How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100 (Part 1)

Introduction

The Why, How, and What

This is a reposting (edited and expanded) of an article that George A. Pieler and I wrote for Forbes.com, back in March of 2013 and picks off from these musings: How To Build A Top Quality Classical Music Library For $100 (Prelude), where you can read all about the idea behind the idea. I am re-posting and editing the articles to makes sure they don’t disappear, to give them the formatting they were meant to have, and as a tribute to George. Also, the articles are behind a paywall in the US, I just found out – so now they are out in the open again, where they belong.

Almost 13 years ago, George A. Pieler and I wrote a column (Two Cents About Classical Music For $100) for Forbes.com on some of the market- and technology-changes that affect this still growing, more-important-than-you-think niche in 21st century entertainment: classical music. The idea of building a classical music starter kit for $100 means we have to define price in an age where the very media of music consumption are in a permanent state of change. It also raises the question of what ownership of digital files actually means. We tackle some of these questions in upcoming columns [Ed. we didn’t], but first we present “the list”. (Incidentally, the Forbes article is itself based on the ionarts-response to Tyler Cowen’s article in 2011, which was promptly criticized for being too cello-heavy.)

[The entire list on Amazon can be found here.]

First, let’s talk about what “Classical Music for $100” is not: It is not a historical survey. It is certainly not meant to be representative of (Western) classical music – the very attempt would be absurd for a genre that spans at least 600 years (and counting). It is not a list of what is or should be considered “great” in classical music, nor just a list of classic recordings. We may overlap with all of these criteria in some parts, but our goal was simply (not so simple, as it turns out) this: “Bait!”. To create a list – within the confines of $100 (measured, old fashioned style, by CD*) – that is most likely to convert the uninitiated, intrigue the newcomer, and still delight the veteran. If you spend your first hundred bucks on classical music this way (or consume this list on Spotify), our rationale goes, you’ll find something—plenty—that will hook you and keep you coming back for more. In which case we’ll happily supply more lists to aid the discovery.

(*Cost was measured as-per-Amazon-pricing-averages at the times and iTunes cost. As recordings (or these iterations thereof) wander in and out of print, these can fluctuate wildly. I have updated the Amazon links below – but not necessarily the cover images – to reflect the most readily available iterations of these recordings.)

If one album alone could do the trick, we would have chosen just one. That’s not likely, though, since every newcomer responds to different stimuli. A one-size-fits-all list is a bit like handing out the “ten best medications” to prospective patients, sight unseen. But between classical disc-jockeying, slaving at Tower Records (The Tower That Fell), writing for classical radio stations, and emulating a classical music critic, we have channeled our experience to come up with a generic model-listener who has appreciation written all over him or her (enough to have read on thus far, certainly), but relatively little previous exposure. (And if you’re a veteran but this sounds like someone you know, why not share this list with them!?)

With that in mind we set ourselves a few rules. The first is adopted from Tyler Cowen who gave us the idea: “Never buy an inferior recording simply because it is cheaper. In the long run it is more expensive.”

True, it’s hard to tell what inferior (or “best”) really means in a market saturated with the greatest artists from seven decades competing with each other, often with multiple entries each, in the crowded field of recording classical evergreens. We interpret it thus: include it only if it really knocks your socks off. This uncompromising approach does conflict with the budget limit and the urge to cover a good deal of territory. But wherever compromise attempted to sneak in at the expense of absolute quality, we tried to resist it.

Another rule was not to include box sets. It’s tempting when you can get the complete works of Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven for $99.99… and all the Wagner operas for $32.66. But that’s unstructured overkill and, in our experience, detrimental to listening habits. Each recording included in this list, and each composer, deserves at least the focus and concentration (and, yes, the expense!) that goes with listening specifically to one album. The kind of focus that used to happen necessarily when people put a vinyl album on their record player. (It makes all the difference: many of them still think vinyl sounds better for this reason.) Experiencing this music for the first time should be a piece-by-piece event, even in an age where the media—hard drives, clouds—have practically no physical confines.

Finally, we tried—and failed—to make the list compatible for iTunes downloading, hard-copy-purchasing, andSpotify streaming. We’ve come close, and picked only albums [then] in print (which might, granted, [and did] change tomorrow). At the time, Spotify (which shares exceedingly little revenue with the artists and record companies, it might be pointed out) didn’t carry three essential labels: Hyperion, ECM, and Harmonia Mundi – so the initial playlist had to substitute the relevant recordings. They do now and the list has since updated accordingly. If you have access to the Naxos Music Library, that should enable you to hear every one of these albums, too.)

The relative prominence of time-tested, ‘classic recordings’ on this list (four out of nine—out of ten, if you count the ‘iTunes bonus’) is not primarily one of nostalgia but economics. These are recordings that are exceptional – and widely acknowledged as such, but they have also earned their money many times over and can be re-released in various guises at ever decreasing price points. But there is also a reason why new recordings are still made and listened to: every generation needs its Beethoven, its Bach, its John Adams. A few classic interpretations are truly exceptional and a few favorite artists really were unique, but often the focus on older recordings by collectors is a sentimental one; a disease called “Golden Ageism”, caused by the emotional footprint that the first exposure to a particular interpretation leaves. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… with any luck, you will acquire it with some of these choices!

The List

Hooked in under $100

And here now are, in order of recommended listening, the recordings we would recommend to hook you.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 285 (A World Premiere Recording of Nadia Boulanger’ Opera)

Nadia Boulanger La ville morte Neal Goren, Talea Ensemble Melissa Harvey, Laurie Rubin, Joshua Dennis, Jorell Williams (Pentatone 5187792, 2 CDs) US | UK | DE

Nadia Boulanger as a Composer

A delightful surprise for lovers of French Impressionism

There is an endless amount of unfamiliar repertoire to be discovered in classical music. Much of it forgettable, but some of it worth perking up for. This is very much a case of the latter. La ville morte is a four-act opera to a libretto by the would-be dictator and man of letters Gabriele D’Annunzio, with music by Raoul Pugno and Nadia Boulanger. Nadia, mind you. Born in 1887, later to enter music history as the most influential composition teacher of the twentieth century — and elder sister of the composer Lili Boulanger (1893–1918) who died at a tragically young age when Nadia was 31.

The Boulanger sisters’ story, told in shorthand, usually goes thus: Lili was so prodigiously gifted that Nadia, faced with this overwhelming talent, put her own compositional ambitions aside and devoted herself to teaching. And if there were still any questions early on, the younger sister’s premature death surely did the rest. No doubt family pressure also played a role — the father, just like Nadia, had won the prestigious Prix de Rome. But the decisive blow to the composing career may well have been the death of her teacher, mentor, musical collaborator, and lover, the (very much married) Raoul Pugno, who died in January of 1914 while the two were on concert tour together. Even then, things might still have turned out differently, had the outbreak of the First World War not forced the cancellation of the premiere of La ville morte. That finally took place only in 2005, in Siena.

Performances then (as now) were further complicated by the fact that the score itself was lost during the war. For the newly released world-premiere recording on Pentatone — produced in conjunction with a new staging at the Greek National Opera — conductor Nel Goren had to take matters into his own hands. He opted for a chamber-scale orchestration. He also cut a wordless chorus and a peripheral role to make future performances more feasible — in plain terms, cheaper. That decision is possibly lamentable (but if he had not told us, we would even know what we are missing) but in any case entirely defensible, and the result speaks for itself. The music, superbly played by the Talea Ensemble, can at times sound uncannily like Michael Nyman, or like Mahler seen through the prism of chamber music - a result of the minimal orchestration. It remains thoroughly compelling, though — with especially striking affinities to Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. The singers, led by Melissa Harvey, add their share to the pleasure of this pleasing rediscovery.

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This review had been previously published on Classics Today.

The Last Missing Piece of the Kna’ Grail: Knappertsbusch’s 1955 Parsifal from Bayreuth

Richard Wagner Parsifal, Hans Knappertsbusch Bayreuth Festival, 1955 (Profil Hänssler, 2023) US | UK | DE

Dip Your Ears: No. 284 (Knappertsbusch’s 1955 Bayreuth Parsifal)

Kna’s long-lost Parsifal, the last one to await full issue, is now available. Was it worth the wait?

Parsifal-Aficionados had to wait a long, long time for this: The recording of the 1955 Bayreuth performance under Hans Knappertsbusch. An interpretation of primordial power, forward momentum, dynamism. A recording of vocal superlatives from the 30-year-old Fischer Dieskau as Amfortas; with Ramon Vinay and Martha Mödl at peak voltage. In short: One of Bayreuth’s finest hours. At least such were the rumors.

To make it even more tantalizing: For years, this Parsifal could only be experienced partially and unofficially. Namely only by way off an aircheck of a BBC broadcast of the second act. Adding further to the intrigue: The complete tapes were known to exist in the archives of Bavarian Radio; my colleague Klaus Kalchschmid had seen and heard them.

When said colleague Klaus and I visited the Wagner-discography expert Frank Schöneborn in Aachen, the latter – before putting on this aircheck as the very last snippet of Parsifal to listen to – pronounced: “Kna was at the absolute height of his powers here! And these singers… fantastic. It absolutely blows you away!” And this opinion was based on that old, wildly imperfect recording in, frankly, execrable sound. The musical instruments were hardly recognizable as such. The sound came and went. Everyone and everything howled; it was like listening to an old C-90 cassette that had been left in the glove compartment on a hot summer’s day.

Myth v. Reality

It’s a truism of record collecting, as any ionarts-reader will be aware, that the best recordings are always those that are the most difficult to source. Alas, the grail is ever only the grail in searching, rarely in finding. Now Profil/Hänssler has issued the tapes from the BR archives, at long last, closing the last remaining gap in the Parsifal/Bayreuth discography of Hans Knappertsbusch. Naturally you’ll wonder: Does the reputation survive the availability? Well, this much up front: The modest mono-sound of this release feels like high fidelity, compared to the BBC bits. The voices come out nicely, indeed. As far as the two dimensional orchestra goes, however, these tapes don’t begin to approach the vivid stereo image of the 1962 Philips recording. (But then, neither do any of the other Kna/Parsifal recordings, where every orchestra group – strings, brass, woodwinds – sounds the same.)

The tempos are, by Kna’s standards, on the taut side and similar to ’62; only in 1960 was he a shade less slow. In this, the recording is a nice and welcome contrast to the other (somewhat dreary) Knappertsbuschian Parsifals of the 50s. Amid the so-so-OK sound, you can also hear that, vocally, nothing went particularly wrong. Ludwig Weber’s Gurnemanz sounds a little taxed. Martha Mödl truly is at the height of her goosebumps-inducing powers as Kundry. Neidlinger’s attractively-evil Klingsor almost makes you want to switch sides, and Fischer-Dieskau’s Amfortas is decidedly not mannered, but fresh and surprisingly (given the character’s disposition, not the singer’s age) healthy. Ramón Vinay’s Parsifal, however, barks and lumbers, which is surprising, even if it actually suits the crude Parsifal of Act I rather well. Subsequently, Vinay proves, in lyrically convincing ways, that this was, indeed, a choice on his part. The chorus is more coordinated than in 1951, which, admittedly, is saying little. That ensemble would go on to improve, year over year. The Eduard Steingraeber Parsifal-piano, specifically made for the bells in Parsifal, sounds – how to put this… awful. Brash and not particularly bell-like, either.

This issue is a collector’s dream-come-true – and no self-respecting Parsifal-obsessed Wagnerian will forgo the experience of having and having heard this recording. For everyone else, it’s a case of “be careful what you dream about” – if you are among those, you can stick with your favorite recording of Parsifal, be it with or without Kna’, and know that you are not missing out on anything. (Jed Distler, over on ClassicsToday, likes it a bit better than I do, btw.)

The 1962 Parsifal Redeemed

As far as Kna’ and his Parsifals in general are concerned, that two-day listening session (and subsequent listening) have established quite definiteively to these ears (but also to Schöneborn, that the 1962 Philips recording is the best of all his Bayreuth Parsifals, and by a very wide margin. Not only is the sound in a completely different league from every other recording (which means that you can actually hear the instruments in the orchestra, as opposed to a vague, two-dimensional Wagner-like orchestral mixture), the orchestra and chorus are caught in much better shape than anywhere else, too. Also the interpretation is probably the most statisfying of Knappertsbusch’s, in doing well what he did well and avoiding some of the pitfulls that, on record at least, didn't translate quite so well... The singers are very good to good-enough: Only Irene Dalis will never be to everyone's taste; if one could airlift the 1953 Martha Mödl (Kna') or the 1970 Gwyneth Jones (Boulez) or the young 1985 Waltraud Meier (Levine) into this recording, one might. But Dalis is certainly not ruinous to the efforts and neither is George London, whose magnificent Amfortas adorns seven of Kna’s Parsifals (51 to 53, 57, 61 to 63) might arguably be 'least magnificient' specifically in this outing.

The second-most famous 1951 version, meanwhile, probably suffers probably most from direct comparison (entries are off, imprecise strings), but some of that has to do with the expectations it comes with. The same, ultimately, goes for the 1955, which is not, however, as bad as it might have reasonably feared to be, sound-wise. Something for the Parsifal-curious then – but if you are, you already knew that!

Knappertsbusch varies his tempi quite a bit. Turns out that his quickest, from 1962, is also his best, offering compassion rather than pathos. The ’51 recording sounds awfully grave and a bit uniform, with little energy. Knappertsbusch seems to start and re-start the orchestra over and over. At the dramatic peak, London is left to his own devices and when London passes his duties to Windgassen, the interpretation feels a lot slower than Levine’s, despite lasting just as long. The latter really brings out the augustness of this moment, perfectly timing orchestra and singers. A pity you don’t trust Peter Hofmann that he is quite cut out for the duties ahead. (Frank Schöneborn)

As a bonus: Below will follow a Knappertsbusch-Bayreuth-Parsifal Survey:

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Dip Your Ears: No. 283 (Martin Fröst’s maudlin’ mushy B.A.C.H.)

Martin Fröst B.A.C.H. (Sony, 2024) US | UK | DE

Martin Fröst and his album of Bach Transcriptions. You have been warned!

Martin Fröst is truly a generational musician who has pushed his instrument places it had not hitherto gone, a paragon of quality in established repertoire and bold, glad explorer of all things new. Occasionally, as with his penchant for dance intruding into his performances, I found that he could be “a bit much” for me, watching his gyrations. But it never affected the quality of the output.

Because he is the kind of artist where you would assume that every release of his must be stupendous (a fairly rare category also occupied by the likes of William Youn, Manfred Honeck, Marc-André Hamelin, Mitsuko Uchida, Pygmalion), this album, “B.A.C.H.” comes as a bit of a surprise and might be worth the warning, for a warning it is.

Regular ionarts-readers will know I have more than just a penchant for Bach… and moreover Bach-transcriptions of all kinds. Add a favorite artist into the mix and the assumption may well be made that we have an absolute winner at our hands here… and somehow, we just don’t. But what went wrong?

Well, for one, the selection of bits and bobs from Bach’s oeuvre, appears as perfectly haphazard. A collection of the most memorable tunes, strung together without little more rhyme or reasons than that they might be tempting to play on the clarinet, if one happens to be a Bach-loving clarinetist. They are, as per Sony’s marketing blurb, “Fröst’s favourite pieces that have been with him constantly throughout his own musical expeditions.” But the result is not, as might be ideally hoped for, some sort of exotic-sounding new Suite of Bach, it’s the output from a randomizer – and one that did not appear to take key-relationships much (if at all) into consideration. The brevity of the pieces (just under two minutes on average) and the resultant number of grating gearchanges don’t help.

Nor is the adaptation for the clarinet particularly fortuitous. Even a wizard like Martin Fröst can only play one line – usually a melody. But in Bach, it’s about counterpoint. The missing parts are thus entrusted to other instruments, most prominently among them the bass. Not inappropriate, generally speaking. But double bassist Sebastien Dubé can play as delicately as he wants to, the nature of the music pushes him to the forefront quite often. For a third of the disc, the album sounds like a solo double bassist with clarinet accompaniment. For another third like a lame imitation of the Jacques Loussier Trio (try the Prelude in D minor for size), and for the rest like a book of Bach-style Etudes for clarinet.

We get Fröst crawling through the Goldberg Variations Aria. Naturally, we get the Air from the third Orchestral Suite, though lugubrious, is probably one of the more successful pieces – if it doesn’t come across as painfully obvious. Truly beautiful on its own is the arrangement for clarinet and of “Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden” from the Matthew Passion for Clarinet and Cello (Anastasia Kobekina). When it isn’t bass or cello supporting the clarinet, it’s Jonas Nordberg’s theorbo. The “Ave Maria”, a “Mediation on the Prelude” for dominant cello and undulating clarinet sounds, alas, shlocky as if it was re-arranged by a lesser Saint-Saëns. Oh, and ABBA’s Benny Anderson tinkles along on the piano to the closing track.

Clunkers and gems as are included on this disc, the whole comes out as much less than the sum of its parts. A friend, moderately versed in classical music, who listened with me, not knowing what was playing, or why, said, once I had voiced some criticism of the disc myself: “Yes, I was wondering why you were listening to such a… childish album.” Thereby hitting the nail on the head.

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This review had been previously published on Classics Today.

Dip Your Ears: No. 281 (Top of the Shostakovich-15 Heap, Still!)

D.Shostakovich Symphony No.15 [42:38] Boris Tchaikovsky Theme & 8 Var. [18:12] Dresden StaKap, K.Kondrashin (Hänssler Profil, 2007)

Kondrashin in Dresden

“Profil – Edition Günter Hänssler” has been issuing more and more CDs from (old) German radio tapes that vie for a spot in the limelight of the mainstream. Especially some of the more recent performances of the Staatskapelle Dresden like Bernhard Haitink’s supreme Bruckner 6^th and a Mahler 9^th with Giuseppe Sinopoli are immensely impressive. This recording of Shostakovich’s 15^th Symphony with Kyrill Kondrashin, too, makes this list.

On January 23^rd, 1974 – just a little over a year before Shostakovich died – Kondrashin conducted his favorite German orchestra in a concert celebrating the 425^th anniversary of the orchestra, the 50^th anniversary of the renaming of St. Petersburg as Leningrad, and the 30^th anniversary of the break of the German siege of Leningrad.

The latest and last symphony of the great composer from St. Petersburg was a logical choice for this, but it wouldn’t have escaped Kondrashin, or the Dresden audience, that it is uniquely unsuited to venerate the Soviet—or any communist—regime. After vocal symphonies 13 and 14, Shostakovich, fatally ill and well aware of it, returned to an almost classical form of the symphony.

In the essay that accompanied the recording of Maxim Shostakovich (said to be the best performance of Shostakovich’s son on record – but to my knowledge not available on CD) Shostakovich spoke of the first movement Adagietto as a “toy-shop with plenty of knick-knacks and trinkets – absolutely cheerful”. No listener will get away from the first movement without doubting the composer’s own words. If it is a toy-shop at all, it’s one that sells little tanks, toy-guns, and junior’s first water boarding-kit. It’s a romp with its share of plink and delicate chirping, but this collection of trivialities amid intensity, with crashing marching bands and ballerinas, sounds like a sugarplum fairy-cum-guerilla fighter. There are moments that remind of the 2nd and 9th Symphony, and it’s always interrupted by the seemingly random William Tell overture excerpt that all American audiences can identify as the “Lone Ranger” theme.

It’s not impossible that Shostakovich knew the Lone Ranger and his heroic deeds (or his appeal to children, which would go with the toy-shop story) – but it’s more likely the Rossini original that inspired him. And that’s telling enough: A story about a man who is coerced to use his skill (archery, in Tell’s case) according to the bidding of a despot – who then uses that skill to fight against tyranny. If anything it seems that Shostakovich, in the hospital while composing this movement, had dispensed with being subtle in his political statements.

On ionarts: Shostakovich Symphony Cycle Survey

The strange giddiness of the first movement is immediately subdued by the grave brass chorale that opens the dark second movement. Phases of rest-and-answer and the cello’s lamenting song lead into trombone and violin statements that are everything but “absolutely cheerful”. Trombone glissandi (the ones that enraged Stalin in Lady Macbeth) are employed and eventually the subdued movement wakens and rises slowly to a big orchestral thrashing-about. It’s much like the Shostakovich from Symphonies 4, 7, 8, and 11 – but with an incredible efficiency of means, almost chamber-like in proportion and scoring.

The little, friendly third movement (Allegretto) has moments that are nearly Haydnesque before the fourth movement takes over with another blatant musical quotation – this time Wagner’s ‘ensuing death’ (or “fate”) motif from the Ring, already foreshadowed in the Adagio of the second movement. The yearning opening of Tristan & Isolde also appears several times, completing the atmosphere of resignation and departure. More difficult to hear, if you don’t know about them, are references or quotations of a Glinka song, twelve-tone rows (“bourgeois decadence!”), Strauss’ Heldenleben (the “adversaries” phrase, third movement), and many others that I will have missed completely. In this fourth, as in the second movement and in so many of his other symphonies, there is the gathering of momentum, the orchestral outbreak, the swoop up… here leading to a Passacaglia – and then the symphony dithers away in a morose mood over ghastly tic-tocs of a clock and a last, faint glimmer of percussive hope.

Especially the Wagner quotations, himself once Hofkapellmeister in Dresden, would not have escaped the sophisticated Dresden audience at this performance, the last together with Kondrashin. And what an extraordinary performance it is. It is better in every regards than Kondrashin’s earlier recording (Melodiya / Aulos): The playing is finer, indeed flawless. The sound, with a little artificial reverb, is excellent from the GDR’s radio-broadcast recording crew. Lasting about 42 minutes, the tempi are marginally more relaxed than in the Moscow recording, but still very much on the fast side which means that no moments are allowed to sag or lumber along. I have not heard the mythical first Maxim Shostakovich performance (and I'm not sure how many of those who sing its praises have, either), but among the interpretations I know (Barshai, Caetani, Haitink, Järvi/DG, Kitajenko, Kondrashin/Moscow (oop), Ormandy, and especially the favorite Sanderling/Cleveland), this one goes to the very top.

The Theme & Eight Variations by Boris Tchaikovsky (not related) was written for this concert and are heard in their world premiere. The work has only reinforced my curiosity about—and appreciation of—a composer that really belongs in a next edition of Surprised by Beauty.

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This review had been previously published on the long-nixed WETA 90.9 blog.

Dip Your Ears: No. 280 (DSCH, dogmatically pumped up)

D.Shostakovich 24 Preludes op.34, Chamber Sy. op.110a dogma chamber orchestra Mikhail Gurewitsch (CM) (M|DG SACD, 2013)

Shostakovich Strung Up

It’s rare enough to hear Shostakovich’s Twenty Four Preludes op.34 on disc (much less in recital). Much rarer still, but no less interesting, is it to hear the work—not to be mistaken for the increasingly popular 24 Preludes and Fugues, op. 87—set for string orchestra. The all-lower case dogma chamber orchestra took on the task and recorded Grigory Kochmar’s arrangement to marvelous, delightfully unsettling effect: A new angle on an unfamiliar work gives us de-facto brand new Shostakovich. Compared to that, the String Quartet No.8 in its souped-up version (basically a simpler version of Chamber Symphony op.110a), is familiar territory in which dogma faces and proudly meets the competition.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 279 (The Sibelius Lure)

Jean Sibelius The Essential Orchestral Favorites Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra Leif Segerstam (Ondine, 2014)

Essentials of Sibelius

Reducing “Essential Sibelius” to the Violin Concerto, tone poems, and one Symphony will make hardened Sibelius-fans wince. But then Ondine’s “The Essential Orchestral Favorites” intends not to please the hardened Sibelius-fan, it aims at making hardened Sibelius-fans out of the uninitiated. The 2-CD set does this splendidly: The Violin Concerto is the only Sibelius-work that’s permanently in the repertoire. The Second Symphony, Sibelius’ most conventional, is the ideal first symphonic exposure. And the tone poems, Karelia Suite, and three movements from The Tempest make a perfect Sibelius-starter—especially with Leif Segerstam and the Helsinki Philharmonic, whose soft-lit brawn is dream-boat stuff. Add Sibelius’ own performance of his Andante festivo and a 50-page booklet with oodles of photos of Sibelius, a timeline, and condensed biography. Start here and fall in love.

P.S. If you are ready for a more serious commitment right away, look for The Essential Sibelius on BIS, which will give you absolutely everything you could reasonably want from Sibelius (all the symphonies, tone poems, the concertante pieces, Kullervo, Suites, plenty of choral works, and selected chamber and piano pieces), in reference performances, on 15 discs.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 278 (Freiburgian Schumann Glory)

Robert Schumann Violin Concerto, Piano Trio No.3 Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov, Jean Guihen Queyras Freiburg Baroque Orchestra Pablo Heras-Casado (Harmonia Mundi, 2015)

Schumann Glory: Violin Concerto Edition

There are neglected works by great composers, fitfully revived and let go again and rightfully forgotten. Fewer are the works by great composers once ignored and only now rediscovered as masterpieces. Enter Schumann’s Violin Concerto. Clara Schumann, following Joseph Joachim’s advice, suppressed it. Unplayable. Drab. Tiresomely repetitive. Awkward. It’s half a miracle she didn’t burn it. And still performances remain rare. This disc might be the concerto’s best chance to change this! Isabelle Faust’s hushed gentility and her faint, otherworldly touches bring the ears to their knees with the Ghost Variation motif. The following emergence out of this gorgeous, troubled netherworld of Schumann’s mind is all the more invigorating. The Piano Trio is a stupendous bonus; the first in what might be the next touchstone set of three!

(Since then, these artists have completed the trio of concertos coupled with the trio of Piano Trios – and the happy result has been conveniently boxed.) .

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Dip Your Ears: No. 277 (The Freire & Chailly Bumble-Bee-Beethoven)

Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Cto. No.5, Piano Sonata op.111 Nelson Freire Gewandhausorchester Leipzig Riccardo Chailly (Decca, 2014)

Bumble-Bee-Beethoven

Nelson Freire is a pianist’s pianist, and a musician’s musician: Nothing is fancy, everything is tasteful, and there’s an innate sense of rightness. His Beethoven recording of the “Emperor” Concerto and the last Piano Sonata, “opus one-eleven”, is a case in melodious point. In the concerto he benefits from a Riccardo Chailly on fire: The low strings hum like bumble-bee war-drones on a fuzzy mission of humanity. The timpani are bone-dry and caught in uncanny detail. It’s a joy how Decca records this extraordinarily well-sounding orchestra. The deal is sweetened by the surprisingly soft-spoken, delicate Sonata opus 111.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 276 (Flashback to Gabriela Montera's 2008 “Baroque”)

Baroque Album Gabriela Montero EMI 5 14838-2 [53:07] rec. Studio 1, Abbey Road June-July 2007] 2008

Gabriela Montero: “Baroque”

You’d never know Gabriela Montero’s latest album, Baroque, was issued by EMI Classics. If, that is, you had bought this album when it came out, in early 2008, when EMI still existed. It’s now in the Warner/Parlophone catalogue, not in print, but easily available. But it was notable then, that there was no trace of the venerable company’s red logo to be found and that the words “EMI Classics” could only be tracked down in the fine print. Gabriela Montero and her musical gifts were marketed more like a Diana Krall or a keyboard-playing Shakira would have been, than a classical musician. The caringly produced packaging looks looked like it might contain anything but a Scarlatti sonata. .

That’s not all that misleading, though, because the contents don’t much resemble the composers or pieces listed on the back. Bach’s Prelude, Handel’s Sarabande, or Gaspar Sanz’ Canarios et cetera are but the inspirations for Mme. Montero’s improvisations. In the liner notes, printed on the back of a folded poster of this most enchantingly looking and loving mother of two girls (she endearingly calls them her “most successful improvisations”) she goes to surprising length to stress that the performances heard on this disc are indeed improvised on the spot and not based on anything but the mentioned, familiar baroque tunes.

Apparently she thinks improvisation such a dated or dying art that people cannot anymore “understand and believe the inexplicable mystery of free improvisation”. Anyone who has ever played an instrument, though, will find there is nothing either inexplicable or mysterious about letting the fingers play what the mind hums. It’s sort of a way of ‘insta-composition’ without the fear of (musical) consequence and judgment. I, for one, faked my way through countless piano practice hours in boarding school by improvising, instead of practicing the prescribed piece (no doubt rather poorly, though very much “free”).

The beauty of this is that if the fingers can translate ably (not a question with as fine a pianist as Gabriela Montero), then we can figure out - and hear - what is going through the improviser’s mind. In the case of Mme. Montero this is apparently a happy mélange of moderately jazzy doodling, Windham Hill, and the kind of determinedly pleasant hotel-lobby pianism around Christmas time. .

Since the favorite themes (Albinoni’s Adagio, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons – piece by piece, an errant Scarlatti sonata, various slow movements from Bach and Handel) are all faultlessly pretty and lovely, there is little she can do wrong with the material in her interpretations or improvisations. Sometimes there is even what the ear would consider a distinct improvement over the original. Take her Pachelbel Canon, for example, where she rescues this unbearably trite piece by making it nearly unrecognizable and adding notes of actual musical worth. Or try the hootin’ and barn-stormin’ Handel-“Hallelujah” episode – putting the grove back into (the) Messiah. (It sure beats the misguided ritual of standing up at seemingly every second concert during Christmas time and, come the chorus, roaring along with the rest of the audience.) A few times the music is merely ‘modded’ to meet a common denominator of “pretty”. Other pieces, like Vivaldi’s Winter, receive extensive treatment and are little improvisatory Jazz-gems. If you were to cross an idling Glenn Gould with a melancholic Keith Jarrett, infused with the mood of red-and-green M&M’s… Perhaps you get the idea. .

Baroque is not notable for its (top notch) pianism, nor the intensity or depth of the musical material. But it is notable for how unabashedly gorgeous it sounds. And for how suitable this CD seems to introduce neophytes to classical music in the least intimidating way imaginable – while still offering quality fare, instead of the horrid schlock that is so often marketed as “classical entry crossover”. (I won’t say “The Five Browns”, “Il Divo”, or “Sarah Brightman”, but you are welcome to think it.) .

And if you don’t think of this as a ‘high-brow classical CD’ (late Beethoven String Quartets these pieces ain’t) – just like it does not look like one – then you might believe me that I mean it as a compliment when I say that this CD offers, among other things, near-ideal background music. For the Holiday Season – and well beyond. For considerably more profound improvisations, meanwhile, you might like to listen to Montero’s fine 2006 release, Bach & Beyond.

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Dip Your Ears: No. 275 (Szymanowski's Music for Violin and Piano)

K.Szymanowski Music for Violin & Piano Bruno Monteiro, João Paulo Santos Brilliant, 2015

K.Szymanowski Music for Violin & Piano Duo Brüggen-Plank Genuin, 2017

Szymanowski Due Dilligence

Here are two releases of Szymanowski’s works for violin and piano that feature neither big names nor famous labels. This is very inconvenient, because instead of being able to make up one’s mind ahead of time, it requires close listening. Fortunately, the composer more than merits this exposure and so do these two very different approaches.

Bruno Monteiro is more direct and explosive in his approach; Marie Radauer-Plank has a more lyrical, lighter way with the music, with the notes separated further without being slower. It’s mobile (she) vs. direct (he). She: A slightly emaciated violin sound, dryly recorded, and spritely. He: Round, bold, rather resonant (especially the piano), in slightly wooly sound and his violin with an emphatic, viola-esque sound. The combination on Brilliant features softer, velvety pianism courtesy of João Paulo Santos, while the Duo on Genuin is more intense and tight in the finale of “Harnesie”, despite over-all more relaxed tempo. Henrike Brüggen plays absolutely marvelously in the Nocturne – as adroitly as soothing. Similarly, Radauer-Plank displays a great beauty and purity in her tone where Bruno Monteiro offers a broader, hazier, arguably more sultry sound as an alternative.

If you still can’t decide which might be more suitable to your Szymanowski-preferences, go listen to Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien on Hyperion to make up your mind.

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