate warmth or that the speeds are too slow, but the result could hardly be more refreshing. It goes without saying that he is constantly on the alert to make the most of dramatic points. The dynamic contrasts at the end of both operas are hair-raising. In Cav there is the sharp string tremolo leading into Turiddu’s solo ‘Mama, quel vino’, and the fortissimo outburst as Lucia and Santuzza embrace. I had never realized until hearing

Karajan just how effective the strokes on the tam-tam are before and after the off-stage scream, followed by a fortissimo bang on the timpani for the final outburst so sharp and loud it has one jumping out of one’s seat. You might say that he is substituting one sort of vulgarity for another. Cossotto’s ‘Voi lo sapete’ is one of the most beautiful I have ever heard on record. You might complain that ‘Io son dannata’ is not passionate or convinced enough, but the inner self-torment implied leads on most affectingly to the postlude on ‘Andate, o mama’. In the opera house after such a performance the Italian might not feel he had had his pound of flesh, but this style seems to me exactly the right one for the gramophone. Guelfi is in glorious

voice as Alfio. Bergonzi as Turiddu is another singer intelligent and stylish enough to match the Karajan approach, but it is the part of Canio in the second opera that gives him the fullest opportunity to shine. Joan Carlyle makes her début in a major recording role most successfully. This is not a voluptuous Nedda, but one specially fitted for Karajan’s interpretation. Dramatically she does not sound as at home as the others, but it is good that she can hold her own in such company, and it is even better that the voice takes so well to the microphone. The recording quality is excellent, the stereo atmosphere most vivid. Unless a traditional Italianate style is essential I would recommend this set as first choice. Edward Greenfield (10/66)


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HS Yes, she really is a wonderful singer on grand form, but at Karajan’s tempos there’s occasionally something of the imperious ocean liner about the way she sails through the part. It’s great to have Carlo Bergonzi, too. He sings with his usual refinement (it’s nice, for once, to have a Siciliana that sounds seductive rather than aggressive) and actually makes me feel some sympathy for Turiddu, who’s not usually the most sympathetic of characters. And I like the sheer vocal solidity of Giangiacomo Guelfi’s implacable Alfio.

MP Guelfi’s Alfio roars a bit too much for me, but I guess he sounds appropriately brutish. I’m not sure that the love rat Turiddu deserves Bergonzi’s honeyed tones, but he sings the role beautifully. Yes, that Siciliana is seductively stylish and his Brindisi is elegantly pointed. In his scrap with Santuzza, one senses him squaring up to his full (diminutive) height to deliver the line ‘Dell’ira tua non mi curo!’ before scuttling out of Cossotto’s firing line. Bergonzi’s the only singer common to both casts. What do you think of his Canio in Pagliacci?

HS Funnily enough, I know the Pagliacci recording much better than the Cavalleria rusticana – they were reissued on DG’s The Originals separately, and for some reason I bought only the Leoncavallo. It was my first recording of the piece, so I have a big soft spot

for Bergonzi’s Canio. He doesn’t, of course, have the Otello-like power of the Del Monacos of this world, but, as with his Turiddu, it’s unfailingly well sung, and therefore unusually sympathetic. What’s your take?

MP Bergonzi’s clown is also a poet, and I enjoy it very much. He does the comedy elements with a knowing touch that wouldn’t be out of place in L’elisir d’amore too, which makes his Canio very likeable. ‘Vesti la giubba’ is impeccably restrained, with only a few sobs, Bergonzi leaving it for the orchestra of La Scala to do the grieving for him (and those basses really snarl that final note). I like Karajan’s Pagliacci much more than his Cav, which is odd given that I usually like the opera much less than Mascagni’s one-acter. Leoncavallo can take Karajan’s silky approach … indeed, there’s more silk in the score. Does it work for you?

HS Very much so. Where Karajan seems to be going against the grain in Cav, trying to rethink the piece, in Pag he seems much happier just to do something more conventional, but to do it superbly, letting the drama flow naturally and powerfully. He’s terrific in the scene where Canio discovers the lovers, for example, and as the final scene reaches its bloody climax. And he even seems to be enjoying himself in the crowd scenes, letting things off the leash where in the Mascagni he’s tinkering, pulling back

Herbert von Karajan lets the drama flow naturally and powerfully

and micromanaging. And what about the rest of the cast here?

MP Giuseppe Taddei is an outstanding Tonio – he’s a thoroughly nasty piece of work in the main opera, but his nuances in the Prologue are incredibly thoughtful and varied. I confess, I often have a problem with Rolando Panerai’s fluttery baritone and am unconvinced by his Silvio here (Nedda would be better off sticking with Bergonzi’s Canio!). Joan Carlyle – light and agile – has all the dewy freshness required as Nedda. As EG points out, this was her first major opera recording: did she ever record anything else significant? Do you like her?

HS This is pretty much her only major recording as far as I can see, although she sings the Voice from Heaven on Sir Georg Solti’s Decca Don Carlo, recorded around the same time.

MP She was a regular at Covent Garden in London and crops up on a few live recordings from the house, for example as a sparky Oscar on the Edward Downes Un ballo in maschera.

HS To return to your other question: yes, I really enjoy her performance. There’s not much Italianate bite to the sound, but it’s very appealing, as you say, and she’s no slouch in terms of acting. It’s a bold bit of casting and maybe a significant one, too, in introducing a lighter-voiced, ‘international’ singer into this role in an otherwise entirely Italian cast. I have to say, I love her duet with Panerai (with the usual cuts, alas), but can see what you mean about him: it’s gorgeous singing in its way, but not ideally seductive. I agree about Taddei’s Tonio, but he could be steadier at times in the Prologue. So, in sum, it seems as though for Karajan this really is a double bill of two halves.

MP Indeed, it’s an especially fine Pagliacci, which still holds up well five and a half decades on, but Karajan’s way with Cavalleria rusticana – despite wonderful performances from Cossotto and Bergonzi – just doesn’t get its hands dirty enough for me. It’s high-gloss verismo that really needs to get under the veneer instead.

HS Yes, Cavalleria rusticana is an interesting experiment, I suppose, while Pagliacci is the real deal and a recording that offers a properly compelling balance of fire and refinement.


Fabrice Fitch reads a monograph onthe life and works of Thomas Tallis:

Liam Cagney enjoys an overviewof 20th-century British music:

TallisBy Kerry McCarthyOUP, HB, 288pp, £25.99

ISBN 978-0-190-63521-3

Given Tallis’s place amongTudor composers (secondonly to Byrd), a successorto Paul Doe’s ultra-compact

survey of 1976 has been overdue for sometime. Like Kerry McCarthy’s previousmonograph, devoted to Byrd, this is billedas a ‘biography’, a claim that is harderto make for Tallis (or, for that matter,most Renaissance composers) than forhis younger colleague. McCarthy makes astrong case for a Kentish origin (specificallyThanet), and one of the surviving epitaphsrecords his 30-year marriage to Joan,widow of a former Chapel Royal colleague.McCarthy sheds new light on theseepitaphs, helpfully clearing up somemisconceptions, but otherwise (as shenotes), there are next to no clues as to theman himself, even in his will. In this sense,his is a far more shadowy presence thanByrd’s. Potentially the most helpfuldocument, the dedication to Elizabeth I ofthe 1575 Cantiones sacrae that he co-signedwith Byrd, gives little away, and there aresigns that the younger composer took theleading hand in it. Most of the availabledocumentation comes in the formof payment records, which rarely domore than list sums paid to him. Readersexpecting a life of this much-lovedcomposer as they might one of Bach orMozart must understand that this cannotbe that sort of book.

But whether biographical or musical,the documents are all we have; hence thebook’s structure, which falls into two parts,entitled, respectively, ‘Documents ofTallis’s Life’ and ‘Documents of Tallis’sMusic’. The first devotes a short chapterto each of the institutions where Tallis’sactivity is recorded (Dover Priory,St Mary-at-Hill in London, Waltham

Abbey, and finally Canterbury Cathedral)prior to his admittance into the ChapelRoyal, with which he remained associated,professionally and personally, until hisdeath. Between them, these thumbnailsketches give a lively and detailedimpression of musical life in pre-Reformation England, and are the mostinformative and entertaining part of thebook. Most poignantly, Tallis was ‘in atthe death’ at Waltham Abbey, the lastmonastic institution to be dissolved (1540).McCarthy successfully brings home to thereader the uncertainty and chaos of anepochal crisis visited on an individualcommunity. The Chapel Royal period(1543-85) gets two chapters, detailingaspects of its community life, the liturgyit adorned and the royal residences whereit performed. These are colourful andcontextually useful, especially for thenon-specialist readership at which thebook is aimed; but the fact remains thatthroughout, its subject remains elusive,sometimes barely a trace presence.

The decision to structure the secondpart with reference to the ‘documents forTallis’s music’ proves more problematic.The first chapter examines the SarumAntiphoner of 1519-20, printed in Paris butfor English consumption. This underlinesthe centrality and ubiquity of plainchantfor pre-Reformation church musicians andtheir audiences (a point often lost sight of).Most of the subsequent chapters focus ona principal polyphonic source. This meansthat much space is taken up describing thesources and the circumstances of theircopying (including the biography of theirscribes). Relevant as these points are, theyare amply dealt with elsewhere, albeit inmore specialist publications; in any case,they tend to crowd out the music, whichresults in some odd imbalances. Thus, thesame space (a dozen pages) is devoted toArchbishop Parker’s Psalter, whichcontains the relatively modest psalm-settings, as to the monumental Cantionessacrae, by some distance the most variedselection of Tallis’s sacred music, which hecurated himself. A chapter of similar length

accounts for Tallis’s three mostmonumental pieces, the Missa Puer natusest, the antiphon Gaude gloriosa and Spemin alium, on each of which a vast literatureexists. Sadly, one of Tallis’s best-loved andmost recorded works, the Lamentations(discussed in connection with the BaldwinPartbooks) gets just one paragraph.

There are essential and varied questionsthat specialists and non-specialist alikemight have wished to see explored. How isTallis’s melodic style different from that ofhis leading contemporaries? How preciselydo his three votive antiphons differ fromeach other? And is it really impossible totackle issues of chronology except in termsof their source history? McCarthy rightlypoints to the awesome chordal shift thatpresages the conclusion of Spem in alium,describing it as perhaps the single mostmemorable moment in Tallis’s output.But in truth, his music contains many such‘zingers’. A more in-depth look at musicalstyle and individual works might have ledus closer to the magical quality in which itabounds. Fabrice Fitch

British Music after BrittenBy Arnold WhittallBoydell Press, HB, 352pp, £65

ISBN 978-1-783-27497-0

British Music after Britten tells the story of the ‘disparities between radical and conservative which would

define 20th-century musical life and compositional practice after 1960’. Over 17 chapters, each full of historical detail and interpretative nous, we cover the seeming gamut of British composition, from Adès and Knussen to Anderson and Benjamin. British Music after Britten is a companion volume of sorts to Whittall’s classic Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century: if you want to learn about how British music has developed over the past few decades, you would do well to start here.

‘McCarthy successfully brings home the uncertainty and chaos of an epochal crisis visited on an individual community’

‘Whittall has a way of making Ferneyhough’s music clear, even straightforward – a welcome riposte to frequent obscurantism’

Books


Why Britten? Partly, Whittall remarks wryly, for personal reasons: the author’s ‘very first pair of published articles were about Britten’, and herein he collects and edits some of his very many subsequent articles. Needless to say, there is also the nominative determinism, which makes it impossible for a Britain-born composer to escape the great predecessor. ‘Britten’s example has cast an aura over all the music composed in Britain that has come after it’: if not everyone would agree, they might not dispute Whittall’s point that, for British composers, ‘Britten’s example is at least as if not more attractive as a model than Boulez’s’. Throughout the book, Britten usually serves more as a convenient periodisation device than as a critical reference.

‘Tippett and Twentieth-Century Polarities’ opens by observing how, in the time since his 1998 death, when he was immensely popular with performers and scholars, Tippett has faded significantly from view. From A Child of Our Time to The Mask of Time, a view is traced of Tippett’s relationship to classical tonality, expressionism and postmodernism. ‘He seems consistently to be seeking to celebrate something timeless, archetypal and to combine it with something elusive,

even ephemeral,’ Whittall writes. Here as throughout, British composers are a prism through which to view the larger issues of musical composition in the 20th century – specifically here, how to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of romanticism and modernism – and Whittall’s theoretical points are illustrated with ample musical examples.

‘Connections and Constellations: Robin Holloway and Brian Ferneyhough’ throws together, on the basis of their shared year of birth (1943), two composers whose similarity is on a chalk-and-cheese level – with fascinating results. Ferneyhough stresses theory and programme, Holloway the music’s neoclassical autonomy. Whittall has a way of making Ferneyhough’s music clear, even straightforward – a welcome riposte to frequent obscurantism, showing the music’s unceasing relationship to tonal organisation even in its hyperchromaticism, which contrasts with Holloway’s less anxious new common practice. As often for Whittall, opera is in focus: Ferneyhough’s Shadowtime and Holloway’s Boys and Girls Come Out to Play.

‘Richard Barrett, Cornelius Cardew: Resistance and Reflection’ looks at the ‘dilemma of how best to relate musical expression to political conviction’. Cardew

opted for an artfully simplified musical expression that would supposedly appeal directly to the working class, while Barrett questioned whether ‘working in a deliberately simplified and banal idiom’ simply continued ‘the processes of exploitation and stultification dealt out by the ruling classes to serve their interests’. Whittall notes how, in discussing his complex music, Barrett uses terms understandable without a technical musical education. Dark Matter, NO and Lost are elucidated in detail, and it is the best engagement I have read with Barrett’s music.

The much-missed Knussen is situated in relation to a different type of modernism: the ‘bold simplicity’ of Britten’s Death in Venice, Stravinsky’s Cantata on Old English Texts and Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano – modernism with tonal references. A discussion of James Clarke questions ‘whether art – music – can “affirm life” while appearing to be more angry than consoling, more unquiet than upbeat’. The book’s introduction touches briefly on Judith Weir, John Woolrich and Michael Nyman. Rarely these days is notated music probed with such lucid intelligence.

I do wonder, however, about the absentees. Might it have been worthwhile to examine some music from non-male composers, like Tansy Davies or Joanna Bailie, or composers long-term resident in Britain, such as Cassandra Miller? It is hard to get around the fact that, of the 22 composers treated in detail, none are women. The book’s unifying thesis – that Britten can be the figure of reference for understanding all subsequent British composers of note – would surely best be tested by focusing on those composers who do not so neatly fit that scheme: marginal composers, acousmatic composers, composers with a less traditional training. But perhaps that’s for another book.

More than anything else, British Music after Britten comes to be about the unconcluded trajectory of musical modernism, whose identity is plural. ‘This is music that remains committed to long-lasting compositional genres, while seeking new ways of avoiding sentimental nostalgia: it also seeks to show how living permanently on the musical knife-edge can be a constructive and even satisfying condition – especially if a touch of Byronic overstraining is occasionally added to the mix.’ Of this music Whittall remains as bravura a chronicler as he is an analyst. Liam Cagney

BOOK REVIEWS

Robin Holloway, one of the post-Britten British composers discussed by Arnold Whittal in his new book

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THE GRAMOPHONE COLLECTIONGrieg’s HaugtussaThe Norwegian composer’s only song-cycle has been described as a pinnacle of the Scandinavian repertoire. Andrew Mellor sifts through the available recordings

It wasn’t just Finland that had to grapple with ‘the language issue’ as it sought internal unifi cation as a prerequisite

to external recognition as an independent nation. Norway, too, was divided by a complex linguistic legacy with colonial roots, one that rose to the fore as the country looked, like Finland would after it, to liberate itself from successive rule by neighbours fi rst from the west and then from the east. Norway had set its sights on complete independence from Sweden in the late 19th century but it was the Danish language that dominated the country in urban areas.

Those urban areas were seen by nationalists as contaminated by foreign rule and bureaucracy, which lay behind the push for rural themes and materials in art that found such a strong exponent in Edvard Grieg. Grieg also threw himself headlong into the language debate, which had been fuelled by the attempt to introduce a new offi cial language formed from a handful of rural dialects that came to be known as ‘Landsmål’ (or, these days, Nynorsk). In Grieg’s time as today, the standard Norwegian language was effectively a form of Danish.

It was hoped that Landsmål would form a symbol of national identity as well as better connecting and educating rural communities. One of its fi ercest advocates was Arne Garborg, a nationalist poet from the rural south-west who believed the language held the key to his country’s freedom. His manifesto in that regard was Haugtussa, a verse novella described by Grieg as ‘a masterpiece, full of originality, simplicity and depth, and with an utterly indescribable strength of colour’. In another letter, the composer referred to Landsmål as sounding ‘like the most beautiful music’.

Garborg’s invocation of nature in Haugtussa captured Grieg’s imagination

as much as its language. His verse is fi lled with landscape, animal and weather images. But its central character was also attuned to a central trope in Grieg’s work: the idea of falling under spells, being taken into the woods and subsumed into half-real domains. The story is that of Veslemøy, a young shepherd girl invested with supernatural powers that allow her to see and hear things the rest of us can’t – not just the standard extraterrestrials many Norwegians still claim everyday relations with (trolls, elves, demons and ‘huldres’ – seductive female forest creatures) but also premonitions of coming events. Veslemøy is spurned by her lover and, like Schubert’s not-so-happy miller, takes to the fl owing waters of the brook to die.

GRIEG’S VOCAL MASTERPIECEGrieg set 13 songs from Garborg’s work, though what we know as Haugtussa, Op 67, only includes eight of them. Originally the composer had planned a far bigger response to the novella: an orchestral cantata with assorted solo voices. His decision to better dignify the beauty and severity of Garborg’s poetry with a song-cycle echoing those of Schubert and Schumann didn’t make the project any easier; the breadth and depth of what he wanted to achieve was considerable and those two fi gures clearly loomed large.

The published version is Scandinavia’s most signifi cant and most recorded song-cycle. It is a masterpiece of characterisation, sublimation and form. Some critics have willed the cycle to

be something it is not – grander, more expressionistic, more straightforwardly nostalgic. But as the musicologist Daniel Grimley has cited, the work looks both backwards and forwards, combining those elements of the contemporary Norwegian art that celebrated tradition and landscape with wholly modernist impulses which themselves deliver a compelling psychodrama.

There is structural logic (in addition to narrative) for those who need it. Torstein Volden has described the cycle’s perfect arch form. Framed by mystic utterances (the fi rst and last songs, ‘Det syng’ and ‘Ved gjætle-bekken’), the cycle pairs intimate portraits (the second and seventh, ‘Veslemøy’ and ‘Vond dag’) and playful nature pieces (the third and sixth, ‘Blåbær-li’ and ‘Killingdans’), arriving at two central love songs (the fourth and fi fth, ‘Møte’ and ‘Elsk’) that form the work’s structural apex. The story and the seasons run headlong through them: awakening to death; winter to winter.

The start of Møte , the first of the cycle s two central love songs


THE GRAMOPHONE COLLECTION

Portrait of the composer by Erik Theodor Werenskiold (1855-1938) from 1892. Three years later, Grieg composed Haugtussa; it was published in 1898



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The tragedy and/or transcendenceof Veslemøy’s taking to the water is communicated in the last and longest song, ‘Ved gjætle-bekken’ (‘By the Gjætle Stream’), not through wailing and gnashing but with resonant structural tricks that translate what might have been a simple strophic work into the domain of something unsettling, moving and magical. It is a synthesis of Grieg’s idea of landscape as abstract as much as tangible and a perfect example of his economy of means in the face of complex ideas. Grieg always pointed to these as his finest songs. The select but distinguished list of sopranos and (mostly) mezzos who have chosen to record them speaks volumes; a complete, wordless account from trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth is more than a fascinating appendix, offering a sharp view of the notes alone.

DREAM, MEMORY, REALITYVeslemøy oscillates between the pragmatic and the fantastical, just as our reception of her shifts from first-person narrative to third-person description to the in-between space characterised by the initiation song ‘Det syng’ (‘The Singing’). There can be

little doubt, from here, that we are beingcoaxed into a strange domain of dream, memory and story by the protagonist herself.

Throughout, Veslemøy is torn between her rational and mystical states. Even in this introduction – with its mysterious instruction to listeners, ‘you’ll want to forget the notes’ – she appears to forget her audience in the three-line stanzas that are inserted in between, singing instead of a premonition of her own love: ‘Å hildrande du! med megs skal du bu’ (‘Oh entrancing one! With me shall you live’). The most affecting interpretations capture this duality without appearing like an actor rapidly alternating masks. It’s the pianist who has the job of conjuring up Veslemøy in the first place, with little glissandos that suggest the girl’s spinning wheel, or the unrolling of a timeless story’s scrolls. Grieg’s piano-writing continues to be spare and suggestive; it has the reflective last word in each song and is filled with telling modulations and recollections.

Haugtussa is not an easy sing even before we consider the psychodrama. It is filled with chromatic shifts, octave dives and phrases ending in mid-air. Whatever stance the singer chooses to take in the first song,

the decision is upended in the very next, in which she must describe her own character by stepping out from it: ‘Det er som det halvt um halvt / låg ein Svevn yver heile ho’ / … Berre Barmen gjeng sprengd og tung’ (‘it is almost as if / a sleepiness lay over her’ / … Only her heart beats fast and hard’). Grieg’s strophic music is sparse but ominous, built on a cumulative piling-up of uneasy chords that tells us just what a complex and opaque being our heroine is.

That Veslemøy is capable of deep complexity is revealed in ‘Blåbær-li’ (‘Blueberry Slopes’), a frivolous mountain ditty charged with confrontation and confidence, written so only a singer with those qualities can skip over its rhythmic bracken while inhabiting its rapid succession of animal masks: bear, wolf, fox. In its final verse it introduces Jon of Skare-Brôte, the ‘handsome boy’ whom Veslemøy assures us she will ensnare: ‘han fekk vel ein på sin Trut, / men helst på ein annan Måte’ (‘he would certainly get one on the snout’). In ‘Møte’ (‘Meeting’), the singer describes their first encounter, stepping out in the last line of each verse to admit its effect on her emotions. The sensuality is rampant, each verse bound up until it blurts out, particularly in verse 2’s exclamation of ‘Men snille deg då … at du er så stor!’ (‘Gosh … you are so tall!’). The 1.56-metre Grieg responds to that line with the cycle’s biggest vocal moment, charged with an erotic subtext of its own.

BEING VESLEMØYThe earliest available recording is also the first from Kirsten Flagstad, who stands alone. From the start of this account with Edwin McArthur, made in Los Angeles in 1940, she is grand and stentorian, making little attempt to differentiate between Veslemøy’s varying states or communicate her mysticism. Flagstad pours her voice out evenly, even over references to ‘sleepiness’, the ‘trembling’ and the ‘frail’ in ‘Veslemøy’, using rubato to make textual points in the manner of an organist. She is so big and present throughout ‘Møte’ that in those final exclamations there’s no real change. Nor is there 16 years later: speeds

The verse novella by Arne Garborg, pictured here in 1923, inspired Grieg’s song-cycle of the same name

THE DRAMATIC CHOICEGuðrún Ólafsdóttir, Víkingur Ólafsson12 Tonár M D 530787Ólafsdóttir sounds possessed by the spirit

of Veslemøy, which is a compelling way to receive the cycle and every bit in tune with the mysticism and character of Grieg and Garborg’s work.

THE NARRATIVE CHOICEClaire Booth, Christopher GlynnAvie F AV2403 Few singers alive can spin a yarn like Booth

can, especially with her regular pianist Glynn. Some songs don’t quite capture the mood of the text but Booth’s voice is a character that transfixes all by itself.

THE LINGUISTIC CHOICESolveig Kringelborn, Malcolm MartineauNorsk Kulturrad M D NMA3A very close tie with the wonderful Randi

Stene, Kringelborn delights in the Landsmål like none other – and in a way that would have pleased Grieg (and Garborg).



SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

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are still sluggish, the whole story narrated as if from a single viewpoint.

Another time, for sure – but it’s clear how much today’s Nordic singers owe to Flagstad’s example. Most astutely avoid such grandeur. One who didn’t, but who still thrills and conjures on her 1979 recording, is Ellen Westberg Andersen, who with pianist Jens Harald Bratlie brings us Veslemøy as a siren – misty-eyed, aloof but on a journey of discovery. She opens up thrillingly in the verse-ends of ‘Møte’ but only after drawing the song out – at 4’46”, it’s over a minute longer than most. Monica Groop offers perhaps the surest vocal foundations, and can deliver something special at the same points in ‘Møte’. The last degree of emotional and psychological sophistication is missing; but for richness of voice, her 1993 recording with Love Derwinger is a good modern alternative to Flagstad’s.

Groop is never exactly plain, whereas Siri Thornhill and Ranveig Helen Lægreid are, with fine and accurate singing that nonetheless fails to match the atmosphere of the text. Bright-voiced mezzo Marianne Beate Kielland takes a similarly fundamental approach but does far more within it, presenting a beautiful, pristine and musically moving account that gleams as a whole and benefits from a model of singer-pianist synergy. It is recommendableas a pure, ‘urtext’ performance but not one that reveals Grieg’s full intentions.

Kielland’s polar opposite in interpretativeterms is Guðrún Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir, whose liberties deliver a wholly seductive performance in which Víkingur Ólafsson is co-conspirator. Rubato, glissandos, animalistic and linguistic character

Claire Booth ‘spins a yarn’ with regular pianist Christopher Glynn

(a rounded Icelandic accent, rooted in Old Norse, sets off Landsmål a treat) are all put in service of painting Veslemøy as the wide-eyed, impressionable mystic, and Ólafsson emphasises Grieg’s own landscape tricks underneath, notably the false perspective wrought through echo effects and diminuendos. The mezzo’s elasticated verse-endings in ‘Møte’ are hypnotic.

Claire Booth is one of only two non-Nordic singers in the catalogue (her 2019 recording is also the newest), and takes us in a different but equally striking direction, presenting a bright but beguilingly androgynous, ageless image

of the protagonist with pianist Christopher Glynn offering so much to prick up the ears too. But Booth’s account of ‘Blåbær-li’ doesn’t find the groove of the dance like some others – Westberg Andersen, Ólafsdóttir, Randi Stene and Anne Sofie von Otter; Silke Schimkat’s struggle to extract the gait from the rhythm proves how hard it is.

‘Blåbær-li’ also raises a consistent interpretative anomaly. Most singers change colour in the final verse, as Veslemøy’s thoughts move from the animals she wants to fend off to the boy she wants to lure in. Flagstad does it with speed alone; Ólafsdóttir and Westberg Andersen change timbre notably; Randi Stene lets her guard down completely but not entirely; Katarina Karnéus breaks into an audible smile on ‘sin Trut’ (‘his snout’) and Booth is momentarily

and thrillingly transported somewhere completely different, her distinctively plain chest voice full of emotional honesty and power. But when Veslemøy snaps out of it suddenly and returns to thoughts of the herd she is tending, none of the above retort to the playful mood of before. Only Anne Sofie von Otter hints at it with a curled, eye-rolling delivery of ‘Å Tøv, kva tenkjer eg på!’ (‘Oh nonsense, what am I thinking of!’).

LOVE, DEATH, TRANSCENDENCE The four remaining songs are divided down the middle: two filled with the rapture and joy of a love still alive, two grappling with the aftermath. In ‘Elsk’ (‘Love’), Veslemøy is ‘ensnared’ by Jon, increasingly in the grip of a frenzied love that sees, in one of the cycle’s most remarkable moments, singer and pianist carried off on a torrent. Those heady feelings dissipate into sparkling joy in ‘Killingdans’ (‘Kids’ Dance’), the cycle’s most overtly folk-inspired music. But that mood is punctured by ‘Vond dag’ (‘Hurtful Day’) – an introspective, damaged monologue in which Veslemøy realises she has been abandoned and must die.

Solveig Kringelborn, linguistically the best singer on record, is exceptional at fighting rationality with delirious love in ‘Elsk’ – a reflection of Veslemøy’s existence straddling the humdrum and magical; at the piano, Malcolm Martineau knows the significance of his notes after the singer’s silence, a terrifying premonition of the raging loneliness to come. Ólafsdóttir brings us an image of a woman torn in two, under a spell but fighting it. Booth and Glynn are scintillating when the girl sings ‘you have power over my mind’, bound together as they are swept away. Only von Otter and Bengt Forsberg are as evocative here.

RECORDING DATE / ARTISTS RECORD COMPANY (REVIEW DATE)

1940 Kirsten Flagstad, Edwin McArthur Nimbus M NI7871 (8/41R, 12/95)

1956 Kirsten Flagstad, Edwin McArthur Decca F j D 478 3930DC10 (4/61R)

1973 Siv Wennberg, Georey Parsons EMI/Warner Classics M D 586085-2 (10/75R)

1979 Ellen Westberg Andersen, Jens Harald Bratlie Simax F PSC1011 (1/81)

1992 Anne Sofie von Otter, Bengt Forsberg DG M D 437 521-2GH (6/93)

1993 Monica Groop, Love Derwinger BIS F BIS-CD637 (5/94)

1998 Randi Stene, Burkhard Kehring Simax F PSC1145

2003 Solveig Kringelborn, Malcolm Martineau Norsk Kulturrad M D NMA3

2003 Silke Schimkat, Franck-Thomas Link Dreyer Gaido F DGCD21011

2006 Guðrún Jóhanna Ólafsdóttir, Víkingur Ólafsson 12 Tonár M D 530787

2008 Katarina Karnéus, Julius Drake Hyperion F CDA67670 (10/08)

2011 Ranveig Helen Lægreid, Torgeir Kinne Solsvik Kinnepiano M D 405933

2011 Tine Thing Helseth, Håvard Gimse EMI/Warner Classics F 088328-2 (7/12)

2013 Marianne Beate Kielland, Nils Anders Mortensen LAWO F LWC1059 (A/14)

2016 Siri Thornhill, Reinild Mees Ars Production F ARS38 545

2019 Claire Booth, Christopher Glynn Avie F AV2403 (11/19)

EACH WEEK GRAMOPHONE PUBLISHES AN INTERVIEW WITH ONE OF TODAY’S LEADING ARTISTS.

TH E STAR S CO M E O UT FO R

EVERY FRIDAY

Simply search for ‘Gramophone magazine’ wherever you get your podcasts, or visit gramophone.co.uk/podcast



The sophisticated word games of ‘Killingdans’ refer to the names of Veslemøy’s goats. You can play this urbane and linguistic or as a string of caricatures, but both require forensic preparation; Kringelborn and Ólafsdóttir win at each, respectively – the latter wonderfully elfin. Even an almost grand approach can work for the former, and Siv Wennberg proves more successful in that regard than Flagstad. Von Otter dazzles with her characteristically adept front-of-the-mouth work while also enjoying the passing moments of rapture. Wisely for a non-Norwegian, Booth goes for the bigger picture.

‘Vond dag’ snaps us abruptly from revelry on to the painful home straight but the realisation is a creeping one, as Veslemøy ‘counts the days and hours’ in which her love does not appear before dragging herself sick and trembling to bed like a wounded bird. The suggestion in the text is of fragility and shock. Katarina Karnéus sings it more as a wail than a whimper, and her voice is upholstered sufficiently for it. We feel her pain but Ólafsdóttir goes deeper, suggesting the girl stoically trying to hold her emotions together in the face of the inevitable truth that isn’t yet confirmed. A sense of dark anticipation seeps slowly into von Otter’s account and Stene’s is effective for its plain numbness. It’s not just here she tones down her vibrato, which is one reason her whole account is so affecting. Another is that she can do the opposite, and does in ‘Møte’. Perhaps most striking of all, in context, is how Westberg Andersen recoils here, contracts into herself after so much open singing.

And so we arrive back at the beginning, the spinning wheel now a flowing brook. Veslemøy tries to make sense of the nature around her in the first two verses of ‘Ved gjætle-bekken’ in what starts out as a strophic song of memory before Grieg unpicks the structure from verse 3, leading us yet again into forgetfulness, magic and transcendence. We sense the change when the piano starts to lag, then falters altogether before the start of verse 3, unable to hold on to the A major reference to the moment the lovers met in ‘Møte’. The music becomes more and more displaced and remote; after Veslemøy asks the waters to ‘lat meg få blunda’ (‘let me sleep’), the piano returns momentarily to its opening, the music laid bare by the lack of a voice, and then floats up and away into the ether. This is a Norwegian peasant immolation even if Flagstad gives it the full Brünnhilde treatment.

The straight interpretative solution is pain followed by resignation. Ólafsdóttir

gives us that with an intensity that’s unfailingly moving. Booth sounds freighted with loss from the start of the song, even as Veslemøy is awakening to the beauty of the brook. Stene does something similar, baring her soul and opening her voice out while decluttering it, tired and ready for rest. Her pianist Burkhard Kehring makes a difference here, pointing the modulations but not showing them off (his use of arm weight is exquisite at the end and in the creeping chords of ‘Veslemøy’). He is well recorded, unlike Geoffrey Parsons for a colour-limited Siv Wennberg, whose brook sounds muddied and muffled.

Swedes von Otter and Karnéus find something more besides. Realisation creepsup on the latter, pushing her into defiance before ultimate transcendence, her eyes audibly widening as a sense of calm falls over the last verse: ‘du leikar i Lund, du sullar i Ro. / Og smiler mot Sol / og lær i dit Skjol’ (‘you play in the grove, you hum at rest. / And smile at the sun / and laugh in your shelter’). Julius Drake’s P

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Anne Sofie von Otter and Bengt Forsberg highlight Grieg’s structure through beauty and musicality

piano confers its benediction on this new mood. After fighting all these conflicting emotions for four verses – deep pain in ‘minnast, minnast’ (‘remember, remember’) and railing anger in ‘Tru nokon du såg so eismal som eg?’ (‘Have you ever seen one so lonely as me?)’ – all that falls away in von Otter’s account of the final lines. The effect, with Forsberg’s lagging, tugging piano, is momentous – an echo of the ‘Sæle-Tid’ (‘happy time’) from ‘Det syng’ that von Otter made sure, back then, would remain lodged in the mind.

THE TOP CHOICEAnne Sofie von Otter, Bengt ForsbergDG M D 437 521-2GHVon Otter and Forsberg connect so

many dots in their performance, highlighting Grieg’s big plan, but the beauty and musicality on show are simply the best, too.

Classified

102 GRAMOPHONE FEBRUARY 2021 www.gramophone.co.uk

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The look may be familiar, but whilethe new Cyrus XR range sharesthe company’s long-running‘shoebox’ casework and innovative

internal construction, this new premiumrange comes in ‘Phantom Black’ finishand contains much new engineering,made possible by a recent update of themanufacturing processes involved. Amongthe claims for the new six-strong range,which starts with the £1995 CDi-XR CDplayer and goes all the way up to the Pre-XRpre-amplifier at £3995, is ‘substantiallyincreased dynamic range, allowing everylayer and nuance of the music to shinethrough’ thanks to new components andpower-supply design. That CD playeralso has a new transport mechanism andtransformers, plus a new version of thecompany’s QXR DAC optimised to the44.1kHz/16-bit CD standard, and fed froma re-clocking circuit to keep the digitaldata accurate. There’s also a dedicated CDtransport, the CDt-XR (£2195), designedto feed the digital circuitry built into theintegrated amplifiers and pre-amp. Nofewer than five digital inputs, includinga USB for computer connection, areprovided on the £2295 i7-XR amplifier,which delivers 52W per channel, and the91Wpc i9-XR 1 , which sells for £2995.The amplifiers also have user-selectabledigital filters and four analogue inputs,including a phono stage. The Pre-XR pre-amplifier builds on the company’s previousDAC XP Signature design with a digitalsection able to handle files all the way upto 768kHz/32-bit and DSD. Completingthe new range is an intelligent version ofthe company’s offboard power supply,the PSU-XR, using a data link with theproduct with which it’s used to set itself

up for the exact powerrequirements. It delivers60 per cent more powerthan the existing PSX-R2and is 50 per cent more efficient.

New from British speaker companyNeat Acoustics is the Orkestra loudspeaker,joining a range the company startedin 2019 with the arrival of the Ekstramodel 2 . Standing 103cm tall, the speakerhas a compact 32x24cm footprint evenwith its stabilising outriggers fitted, anduses a 75mm ribbon tweeter and threePeerless 17cm main drivers in a 2.5-wayconfiguration. Only one of those largedrivers is immediately visible, sitting belowthe tweeter in a sealed enclosure; the othertwo are inside the cabinet firing downwardsin an isobaric arrangement to create whatis effectively a built-in subwoofer, saidto ‘combine incredible bass power withdelicacy’. Available in a choice of real woodfinishes and satin white, the Orkestra sellsfor £5485 per pair.

Also new is a luxurious floorstandingmodel from Italian manufacturer SonusFaber. The £14,500/pr Maxima Amator isa two-way design 3 using the company’s 28mm Damped Apex Dome tweeter and a 18cm mid/bass driver using a pulp/natural fibre cone – the same drivers used in the company’s Electa Amator II standmounter.The crossover, which is visible via a clear panel to the rear of the speaker, uses the company’s innovative Interactive Fusion Filtering and the speaker enclosure is built from solid walnut, with a leather wrap on

H I G H F I D E L I T Y T H E T E C H N O LO GY T H AT M A K E S T H E M O S T O F YO U R M U S I C

A mighty-sounding recording launches a Tchaikovsky cycle from Alpha – 192kHz/24-bit sound makes the most of all the power and detail

A fine programme of Mozart from members of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, lovingly captured by BIS on this SACD release

FEBRUARY TEST DISCS

A well-known British brand reinvents itselfThe new Cyrus XR series gives the company an upmarket line-up to sit above its ‘Classic’ range

1 2

THIS MONTH A celebratory duo from a company marking 110 years of making music-playing equipment and a highly flexible digital solution from a British-based brand Andrew Everard, Audio Editor

3 the front and rear panels.

For LP enthusiasts,

Lehmannaudio has launched a new version of its celebrated Black Cube phono stage,

which has been in production since it waslaunched more than 25 years ago 4 . Selling for £599, the Black Cube II is compatible with both moving magnet and moving coil phono cartridges, uses ultra-precise passive RIAA equalisation and has adjustable gain and impedance, plus a 16-setting bass roll-off filter. It’s housed in non-magnetic casework, damped to avoid resonance and microphonic effects.

From Cambridge Audio comes a monobloc power amplifier for its flagship Edge series. The Edge M is based on the Edge W stereo amplifier but the mono design delivers twice the power – 200W into 8 ohms – with less distortion from the company’s proprietary Class XA amplifier topology, and is fully balanced from input to output. Even the transformers are designed to keep noise to a minimum: the twin devices are horizontally opposed to cancel out any electromagnetic interference. The Edge M power amplifier sells for £3999.

Finally this month, The Chord Companyhas launched a new cable to connect personaldevices to hi-fi equipment 5 . The C-Jack cable has a slender 3.5mm stereo plug designed to fit into the tightest of spaces, while the cable itself is derived from that used in the company’s high-end cables. It is available in 3.5mm-to-3.5mm and 3.5mm-to-2xRCA versions, and sells for £40 for a 0.75m length, £50 for 1m and £70 for 3m.

5


DENON DCD-A110

Type SACD/CD playerPrice £2799Discs played SACD, CD, CD-ROM,DVD-ROMDigital outputs Optical, coaxialAnalogue outputs Line-levelFile formats Up to 48kHz/24-bit onCD-ROM, up to 192kHz/24-bit andDSD64/128 on DVD-ROMAccessories suppliedRemote handsetDimensions (WxHxD) 43.4×13.8×40.5cm

DENON PMA-A110

Price £3199Type Integrated amplifierOutput 80W into 8 ohms, 160W into 4 ohmsDigital inputs USB-Type B, three optical, coaxialAnalogue inputs MM/MC phono, three line, direct power amp connectionAnalogue outputs 1pr speakers, headphones, line outFile formats Up to 192kHz/24-bit on optical/coaxial, up to 384kHz/32-bit and DSD256 on USBAccessories suppliedRemote handsetDimensions (WxHxD) 43.4×18.2×45cm

We’ve got used to hi-fi companies marking signifi cant anniversaries of late. The boom in audio equipment

following the arrival of the stereo LP back in the late 1950s means that there’s no shortage of companies marking 60- or 70-year anniversaries in recent years, while some, such as Bang & Olufsen, go even further – the Danish company recently marked 95 years since its two founders set to work in the attic of Svend Olufsen’s parents’ farmhouse. None, however, can match the milestone Denon has just celebrated: it’s 110 years since the company came into existence as an American-Japanese joint enterprise.

As I covered in my look at Denon’s history (Audio Essay, 11/20), the company started out making disc recorders and has been at the forefront of audio progress through the ages of tape, the LP, digital audio and multichannel home cinema, so it’s no surprise that its ‘110 Anniversary’ range refl ects all these interests. There are four products carrying the -A110 model number, starting with a moving coil phono cartridge, the £499 DL-A110, which can trace its roots all the way back to the classic DL-103 the company launched in the early 1960s. At the other end of the historical spectrum is the £4999 AVC-A110, a 13.2-channel 150Wpc AV amplifi er complete with all the current

with the DCD-A110 being purely a disc player rather than including extended DAC functions, as do the players from stablemate Marantz, and the PMA-A110 having extensive digital input provision, whereas the Marantz designers believe amplifi ers should be kept as ‘pure analogue’ as possible.

So the DCD-A110 has nothing more than outputs on analogue line-level and optical/coaxial digital connections, but is still a highly sophisticated machine. It uses the latest versions of Denon’s dedicated disc-drive mechanism, designated SVH (Suppress Vibration Hybrid), with a die-cast aluminium loader, solidly mounted low in the player to help damp out vibrations and with an additional copper top plate to add rigidity. As well as SACDs or CDs, it can play CD-R/RW discs carrying fi les at sampling rates up to 48KHz, or DVD+/-R/RW media with fi les at up to 192kHz, and DSD64/128.

Between this transport and the digital-to-analogue conversion, which uses four Burr-Brown PCM1795 DAC chips – two per channel operating in differential mode for noise rejection – sits the latest version of Denon’s proprietary digital signal processing. Ultra AL32 processing operates by interpolating extra data before and after that coming from the disc, oversampling the incoming PCM signal at up to 32x, in an effort to create a more

surround decoding/processing modes, 8K video passthrough and HEOS streaming/multiroom capability. Probably of most interest to the readers of this magazine, however, are the anniversary SACD/CD player and integrated amplifi er, respectively the £2799 DCD-A110 and £3199 PMA-A110.

All these special editions come in a premium fi nish to set them apart from the mainstream line-up – described as ‘silver-grey graphite’, complete with a ‘110 Anniversary’ logo – and each was ‘meticulously tuned by Denon Sound Masters’. They come with a special certifi cate of authenticity stamped with the approval of Denon’s head engineer and a fi ve-year warranty. Made in Denon’s factory in Shirakawa, Japan, long the ‘home’ of the company, they ‘undergo an extended quality assurance process prior to delivery’ and are envisaged as a time-limited offering, rather than being built in limited quantities.

The two show clear signs of the way the company thinks about its products,

Denon has been at the forefront of audio progress through the ages of tape, the LP, digital audio and multichannel home cinema

REVIEW PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

Denon DCD-A110 and PMA-A110Marking Denon’s 110th birthday, this heavyweight SACD/CD player and amplifier combination is more than just a badge-engineering exercise

denon.co.uk

gramophone.co.uk

analogue-sounding output. The player also replaces the output fi ltering built into the DAC chips with its manufacturer’s fully discrete all-analogue fi lter stage and uses completely separate power supplies for the digital and analogue stages, with dedicated transformers for each.

The PMA-A110 amplifi er uses the same digital processing and DAC set-up, with three optical digital inputs and one coaxial, plus a USB Type B port for computer connection, isolated to remove any noise on the USB line, through which it can handle data at up to 384kHz/32-bit PCM or DSD256/11.2MHz. The analogue provision covers moving coil/moving magnet and three line inputs, plus a direct input to the power amplifi er section, bypassing the pre-amp section, for example for use when combining the amplifi er with an AV processor unit.

There’s just one set of speaker outputs and a headphone socket, along with tone and balance controls bypassable using a ‘Source Direct’ option. In addition, ‘Pure Audio’ allows the user to switch off the entire digital section and the small front-panel display, to minimise any noise when playing analogue sources.

Separate power supplies are used for the pre-amp and power-amp sections, the latter delivering 80Wpc into 8 ohms using single-ended push-pull power devices in the company’s Ultra High Current topology, and the set-up uses a two-stage amplifi er design, in which the volume control and pre-amp stage do the fi rst part of increasing gain, then pass the signal to the power amps. In most amplifi er designs, the power section does all the work.

PERFORMANCEThe pricing of these two units is hardly mass-market, but then neither is the sound. The presentation here is both detailed and refi ned, while the amplifi er has more than enough power and control to drive – and get the most from – very high-quality speakers. Despite the levels of detail both player and amplifi er are able to deliver, the overall effect is one of assured maturity, never straying into excessive brightness even with the harshest of early CD recordings.

Whether playing music on disc or feeding it directly into the amp from a computer, the Denons deliver both wide-open dynamics and a sound stage combining impressively realistic scale with fi ne focus. Play Mozart’s Gran Partitafrom the recent SACD of the same name directed by Alexei Ogrintchouk (BIS, 1/21), and the effect is one of delicate, precise layering of the instruments and a really sympathetic handling of the textures within the ensemble, giving a beautifully light and airy overall effect.

Similarly with another BIS SACD, this time Martin≤’s Second Violin Concerto played by Frank Peter Zimmermann (also 1/21), the balance between solo instrument and the power of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra is convincingly maintained, with no sense of the violin being either spotlit or in danger of being swamped by the musical forces behind it. Instead, there’s a fi ne sense of soloist in front of the orchestra, reliably placed and always clearly audible.

Play the Kansas City Symphony/Michael Stern premiere recording of Leshnoff’s Third Symphony on the Reference Recordings label, and the soaring strings and dark undercurrents of the work are well defi ned by the Denon pairing, creating a presentation that’s as dramatic in hi-fi terms as it is emotionally involving. Much credit here must go to the recording and mastering team, of course, but the Denon player and amplifi er do a fi ne job of delivering scale, drama and a fabulous view of the musical forces.

But the ability here isn’t all about obvious weight and power. With simpler recordings, the Denons demonstrate their microdynamic detail, giving Bor Zuljan’s ‘Dowland: A Fancy’ set of lute pieces, using contemporary tuning, excellent tonal character as well as ‘snap’ and speed (Ricercar, 10/20). There’s no sense of notes tumbling over each other, even in the more sprightly pieces: instead they’re struck, resonate and decay into an entirely plausible acoustic.

Yes, the pricing of these ‘Anniversary’ Denons puts them up against some very serious competition, but I’d suggest that their combination of power and control makes them worth of equally serious consideration.

The Denons make a highly accomplished pairing – here are some ideas to complement them …

SUGGESTED PARTNERS

VERTERE DG-1With both style and performance on its side, the innovative entry-level Vertere record player will work well with the PMA-A110.

BOWERS & WILKINS 702 SIGNATUREWith their enhanced performance and classy looks, these floorstanding speakers will make the most of the Denons’ sound.

Or you could try …You don’t have to look far to find rivals for the 110 Anniversary pairing.

Marantz SA-12SE player and PM-12SEintegrated amplifierAs mentioned in the main review, stablemate Marantz puts up a strong challenge with its ‘special edition’ SA-12SE player and PM-12SE integrated amplifier. They’re a little more expensive than the Denons and take a di erent approach, the SA-12SE having what Marantz calls ‘DAC mode’ – ie multiple digital inputs – while the 100Wpc PM-12SE amplifier is an all-analogue design.

Marantz SACD30n and Model 30From the same stable comes an even more a ordable alternative, and another twist on the facilities front. The Marantz Model 30 amplifier is another analogue-only design but the SACD30n SACD/CD player also has network audio capability, not to mention including the Denon-developed HEOS multiroom capability. Add in a new look for the brand and you have a very appealing pairing.

Naim ND5 XS 2 and Nait XS 3The British challenge comes in the form of the Naim ND5 XS 2 and Nait XS 3, and again we have a di erent approach. There’s no SACD/CD playback here but instead network music streaming from the slender ND 5 XS 2, which doesn’t even have a display – all control is via the Naim app. Meanwhile the equally slimline Nait XS 3 is the latest version of the company’s long-running entry-level amplifier, now with the bonus of a particularly good phono stage for a record player.

GRAMOPHONE FEBRUARY 2021 105

HIGH FIDELITY


HIGH FIDELITY

Type DAC/headphone amp/pre-amplifierPrice £699Inputs Optical/coaxial digital, USB 3.0,Bluetooth 5.0Outputs Unbalanced headphones on6.3mm socket, balance headphones on4.4mm Pentaconn socket, fixed/variablelevel analogue on RCAs and balanced XLRsFile formats PCM up to 768kHz/32-bit, DSDup to DSD512, DXD/DXDx2, Bluetooth withaptX/aptX HD/Adaptive/Low Latency, LDAC,LHDC, AAC and SBCAccessories supplied Stand for ‘vertical’use, iPower power supply, remote control,RCA analogue interconnect, USB type B cable,3.5-6.35mm headphone, Bluetooth antennaDimensions (WxHxD) 21.4×4.1×14.6cmifi-audio.com

iFi AUDIO NEO iDSDB

ritish-based company iFi Audioseems to have the Midas touchat the moment. The little ZenDAC, with its budget price,

proved something of a revelation for themoney (4/20), and the models from thesame range designed for Bluetooth usersand headphone enthusiasts were just aspersuasive. Now, with the NEO iDSD,the company has further upped its game,creating a £699 unit that combines allthe company’s strengths, and will be justas at home in the hi-fi rack as it will forthe travelling user who doesn’t want tocompromise on quality or a student lookingfor a high-quality headphone-based systemfor their study desk.

The NEO iDSD comes in slendercasework, just over 21cm wide and a shadeover 4cm tall, with the main control set intoa scalloped-out rebate in the front panel andboth balanced and unbalanced headphonesockets. For for those looking to slot it intoan even tighter desktop space, it comescomplete with a matching stand, made fromthe same aerospace-grade aluminium as themain casework, in which the unit can standon end, placing the headphone sockets atthe base and the display at the top. And yes,the display rotates to the correct orientationwhen the unit is on end – not a unique trick,agreed, but still a very neat one.

However, that’s only part of the flexibilityhere. Connected to a computer using aUSB 3.0 cable, or to conventional digitalsources via optical and coaxial inputs, aswell as driving headphones it can also beused as a conventional DAC into your mainhi-fi system. It does this via unbalancedRCA output sockets or balanced XLR, or itcan be used straight into a power amplifieror active/powered speakers, thanks to theoption of setting those outputs to eitherfixed or volume-controlled level.

The analogue circuitry, co-designedby John Curl and the iFi team headedby Thorsten Loesch, is fully balancedthroughout for superior noise rejection andtransparency, the company saying it uses‘a new, balanced, symmetrical dual-monotopology with short, direct signal paths’,developed specifically for this model.iFi calls this circuit design ‘PureWave’,referring to ‘the sonic purity it achieves’.

Volume control is all handled in theanalogue domain, using a resistor-ladder

and DSD data have separate pathwaysthrough the conversion system, with noneof the DSD-via-PCM processing foundin some DSD-capable DACs. The NEOiDSD also has built-in MQA decoding,enabling MQA-encoded files to be fully‘unfolded’ to deliver up to 384kHz audio.

PERFORMANCEFor all its flexibility, the NEO iDSD issimple to use. That single control knoblooks after volume, muting, displaybrightness and – in conjunction with thepower button – switching between fixed andvariable output, while a further button cyclesthrough the input options and also looksafter Bluetooth pairing. What’s more, thesonic ability lives up to the high standardsiFi Audio has previously set itself: I usedthe unit in my main system as both a DACand a pre-amp, and on my desk as a DAC/headphone amplifier, and in every mode itproved nothing short of remarkable.

Playing the recent Zurich TonhalleOrchestra/Paavo Järvi recording ofTchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony (Alpha,11/20), the NEO iDSD made the most ofthe 192kHz release, with a sound full of airand delicacy, allied to superb weight andimpact when required, while upping thefile-size to the DSD256 release of Mahler’sThird with the Budapest Festival Orchestraunder Iván Fischer (Channel Classics, 6/17)showed just how much power and dramathis little unit can unleash when used withaccomplished amplification and speakers.There’s many a DAC at a price an orderof magnitude greater than this likely to besomewhat embarrassed the NEO iDSD.

It’s a fabulous headphone amplifier, too,driving even demanding planar magneticswith ease, and sounding open and detailedwith the likes of my B&W P9 Signaturesand the Focal Clear. That makes it a veryviable desktop companion, connected to acomputer and a good pair of headphones,as well as a fine unit to add high-resolutionaudio to any high-quality system for asensible price. At less than a kilo, it’s alsotransportable enough for those of us wholike a decent sound of an evening whentravelling – and yes, you can power it offyour computer, although the sound is abit gritty when you do so. Better by far tostick with the multi-voltage iPower supplyprovided, sit back and enjoy.

system, and the headphone section is able to handle even tricky loads, being capable of 1000mW into 32 ohms. The power supply has been carefully designed for low noise: for the 5V input, the company’s iPower plugtop power supply is provided, with the option of upgrading to the £99 iPower X. Even the display and control circuitry has been designed for minimal interference, the latter using FET switching, which powers down when adjustments aren’t being made.

There’s also Bluetooth capability, but this is no ordinary convenience feature. Using the latest Bluetooth silicon from Qualcomm, the QCC5100, the NEO iDSD will support all current standard- and high-defi nition Bluetooth formats: aptX, aptX HD, aptX Adaptive, aptX LL, LDAC, HWA/LHDC, AAC and SBC. It’s the same Bluetooth implementation already used to good effect in the ZEN Blue and the Aurora all-in-one system, and allows it to handle 24-bit audio at up to 48kHz via aptX Adaptive and aptX HD, and 96kHz via LDAC and LHDC.

Talking of formats, via its USB input this slimline unit will accept a wide range of audio fi les: PCM up to 768kHz/32-bit, DSD up to DSD512, and single- and double-speed DXD, with all these fi les handled in ‘bit’ perfect native form: PCM

REVIEW iFi AUDIO NEO IDSD

UK company iFi strikes hi-fi goldWith its sleek looks, impeccable build quality and wide-ranging capability, this latest arrival from iFi Audio could be all the DAC/headphone amplifier you’ll ever need – and more

HIGH FIDELITY


ESSAY

Everything will go back to normal at some point …

Lead times are consistently unsettling.I’m writing this on the day theUK came out of the late-autumnlockdown and moved into the ‘tiers

before Christmas’ phase, complete withdrinks only with substantial meals, andsome high-street retailers moving to24-hour opening while others enteredtheir ‘everything must go’ final sales. It’salso the day when we learnt that vaccinesagainst Covid-19 had been approved andwould be rolled out.

All of which makes it a fool’s errandto try to predict what the shape of theworld will be by the time you readthis, making the only safe bet that itwill be different from what we’ve beenused to – it’s just not clear how different.For example, we’ve got used to payingfor everything, however small, with contactless cards – even a pint of milk or a loaf of bread – and I know I’ve got the same handful of banknotes in my wallet that were there some time back in March 2020.

But have we really seen the beginning of the truly cashless society, or will we all go back to the reassurance of a jangle of change in our pockets? And now many of us have switched to delivery services for everything from meals to the weekly shop and major purchases – you can even order a car and have it delivered to your door – will we be flocking back to the supermarkets for the weekly trudge (or voyage of discovery) in the aisles?

I was recently recounting that I hadn’t been inside a supermarket for almost a year, only to be reminded that I did, once last summer, and very obviously hated it. But what I can say with certainty is that I am/have really been (delete according

to current circumstances) visiting hi-fishops and shows, and getting a feel forwhat’s new and interesting at the moment.Yes, I know I’m in a somewhat privilegedposition, in that I have an almost non-stopflow of new equipment coming through mylistening room, but I still miss being ableto get out and make comparisons, to listento what other people are hearing, and thewhole experience of auditioning in a varietyof rooms and systems.

So how are customers managing to buyhi-fi? Well, a large number of retailers have been offering mail order and delivery services, while some have also been able to offer ‘by appointment’ or in-home demonstrations. And some manufacturers have moved into direct selling of their products – for example, the press release I have here for the Cambridge Audio Edge M monobloc power amplifier, selling for just under £8000 a pair, notes that ‘All Edge series products are available to buy online directly from cambridgeaudio.com’.

However, one manufacturer I was talking to the other week was virtually apoplectic at what he saw as an abuse of such services by some customers. ‘They’re ordering three or four amplifiers by mail order, listening to them at home, choosing the one they like and then returning the rejected ones under “distance selling” regulations’, he spluttered, adding: ‘The retailer ends up paying the shipping both ways, and of

course the returned productsare no longer new, becausethey’ve tried them. And sothey have to be sold at a lowerprice as “ex-demonstration” or“open box” stock, losing theretailer even more money.’ Hehas a point: the regulations tellretailers that ‘Online, mail andtelephone order customers havethe right to cancel their orderfor a limited time even if thegoods are not faulty. You mustoffer a refund to customers if

they’ve told you within 14 days of receivingtheir goods that they want to cancel. Theyhave another 14 days to return the goodsonce they’ve told you. You must refund thecustomer within 14 days of receiving thegoods back. They do not have to providea reason.’

What’s the difference betweenthis and the usual way some retailersoperate, by offering products on loanfor home auditioning? Well, in thatcase the ‘loaners’ are usually just that –demonstration stock – and are replacedwith a new product (or sold to thecustomer at an advantageous price) ifthey fit the requirements. All retailerskeep demonstration stock, so loaning outone of those products is just an extensionof the in-store demos. Yes, there’s that‘the customer is always right’ thinking; but just as it would seem unethical to have demonstrations in-store (when you can) and then buy from somewhere else to save a few pounds, so deliberately using mail-order regulations as a means of ‘try before you buy’ would also seem somewhat off-colour.

I’m not suggesting one should support retailers at all costs, as there are good and bad among them, but as an idea of what hi-fi shops are up against, I heard this tale recently from a dealer who had made several round trips to a customer to deliver for audition pairs of quite expensive speakers. After the last pair had been collected, all went quiet until the retailer decided to phone up and see which the customer preferred.

The answer? ‘Oh, I liked the first pair I tried, but just wanted to be sure before I bought a great secondhand pair on eBay …’

I still miss being able to get out and make comparisons, to listen to what other people are hearing

The traditional way of auditioning at a retailer is tricky but customers can ensure the survival of such facilities

Has the way we buy hi-fi changed for ever? Hopefully not – those who adapted to 2020’s changed circumstances should be well placed for the future, says Andrew Everard


I so enjoyed Rob Cowan’s rave review ofSupraphon’s ‘Portrait’ of the wonderfulCzech pianist Ivan Moravec (January,page 95). It brought back two memoriesof him during my time as GeneralManager of the Royal LiverpoolPhilharmonic Orchestra in the 1980s.

The first was of an evening spent inhis Prague home with his good friendthe conductor Libor Pe≈ek, when afterdinner we all had to descend to hishallway in order to listen to his latestrecording ‘because it sounds so muchmore atmospheric down there’!

The other occasion was of anunforgettable performance, in moreways than one, of the Brahms PianoConcerto No 2 at the Halifax CivicTheatre. Following the second-movement Scherzo, much to theconsternation of the audience, hesuddenly left the platform, returninga few minutes later armed with a pianotuning lever! He then proceeded to

retune a couple of deviant stringshimself before giving truly magicalperformances of the third andfourth movements.Brian PidgeonFrodsham, Cheshire

One-o: Moravec once tuned his piano mid-concert!

Letter of the MonthThe unforgettable pianist Ivan Moravec

Margaret Price’s Mozart …Gordon Armour (December, page 124) recalls the wonderful Margaret Price’s career and her selection by Klemperer for his Così recording - still the most accurate ‘Come scoglio’ in my experience. She had in fact sung with Klemperer before: at his Royal Festival Hall Figaro, ahead of his recording, she stood in for the indisposed Cherubino, resplendent in a black trouser suit. She was I believe already down to sing Barbarina in the recording itself, which she does superbly, and I always believed the Fiordiligi was her reward.Alan KershawManchester

… but Legge wasn’t involvedIn his letter regarding Margaret Price, Gordon Armour is wrong in stating Walter Legge’s involvement in the choice of the singer for Klemperer’s recording of Mozart’s Così fan tutte. Walter Legge left EMI in April 1964 and his only involvement with the company’s activities after that date was in producing recordings involving his wife Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. Following the news of the disbandment of the Philharmonia Orchestra in March 1964, Legge and Klemperer never spoke or communicated again.Malcolm WalkerHarrow, Middlesex

Which horn?It is indeed interesting that Alec Frank-Gemmill has recorded the Brahms Horn Trio using a horn played by the great Aubrey Brain on a 1933 recording with Rudolf Serkin and Adolf Busch (‘Artists & their Instruments’, November, page 11, and review, December, page 64). But two questions arise. Which horn? And which recording?

Serkin, Busch and Brain recorded the Trio on May 16, 1933 in Studio No 3, Abbey Road: Serkin played a Bechstein, Busch his Strad and Brain a Labbaye hand horn from the same year as the Trio, 1865. Fitted with English-made valves, this was presumably the horn used by Frank-Gemmill. All went well at the sessions, although after three takes of both halves of the opening movement and two of both parts of the Scherzo, the players moved into single takes for the fi nal two movements, presumably to avoid tiring Brain. As luck would have it, at the

NOTES & LETTERSWrite to us at St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB or [email protected]; email is preferable at this time

factory the metal masters of two matrices –including the unique take of Side 5 – were‘cracked in process’. Thus the recordingmissed the Brahms centenary and a make-up session was scheduled for November 13.

Meanwhile Serkin broke with Bechsteinover the firm’s Nazification, switchingto Steinway, and Brain ran over hishorn in his car, flattening the crook. Hehad just bought two brand-new Raouxhorns (from a stock of them foundunder the stage at Covent Garden), sohe turned up on November 13 withone of those. Perhaps the fact that twoplayers were using different instrumentswas a factor in the threesome’s decisionto record the entire work again. In anycase, the published sides all came fromthose November sessions.

Searching through Busch’s testpressings in his widow’s basement in Baseldecades later, I found all the survivingtakes from the May 16 recording. The lateRoger Beardsley compiled a version ofthe Trio, all from May except Side 5 fromNovember, which was released by APR(5/07). Those who possess it should heara slight difference in the horn tones fromthe two sets of sessions.

The Labbaye was repaired andBrain can be seen playing it in post-1933 photos. But he did not play it onthe published 78rpm recording of theHorn Trio! Which instrument he usedfor the three men’s London performanceof the Trio, in March 1934, I cannot say.Tully PotterHildenborough, Kent P

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NEXT MONTH

MARCH 2021

ON SALE FEBRUARY 24 DON’T MISS IT!

Renaud Capuçon champions Elgar

To record two English masterworks with none other

than Sir Simon Rattle and Stephen Hough is a dream come true for this French violinist, as

Charlotte Gardner discovers

Danny Driver explores Ligeti

The British pianist has recorded the 18 Études – a cycle both

feared and celebrated for its technical demands. He talks to Harriet Smith about his approach

Szymanowski surveyDavid Threasher chooses his

top recording of the Stabat mater, a work which has recently found

new admirers in the West

OBITUARIESIVRY GITLISViolinistBorn August 22, 1922Died December 24, 2020

The Israeli violinist,who was very mucha musician’s musician,has died aged 98, inParis, where hestudied and laterlived. His name is notso well known to

music lovers in general perhaps becausehe was never signed by a major recordlabel and his art was focused on livemusic-making. His deeply personal,idiosyncratic interpretations, though,won him numerous admirers, particularlyfellow violinists.

Born in Haifa, Gitlis studied with MiraBen-Ami before travelling to Francewhere he studied with Marcel Chailley,and then, at the Paris Conservatoire, withJules Boucherit. Later, he’d work withGeorge Enescu, Jacques Thibaud andCarl Flesch.

After the war, which he spent inLondon, he moved to the United Stateswhere he undertook a number of tours,performing under the batons of EugeneOrmandy and George Szell. Later thatdecade he recorded for Vox, making LPsof the concertos by Berg, Bartók, Bruch,Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohnand Stravinsky.

The 1960s saw him become the firstIsraeli violinist to play in the USSR. In1972 he founded the Festival de Venceas part of his aim to make classical musicaccessible to all. Gitlis is the subject of a2012 documentary by Tony Palmer andhe was one of the commentators on BrunoMonsaingeon’s classic ‘The Art of Violin’from 2001. He also appeared in a numberof films as an actor.

FOU TS’ONGPianistBorn March 10, 1934Died December 28, 2020

The fi rst Chinese-born pianist to achieve international renown has died aged86 as a result of Covid-19. Born in Shanghai, where he studied,

Fou Ts’ong won a prize at the George Enescu International Competition, and

then studied in Warsaw, later taking fi fth prize in the 1955 International Chopin Piano Competition.

In the late 1950s he moved to London and started giving concerts in western Europe and the US, appearing with conductors like Carlo Maria Giulini, Paul Paray and Colin Davis. In the late 1960s he formed a piano trio with Hugh Maguire and Jacqueline du Pré.

His recordings include a number of Chopin albums for CBS; he also joined Vladimir Ashkenazy and Daniel Barenboim in Mozart’s Triple Piano Concert for Decca. Reviewing his album of Chopin’s Mazurkas (3/87), Gramophone’s James Methuen-Campbell wrote: ‘Fou’s understanding of the idiom, coupled with his sensitivity to tone colour, produces never less than impressive results … Fou Ts’ong’s intimacy with this music extends over 30 years, and his insights cannot be dismissed’.

FANNY WATERMAN Leeds Piano Competition founderBorn March 22, 1920Died December 20, 2020

Born in Leeds, Waterman – who has died aged 100 – studied with Tobias Matthay, and later at the Royal College of Music, London with Cyril Smith. After

an impressive career as a soloist, including a performance at the 1942 Proms with Sir Henry Wood, she felt that her real vocation was as a teacher. Over the years she gave masterclasses on six continents, appeared on television and radio, and compiled a series of hugely popular educational publications.

Dame Fanny founded the triennial Leeds International Piano Competition in 1961 with her husband Dr Geoffrey de Keyser and the pianist Marion Thorpe. The fi rst competition followed in 1963 and she remained its Chairman and Artistic Director until her retirement in 2015 at the age of 95. As President Emeritus she attended live concerts and events until the beginning of 2020. Thanks to Dame Fanny’s artistic integrity and passion, the Leeds Piano Competition remains one of most coveted prizes in the piano world with a reputation for introducing some of the greatest pianists of our time to the wider world.


NEW RELEASES INDEXThe latest releases on CD, SACD, DVD, Blu-ray and download

Key: F Full price £10 and over M Medium price £7.76 – £9·99 B Budget price £6.25 – £7·75 S Super-budget price up to £6·24 3 Reissue 1 Historic Í SACD ◊ DVD Y Blu-ray 6 LP D Download only

CD & SACD

AAM aam.co.uk

Eccles Semele. Sols/Handel Op Company/AAM/Perkins.

F b AAM012

ACCENTUS

Mahler Sym No 4. Richter, AL/Bamberg SO/Hrůša.

F ACC30532

Weinberg Vn Conc (pp2020). Son for Two Vns. Kremer/

Pētersone/Leipzig Gewandhaus Orch/Gatti. F ACC30518

Various Cpsrs (re)creations – Pf Transcrs. Chochieva.

F ACC30531

ALPHA outhere-music.com/alpha

Chopin Ballades. Impromptus. Vinnitskaya. F ALPHA728

Piazzolla Reflections. Sidorova. F ALPHA664

Ysaÿe Solo Vn Sons. Leong. F ALPHA455

Various Cpsrs Horn Discoveries. Willis. F ALPHA732

APR aprrecordings.co.uk

Various Cpsrs Cpte Solo 78rpm Recs & Fauré LPs (r1933-52). Boynet. B b 1 APR6033

ARCANA outhere-music.com/en/labels/arcana

Schütz Musikalische Exequien. Voces Suaves/Strobl. F A483

ARS PRODUKTION ars-produktion.de

Bacri. Myaskovsky Mysteries – Pf Wks. Weyer. F ARS38 313

AUDITE audite.de

Venturini Concs. Festa Musicale. F AUDITE97 775

BERLIN CLASSICS edel.com

Bach, JS. Piazzolla Bandoneón Concs. Djoric/Kurpfalz CO.

F 0301416BC

Various Cpsrs Baroque Arias for Hn. Klieser/Chaarts Chbr

Artists. F 0301460BC

Various Cpsrs Wks for Hardanger Fiddle & Vn. Hemsing/

Häring/Kloeckner. F 0301692BC

BIS bis.se

East. Jarman Amavi – Wks for Viols & Voices. Fieri Consort/

Chelys Consort of Viols. F Í BIS2503

Freeman Under the Arching Heavens: A Requiem. Helsinki Chbr

Ch/Schweckendiek. F Í BIS2592

Gál Hidden Treasure: Unpublished Lieder. Immler/Deutsch.

F Í BIS2543

Locatelli Labirinto armonico – Vn Concs. Gringolts/Finnish

Baroque Orch. F Í BIS2445

Munktell Chbr Wks. Ringborg/Asplund/Winiarski/Johansson.

F Í BIS2204

Pettersson Sym No 12. Norrköping SO/Lindberg, C.

F Í BIS2450

BRIDGE bridgerecords.com

Various Cpsrs Visca l’amor: Catalan Art Songs of the XX & XXI Centuries. Munoz/Glouchko. F BRIDGE9548

BRILLIANT CLASSICS brilliantclassics.com

Bach, JS English Stes, BWV806-811. Belder. S b 96060

Bach, JS. Buxtehude December 1705 – Org Wks. Tomadin.

B 95941

Britten Cpte Folk Songs. Milhofer/Scolastra. S b 96009

Campana Arie a una, due e tre voci. Ricercare Antico/Tomasi.

B 96008

De Fesch Joseph (r2000). Sols/Musica ad Rhenum/Wentz.

S c 3 96107

Devienne. Dürnitz. Mozart Wks for Bn. Martín/Mur/Escartín.

B 96020

Dušek, FX Cpte Wks for Fp. Bartoccini. S e 95863

Gangi Cpte Wks for Two Gtrs. Pace/Cappelli. B 95818

Greco Wks for Bass Vn. Perduta/Criscuolo. B 96100

Medtner Cpte Songs, Vol 2. Levental/Peters. B 96061

Rebay Cpte Wks for Fl, Cl & Gtr. Esteso Trio. B 96063

Scriabin Impromptus. Mazurkas. Poèmes. Alexeev. S c 95931

Various Cpsrs Wks for Hp & Pf. Pasetti/Gioiosa. B 95926

BR-KLASSIK br-online.de

Bruckner Sym No 6 (pp2015). Bavarian RSO/Jansons.

F 900190

BRU ZANE bru-zane.com

Hahn Ò mon bel inconnu. Sols/Avignon-Provence Nat Orch/

Jean. F BZ1043

CAPRICCIO capriccio.at

Eisler Deutsche Sym. ORF Vienna RSO/Theuring. F C5428

Frid Phädra. Pf Qnt. Blumina/Vogler Qt. F C5389

Vladigerov Stg Concs. Bulgarian Nat RSO/Vladigerov, A.

B b 3 C8064

CHAMPS HILL champshillrecords.co.uk

Chausson. Debussy. Franck French Connection – Wks for Vn &

Pf. Rowland/Kudritskaya/Sica. F CHRCD157

CHANDOS chandos.net

Medtner Songs. Fomina/Karpeyev. F CHAN20171

Piazzolla Romance del Diablo. Albonetti/Italian PO.

F CHAN20220

Schubert Winterreise. Williams, R/Burnside. F CHAN20163

Various Cpsrs English Wks for Stgs. Sinf of London/Wilson.

F Í CHSA5264

CHANNEL CLASSICS channelclassics.com

Bach, JS Sons for Va & Hpd, BWV1027-1029. Stockmarr Becker/

Macedonio. F CCS43721

Schubert Winterreise. Cornet/Ragazze Qt. F CCS43521

CHÂTEAU DE VERSAILLES SPECTACLES en.chateauversailles-spectacles.fr

Lully Dies irae – Grands motets, Vol 1. Épopées/Fuget.

F CVS032

COL LEGNO col-legno.com

Hopfgartner Pattern & Decoration. Hopfgartner/Stewart/

Mirarab/Kent/Trajkovski/Rainer. F COL15006

CORO the-sixteen.org.uk

Mozart Vn Concs, Vol 1. Nosky/Mandel/Handel & Haydn Society.

F COR16183

CPO jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/home

Beethoven Theatre Wks, Vol 2. Cappella Aquileia/Bosch.

F CPO777 771-2

Beethoven Vn Conc. Romance No 2. Neudauer/Cappella

Aquileia/Bosch. F 6 CPO555 391-1

Dubois Pf Qt. Pf Qnt. Triendl/Karmon/Spahn/Schilli/Kreynacke.

F CPO555 357-2

Gernsheim Cpte Vn Sons. Schickedanz/Breidenbach.

F b CPO555 330-2

Gossec Nativité. Requiem (r2009/16). Sols/Ex Tempore/

Agrémens/Mannheim Hofkapelle/Heyerick. F CPO777 869-2

Haydn Cpte Kybd Concs. Zhao/Nebel/Camerata Schweiz/

Griffiths, H. F b CPO555 400-2

Romberg, A Syms Nos 1 & 3. Phion, Orch of Gelderland &

Overijssel/Griffiths, K. F CPO777 052-2

CUGATE cugate-classics.com

Kancheli Cpte Syms. Liturgy. Light Sorrow (r1994/95). Tbilisi SO/Kakhidze. M e CGC050

Kancheli Liturgy. Light Sorrow. Tbilisi SO/Kakhidze. F CGC049

Kancheli Syms Nos 1 & 2. Tbilisi SO/Kakhidze. F CGC046

Kancheli Syms Nos 3-5. Tbilisi SO/Kakhidze. M b CGC047

Kancheli Syms Nos 6 & 7. Tbilisi SO/Kakhidze. F CGC048

DANACORD danacord.dk

Debussy Chbr Wks. Messiaen Qt Copenhagen. F DACOCD842

Schnittke Vc Sons. Østerlind/Gryesten. F DACOCD878

Various Cpsrs Great Pianist. Ellegaard. F b DACOCD897/8

DB PRODUCTIONS db-productions.se

Various Cpsrs Toccatacapriccio – Gtr Wks. Falk. F DBCD198

DELPHIAN delphianrecords.co.uk

Yiu World Was Once All Miracle. Sols/BBC SO/Davis, A/Gardner/

Robertson. F DCD34225

Various Cpsrs Taste of This Nation. Hendrick/Spiritato/Ujszászi.

F DCD34236

DIGRESSIONE stradivarius.it

Boccherini Stabat mater. Costa/Sanremo SO/De Lorenzo.

F DIGR109

DOREMI doremi.com

Various Cpsrs Live, Vol 4 – Vn Concs (pp1958-65). Stern.

F b 1 DHR8133/4

DYNAMIC dynamic.it

Alfano Risurrezione (pp2020). Sols/Maggio Musicale, Florence/

Lanzillotta. F b CDS7866

Couperin, F Regrets, ou L’art de mélancolie. Lorenzetti.

F CDS7879

Dvořák Pf Trios Nos 3 & 4. Trio des Alpes. F CDS7851

FUGA LIBERA outhere-music.com/fugalibera

Shostakovich Chbr Syms (Stg Qts Nos 3 & 4, arr Barshai). Lausanne CO/Weilerstein, J. F FUG769

GENUIN genuin.de

Arensky. Liadov Miniatures russes – Pf Rarities. Meermann-Muret. F GEN21730

Choe. Schubert. Rachmaninov Moments musicaux – Pf Wks. Kim, Y. F GEN21725

Debussy. Ligeti. Messiaen Textures – Wks for Two Pfs. Pf Duo

Roelcke Gremmelspacher. F GEN21714

Various Cpsrs Lorem ipsum: Early Music & Songs from Europe

& South America. Combo CAM. F GEN21724

GRAND PIANO www

Chukhajian Pf Wks. Ayrapetyan. F GP859

Lucier Wks for Pf with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators XL. Horvath. F GP857

HARMONIA MUNDI harmoniamundi.com

Bach, JS Cpte Wks for Kybd, Vol 4: Alla veneziana – Concerti

italiani. Alard. M c HMM90 2460/62

Bach, JS Secular Cantatas (r1994/95). RIAS Chbr Ch/AAM Berlin/

Jacobs. B b 3 HMM93 1544/5

Beethoven Missa solemnis. Sols/RIAS Chbr Ch/Freiburg

Baroque Orch/Jacobs. F HMM90 2427

Beethoven Vc Sons, Op 5. Pidoux/Williencourt.

F HMM90 2410

Mozart Cpte Kybd Sons. Bezuidenhout.

S i 3 HMX290 4007/15

Various Cpsrs Al Andalus: Musique Arabo-Andalouse (r1987). Atrium Musicae Madrid/Paniagua. F 3 HMM93 389


HITASURA hitasura-productions.com

Bach, CPE. Tartini Vn Concs & Sons. Ausonia. F HSP006

HYPERION hyperion-records.co.uk

Haydn Stg Qts, Op 76. London Haydn Qt. B b CDA68335

Josquin Motets. Mass Movts. Brabant Ens/Rice. F CDA68321

Various Cpsrs Vida breve – Pf Wks. Hough. F CDA68260

INVENTA resonusclassics.com

Various Cpsrs La la hö hö: 16th-Century Viol Wks for the

Richest Man in the World. Linarol Consort. F INV1005

KLANGLOGO klanglogo.de

Various Cpsrs Extravaganza – Wks for Rec & Ens. Simon

Borutzki Ens. F KL1528

MÉTIER divine-art.co.uk

Craven Pieces for Pianists, Vol 1. Dullea. F MSV28601

Garcia Stg Qts Nos 1-3. Amernet Qt. F MSV28613

Hayden Becomings – Solo Pf Wks. Pace. B b MSV28611

White Robe: A Fashion Opera. Sols/Hogan/Smith.

F MSV28609

MPR mikepurtonrecording.com

Various Cpsrs Curious Hp. Hudson. F MPR110

MSR CLASSICS msrcd.com

Leshnoff Stg Qts. Carpe Diem Qt. F MS1765

MUSO muso.mu

Anonymous Holland Fragments: Early Dutch Polyphony, 1400.

Diskantores/Berentsen. F MU042

NAXOS naxos.com

Beethoven Pf Concs Nos 1 & 2 (pp2007). Levit/Wang, X/

Cologne CO/Müller-Brühl. B 8 551447

Janáček Stg Qts Nos 1 & 2. Sonnets. New Zealand Qt.

B 8 574209

Saint-Saëns Wks for Wind Ens. RAF Coll Band/Märkl.

B 8 574234

Sheng Let Fly – Vn Conc. Orch Wks. Zhu/Suzhou SO/

Shanghai SO/Sheng. B 8 570628

Sullivan Île enchantée. Thespis. RTÉ Concert Orch/Penny.

S 8 555180

Various Cpsrs Magnifique – Fl Wks for the Court of Louis XIV.

Kuijken, B/Davis, I/Tanimoto/Livingston. B 8 579083

NIMBUS wyastone.co.uk

Dupont. Fauré. Hahn Song-Cycles. Rothschild/Farmer.

F NI5998

Martinů Three Cello Sons. Seven Arabesques. Wallfisch/York.

F NI8105

Various Cpsrs Visions of Childhood – Orch Songs. Fredrick/

English SO/Woods. F NI6408

NMC nmcrec.co.uk

Suckling This Departing Landscape. Bryan/Stefanovich/

BBC PO/BBC Scottish SO/Volkov. F NMCD262

NONESUCH nonesuch.com

Shaw Narrow Sea. Upshaw/Kalish/Sō Perc. F 7559 79178-9

ONDINE ondine.net

Janáček Pf Wks. Vogt. F ODE1382-2

Martinaitytė Saudade. Orch Wks. Alekna/Lithuanian Nat SO/

Šlekytė. F ODE1386-2

ORCHID orchidclassics.com

Bernstein. Copland. Rózsa Cl in America. Fiterstein/ECO.

F ORC100155

Hess Way of Light. Jacobi/Lane/BBC Sgrs & Concert Orch.

F ORC100153

ORFEO orfeo-international.de

Mahler Klagende Lied (pp1990). Sols incl Lipovšek/ORF Vienna

RSO/Gielen. F C210 021

Strauss, R Ariadne auf Naxos (pp2014). Sols incl Isokoski/

Vienna St Op/Thielemann. B b C996 202

Various Cpsrs Op Rarities. Various artists. S j 3 C200 081

PENTATONE pentatonemusic.com

Bach, JS Hpd Concs, Vol 2. Corti/Pomo d’Oro. F PTC5186 889

Puccini Fanciulla del West. Sols incl Moore & Lynch/

Transylvania St PO/Foster. F b Í PTC5186 778

PIANO CLASSICS piano-classics.com

Alkan Paraphrases, Marches & Sym for Solo Pf. Viner.

F PCL10207

PROPRIUS proprius.com

Barrios Gtr Wks. Gulyás. F PRCD2086

QUARTZ quartzmusic.com

Davis, C Great Gatsby. Czech Nat SO/Davis, C. F CDC032

REFERENCE RECORDINGS referencerecordings.com

Beethoven Sym No 9 (pp2019). Sols/Mendelssohn Ch of

Pittsburgh/Pittsburgh SO/Honeck. F Í FR741

RESONUS resonusclassics.com

Various Cpsrs Beyond Beethoven. Scott/Devine. F RES10267

RICERCAR outhere-music.com/ricercar

Couperin family Pièces de clavecin. Sailly. F RIC427

RONDEAU PRODUCTION rondeau.de

Bach, JS Major Preludes & Fugues. Böhme. F ROP6178

Bach, CPE & JS. Handel Org Concs. Pohle/Dresden Baroque

Orch/Baumgartl. F ROP6185

Humperdinck. Wette German Children’s Songbook. Mertens/

Hanover Children’s Ch/Breiding. F ROP6202

Verdi Requiem. Sols/Leipzig Youth SO/Entleutner. F ROP6168

SIGNUM signumrecords.com

Gershwin. Goodman I Got Rhythm. Julian Bliss Septet.

F SIGCD651

Gunning Syms Nos 6 & 7. Night Voyage. RPO/Gunning.

F SIGCD655

Various Cpsrs Settecento: Baroque Inst Wks from the Italian

States. Debus/Serenissima/Chandler. F SIGCD663

Various Cpsrs Sweetest Songs: Wks from the Baldwin

Partbooks, Vol 3. Contrapunctus/Rees. F SIGCD633

SOLO MUSICA www

Piazzolla. Vivaldi Eight Seasons Evolution. Twiolins. F SM352

SOMM somm-recordings.com

Grieg. Schubert. Schumann Romantic Vn Sons.

Carlock-Combet Duo. F SOMMCD0628

Various Cpsrs Forgotten Recs (r1954-55). Cleveland Orch/Szell.

M b 1 ARIADNE5011

STERLING sterlingcd.com

Meyerbeer Alimelek (r2010). Sols/Chbr Ch of Europe/

Württemberg Philh, Reutlingen/Rudner. F b CDO1125/6

STEINWAY & SONS steinway.co.uk

Piana Op Fantasies on a Steinway. Pompa-Baldi. F STNS30169

Various Cpsrs Personal Demons – Pf Wks. Liebermann.

M b STNS30172

STRADIVARIUS stradivarius.it

Danza Miserere. Stanislav Legkov Chbr Ch, St Petersburg/

Elizarov. F STR37173

Matteis. Vilsmaÿr Austrian Baroque for Solo Vn, Vol 2. Bernardi.

F STR37168

Piraino Verso la luce – Chbr & Inst Wks. Various artists.

F STR37148

Rigotti So Far – Ens Wks. Various artists. F STR37163

Takemitsu Cpte Wks & Transcrs for Solo Gtr. Nati. F STR37150

SWEDISH SOCIETY swedishsociety.se

Lindström. Mozart Cl Concs. Jonason/Helsingborg SO/Solyom.

F SCD1177

SWR CLASSIC swrmusic.com

Strauss, R Cpte Tone Poems. SWR SO, Baden-Baden & Freiburg/

Roth. S e 3 SWR19426CD

Various Cpsrs Stuttgart Studio Recs (r1953/68). Gulda.

B b 1 SWR19097CD

Various Cpsrs Two Solo Recitals (r1959). Gulda.

B c 1 SWR19098CD

TACTUS tactus.it

Frescobaldi Musiche inediti dal ‘Codici Chigi’. Valotti.

F TC580609

Scarlatti, A Baruffe amorose del Settecento. Cappella Musicale

di San Giacomo Maggiore, Bologna/Cascio. F TC660005

Various Cpsrs Cello Extension. Greco. F TC960004

TEMPÉRAMENTS radiofrance.com/

Jacquet de la Guerre. Mussorgsky. Wagner L’art de

transcription – Org Wks. Genvrin. F TEM316061

TOCCATA CLASSICS toccataclassics.com

Bainbridge Chbr Wks. Merrick/Kreutzer Qt. F TOCC0573

Gernsheim Pf Wks, Vol 2. Barnieck. F TOCC0594

Liszt Cpte Sym Poems (transcr Stradal), Vol 4. Marin.

F TOCC0517

Tchaikovsky, A Orch Wks, Vol 1. Siberian SO/Vasiliev.

F TOCC0587

TRITTICO www

Georgiev Vn Conc. Vassilev/Covent Garden Sols. F D

WARNER CLASSICS warnerclassics.com

Bach, JS Wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 2 – excs. Anderszewski.

F 9029 51187-5

WINTER & WINTER winterandwinter.com

Klucevsek My Choice – Accordion Wks. Klucevsek.

F 3 910 270-2

DVD & BLU-RAY

C MAJOR ENTERTAINMENT

Brahms Dbl Conc Liszt. Tchaikovsky Orch Wks (pp2016).

Batiashvili/Capuçon, G/Staatskapelle Dresden/Thielemann.

F ◊ 757108; F Y 757204

Gluck Alceste (pp2019). Sols incl Castronovo, Röschmann &

Nagy/Bavarian St Orch/Manacorda.

F ◊ 756708; F Y 756804

DYNAMIC dynamic.it

Alfano Risurrezione (pp2020). Sols/Maggio Musicale, Florence/

Lanzillotta. F ◊ 37866; F Y 57866

MARCO POLO naxos.com/mp.htm

Wagner, S Sonnenflammen (pp2020). Sols/PPP Music Th Ens,

Munich/Bayreuth Digital Orch/Leykam. F ◊ 2 220007

NAXOS naxos.com

Cavalli Ercole amante. Sols incl Aspromonte, Bonitatibus &

Bridelli/Pygmalion/Pichon.

F b ◊ 2 110679/80; F Y NBD0118V

SWR CLASSIC swrmusic.com

Various Cpsrs Baltikum. SWR Voc Ens/Creed.

F ◊ SWR19107DVD; F Y SWR19108BD

NEW RELEASES INDEX

gramophone.co.uk112 GRAMOPHONE FEBRUARY 2021

AAlbinoni/GiazottoThe Beatitudes 70

AllegriMiserere 70

AnonymousArirang (arr Hough) 61The Burning of the Piper’s Hut 45Da Full Rigged Ship/Da New

Rigged Ship 45Laude di Cortona – Altissima luce;

Cristo e nato; Laude novella sia cantata; Oi me, lasso, è freddo lo mio core; Sia laudato San Francesco; Venite a laudare 69

AyresThe angel Gabriel 64Be thou my vision 64Crimond (The Lord’s my shepherd)

64Deep river 64Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel? 64God be in my head 64Go down Moses 64Go tell it on the mountain 64Grant O God thy protection 64Joshua fought the battle of Jericho 64Let all mortal flesh keep silence 64The Lord my pasture shall prepare 64The Lord my shepherd is 64Motherless child 64A new commandment 64On this mountain 64Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs

64Quanto sei bella 64This is the day 64This joyful Eastertide 64When I consider thy heavens 64When the song of the angels is stilled

64

BJS BachTranscriptions 89Das wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 2 –

selections 54

JS Bach/BusoniChaconne 61

JS Bach/GounodAve Maria (arr Hough) 61

Backer GrøndahlAlbumblad, Op 35 No 2 60Humoresque, Op 15 No 3 60

Bądarzewska-BaranowskaMazurka 60

BarberAdagio (arr Strickland) 54

BarryThe Conquest of Ireland 30Viola Concerto 30

BeachA Hermit Thrush at Eve, Op 92 No 1

60Piano Trio, Op 150 44Scottish Legend, Op 54 No 1 60

BeethovenAllegro and Minuet, WoO26 44An die ferne Geliebte, Op 98 64Fidelio (1806 version) ◊ Y 74Leonore ◊ Y 74Piano Sonatas – No 23, ‘Appassionata’,

Op 57; No 26, ‘Les adieux’, Op 81a; No 28, Op 101 55

Serenade, Op 25 44Sonata No 8, Op 30 No 3 44Symphonies – cpte 30Symphonies – No 4, Op 60; No 5,

Op 67; No 6, ‘Pastoral’, Op 68 30Trio concertante, WoO3 44Violin Sonatas – No 7, Op 30 No 2;

No 10, Op 96 44

BelliniNorma – Casta diva 78

L BerkeleySerenade for Strings, Op 12 Í 38

BlissMusic for Strings Í 38

BlowPoor Celadon, he sighs in vain 71Venus and Adonis – Saraband

for the Graces 71

BoccheriniString Quintet, ‘La musica notturna

delle strade di Madrid’, Op 30 No 6 G324 Í 40

BonKeyboard Sonata, Op 2 No 2 60

L BoulangerTrois Morceaux 60

N BoulangerThree Pieces 50

BrahmsPiano Concerto No 1, Op 15 31Four Piano Pieces, Op 119 31Piano Quartet No 1, Op 25

(arr Dünser) 32Variations on a Theme by Haydn,

‘St Antoni Chorale’, Op 56b 32

BridgeLament (Catherine, aged 9,

‘Lusitania’ 1915) Í 38

BrittenVariations on a Theme of

Frank Bridge, Op 10 Í 38

BrucknerAve Maria, WAB6 65Christus factus est, WAB11 65, 70Kronstorfer Messe 65Libera me, WAB21 65Locus iste 65Os justi 65Pange lingua 65Salvum fac populum 65Tantum ergo – WAB32; WAB41/2;

WAB42; WAB43 65Tota pulchra es 65Vexilla regis 65Virga Jesse, WAB52 65

BusoniKammer-Fantasie über Carmen, K284

61Turandots Frauengemach, S249 No 7

59

CCaccini/VavilovAve Maria 70

CarterCello Sonata 50

CasalsEl cant dels ocells 60

ChaminadeValse-Caprice, Op 33 60

ChaplinModern Times – Smile 60

ChopinHexaméron – Var 6 59Piano Sonata No 2, Op 35 61

J ClarkeSong on the Assumption 71

R ClarkePiano Trio 44

CooperMiss Gordon of Gight 45

CoplandAppalachian Spring – Suite 32Clarinet Concerto 32Passacaglia (arr Fesperman) 54

CorralesSeñores, les voy a contar Í 40

DDannaLife of Pi – Tsimtsum 70

DebussyProses lyriques 70

DelbosL’âme en bourgeon – No 1, Dors;

No 8, Ai-je pu t’appeler de l’ombre 70

DonizettiAnna Bolena – Piangete voi? …

Al dolce guidami 78Il paria 75

DoveSeek him that maketh the seven stars

70

DowlandLachrimae antiquae 60

DutilleuxChanson de la déportée 70Quatre Mélodies – No 3, Regards

sur l’infini 70Trois Strophes sur le nom de Sacher

60

DvořákCarnival, Op 92 B169 (arr Lemare) 54Symphony No 9, ‘From the New

World’, Op 95 B178 (arr Szathmáry) 54

EEcclesThe Comical History of Don Quixote:

Part 1 – Sleep, poor youth (The Dirge); Part 2 – I burn, my brain consumes to ashes 71

ElgarCello Concerto, Op 85 32Requiem aeternam (‘Nimrod’) 70

EscaichCantus I 60

FFarrCello Concerto, ‘Chemin des Dames’

32String Quartet No 2, ‘Mondo Rondo’

Í 40

FauréRequiem, Op 48 – In Paradisum 70

FriedVerklärte Nacht, Op 9 Í 41

GGálAbendgespräch Í 65Abendlied Í 65Blumenlied Í 65Der böse Tag Í 65Dämmerstunde Í 65Denk’ es o Seele Í 65Frag nicht! Í 65Eine gantz neu Schelmweys Í 65Glaube nur! Í 65Lady Rosa Í 65Liebesmüde Í 65Maimond Í 65Minnelied Í 65Morgengebet Í 65Nacht Í 65Nachts in der Kajüte –

No 1; No 2; No 3 Í 65Nachtstürme Í 65Novembertag Í 65Rücknahme Í 65Schäferlied Í 65Five Songs, Op 33 Í 65Sternenzwiesprach Í 65Waldseligkeit Í 65Welch ein Schweigen Í 65Der Wolkenbaum Í 65

GershwinPiano Concerto 33

GlassTissue No 7 50

GoldmarkAus Jugendtagen – Overture 35Götz von Berlichingen – Prelude 35Im Frühling, Op 36 35In Italien, Op 49 35Ein Wintermärchen – Prelude 35Zrinyi, Op 47 35

GonzagaAgua do vintém 60Cananéa 60

GowCoilsfield House 45Drunk at Night, Dry in the Morning

45

GriegPeer Gynt – Solveig’s Song 60

HHandelBacchus and The Rapture, HWV228

67Concerto a quattro in D minor 67Concerti grossi 89Fugue, HWV610 55Nine German Arias – No 3, Süsser

Blumen Ambraflocken, HWV204; No 6, Meine Seele hört im Sehen, HWV207; No 9, Flammende Rose, Zierde der Erden 67

Mi palpita il cor, HWV132b 67Suites – HWV426; HWV427;

HWV428; HWV429 55Suite, HWV430 – Air and Variations,

‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’ 67Trio Sonata, HWV384 67Venus and Adonis, HWV85 67

HarbisonRemembering Gatsby 33

J HaydnScena di Berenice, HobXXIVa:10 35Three String Quartets, Op 74 45Symphonies – No 15; No 35;

No 45, ‘Farewell’ 35Symphonies Nos 82-87 35

M HaydnMissa Sancti Nicolai Tolentini,

MH109 69Vesperae pro festo Sancti Innocentium

69Anima nostra, MH452 69

HindsonMaralinga Í 40

HoughPiano Sonata No 4, ‘Vida breve’ 61

IIvesPiano Trio 44

JJacquet de MantuaDum vastos Adriae fluctus 69

Q JonesSoul Bossa Nova 50

JosquinAve Maria … Virgo serena 69El grillo 69Inviolata, integra et casta es 69Missa Pange lingua 69Salve regina a 5 69Virgo salutiferi genitrix 69Vivrai je tousjours 69

KKaprálováAndante, Op 13 No 2 60

KayserScherz, List und Rache 76

E KodályValses viennoises 60

Komzák IIBad’ner Mad’ln, Op 257 40

KorngoldLieder des Abschieds, Op 14 Í 41

REVIEWS INDEX


LLa Marca/Rayann/Seigner

Timeless 60

Lauridsen

Les chansons des roses – Dirait-on 70

Legrand

Medley 50

Lehár

Fieber Í 41

Lennon/McCartney

Yesterday 60

Ligeti

Solo Cello Sonata 60

Liszt

Années de pèlerinage 57

Bagatelle sans tonalité, S216a 61

Funérailles, S173 No 7 61Guillaume Tell (Rossini) –

Overture, S552 59Réminiscences de Lucia di

Lammermoor, S397 59

Réminiscences de Norma, S394 59

Rigoletto Paraphrase, S434 59

Lotti

Crucifixus 70

MMarais

Les folies d’Espagne 60

Les voix humaines 60

Marshall

The Marquis of Huntly 45

C Mason

Sardinian Songbook 46

Tuvan Songbook 46

Zwischen den Sternen 46

Mendelssohn

The Hebrides, Op 26 91A Midsummer Night’s Dream –

Overture, Op 21; Incidental Music, Op 61 91

Symphonies – No 3, ‘Scottish’, Op 56;No 4, ‘Italian’, Op 90 91

Violin Concerto, Op 64 91

Messiaen

Poèmes pour Mi 70

Millöcker

In Saus und Braus 40

Miyake

43˚ North: A Tango 60

Mozart

Ave verum corpus, K618 70Serenade No 10, ‘Gran Partita’, K361

46

NNicFhionnlaigh

Fear a’ Bhàta 45

NikolayevaAlbum for Children, Op 19 – No 1,

March; No 2, Music Box; No 3, Old Waltz 60

NonoLa lontananza nostalgica utopica futura

47

PPärtAlleluia tropus 69And I heard a voice … 69Habitare fratres in unum 69Drei Hirtenkinder 69Kleine Litanei 69Virgencita 69

PejačevićRose, Op 19 No 5 60

PetterssonSymphony No 12, ‘The Dead

in the Square’ Í 36

PiazzollaLe Grand Tango 50

PistonSymphony No 5 33

F PricePiano Sonata in E minor – Andante 60

ProkofievPiano Sonata No 8, Op 84 57Ten Pieces from Romeo

and Juliet, Op 75 57Visions fugitives, Op 22 57

PucciniLa bohème – Che gelida manina;

Quando m’en vo’ (arr Carignani) 59

La bohème – D’onde lieta uscì 78Madama Butterfly – Sailors’ Chorus

(transcr Wittgenstein) 59Madama Butterfly – Un bel dì,

vedremo; Tu? Tu? Piccolo iddio! 78

Suor Angelica – Senza mamma 78Tosca – Vissi d’arte 78

D PurcellPausanias – My dearest, my fairest 71

H PurcellAnacreon’s Defeat, Z423 71Dido and Aeneas – Dido’s Lament 60The Fairy Queen – Dance for the

Fairies; Dance for the Green Men; Hornpipe 71

The Fairy Queen – O let me weep 67A Fool’s Preferment – There’s

nothing so fatal as women 71The History of Dioclesian –

Dance of the Furies 71The Indian Queen – Symphony;

Seek not to know; Ye twice ten hundred deities 71

King Arthur – Chaconne; Hornpipe 71Rule a Wife and Have a Wife –

There’s not a swain on the plain 71

Tyrannic Love – Hark! My Damilcar 71

The Virtuous Wife – Overture; Air; Slow Air 71

The Yorkshire Feast Song, Z333 71

RRachmaninovSymphonic Dances, Op 45 28Symphony No 1, Op 13 28

RameauLes sauvages 60

ReichaL’art de varier, Op 57 59

RheinbergerAbendlied, Op 69 No 3 70

Rihm

Vermischter Traum 64

Rossini

Il barbiere di Siviglia – Largo al factotum (transcr Ginzburg) 59

Matilde di Shabran 76

Rutter

The Lord bless you and keep you 70

SSaariaho

Quatre Instants – No 3, Parfum de l’instant 70

Il pleut 70

Sainte-Colombe

Suite No 4 – Prelude 60

Saint-Saëns

Cello Sonata No 1, Op 32 48

Piano Trio No 2, Op 92 48

Violin Sonata No 1, Op 75 48

F Schmitt

Légende, Op 66 36

Musique sur l’eau, Op 33 36

Oriane et le Prince d’Amour – Suite, Op 83bis 36

La tragédie de Salomé, Op 50 36

Schoenberg

Verklärte Nacht, Op 4 Í 41

Schubert

Abendstern, D806 64

An die Musik, D547 64

Fischerweise, D881 64

Die Forelle, D550 64

Im Freien, D880 64

Quartettsatz, D703 Í 40

Die Sommernacht, D289 64

Die Sterne, D939 64

Die Taubenpost, D965a 64

Der Wanderer an den Mond, D870 64

Wandrers Nachtlied, D768 64

Der Winterabend, D938 64

Das Zügenglöcklein, D871 64

C Schumann

Romance, Op 21 No 1 60

R Schumann

String Quartet No 3, Op 41 No 3 48

Symphony No 4, Op 120 91

C Shaw

and the swallow 69

Three Essays 48

Shore

The Lord of the Rings – In Dreams 70

Shostakovich

String Quartet No 9, Op 117 48

Simaku

Catena I Í 50

con-ri-sonanza Í 50

Hommage à Kurtág Í 50

L’image oubliée d’après Debussy Í 50

String Quartets – No 4; No 5 Í 50

M Simpson

Geysir 46

Sollima

Lamentatio 60

StanfordThe Blue Bird, Op 119 No 3 70Three Intermezzi 50String Quintets – No 1, Op 85;

No 2, Op 86 50

Josef StraussMargherita-Polka, Op 244 40Ohne Sorgen, Op 271 40

J Strauss IRadetzky-Marsch, Op 228 40Venetianer-Galopp, Op 74 40

J Strauss IIAn der schönen blauen Donau, Op 314

40Frühlingsstimmen, Op 410 40Furioso-Polka, Op 260 40Im Krapfenwald’l, Op 336 40Kaiserwalzer, Op 437 40Neue Melodien-Quadrille, Op 254 40Niko-Polka, Op 228 40Schallwellen, Op 148 40Stürmisch in Lieb’ und Tanz, Op 393

40

R StraussCapriccio – Prelude 32Duett-Concertino 32

StravinskySuite italienne (arr Piatigorsky) 50

SuppéDichter und Bauer – Overture 40Fatinitza-Marsch 40

TTagaqSivunittinni (The Future Ones) 46

TelemannSonata, TWV40:1 – Allegro vivace 60

ThalbergL’art du chant appliqué au piano,

Op 70 – No 1, Quatuor de l’opéra‘I puritani’; No 119, Casta diva del’opéra ‘Norma’ 59

TowerSequoia 33

TraditionalSai Ma (Racing Horses, arr Mason) 46

VVangelis1492 – Conquest of Paradise 70

VasksDistant Light 36Symphony No 1 36Viatore 36

Vaughan WilliamsJob: A Masque for Dancing 38Songs of Travel 38

VerdiUn ballo in maschera – Morrò,

ma prima in grazia 78La forza del destino – Pace, pace,

mio Dio! 78Rigoletto – Caro nome 78La traviata – Addio, del passato;

Ah, fors’è lui … Sempre libera 78

VictoriaAve Maria 70

VindersO mors inevitabilis 69

REVIEWS INDEX

Vivaldi

Argippo 77

Vladigerov

Autumn Elegy, Op 15 38

Concert Overture, ‘Earth’, Op 27 38

Heroic Overture, Op 45 38

Symphonies – No 1, Op 33; No 2, ‘May’, Op 44 38

WWhitacre

Lux aurumque 70

J Wolfe

Guard my tongue 69

Wuorinen

Haroun and the Sea of Stories Í 78

ZZeller

Grubenlichter 40

Collections‘… and …’ – Ars Nova Copenhagen

69

‘The Art of Eduard van Beinum’ 90

‘Casta diva’ – Vanessa Benelli Mosell 59

‘Cello 360’ – Christian-Pierre La Marca 60

‘Complete Ballet Recordings’ – Richard Bonynge 84

‘The Complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book’ – Pieter Jan-Belder 89

‘Complete Recordings on Archiv Produktion and Deutsche Grammophon’ – Karl Richter 86

‘Dear Mademoiselle: A Tribute to Nadia Boulanger’ – Astrig Siranossian

‘English Music for Strings’ – John Wilson Í 38

‘In Motion’ – United Strings of Europe Í 40

‘In Paradisum’ – Schola Cantorum of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School 70

‘Italian Opera Arias’ – Linda Richardson 78

‘New Year’s Concert 2021’ – Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra 40

‘New Year’s Concert: The Complete Works – Extended Edition’ – Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra 89

‘Pioneers’ – Hiroko Ishimoto 60

‘Regards sur l’infini’ – Katharine Dain 70

‘A Survey of British Tenors Before Peter Pears’ 91

‘The SWR Recordings 1956-84’ – Henryk Szeryng 91

‘Tyrannic Love’ – Ensemble Les Surprises 71

‘Verklärte Nacht’ – Edward Gardner Í 41

‘Vida breve’ – Stephen Hough 61

One of my earliest memories at school was Jacqueline du Précoming to play for us – I was probably eight or nine. I was atGuildford High School and loved every day. My musicteacher – who I’m still in touch with even now, that’s thething about inspiring teachers – was very involved in theGuildford Philharmonic when Vernon Handley wasconducting, and du Pré was presumably doing a concertwith them and so was invited to the school to play afterassembly. I can still see her now sitting on the little woodenstage. She looked so young, she had this sort of vivacity –the hair everywhere – with a child-like enthusiasm andexcitement about what she was doing, but with a focusand incredible concentration too. I remember it as if itwere yesterday, it was so vivid.

In my next life I’m going to be singing in Covent Garden!I would like to be either Musetta in La bohème – I’d love todo that scene, dancing on the table! – or Richard Strauss’sDaphne. Another musical voice that’s in the back of my mindfrom younger years is Janet Baker. I don’t know whether onradio or records, but I just remember the depth andresonance of the voice, and the lusciousness of it. She’sbecome a customer too which is unbelievable – it givesme goosebumps just thinking about her. I’ve watched thewonderful documentary by John Bridcut five times over,I thought it was so beautifully done, and the programmehe made on Bernard Haitink was equally wonderful.

I desperately wanted to join a choir about 10 years ago, anddecided that I didn’t want to go to just any choir, I wanted togo for the best! So I applied to The Bach Choir – why not? –and managed to get an audition. David Hill was at the pianodoing the auditions, and was absolutely charming. He said,‘Could you sing this hymn?’ and I said, ‘Oh, this is one of myfavourites!’ But then he said, ‘Yes, but do you actually knowthis version of it?’ And it was then that he realised thatI couldn’t read music, so in the end, he said, ‘Unfortunately,if you can’t read music you will really struggle with thischoir – so please come back to us in a few months’ time,learn how to read music – you’ve got a lovely tone, soplease try again.’ I went home crying all the way, havingbeen rejected. But for charity I did my Grade 1 singinga few years ago, and managed to get a distinction!So perhaps I am not that bad.

I just love listening to music. I have BBC Radio 3 on whenI drive to work every day. I learn so much, whether it’sDonald Macleod, or Iain Burnside – he’s so intuitive andbrilliant, the way he describes things. Iain’s son was at schoolwith my son, so I got to know him, and he invited us to theSt Endellion Festival in Cornwall – and we’ve been goingevery summer since. It’s extraordinary to see these incredibleartists you are used to seeing at Covent Garden or wherever

just mucking in and being part of the family. I’m justa groupie there – going to a rehearsal if I can, or eatingcrab with Iain – but it’s the most extraordinarily special thing;everybody is there for no other reason than to have a lovelytime and to make music together.

We’ve never had music in the restaurant and never will –I feel that restaurants should have the chink of knives andforks on the plates, and nothing else. But for our shops,I thought recently that we do need just one tiny little bitof extra atmosphere, so I have started to create playlists, andreally love doing it. The starting point every morning is anhour of bird song from 7.30. And after that, I first of allthought that I’m only going to play music that’s beenrecorded by my customers, but then the more I went intoit, the more I felt this was not being very respectful to peoplelike Mitsuko Uchida or Stephen Hough – I just didn’t feelthat the shop was the right place for me to play somethingthat was so serious but where a customer would walk in andonly hear half of it. So instead, I’ve a nice mix of music,including Lully, Tom Waits, Keith Jarrett, Marin Maraisand Dave Brubeck – so a mix of serious and not so serious.

Sally ClarkeThe acclaimed chef and restaurateur on compiling playlists and her love of singing

THE RECORD I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT

Bach Goldberg Variations

András Schi pf

ECM New Series

I saw him play this at a Late Night Prom in 2015 – it

was extraordinary. Bach is just on a dierent planet.

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MY MUSIC


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