In Memoriam: Listening to Alfred Brendel

Most people listening to classical music today have, to a greater or lesser degree, been musically socialized with the performances of Alfred Brendel. He was a fixed star on the international scene when it came to Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and a few other of his favorite composers. His dry wit, usually gentle, rarely acerbic, poignancy, his unapologetic classicism made him an unlikely, charming icon. He has passed away on Tuesday, June 17^th, 2025 at his home in London.

I was on the steps outside the Musikverein when I read the news that Alfred Brendel had passed away in London, at the age of 94. This was the place he had given his final recital of his truly final farewell tour and this was the town where he lived when his career got under way in 1950 after first successes in Graz and before he permanently settled in the UK in 1971.

His success was a stellar one; born in the 1930s, Brendel was of a time that came a generation-plus after the keyboard titans à la Arthur Schnabel (1882), Wilhelm Backhaus (1884), Edwin Fischer (1886), Arthur Rubinstein (1887), Wilhelm Kempff (1895), Vladimir Horowitz, Rudolf Serkin and Claudio Arrau (all 1903). He was thus a “modern” artist, to anyone born before 1980, and, crucially, born into the stereo age. This is relevant, because as the exclusive go-to pianist of one of the major labels – Philips (now Decca) – for the heydays of the late analog and digital age, Brendel became a superstar of – and to some extent also because of – the recorded age. In the 100-volume, 200-CD “Great Pianists Of The 20th Century” project of Tom Deacon’s – to which Brendel was an advisor – Brendel is one of only seven pianists (Arrau, Gilels, Horowitz, Kempff, Richter & Rubinstein being the others) with three volumes dedicated to his art. If it had to be the classical repertoire – Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven – Brendel was there for you. Within that realm – and a little beyond – he recorded most of what there was to be recorded and much of that twice, some, like the Beethoven Sonatas, even thrice or more: In the 60s for Vox, in the 70s for Philips, analog, and for Philips again in the 90s, digitally. And of select works Brendel, who exerted quite a bit of control over what would get released and what would not, opted to have live accounts published, which he professedly preferred over his studio accounts. With the different releases of each of these versions (and most of them on Philips or Decca, still), it can get a bit messy trying to figure out which the analog second recording of D.960 or the digital remake of the Moonlight Sonata is or isn't. (But I am here to help.)

Alfred Brendel on Ionarts: In Performance His Soft Touch, Powerfully Moving, 02/09/2006 (jfl) Closing the Lid: Alfred Brendel, 19/03/2008 (Charles) A Conversation with Alfred Brendel, 20/03/2008 (Michael Lodico) Alfred Brendel Speaks, 11/18/2000 (Charles) On Record: Best Recordings of 2004 (#8), 12/16/2004 (jfl) From Goerne to His Distant Beloved, 07/18/2005 (jfl) Brendel and Mozart, 02/06/2006 (Charles) Brendel’s Choice, 02/06/2006 (jfl) Best Recordings of 2009 (#3), 12/14/2009 (jfl)

In Austria, his success shadowed that of fellow pianists Paul Badura-Skoda (1927), who, to some degree, escaped into the historical performance niche, Jörg Demus (1928), who found his main fame in Lied accompaniment, Ingrid Haebler (1929), who recorded much the same repertoire but whose star waned earlier, and Friedrich Gulda (1930), who became the eccentric: Considered by people in the know as a superior pianist but with a far smaller reach, ultimately. Internationally – specifically in America – there were contemporaries Byron Janis (1928), Glenn Gould (1932), Van Cliburn (1934), Leon Fleisher (1928), Richard Goode (1943), most of whom had their careers cut prematurely short; elsewhere, pianists like Ivan Moravec (1930) were stuck behind the iron curtain. As a result, the name “Alfred Brendel” and the maroon bar of the Philips label’s recordings became as indicative of a musically interested household as Wilhelm Kempff on the Yellow Label had been, a few decades earlier. Brendel’s association with the “Complete Mozart Edition” only furthered this omnipresence.

This kind of prominence brought about the invariable backlash in the form of criticism – the thrust of which, generally, was that Brendel was boring. This accusation might have had its understandable roots in Brendel’s style, which relied on subtlety and wit, level-headedness and sincerity, articulation, intelligence, and purpose, but never flash. The grand romantic gesture, even if it had been within his reach, was not temperamentally his. Even Liszt (where he did show the kind of chops that some critics might occasionally have forgotten he had) was not showy with Brendel.

It also showed in the repertoire he chose to play and even more so the repertoire he chose not to play. He left out composers most pianists couldn’t envisage making a career without: Chopin was (largely) missing; hardly, if any, Debussy or Ravel; no Rachmaninoff was ever in his sights, nor Tchaikovsky. Instead, he dropped morsels of

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Critic’s Notebook: Haydn as the Highlight with the Concentus Musicus

Also published in Die Presse: Concentus Musicus im Musikverein: So wird Haydn zur großen Unterhaltung

W.A.Mozart, Sinfonia Concertante G.Kremer/K.Kashkashian N.Harnoncourt / WPh DG

J.Haydn, Symphonies No.103/104 N.Harnoncourt / RCO Teldec

Splendid entertainment courtesy of the "Drumroll" Symphony. The double concerto? Less so.

A proper classical evening at the Musikverein: Mozart overture (The Magic Flute), Mozart concerto (Sinfonia Concertante), and a Haydn symphony ("Drumroll") — performed by the Concentus Musicus in the sunlit Golden Hall of the Musikverein. A fine concert that even a — to put it mildly — rather dicey performance of Mozart’s double concerto couldn’t derail.

It’s a tricky piece, the Sinfonia Concertante. Superficially charming and “pleasant” — but don’t be fooled. It demands vigilance. The viola part in particular (especially if, as was commendably done here, one adheres to the original “scordatura” tuning — up a half-step) is rife with pitfalls. Add to that the fact that the Sinfonia Concertante is not exactly a box-office draw, so you rarely get actual soloists (i.e. the expensive kind). Instead, it becomes an occasion for the section leaders to step out of the orchestral shadow every once in a while.

More often than not, that goes sideways. And so it did here: Cohesion among the soloists, intonation, even the basic tonal quality — all were wanting. The first movement, in particular, was limp and mewling; the third showed marked improvement, but not enough to erase what came before. No matter: the audience, especially and understandably fond of the longtime concertmaster for his decades of musical trailblazing, responded with cheers that masked the crooked playing.

Before that, and fittingly rare in this setting, came the Magic Flute overture: lively strings and spirited winds, ably held together by the deputy concertmaster in a performance that sounded fresh and spontaneous.

And then there was Haydn. Symphony No. 103 — unmistakably the highlight of the evening. As it should be, and as it was. Granted, it remains an unfortunate quirk of Vienna — the classical music city par excellence — that Haydn must be sought-and-found in period-instrument subscription series rather than in the main symphonic concerts (Wilhelm Sinkovicz quite rightly lamented this recently in Die Presse: “Die Musikstadt Wien verliert nach und nach ihre Klassiker”). Still, one takes what one can get — especially when it's done as well as here: Snappy and incisive in the first movement, bold accents confidently absorbed. The slow second flowed with life (though marred by an extended solo passage for the erstwhile soloist, now returned to his concertmaster post). The minuet was cheeky, and the finale pulsed with a driving, unhurried, and delightfully agitated energy — culminating in a result both thrilling and gloriously tumultuous.

This is Haydn as high entertainment.


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Briefly Noted: La Passione

Haydn / Mozart / Beethoven, Christina Landshamer, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Bernhard Forck (released on August 19, 2022) PentaTone PTC5186987 | 71'53"

This ingenious recital program pairs soprano Christina Landshamer with Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. It is a true collaboration, with major showcases for the soloist and outstanding orchestral selections for this crackerjack ensemble playing on historical instruments, under the leadership of concertmaster Bernhard Forck. The opening salvo, with climaxes powered by the outstanding horn duo of Erwin Wieringa and Gijs Laceulle, is Haydn's Overture in D Major (Hob. Ia:4). Not an overture at all, it turns out, but an orchestral fragment dated to 1785, possibly a discarded symphonic finale.

Landshamer answers this passionate instrumental outburst with Haydn's Scena di Berenice (Hob. XXIVa:10) from 1795, near the end of the composer's second English sojourn. Haydn composed it expressly for Italian soprano Brigida Banti, himself conducting the premiere at a benefit concert in London. In a concise series of recitatives and arias, the singer runs the gamut of emotional responses to the suicide of her lover, concluding with a high-flying aria of rage. As in the orchestral movement that precedes it, the horns reinforce the shock and grief.

The program is centered on Haydn's Symphony No. 49 (Hob. I:49), nicknamed "La Passione." This epithet, like so many applied to Haydn's works, did not come from the composer, making it perhaps a tenuous anchor on which to hang an entire program. Whatever the actual origins and meaning of this music (scholar Elaine Sisman included it in her research on instrumental works Haydn likely composed to accompany plays performed at Eszterháza), the contrasts of mood and tempo are of a piece with the vocal works sung by distraught heroines.

A few rarities add zest, like No, non turbati, o Nice... Ma tu tremi, o mio tesoro? (WoO 92a), a sort of exercise in operatic writing that Beethoven completed in 1802 during his lessons with Antonio Salieri. (The piece, with some of the corrections to Italian diction marked by the master, remained unpublished until the 20th century.) It is a fine companion piece to Ah! perfido, the only one of these exercises for Salieri performed while Beethoven was still alive, according to authoritative notes by musicologist Roman Hinke. In a fun twist, Landshamer sings as both Ilia and Idamante in Mozart's Non più. Tutto ascoltai... Non temer, amato bene, a substitution inserted into a later performance of the composer's opera Idomeneo. The aria features an affecting duet between Landshamer and Forck's violin solo.

Briefly Noted: Haydn Trios with Piano

Haydn, Trios with Piano, Marc Hantaï, Alessandro Moccia, Alix Verzier, Jérôme Hantaï (released on June 17, 2022) Mirare MIR636D | 67'50"

The three Hantaï brothers were familiar to Washington listeners, although they have not appeared here in over a decade. Two of them, flutist Marc Hantaï and fortepianist Jérôme Hantaï, recorded this disc of Haydn keyboard trios in February 2020, just before the world shut down, at the Théâtre élisabéthain d’Hardelot. The four pieces selected came late in the composer's career, written between 1784 and 1790, near the time Haydn retired from the service of the Esterházy family.

Marc Hantaï takes the treble part for two of these trios. His charming, breathy sound on the transverse flute blends beautifully with the mellow fortepiano played by Jérôme Hantaï, the brother who plays viola da gamba as well as keyboard instruments. The third brother, Pierre Hantaï, is a harpsichordist, who could theoretically have made these pieces an entirely family affair. Instead Alix Verzier, a long-time member of Les Arts Florissants, takes the cello part.

Violinist Alessandro Moccia, the concertmaster of Philippe Herreweghe's Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, takes the treble part in the other two trios. The effect is not as sparkling, perhaps due to the less unusual timbre of the instrument or the musical content. In all four pieces, the keyboard is always the lead voice, which accords with the composer's occasional description of them as "piano sonatas." Jérôme Hantaï draws out a svelte, precise sound from the unspecified fortepiano.

On ClassicsToday: Haydn & The Harp: Light Delights

Haydn & The Harp: Light Delights

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

“Haydn and the Harp” is a delightful disc of music written for the harp based on works and themes of Haydn by the composer’s contemporaries, as well as compositions of Haydn’s where the harp can (or was always meant to) be an alternative to the piano. All the music is tied in some way to Haydn, either biographically or musically. Exupère de La Maniere, for example, grabbed a theme from Haydn’s Symphony No. 63 (“La Roxelane”) and sent it through the variation-wringer for harp solo. Ditto Sophia Dussek with “God Save Emperor Francis”, the tune best known from the slow movement of the Op. 76/3 string quartet or the German national anthem. Nicolas-Charles Bochsa, meanwhile, created a virtuosic “Petite mosaique” of famous melodies from The Creation for harp solo... [continue reading]

Dip Your Ears, No. 235 (A Very Classical Mix: Concilium Musicum Wien)

J.M.Haydn, W.A.Mozart, J.Haydn, Sy.#39, Cto. for Basset Clarinet K622, Sy.#101 (“The Clock”) Ernst Schlader (basset clarinet), Concilium musicum Wien, Paul Angerer Gramola

Haydn’s younger brother of Michael was no less an influence on Mozart than Joseph; their symphonies could be and were (K444!) mistaken for each other’s. Eventually Wolfgang Amadeus surpassed Michael. The latter’s Symphony in C can’t match the memorableness of Mozart’s contemporary Symphony in C (“Jupiter”), but you can certainly hear what Mozart got inspired by, and why. Mozart’s basset clarinet concerto in Christoph Angerer’s superb (live) performance reconfirms that using the intended instrument pushes the concerto beyond perfect beauty towards touching profundity. Pride of place of this classical recital belongs to a rollicking, flawlessness performance of Haydn’s Symphony No.101, tick-tock0ing away as spirited as it ought to be.

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On ClassicsToday: Haydn Concertos Given Their Due

Haydn Concertos Given Their Due

by Jens F. Laurson

This disc has been on my “CD of the Week” or similar-such review-pile for as long as it’s been out–which is going on five years. High time finally to review what is an excellent, subtly brazen disc of three Haydn violin concertos with Midori Seiler... Continue Reading

Forbes Classical CD Of The Week: An Imaginary Orchestral Journey With Haydn And The LSO

...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…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: An Imaginary Orchestral Journey With Haydn And The LSO

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Forbes Classical CD Of The Week: Lose Your Heart In Heidelberg's Spark-Plug Haydn!

…Joyous, rambunctious, and infectious; pert and alert here, swaggering and swinging there: Thomas Fey and his trusty Heidelberg band deliver Haydn like none other. The unknown L’incontro improvviso overture on volume 21 of this deliberately paced* Haydn symphony cycle alone would prove so much. “London Symphonies” Nos. 99 (“The Cat”) and 100 (“Military”) – follow in the same vain, as do 98 and 103 (“Drum Roll”) on volume 22. Fey’s drum-rolls in #103 are a thunderous “Intrada”; Haydn’s fortepiano in-joke in the Finale of 98 is played with dry humor. No period instrument group exceeds the Heidelbergers in spark or pluck. It makes you ask for more of such Haydn.…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Lose Your Heart In Heidelberg's Spark-Plug Haydn!

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Forbes Classical CD of the Week: Joseph Haydn & György Ligeti, Piano Concertos

…The idea of combining the music of Joseph Haydn with that of György Ligeti is an inspired one. There is a reason why Haydn works very well with contemporary composers (so long as they have a playfulness, joy, and a wry smile in their writing): his is music that schools the ears in listening carefully, it readies us for acute perception, and it is timeless because it is so exceptionally well crafted and so sublimely constructed. …

-> Classical CD Of The Week: A Timeless Combination Of Ligeti And Haydn

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Mark Morris brings light and warmth to GMU

Dancing Honeymoon, Mark Morris Dance Company (photo by Christopher Duggan)
The annual visits of Mark Morris Dance Group to the area are always welcome. The group's latest appearance at the George Mason University Center for the Arts, however, was a much-needed shot in the arm after what has been a long, long winter. The selection of four choreographies, two a decade or more in age and two premiered just last year, offered a ray of sunlight, with none of the somber qualities of some previous programs.

Late Romantic ballet was one of the great fusions of all the arts, akin to Richard Wagner's music drama. In his long career Mark Morris has stripped away almost all of that trend toward unification of the arts, using no sets, few props, and in most cases no easily recognizable narrative, at least not in the traditional sense. A Morris choreography is abstract, concentrated on movement, music (always performed, as here, by live musicians), and mood conveyed through lighting and color.

The evening opened with A Forest, premiered last May. Costumed in unisex body suits of gray and white paisley (designed by Maile Okamura), the dancers incarnated the whimsical musical gestures from Haydn's piano trio no. 44 (Hob. XV:28), performed by violinist Georgy Valtchev, cellist Michael Haas, and pianist Colin Fowler. The theme of threes -- three instruments in three movements -- is the somewhat obvious main focus, as the nine dancers are grouped into a trio of trios. Most of the movements were playful: bending knees on strong downbeats, flashing the hands upward on pizzicato notes, standing still in extended poses at sudden silences. In the enigmatic second movement, the piano's meandering bass line inspired much striding around the stage, and loud bass notes knocked dancers down to the floor. It created a joyous atmosphere of bubbly exuberance but seemed to miss a more profound statement.

The other new work, Pure Dance Items, premiered last October, was the most active and exhausting. Selections from Terry Riley's two-hour marathon string quartet Salome Dances for Peace added up to about a half-hour of near-constant movement for a group of twelve dancers, often unbalanced by the exclusion of one dancer. This began in the striking opening sequence, where one dancer is seated apart from the rest of the group, eventually joining them in all of their movements, but only with his arms, as if his legs are paralyzed. In a thrilling moment of fantasy, this dancer stood and joined the ensemble for the rest of the dance, jostling the group's order. Colorful sports jerseys and shorts for both men and women (designed by Elizabeth Kurtzman) evoked an athletic joy in movement and physical exertion, recalling soccer players or, as Miss Ionarts saw it, 60s-style surfers.



Pure Dance Items, Mark Morris Dance Company (photo by Costas)
The solo dance Serenade, premiered in 2003 here at the GMU Center for the Arts, provided a moment of calm. Lesley Garrison, costumed in an Isaac Mizrahi black and white skirt with white bow, seemed at times to mimic traits of Spanish, Indian, or Japanese dance, using props (a copper pipe, a fan, and finger cymbals) in the middle dances. Morris made this choreography for himself, making the decision to add the sound of castanets to the final movement of the piece, Lou Harrison's hypnotic Serenade for Guitar and Percussion. He was unable to ask the permission of the composer, who had died as Morris was rehearsing the new dance. Garrison may have taken over the dance now, but in a surprise move Morris joined the musicians (guitarist Robert Belinić and percussionist Stefan Schatz) on stage to play his castanet part.

Morris's participation set up the final piece, Dancing Honeymoon, for which the choreographer himself sang Ethan Iverson's transcription and arrangement of jazz standards sung by Gertrude Lawrence and Jack Buchanan. A group of seven dancers, in sun-yellow costumes evoking the 1920s and 30s (designed by Elizabeth Kurtzman), mimed the mild innuendos of the songs in tableaux that might seem escapist in the style of La La Land (a "kitschfest," as Alex Ross put it) but whose innocence and elan won me over. The piece, premiered in 1998, is Morris's love letter to dance, heard in the opening words of the title song: "I hated dancing / 'til I met you: / It never found me / until I found your arms around me." Morris's singing was perhaps not great, but that was hardly the point; when he brought out the castanets again, for the song "Goodnight, Vienna," Morris seemed at one with the music, even if he was no longer dancing.

This program repeats tonight at 8 p.m. at George Mason University's Center for the Arts in Fairfax, Va.

Dip Your Ears, No. 216 (A Scarlatti-Haydn Romance)

J.Haydn, D.Scarlatti Chiaro e scuro (Keyboard Sonatas) Olivier Cavé (æon)

I love this disc of Haydn and Scarlatti, partly because it spells out—literally (in Elaine Sisman’s perfect liner notes) and musically (through the pairing of the music)—what I have long, intuitively felt, namely that these two composers share a common genial, sunny disposition. Sisman sees a common rhythmic inventiveness and a sense of joy of creation. The booklet’s essay, almost itself worth the price of admission, explores the fascinating, actual proximity of these two composers through their interactions in Vienna. To the musicologically inclined, it reads like the latest Arthur Conan Doyle story: “The Mysterious Case of the Spanish Hoboken Numbers.”

Olivier Cavé’s playing coaxes immediately arresting joy out of already joyful works (this, at the risk of overlooking Scarlatti’s dark and somber side) and indeed, by the time Cavé hits the Haydn Partita’s Allegro, Haydn begins to sound like Scarlatti and Scarlatti begins to sound like Haydn as the music starts swimming before my ears. The inclusion of the Haydn Divertimento is most appreciated; the Allegro moderato of the F major sonata No38 is a thin slice of heaven. In terms of placing music into context and blurring the perceived borders, this is second only to Marino Formenti’s “Kurtag’s Ghosts” or “Liszt-Inspections” I am thoroughly enchanted… which is the reason, of course, this landed on my Best Classical Recordings of 2015 list. 

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Jerusalem Quartet's latest appearance, Clarice Smith

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

Bartók, String Quartets 2/4/6, Jerusalem Quartet (released on November 4, 2016) HMC902235 | 78'51" Beethoven, String Quartets, op. 18, Jerusalem Quartet (Harmonia Mundi, 2015) Haydn, Lark Quartet (inter alia), Jerusalem Quartet (Harmonia Mundi, 2004)

We try never to miss any concert by the Jerusalem Quartet. The latest opportunity came on Sunday afternoon at the Clarice Smith Center in College Park. Hopefully, the group's service in the Israel Defense Force is no longer drawing angry protests for political reasons, as none has been observed at their most recent concerts. No matter what your political views, it is beyond argument that this string quartet is one of the most consistently musical ensembles playing this rarefied repertory.

This program opened with one of the Haydn quartets the group recorded over a decade ago, op. 64, no. 5, known as "L'Alouette" (The lark). Haydn is not easy, although his music may seem so on the surface, because it requires extraordinary subtlety to bring off well. Only some initial tuning discrepancies marred the first time through the exposition of the first movement, which settled into place for the rest of the piece. The first movement's tempo marking, Allegro moderato, implies exactly the jaunty but unhurried pace chosen by the Jerusalems, allowing just enough relishing of Haydn's sneaking back into the main theme at the recapitulation. The second movement had the feel of an opera aria, showcasing the solo of first violinist Alexander Pavlovsky, accompanied with gorgeously delicate variations by the accompanying instruments. The group's dance movements are generally delightful, as was the Menuetto here, weighty yet graceful, and not too fast, with comic wrong-note grace notes and a plaintive trio. Only with the finale, set at a tempo of Vivace, did the speed come out of the arsenal of weapons. Light, playful, it was a tour de force, with all instruments featured in beautiful spotlights in the fugal section.

The Prokofiev string quartets are hopefully among this group's future recording projects. Given that their Shostakovich ranks among the best version of that composer's quartet cycle, it was little surprise that a performance of Prokofiev's op. 50 was so good. Pavlovsky had just the right gleaming tone on the slashing first violin melody of the first movement's opening theme, with the other instruments coming to the fore in the slower, more passionate second theme. Tuning issues cropped up again, with unisons and octaves between instruments not always lining up, but the brutal passages were appropriately savage. After a mournful opening, the second movement's grotesque faster sections were funny and obsessive, with cellist Kyril Zlotnikov howling on his A-string solo. Violist Ori Kam had some luscious solo moments in the third movement, which buzzed with intensity until it died away.

Once during the Prokofiev and again in Beethoven's op. 59, no. 1 ("Razumovsky"), Zlotnikov's cello peg seemed to slide out of its place on the floor and bump his music stand. Resulting unease may have been partially responsible for the Beethoven feeling the least satisfying, although still beautiful. The first movement went a little too fast for all of the rapid running passages to come out distinctly enough, but Beethoven's toying around with the return of the main theme at the recapitulation, long delayed, was rendered well. The tempo marking of the second movement is confusing, because it is seemingly contradictory (Allegretto vivace sempre scherzando), but the Jerusalems took it not too fast, which seems the right call. The obsessive "drum motif" that runs through the piece is more tense that way. The climax of the quartet here was the slow movement, which was placid, clear, and expressive because it was so well coordinated. The trill in the first violin covered the transition into the finale, where the strain of a long evening frayed the edges of the first violinist's playing in a few places.

A single encore was a preview of the Jerusalem Quartet's new disc of half of Bartók's string quartets, a repertory I have been waiting for them to record. The Allegro pizzicato movement from the fourth quartet had a stunning variety of plucked sound, making it much more than just an effect piece. The force of the "Bartók pizzicati," more percussive than a normal plucked string, caused one of the cellist's strings to break, sadly not many bars before the piece ended. Once the string was replaced, and a few anecdotes told, the group repeated the entire movement.

Next up at the Clarice Smith Center, the University of Maryland Symphony Orchestra plays Shostakovich's tenth symphony (November 7, 8 pm).

Joyce DiDonato, Brentano Quartet open Fortas series

Charles T. Downey, Brentano Quartet and DiDonato team up in Strauss and Heggie
Washington Classical Review, October 6

Briefly Noted: Gerhaher's Burr

FolksLied (folk song arrangements by Haydn, Beethoven, Britten), C. Gerhaher, A. Barachovsky, S. Klinger, G. Huber (released on March 11, 2016) BR-Klassik 900131 | 53'33"

Christian Gerhaher continues to surprise. The German baritone, an Ionarts favorite for his authoritative renditions of Lieder, has released this new live recording of a recital of folk song arrangements by Haydn, Britten, and Beethoven, unfortunately with applause kept after some tracks. As the booklet essay by Bernhard Neuhoff acknowledges, the concept of just what we mean when we say "folk song" is a complicated matter. The difference between a living folk song and the version of that music when written down like an art song is akin to that between a butterfly on the wind and the dead specimen carefully pinned and mounted by a lepidopterist. Some of the tunes set by these composers were modified or outright composed by those who "collected" them.

The macaronic title of the disc, FolksLied refers to the fact that all of the folk tunes heard here are from the British Isles, set by German, Austrian, and English composers, some with German texts and some in English and other insular dialects. Haydn's Schottische und Walisische Lieder and Beethoven's 25 Schottische Lieder, op. 108, are for voice accompanied by piano trio. Gerhaher and his usual collaborator, pianist Gerold Huber, are joined by cellist Sebastian Klinger and violinist Anton Barachovsky, both principal musicians from the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Haydn composed his Scottish and Welsh songs working from the tunes only, without the original words, and here Gerhaher has followed tenor Fritz Wunderlich in singing them to German texts published in 1927 by Bernhard Engelke, poems that had nothing to do with the original tunes, many by nature poet Hermann Löns.

Gerhaher digs most deeply into the settings by Britten, which have the most interesting harmonic palette, after singing quite lightly in the Haydn songs. In his program note, Gerhaher admits that he was trying to imitate the sound of Wunderlich in those songs, as an acknowledgment of his debt to that earlier singer. Gerhaher's English pronunciation is quite good in the Beethoven and Britten songs, having particular fun in the drinking song "Come fill, my good fellow," where it sound likes someone has added a faint descant voice (not credited). Gerhaher even attempts the Scots dialect of Robert Burns's "Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes" in the Britten setting, down to the evocatively guttural R's (embedded below). As mentioned before, the whole Ionarts household went with my parents last summer back to Stirling, at the cusp of the Scottish Highlands, where the trail of genealogical research ended with our earliest Downey ancestors in the 16th century. Like the architecture that still stands in Stirling where those first Downeys walked, these Scottish songs make me dream of the land they left behind.

Salonen, Out of Nowhere

E.-P. Salonen, Violin Concerto / Nyx, L. Josefowicz, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, E.-P. Salonen (Deutsche Grammophon, 2012)

Attentive readers will recall that my last pick for the Top 25 concerts of this season was the National Symphony Orchestra's program slated for the first weekend of June. Along with symphonies by Haydn and Schumann, Leila Josefowicz was going to give the world premiere of a new violin concerto by Sean Shepherd. About five months ago it became apparent that Shepherd was not going to finish this commission in time, and the new concerto was postponed, replaced by Esa-Pekka Salonen's relatively new violin concerto, as noted in my June concert picks. Josefowicz reportedly offered to play a few options from her repertory instead of the Shepherd piece, and Christoph Eschenbach and the NSO wisely chose Salonen's violin concerto, one of the best new pieces of recent years, heard at the Friday performance. A little bird tells me that the Shepherd concerto, when finally completed, will get an NSO performance, not next season obviously but soon thereafter.

At some point along the way Salonen's violin concerto has lost its subtitle, "Out of Nowhere," referring to the way that the solo part begins in media res. The constant stream of notes, accompanied by celesta, glockenspiel, and vibraphone, gives the impression of a pixie flitting about spraying fairy dust everywhere, with Josefowicz's harmonic notes somehow imitating the metallic sounds around her. A marvelous part for contrabass clarinet reinforces the entrance of the bass instruments on long notes (marked "stagger breath"), sounding like a tidal surge but given the first movement's title ("Mirage") may refer to the visual waves produced by extreme heat. The first inner movement ("Pulse I") is framed by sections of artificial harmonics in the solo part, showcasing Josefowicz's impeccable E string technique, through which she produced a perfectly tuned sound that could cut through any texture but never be harsh.

In both the pulse movements, playful rhythmic patterns became the focus, with the timpani in "Pulse I" pounding on the beat and then, through a sleight of hand, off the beat, for example. Wooden percussion and brass provided the impulse in "Pulse II," eliciting more wooden, hollow sounds from Josefowicz's tremolos. Salonen uses the orchestra for subtle, coloristic purposes for much of the piece until, at the end of the third movement, the ensemble goes on a wild rampage, with the solo shrieking along in crazy glissandi. ("Something very Californian about this," Salonen noted, laconically, in his composer's note.) The composer's affecting farewell to his former band, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, is heard in the fourth movement ("Adieu"), with the most tender, introspective music of the concerto, including a rising scalar motif, almost like a jet slowly taking off from LAX. Salonen, for his part that "this is not a specific farewell to anything in particular," although later he admitted that "it is not a coincidence that the last movement is called 'Adieu'."

Other Reviews: Anne Midgette, A maverick soloist offers a classic new work (Washington Post, June 3)

Eschenbach, who was laser-focused while conducting the Salonen, returned to his over-expressive gestural mode in both of the more familiar symphonies. Schumann's fourth symphony had a welcome return, not played by the NSO since 2003. (The program notes, for some reason, were on the topic of the second symphony.) The differentiation of sound through attention to balances seemed to show careful reflection, but Eschenbach could not seem to settle on one tempo, shifting the speed in different sections of the first movement, for example. Schumann's heavier re-orchestration, in the revised version of the symphony played here, gives a lugubrious quality to the slow introductions of first and last movements. The composer still made missteps, like giving the slow movement's main theme to the solo cello and oboe together, a combination that is not easy to keep in tune, although Nurit Bar-Josef was in excellent form in the solo triplets of the B section. The famous scherzo was the high point, set at just the right tempo and beautifully shaped, with some oozing rubato in the trio section, while the warlike finale, with its martial dotted rhythms, was heroic.

Sadly, Haydn's Symphony No. 104, the last of the series of twelve for the London visit, where he was when he composed it, seemed like an afterthought at the start of the concert. Eschenbach took the greatest number of liberties, often seeming to work against the score's best interests, stretching out the slow introduction of the first movement and then pushing the fast section to the edge, not seeming to have convinced the musicians of what he wanted to do. The second movement felt over-mannered, every articulation exaggerated but without the necessary precision in attacks or in the ends of sounds. The trio of the third movement had the best results, with a relaxed tempo and approach to dynamics producing an elegant sound, while the finale was spirited but not really witty.

This concert repeats this evening, in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.

#morninglistening: HIP Goodness in Haydn

#morninglistening to ♡#Haydn cello concertos w/C.Coin & @AAMOrchestra under C.Hogwood.

De… https://t.co/qvHqtThNkT pic.twitter.com/DJzKxRAmbq

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) December 5, 2015

Delightful but Slava holds up surprisingly well, too.

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#morninglistening: Protean Multiplicity

#morninglistening to brilliant #Scarlatti/#Haydn mix w/@Olivier_pianist on @outheremusic

… https://t.co/9HWBbhunOy pic.twitter.com/3wYqNnaqy9

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) November 28, 2015

Best Recordings of 2015 (#1)

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#morninglistening: An die Ferne Geliebte, Melodiously

#morninglistening to #Beethoven #Lieder w/Mark Padmore & K.Bezuidenhout on @harmoniamundi
… https://t.co/HGSIAPT7lZ pic.twitter.com/pgZzfj6qKv

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) November 17, 2015

A dream team in trickily beautiful music.

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Schiff's Last Sonatas

Schubert, Piano Sonata D. 960 (inter alia), A. Schiff (fortepiano) (ECM, 2015) Schubert, Piano Sonatas, A. Schiff (piano) (Decca, 2011)

There is something special about music composed at the end of a composer's life, whether he or she is aware of the approach of death or not. András Schiff has attempted to explore that autumnal quality, in a journey of three concerts begun last year, devoted to the last three piano sonatas of the four great Viennese composers, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. While I was forced to miss the second of these concerts, the final installment was presented by Washington Performing Arts on Wednesday evening in the Music Center at Strathmore, and cyclonic winds and flooding could not keep me away.

Each half of the program paired a less substantial last sonata (Haydn and Mozart) with two incomparable masterworks of the genre, Beethoven's op. 111 and Schubert's D. 960. Schiff's sometimes fussy manipulation of touch at the keyboard was ideally suited to the two smaller works, especially the filigree details of Haydn's Hob. XVI:52, sober wit enlivening themes like the grace-note-inflected bridge theme of the first movement, which can be too cute in other hands. Velvety runs and a puckish rapidity in the finale balanced a less successful slow movement, an overly slow tempo turning the piece to the soporific side. The slow movement of Mozart's K. 576 had the opposite effect, given a more transparent simplicity, surrounded by sweet-toned outer movements, full of carefully groomed sounds.

Scholar Lewis Lockwood noted that Beethoven, around the time he was composing the op. 111 sonata, wrote in his Conversation Book, "The moral law within us, and the starry heavens above us. Kant!!!" Lockwood goes on to observe, "It is just this spirit, of the mortal, vulnerable human being striving against the odds to hold his moral being steady in order to gather strength as an artist to strive toward the heavens -- it is this conjoining that we feel at the end of Opus 111 and in a few other moments in Beethoven's last works."

While Evgeny Kissin's performance of this sonata impressed me by the strength and daring of the fugal sections of the first movement and the polish of the trills section, Schiff went for angelic delicacy, growing softer and softer toward the sonata's conclusion. Schiff has rightly described the tendency to hear the dotted variation of the second movement as something akin to "boogie-woogie" as a banality, an anachronistic equation of the score with a style of music that would not be invented for another century. If Schiff's interpretation does not sound jazzy, as it did not, it is to his credit.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, A venerated pianist puts sonatas on a pedestal at Strathmore (Washington Post, February 26) Zachary Woolfe, Andras Schiff Deconstructs Sonatas (New York Times, November 1, 2015) Mark Swed, Pianist Andras Schiff mesmerizes with last sonatas of 4 composers (Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2015) Melinda Bargreen, Light as a feather, mighty as Beethoven — András Schiff enchants with piano sonatas (Seattle Times, October 13, 2015)

At the end of the piece, Schiff attempted to hold the audience in silence for a moment of reflection, but a listener somewhere in the hall, determined to show everyone that he knew what the end of op. 111 was, insisted on applauding. It was a rude gesture, to which Schiff responded testily, but performers sometimes go too far in trying to create these moments of profundity after the music has ended. (Christoph Eschenbach tends to to do this a lot with the National Symphony Orchestra, and it feels affected.) If a performance is that profound, the audience will hold itself silent.

There is likely a reason for Schiff's softer, darker approach to the Beethoven and to Schubert's D. 960. Two years ago, Schiff recorded this Schubert sonata and other music by Schubert on a fortepiano built by Franz Brodmann in Vienna in 1820 (a nice companion disc to Decca's re-released set of Schiff's earlier Schubert sonata cycle), as well as Beethoven's Diabelli Variations and Bagatelles on the same instrument before that. Schiff, in his program notes on the Schubert ECM disc, described the fortepiano's "tender mellowness, its melancholic cantabilità," and it is just these qualities that he brought out most from the Bösendorfer on the Strathmore stage. He took all of Schubert's gradations of piano seriously, with playing that was exceedingly delicate and a little too mannered, but with exquisite layering of voices in the slow movement. An encore, the Aria from Bach's Goldberg Variations, finished off the evening.

Daniil Trifonov joins the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (March 14) for Prokofiev's third piano concerto, presented by Washington Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall.