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.) .

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Critic’s Notebook: An Odd Liederabend from Goerne and Kissin

Also reviewed for Die Presse: Ein Liederabend, bei dem vieles auf der Strecke blieb

R. Schumann, Dichterliebe, Liederkreis M.Goerne, V.Ashkenazy Harmonia Mundi

J. Brahms, 4 Serious Songs, 4 Songs op.32 M.Goerne, C.Eschenbach Harmonia Mundi

A Walrus in Love

The trick to turn a Liederabend from a connoisseur’s event into a big-ticket item, appears to be the addition of a pianist superstar to the singer in question. At the Musikverein’s Golden Hall, on March 13th, the magic ingredient to bolster Matthias Goerne’s already considerable draw was Evgeny Kissin. It makes sense, too, because in theory it’s much more interesting to hear, what two veritable artists come up with, as part of their collaboration, rather than simply having a singer be followed by an accompanist. I mean, no one goes to a concert to hear Helmut Deutsch – and few singers form as organic a duo with their ivory-partner, as do/does GerhaherHuber (one word)™.

In practice, that didn’t quite work out on this occasion. For starters, the Golden Hall was decidedly not built for Lieder-recitals. When Lieder-singers hit the big-time, they almost invariably become the victim of their own success, location-wise. And yes, there were smile-inducing moments from Kissin, such as his brawny-pawed opening of Robert Schumann’s “Am Strand”. But for the most part, there seemed little input from him… or if there was, it didn’t appear to be picked up on by Goerne. (Certainly his understanding with Christoph Eschenbach as his pianist, for example, suggested more of a give and take, both, on record and live.)

Also: The whole evening was full of mannerisms galore. Goerne can barrel through a song and braw like a donkey. And a lot of fun it sometimes is. On this occasion, a red-faced Goerne danced as if on tippy-toes, contorting himself, and reminded vaguely of a lovelorn walrus. Much of Dichterliebe, for example, was purred in honeyed tones but mumbled in such nasal tones, that it had to be an interpretative choice. Albeit one I did not comprehend. Half the text was impossible to understand and sounded more French than German. This approach was interrupted occasionally, such as for the blistering “Die Rose, die Lilie”, or in stentorian turns for the last of the nine Brahms op.32 songs, “Wie bist du, meine Königin”. Here, Kissin, hunched over the keyboard as though he had forgotten his reading glasses at home, provided for tantalizing contrast with his tone, ringing out clear as a bell, and his lullaby-esque take on it.

But that was too little, too late. Too much text fell by the wayside. Whatever was left had a strangely impersonal quality about it and was – and this can’t just be blamed on Brahms – somewhat brittle and wearisome.

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Dip Your Ears: No. 274 (Songs of Morning; Piotr Anderszewski’s Schumann)

R.Schumann Piano Music Piotr Anderszewski Virgin/Warner, 2011

The delightful unfunniness of Robert Schumann

Piotr Anderszewski’s 2011 album of Schumann for Virgin (now part of Warner) had me from the very first notes. That’s, granted, never solely down to the performance at hand: It’s partly a matter of mood, a combination of intangibles and good fortune to have one of those moments where with the first chord you are transfixed with a smile and listen to a whole album without your thoughts ever straying. But Anderszewski’s opening of the first “Einfach” in the 1839 Humoreske op.20 did just that. The Humoreske is not only not a funny work (not that we’d necessarily expect that from Schumann, despite the work’s title), it is one of the more contemplative and wistful pieces, even for Schumann. (A least among the earlier works of Schumann, who tends to get darker and more delicious with age.) But even more telling than the gloomy disposition are the turn-on-a-dime mood-swings, the restlessness and how, without warning, it may turn to the lyrically waxing and back again. Not the among the ‘greatest hits’ of Schumann’s piano output, this is still the most conventional Schumann on this disc.

It then gets only better by the inclusion of two considerably lesser played works—the “Canonic Études for Pedal Piano”, which Anderszewski transcribed himself for solo piano, and the late, 1853 Gesänge der Frühe (“Songs of Morning”). Debussy loved the Études and wanted to rescue them from obscurity after the pedal piano—really just a device of practicing organ pedaling at one’s grand piano at home—went out of fashion and hence transcribed it for two pianos. Asked about whether he knew of, or had looked at, the Debussy transcription before transcribing it himself Anderszewski replied nicely to the point: “Yes… I heard the Debussy transcription. Don't like it at all. But very keen on transcriptions in general...” It shows. While I don’t share Mr. Anderszewski’s distaste for the Debussy transcription (recorded to wonderful effect by Tzimon Barto & Christoph Eschenbach), I adore this lighter, nimbler transcription just as much—just as I do appreciate the contrast that his quicker tempi bring to the work and which ‘infuses the stringency of Bach with all the romantic essence of Echt-Schumann.

The “Songs of Morning”, just about as devastating and torn as the “Ghost Variations” (his last lucid composition), are Schumann’s second to last work for piano. The calm opening seems to plunge deeper into the soul of their composer than even the most brazenly emotional of Schumann’s preceding works. This, along with other late works, was once derided as ‘showing the ensuing madness’ (a few months later Schumann jumped into the Rhine from whereon his life trailed sadly toward its end at the Endenich asylum). The work is filled with the desperate to embrace ‘everything and al’l—or at last Anderszewski’s interpretation is. And for as long as I listen, it makes this dark and bleak delight, not the flitting Schumann of the Papillions or Arabesque, the most satisfying, most beautiful Schumann to listen to. It is difficult to come up with a pianist better suited than Anderszewski to make that point.

Follow @ClassicalCritic

Briefly Noted: Schumann for Four and Five (CD of the Month)

Schumann, Piano Quartet/Piano Quintet, I. Faust, A.K. Schreiber, A. Tamestit, J.-G. Queyras, A. Melnikov (released on November 24, 2023) Harmonia Mundi HMM902695 | 52'42"

Many musicologists have described Robert Schumann's youthful piano quartet and piano quintet as twin works, not least because they were composed in the same key, E-flat major, and within a few weeks of one another. Neither of these pieces, early experiments by Schumann with pairing his favorite instrument, the piano, with different combination of string instruments, lasts over a half-hour, but the young composer, still only 19 years old, laid the foundations for many later examples of both of these still relatively rare genres.

This delectable new release assembles a dream team for these exemplary works: violinist Isabelle Faust, violist Antoine Tamestit, cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, and pianist Alexander Melnikov. All play on historical instruments, with the strings all made roughly around the year 1700, as early as 1672, in the case of Tamestit's Stradivarius viola. Melnikov plays on a historical fortepiano made by Ignace Pleyel (Paris, 1851), technically constructed after Schumann composed these pieces, but that is a minor point.

Even though it was composed slightly later, the quartet is the lesser work to my ears, but its slow movement, with ardent cello solos here played subtly by Queyras, is nothing short of gorgeous. Schumann's piano quintet, however, has always struck me as one of the most perfect pieces of chamber music ever written. This performance, with Anne Katharina Schreiber joining on second violin, is going to be rather difficult to improve on, and it is certainly in competition with Melnikov's own recording of the same pairing from a decade ago (with the Jerusalem String Quartet) and the version made around the same time by the Takács Quartet and Marc-André Hamelin. The second movement surprises, both by the detached, somewhat brisk pacing of the funeral march and the understated rubato of the B section. The use of historical instruments and the individual strengths of each player put this disc a notch above.

Follow me on Threads (@ionarts_dc)
for more classical music and opera news

Briefly Noted: Melodramas with the Vogts

Schumann / Strauss, Melodramas, Isabelle Vogt, Lars Vogt (released on February 4, 2022) CAvi 8553576D | 61'25"

File this one under the heading of Curiosities. German pianist Lars Vogt and his daughter, actress Isabelle Vogt, have recorded these three melodramas, Romantic poems recited to musical accompaniment. They are live recordings of performances given in 2018 at the Spannungen Festival, held in a hydroelectric plant in Heimbach, Germany, and then virtually in 2020, due to the pandemic. First are Robert Schumann's Zwei Balladen für Deklamation, op. 122, composed from 1852 to 1853, a short time before the composer's confinement to an asylum. In the "Ballade vom Haideknaben," written by Christian Friedrich Hebbel, a moorland apprentice is forced by his master to carry a sum of money to the next village. He dreams that he is murdered along the way for the money, and in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, it happens.

In "Die Flüchtlinge," a poem by Percy Shelley translated into German by Julius Seybt, a woman flees her wedding day with her lover. They set out on the storm-tossed ocean in a small boat while her father and intended bridegroom watch from the castle above the port. This is arch-Romantic stuff, recited with emotional fervor by Isabelle Vogt. Schumann meant the musical phrases in the piano to be timed meticulously with the declamation of the poetry for maximal effect, and Lars Vogt does this with precision and a sense of wild abandon.

These more modest works, each only a few minutes, are dwarfed by Richard Strauss's "Enoch Arden," written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and translated into German by Adolf Strodtmann. At almost an hour to recite, this long poem tells the story of three childhood friends, a girl and two boys. The girl, Annie Lee, falls in love with the poorer and rougher boy, a sailor's lad named Enoch Arden. After they are married and have children, Enoch sets to sea and is thought lost. After a time, Annie, agrees to marry the wealthy Philip Ray, their mutual friend, who loves her and raises her children as his own. When Enoch miraculously returns home, he chooses not to let Annie know he is alive, seeing that all are happy. The poem was so famous that it gave its name to the Enoch Arden doctrine, a legal concept that a divorce may be granted if a spouse is believed dead, even if the lost spouse later returns. Strauss's music is in some ways more complex, but there are long stretches of poetry left unaccompanied.

On ClassicsToday: Josephine Knight in Lovely Piatti World Premieres

Self-Serving Schumann And Lovely Piatti World Premieres

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: ?

Sound Quality: ?

This new release of the Schumann Cello Concerto purports to be the premiere recording of its absolute original version–a faithful reconstruction of the 1850 “Concertstück”. After cellist Josephine Knight found the autograph in Krakow, she set about to discern the differences from the modern version we know, which apparently include some alterations made or suggested by Robert Emil Bockmühl on whom Schumann relied for advice, and several subsequent performers’ changes. She found “hundreds of differences”, mostly accents, dynamic markings, bowings. The notes, but for a handful, are the same, though. She’s since made this her vehicle and this recording is meant to propel the original version–and presumably her–into the limelight. [continue reading]

Familiensache—Maisky Trio & Friends in Schumann und Franck: Latest @ Wiener Zeitung

Julian Rachlin entfesselte einen Funkenregen

Hochkarätig besetzte Kammermusik im Brahms-Saal des Musikvereins.

Kammermusikabend im Brahms Saal des Musikvereins mit dem Maisky-Familienklaviertrio, bereichert um Julian Rachlin und Bratschistin Sarah McElravy: Die vier Streicher - Sascha Maisky an der zweiten Geige und der unverwüstliche Mischa Maisky - bildeten eine Viererkette vor der hinten vom Steinway aus steten Rückhalt gebenden Lily Maisky.[weiterlesen]

On ClassicsToday: Gerhaher in Top Form for Schumann!

No Question: The Finest in Schumann Lieder

Review by: Jens F. Laurson

Artistic Quality: 10

Sound Quality: 10

If you think that language, text, and story matter above all when it comes to fully enjoying art-songs and Lieder, there is only one singer that will fully satisfy you: Christian Gerhaher. Over the last 10, 15 years Gerhaher and his ingenious partner on the piano, Gerold Huber, have set a new, entirely unrivaled standard for the interpretation of Lieder. (That’s not to dismiss Matthias Goerne—who comes across more readily on disc than Gerhaher—or Florian Boesch et al.)... continue reading here [insider content]

Best Recordings of 2018

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2018 again! This lists the new releases with the best re-issues following below.

Preamble

It’s fair to say to say that such "Best-Of" lists are inherently daft if one clings too literally to the idea of "Best." Still, I have been making "Best of the Year" lists for classical music since 2004 (when working at Tower Records gave me a splendid oversight—occasionally insight—of the new releases and of the re-releases that hit the classical music market. Since then, I’ve kept tabs on the market as much as possible. Here are the links to the past iterations on ionarts and Forbes.com:

2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2008—"Almost" | 2009 | 2009—"Almost" | 2010 | 2010—"Almost" | 2011 | 2011—"Almost" | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017

Making these lists is a subjective affair, aided only by massive exposure and hopefully good ears and discriminating, if personal taste. But then "10 CDs that, all caveats duly noted, I consider to have been outstanding this year" does not make for a sexy headline. You get the point. The built-in hyperbole of the phrase is a tool to understand what this is about, not symbolic of illusions of grandeur on my part. As has been my tradition, there are two lists: One for new releases and one for re-issues.  And because there is a natural delay between the issuing date of a recording and my getting to listen to it, the cut-off date for inclusion in this list is roughly around September 2017. (In a way that’s good, because going back a little further softens the recency-bias that these lists can otherwise suffer from.) And here, without further ado, are "The 10 Best Classical Recordings Of 2018".

# 10 - New Release

L.v.Beethoven, Symphony No.3 (+ R.Strauss, Horn Concerto), Manfred Honeck, Pittsburgh Symphony, Reference Recordings FR-728SACD

L.v.Beethoven, Symphony No.3 (+ R.Strauss, Horn Concerto), Manfred Honeck, Pittsburgh Symphony, Reference Recordings

Manfred Honeck just about has a subscription to these lists: After Shostakovich in 2017, Richard Strauss in 2016, Johann Strauss in 2014 and his Bruckner Fourth getting an honorable mention in 2015, it’s no surprised that he shows up again this year. This time with Beethoven, continuing his series of riveting, superbly played, and grandly recorded symphonies. We have had many great Beethoven cycles turn up over the last years (Järvi, Vänskä, Dausgaard), always showing that new things can be said just when we thought that there couldn’t possibly be anything new left to squeeze out of old Ludwig Van. But the combination of modern pluck and luscious brawn that makes the Honeck-Pittsburgh combo unique successfully pushes on all our sensualities’ buttons at once. Point-in-case this Eroica, which knocks you over and lifts you back up. Honeck is no literalist and he knows where effect merits a gentle adjustment to the score, yet the aesthetic is one that still fully appeals in a time dominated by historically informed performances.

# 9 - New Release

R.Schumann, "Frage" – select Lieder, Christian Gerhaher & Gerold Huber, Sony 19075889192

R.Schumann, "Frage" – select Lieder, Christian Gerhaher & Gerold Huber, Sony

Like Honeck, the Christian Gerhaher/Gerold Huber combination, too, is a regular in these lists. That’s not – or so I’d like to think – because I am unduly partial towards them, but simply because they are the best Lied-Duo there is and very likely (pointless though such an argument would be) also ever was. After last year’s Die Schöne Müllerin, GerhaherHuber-one word™ have undertaken a recording of the complete songs of Schumann. I didn’t have Gerhaher down for an intégrale of any composer’s, given his highly discriminating pick-and-choose approach to anything he will perform, but yes: if there’s any composer he should want to sing all the output of, it would have to be Robert Schumann. "Frage" – "Question" is the apt title of the first volume, since Gerhaher would be the type to question, probe everything. The recital, full of lesser known, miniature song cycles – Six Songs op.107, 12 Kerner Poems op.35 (highlight among highlights), Four Late Songs op.142 et al. – is—as expected and hoped—all that one could wish from GerhaherHuber. Supremely touching, chilling, text-hugging Lied of unparalleled quality. (A more detailed review here on ClassicsToday.)

# 8 - New Release

J.S.Bach, Cantatas BWV 56, 95, 161, Rudolf Lutz, soloists, Bach Stiftung Orchestra & Chorus, Bach Stiftung B667

J.S.Bach, Cantatas BWV 56, 95, 161, Rudolf Lutz, soloists, Bach Stiftung Orchestra & Chorus, Bach Stiftung

When the Bach Cantata cycle of the St. Gallen Bach Stiftung got underway, I experienced patronizing thoughts: What can this outfit, of whom no one outside northern Switzerland had ever heard, could possibly bring to the table that the greats of Bach performance of the last decades haven’t already done and much better? I’ve since repented and recanted. Rudolf Lutz and his Bach Stiftung chorus and orchestra not only offer extraordinary execution that, on average, begins to surpass the Gardiner cycle, but his cantatas also have a communal feel to them, something engaging, something that makes you feel as though you are almost a part of it, not just an outside observer. Volume 22 in this survey – with the three masterpiece cantatas BWV 56 "Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen", BWV 95 "Christus, der ist mein leben" and BWV 161 "Komm, du süße Todesstunde" – is a supreme example of all these qualities. (Forbes CD of the Week review here)

# 7 - New Release

Kenneth Fuchs, Piano Concerto, Saxophone Concerto, E-Guitar Concerto, Poems of Life, JoAnn Faletta, London Symphony Orchestra, Jeffrey Biegel (piano), T.McAllister (sax), D.J.Spar (guitar) et al., Naxos 8.559824

Kenneth Fuchs, Concertos & Songs, JoAnn Faletta, London Symphony Orchestra, Jeffrey Biegel (piano), T.McAllister (sax), D.J.Spar (guitar) et al., Naxos

The chapter on Kenneth Fuchs is one of the additions to the Second Edition of Surprised by Beauty that didn’t stick in my memory at first. I want to listen to every CD recommendation that Robert Reilly makes in that book, and I’ve been reasonably successful at it, too, but sometimes life gets in the way. A disc, a thought, a composer gets put on the back burner and simmers along at the mind’s edge, sometimes for years. Fortunately I’ve been awoken from my bubbling slumber by the most recent disc with the music of Kenneth Fuchs’. Surprised by beauty, indeed!

The lede is the Piano Concerto (Jeffrey Biegel on the ivories), which covers several pleasant universes of sound in its three movements: From Ravel via "Lady Macbeth trombone" glissandi to Coplandesque moments and well beyond, it never quite lets you drift and always makes your ears perk. Glacier, the serenata-like Concerto for Electric guitar (D.J.Sparr) and Orchestra, is every bit as interesting as the Piano concerto – with moments that remind, successively, of John Scofield and Terje Rypdal. This is in turn followed by the easy listening (in the best sense) Concerto for Alto saxophone (Timothy McAllister) and Orchestra with a hint, almost inevitably, of Gershwin. The orchestral songs Poems of Life for countertenor (Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen) and orchestra take a little longer to get used to in the surrounding context of the concertos, but eventually they, too, fit into the mold of harmonious tanginess that Fuchs casts for his works.

The performances easily do enough to reveal the music’s beauty and clever fun. Conductor JoAnn Faletta navigates the hired London Symphony Orchestra through the music without accidents. We don’t have Manfred Honeck, Teodor Currentzis and Kyrill Petrenko standing in line to make Kenneth Fuchs recordings any time soon (not that we should want to rule it out), so we’ll take what we get and am grateful it’s as good as it is. 

# 6 - New Release

R.Schumann & J.Widmann, "Es war einmal…" – Märchenerzählungen op.132, Fantasy Pieces for Clarinet and Piano op.73, Märchenbilder for piano and viola op.113 & "Once Upon A Time… Five Pieces in Fairy Tale Mood for clarinet, viola and piano, Dénes Várjon (piano), Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Jörg Widmann (clarinet), Myros Classics MYR020

R.Schumann & J.Widmann, "Es war einmal…", Dénes Várjon (piano), Tabea Zimmermann (viola), Jörg Widmann (clarinet), Myros

This disc, its concept-album title and cover, makes you think it is something other than it is. Or at least something other than it also is. If you are a Jörg Widmann fan (not inconceivable, granted), you will find the composer’s recording of his mouthfully-titled Once Upon a Time… Five Pieces in Fairy Tale Fashion for Clarinet, Viola and Piano on there. Apart from the famously clarinet playing composer, Dénes Varjon is on piano, Tabea Zimmermann on viola. The Widmann riffs heavily off the Schumann, takes musical phrases, folds them over, starts anew… he’s making a croissant of the music, with hard edges and glassy flakes. It can be jarring, it can be strangely beautiful, and it’s without question to be categorized as "good Widmann", which still means you have to be into it, but at least then it’s very good indeed. (Whereas bad Widmann – especially large format works like Arche and Babylon – is totally unredeemable.)

If you are an inveterate Schumann lover, however, (or well on your way thereto), this is actually the continuation of the thrilling Schumann Violin Sonata recording of Varjon’s with Carolin Widmann that appeared on ECM and should have been high in my Best of 2009. The deliciously near-late Schumann, a dream of hazy, woven textures, was written between 1849 and 1851 and is here performed with sensitivity, intimacy (especially thanks to Várjon and Zimmermann), and expressive richness that gives the lightly forlorn music a haptic, certainly sensual quality: A winner of a disc, either – depending on your musical leanings – with a caveat or a bonus. 

# 5 - New Release

P.I.Tchaikovsky, Symphony No.6 ("Pathétique"), MusicAeterna, Teodor Currentzis, Sony 88985404352

P.I.Tchaikovsky, Symphony No.6 ("Pathétique"), MusicAeterna, Teodor Currentzis, Sony

My first exposure to current faux-goth / conductor-hotshot Teodor Currentzis came at the hands of the Vienna Symphony’s performance of Mieczysław Weinberg’s opera The Passenger where I was involuntarily impressed by that young, hitherto unknown, unkempt young man on the podium. (Best of 2011) Then came a couple of concerts with the Munich Philharmonic in 2012 and 2013.

The impression he left was certainly visceral: "All smiles, with long bobbed hair, and India-rubber limbs, Currentzis looks like a master of ceremonies at MIT’s Harry Potter convention. An enthusiastic image, and a slightly ridiculous one." But it was also musically positive: "Under his hands, the side-by-side of Prokofiev’s children-like naïveté [in the Seventh Symphony], his veteran assuredness and deft rhythmic handling sounded perfectly organic. And the orchestra went along well enough, especially considering this was the first night of the run. As a little treat, Currentzis played the symphony with both alternate endings: the quiet original first, and then, after a little pause, the few bars of upbeat compromise that Prokofiev grudgingly added." (ionarts: The Currentzis Dances) Since then, I’ve seen and heard him blow the roof off the Vienna Konzerthaus… a conductor that has fully grown into the hype around him – and capable of achieving novel, intriguing, insightful results with guest orchestras just the same, not just his own band where he has unrivaled, dictatorial-in-the-service-of-music conditions that no other place could offer him. He’s controversial – but the real deal.

Point in case his Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony released late last year. (You could almost equally insert his new Mahler Sixth in this spot; it might well hop onto next year’s list.) This is a recording at once stunningly superficial and stunningly absorbing. The attention to detail, the obsession, the fine-tuning – even the overproducing – are all audible… but unlike many a micro-managing conductor, the whole does not descend into technically impressive boredom. It remains visceral, exciting. Currentzis’ Pathetique is the exact opposite of the liquid, golden honey that flows from the baton of Semyon Bychkov and his Czech Philharmonic in the same work (released around the same time – and superb in its own way!) This is a self-propelling nano-technology-beast, shimmering—ever-moving—in the sun in ever-changing colors. A thrill not to be missed, unless one is positively cemented into a purist/traditionalist position.

# 4 - New Release

I.Stravinsky, Chant funèbre, Le Faune et al Bergère, The Rite of Spring, Scherzo fantastique, Feu d’artifice, Riccardo Chailly, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Decca 483 2563

I.Stravinsky, Chant funèbre, Le Sacre et al., Riccardo Chailly, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Decca

Happily, Riccardo Chailly is interested in repertoire just off the beaten path in a way that many mainstream conductors can’t be bothered with… and instead of tacking a Firebird or some such warhorse onto his lusciously magnificent recording of the Rite of the Spring, he added the orchestral works Scherzo fantastique op.3, Feu d’artifice op.4, the Chant funebre op.5 (a world premiere recording), and the orchestral song Le Faune et al Bergère op.2 to the mix. That novel Chant funebre – composed to memorialize Rimsky-Korsakov – starts out of a hovering, dark mist… much like something that Wagner might have composed. A flame licks through the brooding brass. Probably some Niebelungs just died. The ten-minute work eventually turns to a more lyrical, even Tchaikovsky-esque vein. Despite (or not?) more Wagner quotations to greet us in the subsequent works, this is really Stravinsky at his most French phase; much of the music resembles – vaguely in a literal sense; more strongly in mood – that of Paul Dukas or even Albert Roussel. The gorgeous, pastoral central section of the Scherzo fantastique, op.3, is of poetic and elegiac grace that any composer interested in sheer beauty would be proud to have penned. (Complete CD of the Week review on Forbes.com)

# 3 - New Release

J.S.Bach, Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, Gottfried von der Goltz, Aparté AP176

J.S.Bach, Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, Gottfried von der Goltz, Aparté

Gottfried von der Goltz is best known as one of the leaders of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. That’s all well and good, but here he is, sans orchestra, in the Bach Sonatas and Partitas. Do we really need concertmasters entertaining notions of soloist careers? Yikes. That’s an old attitude, actually, from when those two jobs really were very different and the skillset not overlapping all that much. Even good concert masters, harnessed into a solo rôle for reasons of morale or economy, could sound like floundering amateurs. But there's a new generation, with all the skills for soloist positions but opting for the orchestral rôle anyway, and they certainly have what it takes. The Berlin Philharmonic’s Daishin Kashimoto comes to mind… and it turns out to be no different with von der Goltz, either. His recording, far from being a superfluous stuffer of the catalogue, is full of elegance and lightness, effortless perfection and joy.  My review on ClassicsToday will be up eventually, but until then take my word for it: Amid the glut of Sonata and Partita recordings, this one is special!

# 2 - New Release

B.Martinů, Bouquet of Flowers (+ Jan Novák, Philharmonic Dances), Tomáš Netopil, Prague RSO, Supraphon SU 4220

B.Martinů, Bouquet of Flowers (+ Jan Novák, Philharmonic Dances), Tomáš Netopil, Prague RSO, Supraphon

Bohuslav Martinů’s relatively obscure Bouquet of Flowers with its full-on Bohemian neo-classicism evokes hints of Orff’s Carmina Burana or might make one perceive touches of Janáček (perhaps from the Glagolitic Mass) or even Dvořák’s The Spectre’s Bride. But none of those hints come through with any strength; Martinů retains his own voice, even as he was able to change musico-linguistic tack even more often than he had to switch languages, what with having lived for extended periods of his life in Czecheslovakia, France, the US, and Switzerland.

A collection of seven vignettes and an overture, Bouquet of Flowers is a highly effective drama (or series of mini-dramas) written for orchestra, soloists, and choruses and intended for radio broadcast. It is constantly enchanting and entrancing music, even if the words of Karel Jaromír Erben’s poems – the famous collection "A Bouquet of Folk Legends" – remain foreign to your ear. The singers and the orchestra – the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra under the youngish Tomáš Netopil – indulge in this music with something that sounds like total conviction. This is the ‘lesser’ among the established orchestras in Prague – and you’d never guess it.
(Full review on SurprisedByBeauty.org)

# 1 - New Release

F.Martin, Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke, Fabio Luisi, Philharmonia Zurich, Okka von der Damerau, Philharmonia PHR 0108

F.Martin, Die Weise von Liebe und Tod, Fabio Luisi, Philharmonia Zurich, Okka von der Damerau, PHR

Rainer Maria Rilke’s youthful poem-cum-epic "Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke" about a soldier who, reminiscing heavily, is moved to the front in Hungary in 1663, being promoted to flag bearer and then misses the battle after a love-filled night with a countess (so far it’s pure Flashman!) only to find heroic death wildly storming into the enemy (decidedly not Flashman), was a favorite read of German soldiers in the World Wars. There’s also something to the subject that brings out the best in early 20^th century composers: it was set to music (among yet others) by Danish Paul von Klenau, Austrian-Czech Viktor Ullmann, and Swiss Frank Martin… and each came up with one of their masterpieces.

Frank Martin’s entrancing tone poem for contralto and orchestra was written while the war raged outside Switzerland – and perhaps therefore has a decidedly unheroic, melancholy touch to it. There’s a bittersweet beauty to the music, a bit like the sour and bitter but satisfying lingering of pure chocolate. Fabio Luisi, who seems never to have been more at home in a post than at the Zurich Opera and with its Philharmonia Zurich, provides the keenly felt, sensitive musical painting for the backdrop upon which Okka von der Damerau gives one of the most striking vocal performances I have heard on disc in a long time. With calm radiance she makes you take every step with the protagonist. The result is, in a word, ravishing.

Read more »

Forbes Classical CD Of The Week: The Evanescent Elegance Of Paul Lewis' Pictures At An Exhibition

...For one reason or another, I never quite intuitively responded to his recordings – or in the rare caught live performance his playing – as I thought I would and should: “However tenuous the idea is, one expects a sense of occasion, something ‘special’… something more than a performance that admittedly impresse[s] with unfussy, very fluent playing… but also threw in two parts out of three autopilot.” Gradually my expectations shrunk back to size, to the point where I felt ambivalent at popping a new Lewis recording into the player. Perhaps that’s why it took me so long to get to his 2015 release of Musorgsky’s [sic] Pictures at an Exhibition...

-> Classical CD Of The Week: The Evanescent Elegance Of Paul Lewis' Pictures At An Exhibition

Read more »

Forbes Review: Visiting Nazgûl - An Evening Of Late Schumann And Darker Schubert

...When I had to review a painstakingly lovely recording of the Well-Tempered Clavier some months ago, I searched for a foil. I found it in the darkly individualistic rendition of Dina Ugorskaja’s recent release – which ended up a Classical CD of the Week (Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier: Forget-Me-Nots And Intimations Of Mortality). So when I found out that Dina Ugorskaja played a recital in Munich’s Herkulessaal (substituting on short notice for Vardan Mamikonian; the pianist, not the saint), while I was in Bavaria’s capital – and with a tantalizing program of late Schumann and Scriabin at that – it was an easy and obvious decision to go and check out the recital the “Classics before 8PM” series.

After tantalizing late Schumann and sublime Scriabin, I thought of late Franz Schubert – namely the Piano Sonata in B-flat major, D 960 – as an extended encore… but not so! This turned out not only to be the longest piece on the program but also its emotional center. Dina Ugorskaja’s playing in general and in this first movement in particular, evokes and underscores a discomfiture among any listeners who think they know the work. No less here: Where there is a little oddity among the notes, it got explored with great curiosity. Where there’s a seldom noticed tension between lines, it got investigated. Amid such details, the pianist derailed Schubert’s sonata from conventions and re-established it as something fearsomely dark…

-> Review: Visiting Nazgûl - An Evening Of Late Schumann And Darker Schubert

Read more »

Forbes Classical CD of the Week: Late Schumann with Soo Park

…the result is still a substantial little wonder: The stringency of Bach infused with all the romantic essence of Echt-Schumann continues to leave me speechless every time I hear it…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Or How I Learned To Love Late Schumann

Read more »

Forbes Classical CD of the Week: Robert Schumann, Piano Concerto, Piano Trio No.2, op.80

…I nearly didn’t recognize the Piano Concerto, played on an Erard fortepiano, so different was it from my expectations. It sounds absolutely fresh here, on disc, as well, but less disconcerting…

-> Classical CD Of The Week: Schumann Triptych Continued (OCT 5, 2016)

Read more »

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.

Forbes Classical CD of the Week

#CDoftheWeek on @ForbesOpinion: https://t.co/mQcXCxtdlp on @LaDolceVolta w/#Schumann stri… https://t.co/2DrOy0gxbp pic.twitter.com/LL4UGaq281

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) May 19, 2016

…The three Schumann String Quartets (op.41/1-3) are not as present on the recital- or recording scene as one might assume, given the fame of the composer and the relative popularity of the genre. We notice this when there comes a recording our way – as seems to happen every decade or so – that turns our heads and makes us go: “Woha! Right – those works!”

The last time that has happened, it was the Zehetmair Quartet on ECM who delved into these works (Nos. 1 & 3, but not 2) and came out convincing winners in 2002. Before that, I suppose it was the Guarneri- and then the Melos Quartet’s recordings in the late 70s and late 80s, respectively, but even those haven’t consistently stayed in print. This recording with the French Quatuor Hermès (formed in 2008 at the Lyon Conservatory) is the newest in this line…

-> Classical CD of the Week: Once-In-A-Decade Schumann

Read more »

#morninglistening: Schumann Homage to Bach

#morninglistening to #Schumann w/A.Staier on @harmoniamundi#classical #classicalmusic #R… https://t.co/phKshk7Tno pic.twitter.com/uZUWWuGPgB

— Jens F. Laurson (@ClassicalCritic) December 1, 2015

Read more »