I do love a good argument!
Rarely have I read such a #pompous, ill judged & tone deaf review. What an utter #MoronInChief @ClassicalCritic is. "106 Years #Mahler Eighth: The Best Recordings" via @forbes https://t.co/HyVENdQRzX
— ✍️ Alexander Beck 🎯 (@AlexBeckWriter) January 22, 2019
...That Claude Baker is a fan of quotations, not entirely unlike his German colleague Hans Zender, also shows in the re-composition Aus Schwanengesang: Phrases of the original, orchestrated, melted and wedged into another appear before us, implied more often than literal. Like creatures or rock formations, scarcely noticeable through the thick fog, they rise out of – and retreat back into – the black sea across which we glide. And amidst his own intriguing voice, there appear distant and obvious friends again: Mahler and Beethoven, foremost. Melodically – but also characteristically, like those dark beats of drums that crack into a peaceful Schubert-quote like the ‘tattoos’ in Mahler’s Tenth…
...Zimerman’s fingerprints and smudges move me here, rather than leaving me exasperated (legitimate response though that certainly is). The opening is hesitant, sophisticated and profound, and yet gentle and artless like a lullaby. There is space between the notes with Zimerman, room for interpretation and imagination. The Andante is luminously devout. The last movement (Allegro ma non troppo) comes in like a hammer hitting down – from which emanates a mechanical dance: Krystian Zimerman makes me aware of negative space here, without underplaying the Schubertian lilt with overly ominous menace…
...What we’ve got here, from the venerable Russian record company Melodiya, is very easily the most horrifying recording of Bach’s Partitas ever to have been made. Or so might suggest – quite understandably – any number of Bach-adoring champions of these works. I totally understand… only: I love it.
What happened?…
...What about the “pick-and-choose assemblage of bleeding chunks disrespectful to Haydn” angle? Oh, please. Every lamely performed Haydn symphony to open a concert – as a warmup, not quite taken seriously[1] – is a greater offense to the master than this amiable, well-intentioned in-concert sampler…
...Finally, we get to Manfred Honeck’s Bruckner Fourth. Honeck features regularly among the ‘Year’s Best’ recordings I highlight: With his Shostakovich Fifth in 2017, his Richard Strauss potpourri in 2016) and this Bruckner Fourth very nearly made it into the “Best Classical Recordings of 2015” list. Honeck seems to like to come up with a concept along which he conducts music – to make, in a way, a tone poem out of every symphony he tackles. One might question whether that is necessarily appropriate or the composer’s intention in any given case, but the results are wildly imaginative and rewarding readings that stand out from the slew of perfectly fine but indistinct interpretations.…
...But the interspersed pieces represent a real bonus: Isang Yun’s Königliches Thema for solo violin on Bach’s “Thema Regium” from his Musical Offering is a fascinating set of variations that takes you, hardly noticeable, on an East/West journey without borders or boom barriers. I had last come across Alfred Schnittke’s Suite in the Old Style for violin and piano when reviewing his film music for “Adventures of a Dentist” and I fall in love with the work every time. Perfectly indicative of Schnittke’s polystylism with its many baroque and classical quotes, Handel and Bach are its subjects. It also reminds of Grieg’s Holberg Suite, but with that ‘melting-sideways’ edge of Schnittke’s. Fullana performs it here with pianist David Fung. The last work ‘between movements’ is by Salvador Brotons, a friend of the performer’s, who does in Variations on a Baroque Theme (a helpfully obscure theme by Mallorcan composer Antoni Lliteres) exactly what you would expect, given the title and its inclusion on this recital. Very charming stuff…
...The String Quartets of Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks (*1946) are manifold works of considerable, eerie beauty and will be loved by those who appreciate Janáček’s and Shostakovich’s quartets and modern music like Krzysztof Penderecki’s or Kaija Saariaho’s. This disc combines quartets 1, 3 and 4, written in 1977, 95, and 99. Not all is quietly serene beauty (“Meditation” from Quartet No.4; “Melodia” from #1), with occasional, tastefully applied glissandos, or driven like a Bartók String Quartet (“Toccata” from Quartet No.4 or “Sonata” from Quartet No.1) when planes of music are treated with vigorous strokes…
...finally, there is the little ten-minute “Mountain Flowers” Piano Trio by Rued Langgaard (1893-1952). Langgaard-lovers – and if you get into Langgaard at all it is difficult not to become a card-carrying member) might say: ‘Woha! This Trio strikes my ears as familiar’ Yes, because it became the excellently-ambitious First Symphony’s second movement. It’s the part where he stops to smell the roses along his impetuous ascent of the symphonic mountaintop and gives a window in the calmer aspects of the beauty that the 15-year old (!) prodigy that would undergo so many musical transformations (and frustrations) yet, was capable of. The Danish Piano Trio / Den Danske Klavertrio (the ensemble, not the genre – made up of pianist Katrine Gislinge, violinist Lars Bjørnkjær and cellist Toke Møldrup) performs lovingly-beautifully on their inaugural recording – and just as importantly they perform repertoire that should be heard – and heard more often…
...I would go so far as to suggest that this might still be the most successful Viennese Beethoven symphony cycle to date … never boring or eccentric or comatose or indifferent or pretentious: an ideal middle-of-the-road that only a few conductors pulled off successfully… (I’m thinking specifically of Paul Kletzky but also of Rafael Kubelik, Günter Wand and perhaps Eugen Jochum.)…
...“A lot happens in my music,” Grażyna Bacewicz is quoted in the fine liner notes; “it’s aggressive and at the same time lyrical.” That’s exactly right and every listener will get that impression from the first hearing. But the music is also complex, extremely well written – which is something that gives the music its staying power and its ability to delight yet even more, after each repeat-listening. The key is now to get Bacewicz performed often enough to be able to enjoy not just first, but repeat-listenings. Until then, this CD serves us very well…
...with so much unsuspected Stravinsky-goodness, it made me go and pull out my beloved Stravinsky-conducts-Stravinsky box (see also: The 10 Best Classical Recordings Of 2015) from the shelf. Why had I missed these works before? Did Stravinsky ever conduct them himself? Apart from the above-mentioned world premiere, yes. The Faun and the Shepherdess with Mary Simmons – in Russian! – and the CBC Symphony Orchestra in 1964 in Toronto ; Fireworks and the Scherzo Fantastique a year or two earlier – with the CBC Symphony the latter and with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra the former. Fireworks even got another, earlier, recording, in New York in 1946 with the New York Philharmonic. Sound quite different, there; the Lucerne Festival Orchestra is a far more luxurious-sounding body of sound; the CBC and Columbia outfits sound – comparatively – like the soundtrack to like a Turner Classic Movies film music special generally and more flitting, modern in the case of Feu d’artifice, especially. The box remains the go-to source to white-balance any expectations – but for these works, Chailly is the obvious go-to recording…
...Mutter’s tone is electric-fragile-light one second; searing like a devil’s pitchfork the next; then airy and free like a canary’s trill. Espressivo, ladies and gentlemen! Her collaborators, other than fellow yellow-label star Trifonov, are artists in some way associated with ASM’s own foundation and include the excellent cellist Maximilian Hornung, whose exposed cello-lines in the last movement are particularly delicious, even if they are brief. The three do their part very amiably and keep this half-explosive, half-subdued, rather speedy performance in otherwise most tasteful line…
...Christina Landshamer’s song recital on Oehms has two short cycles by Austrian composer Viktor Ullmann (1898 – 1944) embedded in selected Robert Schumann songs. You could take the CD as a business card of Christina Landshamer’s, a young and fast-rising all-purpose soprano from Munich, presenting a bit of the conventional with Schumann alongside the unusual with Ullmann (fair enough) and celebrating her youthful, neutral, natural voice – channeled and slightly accelerated through an artificial narrowness – in the process...
...The orchestra, conducted from the keyboard, plays with chamber-like assurance and great sensitivity, adding greatly to this wholesome delight. This is one of the longest-running performance- and recording projects in this increasingly short-lived industry, dating back to 1998 (the first self-conducted Mozart performance of Uchida’s in Cleveland) and 2009 (the first recording of that collaboration) respectively...
...It’s easier to quip about Philip Glass’ music than to write intelligently about it. But Víkingur (Heiðar) Ólafsson, the young and trendy Icelandic pianist, shows how it’s done in the liner notes to his first release on Deutsche Grammophon. I first heard the Juilliard-taught student of Ann Schein and Seymour Lipkin when he was a stiff tween at the Icelandic Ambassador’s residence. His image has changed, since...
...Now Alfredo Bernadini and his Ensemble Zefiro, one of the hottest numbers among original instrument ensembles, have brought out a delicious album that samples some of that goodness by bringing together eight works from this embarrassment of riches associated with the Dresden Court Chapel, featuring seven different composers. The chamber sonatas for two oboes, bassoon and continuo by Fasch, Quantz, Henichen, Vivaldi, Telemann, Lotti – and the much less well known Arcangelo Califano are a baroque delight among the less familiar musical spheres and a great sampler for what else, other than the usual suspects, one might want to explore in music from that period and region. ..
...Something similar happens on this disc, except the nine Mahler-songs included – four from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and the Rückert-Lieder – do steal the show. Also recorded two years before the symphony (1982), but in the same glorious, rich analogue sound, it features the lyric Lied-baritone Siegfried Lorenz. His timbre, his naturalness, his dead-on intonation, and his lyrical quality make his voice knee-bucklingly beautiful. I’d go so far as suggesting he is a proto-Gerhaher. And if the “Songs of a Wayfarer” selection, originally on the LP, wasn’t good enough, the CD adds the bonus of one of the most touching Rückert-Lieder cycles I know on record. Try and not just melt right into Lorenz singing “Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen…” in Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen...
...The 1620s weren’t good years; instead of singing in church, most young men were dying in battle or from the plague. What was left were a few undernourished choristers, and these works are written for thus depleted, untrained vocal forces. Historically incorrect, the North German Chamber Chorus does a very considerably better job than the original performers would have done. Simplicity reigns, as does humble beauty. An unassuming minor gem...
...Which brings us back to the CD – which, but for the relative dearth of purely orchestral interludes – offers much of the same joy: Julia Lezhneva has the vocal agility of a classically trained hummingbird (although some of the ultra-rapid tremolos can sound a bit like electrified sheep). The timbre is warm and a little darker and meatier than I recall from concerts or recordings from years back. It has lost none of its opaque beauty but attained a soft fierceness about it that lends itself to dramatic expression. That makes this present disc a delightful collection of rare bonbons. But there might be more to it. ..
