Messiaen Year: End of Time

Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fin du temps, Trio Wanderer, P. Moraguès (released July 8, 2008) Harmonia Mundi HMC 901987

As most readers probably know, 2008 is the Olivier Messiaen year, and we will be reviewing as many new CDs (and DVDs) of his music as we can between now and the 100th anniversary of his birth, on December 10. The Quatuor pour la fin du temps, composed in 1940 during Messiaen's internment in a prisoner-of-war camp, is likely his best-known work, already recorded in some two dozen versions. (Another new version, by the Hebrides Ensemble but so far unknown to me, has also just been released.) Written relatively early in Messiaen's career, the Quatuor is both clearly in the composer's mature voice -- Catholic, mystical, ethnomusicological, liturgical, ornithological -- and yet one of the more accessible pieces in an oeuvre that can be elusive.

R. Rischin, For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet

The leading version selected by most careful listeners is that by the recently reunited Tashi ensemble, including the young Peter Serkin and Richard Stoltzmann (RCA), and there is much to recommend it. The others to be admired have obvious strong points, such as particularly good pianists: the leading Messiaen interpreter, Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Accord); the composer's widow, Yvonne Loriod (EMI); Daniel Barenboim (DG); and the composer's own recording (Accord, harder to find). The two recent releases under review here have the additional benefit of having been made since the publication of the ground-breaking study of the quartet's history by Rebecca Rischin, For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet, in 2003 (but see also Nigel Simeone's review in the Musical Times, which includes a meticulous fact-checking of the book).

Trio Wanderer, past winners of the ARD Competition in Munich, are joined here by the excellent Paul Moraguès, principal clarinetist of the Orchestre de Paris (and one-time teacher of Rebecca Rischin, who teaches the clarinet at Ohio University). The performance is expansive (total time of 51'25"), not afraid of the possible longueurs in the ecstatic details of many movements. In particular, their fifth movement ("Louange à l'Eternité de Jésus") emphasizes the eternity, appearing to take literally the marking Messiaen gave to it, "Infiniment lent, extatique" (an ecstatic and infinitely slow 10'48"). They round the disc out with a straightforward reading of one of Messiaen's few other chamber works, the Thème et variations for violin and piano, a love song offered to his first wife, the violinist Claire Delbos.

62'27"

Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fin du temps, Gould Piano Trio, R. Plane (released July 29, 2008) Chandos CHAN 10480

This new English recording of the Quatuor unites the Gould Piano Trio with clarinetist Robert Plane. Their reading of the work is much more concise, at a total time of 48'32". Several of the movement timings are very close to those of Trio Wanderer, but the Gould Trio takes the angel's vocalise and rainbow halo movements in about a minute less each, with almost two minutes less for the eternity of Jesus in the fifth movement (their tempo has the piano's sixteenth notes at about a metronome marking of 50, sometimes faster -- when Messiaen indicated the tempo at about 44). Messiaen left brief descriptions of each movement in his program notes, saying that the quotation from Apocalypse indicated that the "end of time" was the abolition of the past and future, returning all of creation to the eternal present of God's existence outside time. It is a difficult theological concept that Beatrice tried to explain to Dante in Paradise (see the quotation below), and this performance seems to cheat the sense of eternity in Messiaen's unfolding repetitions.

The clarinet, piano, and cello are about equal in quality between these two recordings, but Lucy Gould's violin on this disc is a notch or two less pure and searing in tone than Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian's. Pianist Benjamin Frith gives a subtle touch by rendering the piano chords of the final movement as slightly demarcated trochees, accenting the first of each pair but not letting the second fade too much into the background. Although Gould and Frith's take on the Thème et variations here is less pleasing, the Chandos disc is made of greater interest because it opens with the first-ever recording of Messiaen's own piano arrangement of his orchestral work Les offrandes oubliées. Frith plays it with symphonic scope and a broad sense of color.

67'40"

Beatrice and Dante in Paradiso, engraving by Gustave Doré

"In His eternity, beyond time, beyond
any other limit, as it pleased Him,
in these new loves, Eternal Love unfolded.
Nor, before then, did He rest in torpor,
for until God moved upon these waters
there existed no 'before', there was no 'after'.
Form and matter, conjoined and separate,
came into being without defect,
shot like three arrows from a three-stringed bow.
And, as a ray shines right through glass, amber,
or crystal, so that between its presence
and its shining there is no lapse of time,
just so did the threefold creation flash --
with no intervals in its beginning --
from its Lord into being, all at once."

-- Beatrice tries to explain God's creation of the angels, before time began (Dante, Paradiso, Canto 29, trans. Robert Hollander)

À mon chevet: The Professor of Desire

À mon chevet is a series of posts featuring a quote from whatever book is on my nightstand at the moment.

In this scene, David Kepesh speaks with a disenfranchised Kafka scholar in Soviet-occupied Prague.

The smile, disguising God only knows the kind of expression he would like to show to the world. "Sir, I have made my position known. The entire country has made its position known. This way we live now is not what we had in mind. For myself, I cannot burn away what remains of my digestive tract by continuing to make this clear to our authorities seven days a week."

"And so what do you do instead?"

"I translate Moby Dick into Czech. Of course, a translation happens already to exist, a very fine one indeed. There is absolutely no need for another. But it is something I have always thought about, and now that I have nothing else pressing to be accomplished, well, why not? [...] Now, as you might imagine, this ambitious project, when completed, will be utterly useless for two reasons. First, there is no need for another translation, particularly one likely to be inferior to the distinguished translation we already have, and second, no translation of mine can be published in this country. In this way, you see, I am able to undertake what I would not otherwise have dared to do, without having to bother myself any longer worrying whether it is sensible or not. Indeed, some nights when I am working late, the futility of what I am doing would appear to be my deepest source of satisfaction.

-- Philip Roth, The Professor of Desire (1977), pp. 170-71

The middle volume of the three David Kepesh novels recounts the philandering academic's two marriages, one of which Roth's (unreliable) narrator appears to have forgotten (blocked out?) in the third volume, The Dying Animal. The passages about Kafka and Kepesh's thirst for knowledge about him on a trip to Prague are wonderful. Kepesh's three episodes, especially the first two books, have Kafka prominently in the background, something that Roth obviously delights in having his character openly explore.

Ionarts at Large: Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival

The first four of the Vienna Philharmonic’s five concerts at this year’s Salzburg Festival were conducted by Pierre Boulez, Jonathan Nott, Riccardo Muti, and Mariss Jansons, featured works by Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartók (Boulez), Bach, Mahler, Ives, Schubert (Nott), Brahms (Muti), Webern, Berlioz, and Brahms again (Jansons). The fifth program on the prepenultimate and penultimate days of the festival was conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and featured Mahler’s most Mahlerian Symphony – the overstuffed, intense, and exhilarating Third Symphony.


--> Full article on ClassicalWETA.org

Ionarts at Large: Notes from the ARD International Music Competition (Day 3)

When I woke up this morning, it was clear that more viola was what I needed to hear -- and more viola is what I got. My second day at the ARD International Music Competition started only some time around noon, mostly because I had to fortify myself with a solid breakfast to withstand the continued Reger Suite in g-minor assault. Part 3 (of 4) of the first round for violists offered 13 violists vying to advance to the stage where accommodations are paid for (insuring top motivation), of which I saw 9, starting with Megumi Kasakawa (Japan).

A colleague assured me that none of the previous candidates had displayed anything that I might have felt sorry missing. That he thought Mlle. Kasakawa's e-minor Reger Suite and Vieuxtemps Capriccio relatively successful compared to what had come before further made that point. Her Reger had bite, but blemishes; the notes (first bold, later cautions) were there, but not the meaning. The music sounded as unwieldy as it might actually be (but shouldn't sound like, anyway). The qualities that shone through in the Reger were put to good use in the Vieuxtemps, but most notable were the closing pizzicato chords. To hear the Bruch Romance was soothing to the ear in contrast with the constant Regers and Hindemiths. True to its name, it allowed Kasakawa to display a more expressive side. Pleasant indeed, if not necessarily exceptional.

“Exceptional” was long in the waiting on this third day – and it didn’t come with the school-boyish performances of Benedikt Schneider (Germany), either. The ecstatic, forlorn, and angry moments of the Vieuxtemps Capriccio were all missed. This piece is least suited to showcase technical skills, lest it be in the delicate yet confident way that Wen Xiao Zheng had done.

It has been a while, but I’ve dreamt of you, Reger Suite in g-minor! Schneider’s version, though, wasn’t what dreams are made out of. Too regular, too uneventful, too pale – event though very skilled throughout. Only the third movement had a good dash of vigor. Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata, on its way to becoming a new friend, was part of a continuous improvement that ended with some much needed confidence in presentation and tone.

Tomoko Akasaka (Japan) played her Vieuxtemps gently and with good incorporation of the double stops as voices, not hurdles. Her tone was rich and most agreeable and her steady work toward a climax and the subsequent release the best of the day so far, by far. The Reger D-major Suite was commendable for precision and tone – on the merits of which alone she should find herself in the second round. The Schumann op.113 Märchenbilder with which she opened allowed her to display explosivity and light-footedness on demand.

At 4PM, after Lunch break, Nathan Selman (United States) continued the competition with Hindemith Sonata op.25 no.1, from which he played the first three movements. It’s a popular work with violists, because they can show off their skills very well (Hindemith wasn’t a violist for nothing), but it’s not exactly what you would call beautiful, or even pleasurable music. “Dare to be ugly” or at least “dare to be bold” might have been his motto in composing it. And that’s exactly how Selman played this beastly work. He took the first movement by the horns and never shirked from it. Astounding purity and beauty of tone in the third movement and a fine, hushed pianissmo made this the most impressive interpretation yet.

Notes from the ARD Intl. Music Competition: Day 2: Viola Competition, Round 1 (2) (September 2) Day 3: Viola Competition, Round 1 (3) (September 3) Day 4: Viola Competition, Round 1 (4) (September 4) Day 5: String Quartet Competition, Round 1 (1) (September 5) Day 6: String QuartetCompetition, Round 1 (2) (September 6) Day 7: String QuartetCompetition, Round 1 (3) (September 7) Day 8: String QuartetCompetition, Round 2 (1) and Viola, Semi-Finals (September 8) Day 9: String QuartetCompetition, Round 2 (2) (September 9) Day 10: Viola, Final (September 10) Day 11: String Quartet, Semi-Finals (September 11) Day 12: Clarinet, Final (September 12) Days 13 & 14: String Quartet & Bassoon Finals (September 13 & 14)

Alas, both the ‘required pieces’ flopped. The Vieuxtemps was not completely unified and focused too much on producing a nice tone on accentuated notes while leaving the rest uncared for. In the Reger Suite in e-minor he didn’t get the high double stops under control and the work soon descended into a constant sense of struggle. The Adagio and Allegro vivace were a marked improvement, but a big wobble (just as I was jotting down the words “marked improvement”) in the former and a memory slip that swallowed two measures just before the end of the latter sabotaged the redeeming effect. The Hindemith would have strongly pointed to a second round appearance, but it is difficult to imagine that below average playing in both standard works would be overlooked by the jury.

Emanuelle Reiter (France) played a similar program, except that instead of cutting the last movement of the Hindemith, she cut the third – retaining the wild, mad ride of a buzzing finale and delighting the audience accordingly. The results were nearly as happy as Mr. Selman’s, with a tone that was every bit as full and a bit rounder, still. My new found familiarity of Reger’s g-minor Suite, slowly breeding contempt, also means that the bar of adequacy is now raised rather high. Mlle. Reiter offered more oversight than Sleman showed in his e-minor Suite, but the Andante sostenuto had its share of flaws. The Vieuxtemps didn’t sound suave enough, but offered a wiry, lean tone of considerable beauty. Altogether one of the better performances of the evening, though it would likely have lost out to several players on the stronger second day of the competition.

Her countrywoman Julie Risbet who also played the g-minor Suite, exhibited striking double stop combinations. Soft but without shrinking back from the notes and, to the music’s great satisfaction, taken equistrong throughout. This left a certain flow to this otherwise less than sinuous music. With a given of absolute precision and innate attention to the dynamic markings, she was free to focus on expressive matters, not worry about upcoming notes. Her Vieuxtemps was just as good – perhaps the first performance that really understood, and honed in on, the wistful nature of the work. Even her pizzicato chords – leaving a lingering question mark in the air – suggested so much. Last night I still had to ‘wiki’ Rebecca Clarke, now I can already hum her Violin Sonata – or at least its first movement. Mlle. Risbet’s rhythm and swing delighted, and I would be shocked if she did not continue to delight in the second round.

“Attention to the notes, not the meaning” is perhaps the single biggest cause for frustration when listening to the same piece over and over. Reger’s D-major Suite this time, and the violist Dimitry Murrath from Belgium. His Allegretto and Vivace were above this day’s average, but without the kick that might have made it stand out among other adequately played interpretations. The exact same might be said for his Capriccio. Tōru Takemitsu’s “A Bird Came Down the Walk” was the reason to listen to him carefully. Haunting colors, breathy touches, and squeaky portamentos with piano chords sprinkled throughout: ‘tis a tenuous web of music, barely possible to keep together – though Mr. Murrath did just that.

After having heard the Vieuxtemps Capriccio 16 times in just over 24 hours, I can more or less tell a successful performance from a dud in four bars or less. Teng Li (China) underlined that point with a disjointed opening and never proved me wrong thereafter. Her g-minor Reger Suite was blasé on the outside, and the relative blandness might just have obscured the fact that there was some very skillful playing beneath it. Not quite the kind that would win her a prize, but enough to want to give her a chance to show more of it. To some extend she did so in the Niccolò Paganini Sonata per la Grand Viola where she found her way from earnestness to humor and spunk, accounting for the first viola-induced smiles of the day.

The final participant of the day was Lotem Beider (Israel) – and one of the few to choose Paganini’s Caprice no.13 over the Vieuxtemps. Good to hear for a change, but at the same time a reminder why two thirds of the participants chose the Vieuxtemps (at least it’s a ‘native’ viola piece) anyway. Her Reger e-minor Suite was impressive – especially the second movement where the double stops where integrated in the music rather than letting the notes torture the instrument. Arad Atar, perhaps better known as a teacher (Indiana University) and the Cleveland Quartet’s violist in the 80s, provided Mlle. Beider with her choice work, the “Alla Bulgarese” from the Sonata for Viola Solo. Strange to the ears and difficult to make something specific of it, this improvisatory-like work quite eluded me after a long day of viola-listening.

Tomorrow I could run over to the Clarinets’ first round for cover, but having now stuck it out with the violists for two days, I think I shall remain loyal and listen to the last stage of the 1st round, too. After that I can then indulge in the much anticipated string quartet competition's first round on Friday.


Results from Day 2: Jing Yang (China), Wen Xiao Zheng (China), Sergey Malov (Russia), and Sun Yu (who I had not heard) advanced into the second round.


* Please note that "Fagott" simply means "Bassoon" in German.

Elizabeth Futral on Deck

The Washington National Opera naturally wants to increase the audience for opera in the nation's capital. To that end, its last couple seasons have featured a free simulcast of one of its productions via an immense screen on the National Mall. Large crowds have shown up, with better or worse results depending on the weather. This year, the company has just announced, it will slightly modify this program, by offering its free broadcast to crowds in Nationals Park, in imitation of a similar initiative at San Francisco Opera.

Take Me Out to the Opera (DCist, September 3)

UPDATE:
Anne Midgette, 'La Traviata's' Double Play (Washington Post, September 4)

Ionarts at Large: Notes from the ARD International Music Competition (Day 2)

Karl Leister, David Shifrin, Nicolas Baldeyrou, Yuri Bashmet, Kim Kashkashian, Klaus Thunemann, and the Tokyo-, Eder-, Auryn-, Petersen-, Mandelring-, Leipzig-, Artemis-, and Ébène string quartets: all these are former prize winners of the ARD International Music Competition in the four fields that offer prizes in 2008 (from September 1st until the 19th) as well: Clarinet, Bassoon, Viola, and String Quartet.

Among the most important competitions, the ARD Competition might be the least known compared to the Concour Reine Elisabeth (Queen Elisabeth Competition), the Paganini Competition, the Tchaikovsky Competition, and the Chopin Competition. That probably has to do with the breadth that the ARD Competition which has awarded prizes in 19 categories, not just for the more glamorous solo instruments violin or piano. Since 1952 the categories Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass, Trumpet, Trombone, Horn, Flute, Clarinet, Oboe, Bassoon, Piano, Harp, Percussion, Piano Duo, Piano Trio, String Quartet, Woodwind Quintet and Voice all take their turns at the competition. (2009 will featureVoice, Harp, Violin, and double Bass where past winners have included Jessye Norman, Thomas Quasthoff, Christian Tetzlaff, Measha Brueggergosman, Christa Ludwig, Erika Köth, and Francisco Araiza.)

This year I wanted to sit in on the performances, mostly to hear 16 excellent young string quartets, but also to discover unheard repertoire for instruments I'd not likely hear otherwise. I skipped Day 1, but this morning I trekked to Studio 1 of the Bavarian Broadcasting Service (BR) to listen to a batch of violists trying to get into the second round.

Notes from the ARD Intl. Music Competition: Day 2: Viola Competition, Round 1 (2) (September 2) Day 3: Viola Competition, Round 1 (3) (September 3) Day 4: Viola Competition, Round 1 (4) (September 4) Day 5: String Quartet Competition, Round 1 (1) (September 5) Day 6: String QuartetCompetition, Round 1 (2) (September 6) Day 7: String QuartetCompetition, Round 1 (3) (September 7) Day 8: String QuartetCompetition, Round 2 (1) and Viola, Semi-Finals (September 8) Day 9: String QuartetCompetition, Round 2 (2) (September 9) Day 10: Viola, Final (September 10) Day 11: String Quartet, Semi-Finals (September 11) Day 12: Clarinet, Final (September 12) Days 13 & 14: String Quartet & Bassoon Finals (September 13 & 14)

The Asian contingent is present in full force among the total of 198 competing musicians, with 13 musicians from Korea, Japan, and China, each. The US also has 13 participants in the race, only outnumbered by the French (19) and the hosts (29). I watched and listened to 8 out of the 56 hopeful participating violists - and for all the beauty a viola can emit, I can't say I envy the task of the jury whittling them down in just three days.

Some time after 11am Meng Xu (China) introduced me to the Max Reger Suite for Solo Viola op.131d in g-minor. What a beautiful work - Bach's paws all over it, of course - and how fine it sounds, even if Ms. Meng produces some extraneous noises (nervousness?) and underplayed the double stops by accentuating the 'lead' voice. Her tone strong and full, but her presentation of the music perhaps to eager and up-front.

Henry Vieuxtemps' posthumously published Capriccio in c-minor is also surprisingly fine music - a lyrical touch that moves immediately. So after two works, I conclude that listening to unadulterated viola for a whole day promises to be not half the threat it looked like, at first. Even a buzz-saw Paganini Caprice (op.1, no.13) didn't deter me.

Jing Yang (China) came on, now, and another chance to hear the Reger g-minor Suite. Neither this nor the 24th Paganini Caprice were particularly impressive (too blasé, too immature?), when she suddenly played the Vieuxtemps Capriccio (hello, again!) in the most felt and delicate manner. Easily the best performance of that Capriccio which I was to hear five more times after that. For the Vieuxtempts alone I'd like to hear what else she might be able to do in the next round.

Seungwon Lee from Korea enabled me to really get to know the Reger g-minor Suite. But even with his beautiful tone in the second movement (full but not thick), and the Viola-as-sport third movement, it seemed like the piece was getting five minutes longer for every time I heard it. Not as long as the Hindemith op.25, no.1, though: not a piece for cheer, even if it was better played than, yes, the Vieuxtemps Capriccio where Lee tried too hard, hadn't the long line in mind, was stuck in the moment, and closed with two completely uninspired pizzicato chords.

By the time Vladimir Babeshko started the g-minor Suite, I had developed a small-scale hatred for Reger. Babeshko's performance, very self-conscious, though not audibly to the music's detriment, had its moments, but overt breathing undermined it. His Vieuxtemps Capriccio (it should be noted that the Capriccio was by no means mandatory, but one of five possible choices) was so stolid, it barely registered with me. The Enescu Concert Piece for viola and piano was a relief on the ears (fatigue was setting in, already), and well prepared.

Before Lunch break, Ryo Oshima (Japan) presented the most mature performance of the - you guessed it - Reger g-minor Suite up to that point. That I was able to listen with interest again speaks to his lean and sinuous tone and playing of admirable purpose. His uncompromising, unerring rendition simply demanded a certain degree of attention. Hindemith op.11, no.5 "In shape and meter of a Passacaglia" was interminable, even if occasionally sparkling with the wit that betrays the violist-composer behind it. His Bartolommeo Campagnoli Caprice no.17 was impressive for the technical facility alone, and much appreciated alone for not being the Capriccio. Certainly a violist I might like to hear in the second round again.

The same can be said for Wen Xiao Zheng (China). His Vieuxtemps was silver-threaded, see-through, very fine, detailed and fragile - though slowly gaining in momentum to be an appropriate curtain raiser. There was more skill on display than with Jing Yang's performance, if not as much lyrical beauty. His Reger Suite - lo and behold the e-minor! - was a model of controlled and confident playing... getting even something resembling joy and wit out of this Reger piece. Rebecca Clarke's 1919 Viola Sonata was one of those reasons I had come in the first place: such pretty 20th century music so well played and so many different textures for the soloist to show off! Rumors of Wen Xiao Zheng being a favorite for a prize in the viola competition were impressively affirmed.

Sergey Malov (Russia) then achieved the feat of the day: He made the Reger g-minor Suite not just listenable, but enjoyable again! Tight, energetic, coherent: he put more Bach in it, and it worked terrifically well. I won't and don't want to hear all 29 participants who have chosen the g-minor among the three Reger Suites and the Adolf Busch Suite op.16a that were offered (18 performers chose the e-minor, 9 the D-major, none the Busch), but it is difficult to imagine it getting much better. A little too romantically driven the Vieuxtemps Capriccio, perhaps, but a remarkable Britten excerpt from "Reflections on a song by Dowland" where his tone became a completely different one from the preceding pieces: Eerie, hollow, and shifting colors.

Soo-Min Lee (Korea) was a small step down from that: husky her Reger D-major Suite, a bit pale in the second movement and without a stable arch. The Vieuxtempts was played with panache, on the lyrical side but never flagging intensity. Not great, but good. Unfortunately the beautiful Schumann Fantasiestück op.73 wasn't terribly interesting.

Tomorrow the Violas continue, on Thursday the Clarinets start, and the String Quartet competition gets under way on the 5th. Depending on how I feel about Reger in the morning, I'll continue with the violas or wait for the clarinets, in either case looking forward to some Beethoven op.18 on Friday.

Waiting for the Barbarians

Glass, Waiting for the Barbarians, R. Salter, E. Perry, Philharmonisches Orchester Erfurt, D. R. Davies (released June 3, 2008) Orange Mountain Music 0039 J. M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians

Philip Glass premiered this opera, his twenty-first, at Germany's Theatre Erfurt in 2005. Christopher Hampton adapted the libretto for Waiting for the Barbarians from J. M. Coetzee's 1980 novel of the same name. The story is set in an unspecified town at the edge of an empire, embroiled in a conflict with an unspecified adversary. The characters' xenophobic, racist paranoia justifies, in their minds, their inflammatory tactics, including taking prisoners, interrogating them under torture, and summarily executing them without trial. Coetzee, a Cape Town-born author who won the Nobel Prize in 2003, had the South African apartheid era in mind, but when Glass approached the work as an opera, it was against the background of the American invasion of Iraq and the Abu Ghraib scandal.

A government official, a magistrate in a small imperial outpost, begins to disapprove of his government's conflict against a faceless enemy group, the "barbarians." He watches as a colonel and other army officers take over the prosecution of the war in his town. By becoming involved with a barbarian prisoner and trying to stop the torture, the Magistrate becomes a suspect and is himself tortured, which turns the tables on the government but ultimately makes the punishment fall on a man who tried to stop these illegal practices. Some superficial similarities invite comparison to Kaija Saariaho's Adriana Mater, premiered one year later in 2006: the scenes are connected by "dreamscape" orchestral interludes, the action is commented on by a faceless chorus placed in the pit, the horrors of a society at war are communicated through a small group of individuals.

The live recording on this 2-CD set was made not during the opera's premiere run, in Erfurt in September 2005, but at a 2006 Amsterdam performance by the same forces (although that information is not found in the liner materials). There are more than enough glitches and noises to convince the listener of the value of studio recording (there are also several tracking errors on my second disc, especially in the final tracks). Musically, it is not always the most polished performance. Singers more than once fall out of time with the orchestra, and the solo voices are captured in a close sound that exposes some odd qualities. Glass's music, no surprise, is in the style that one associates with him, but not as austere a version of minimalism as heard in the much earlier Satyagraha, for example. The orchestration is tinged with interesting colors, more varied than some other Glass works, with percussion added, for example, to the wavelike repetitions of short motifs. As I have felt before with Glass, the music would work better with its visual component (Glass's forte, I remain convinced, is the film score). Waiting for the Barbarians is a significant and timely work, but not a home run.

133'46"

More Mozart Concerti

Mozart, Last Concertos (K. 595 and 622), A. Staier, L. Coppola, Freiburger Barockorchester, G. von der Goltz (released February 12, 2008) Harmonia Mundi HMC 901980 Vol. 1 Vol. 2 Online scores: Neue Mozart-Ausgabe

There are so many series of new Mozart concerto recordings being released at the moment. Two of the more traditional, but chamber-minded combinations, featuring Maurizio Pollini and Leif Ove Andsnes, have been under review recently. Having grown up loving the Mozart playing of Alicia de Larrocha with the English Chamber Orchestra, I still favor the historically informed performance (HIP) recordings by Academy of Ancient Music with Robert Levin on fortepiano. On this recent release of Mozart's last piano concerto, with which the composer gave his final appearance as soloist on March 4, 1791, Andreas Staier plays an excellent Christoph Kern reconstruction of an Anton Walter fortepiano. It is the latest installment of a Mozart series by the Freiburger Barockorchester, not devoted exclusively to piano concerti, but following up on discs that include the flute and harp concerto and the wind concerti. The sound of the ensemble of 18th-century specialists is so rarefied (18 strings plus wind soloists on period instruments) that it melds seamlessly with the lighter tone of the fortepiano, as well as a reproduction of Anton Stadler's basset clarinet (or clarinette d'amour in A, by Agnès Guéroult) played with subtle attention to delicate colors by Lorenzo Coppola. His is one of the most satisfying performances of Mozart's truly exquisite clarinet concerto, one of the last pieces Mozart completed, although it was first sketched out a few years earlier. This disc is also unusual in that it relies on manuscript details for some of the interpretation. The clarinet concerto is an attempted reconstruction of the original basset clarinet version, and the piano concerto uses only a string quartet to accompany the soloist when the score is marked "solo" (as opposed to the marking of "tutti"), as well as original cadenzas by Andreas Staier. 59'23"

Mozart, K. 467 and 595, D. Barenboim, English Chamber Orchestra (1997) Seraphim Classics 7243 5 73572 2 7

While Daniel Barenboim is a great musician, his Mozart has always left me a little cold, a judgment that was reinforced while listening to the now cut-rate version of these two Mozart piano concerti. By comparison to the leanness of the Freiburg ensemble, Barenboim's tempi (he was both conductor and soloist) sound flabby, with the length of each movement in no. 27 exceeding Staier's timings by about a minute. Barenboim's take on no. 21 is pleasingly light-handed in the first movement (overall it is the more pleasing of the pair on this disc), but the famous second movement, marked Andante, is too sentimental, almost seeming stuck in molasses. One is reminded of the comments of René Jacobs about how familiarity with the score of Don Giovanni led to the gradual slowing of its most famous passages. The second movement of piano concerto no. 21 (K. 467) is likely the most famous of the Mozart canon, since its use in a film from which it has derived a nickname, and Barenboim's reading of it seems similarly burdened with accumulated nostalgia. Still, the playing, of both Barenboim and the English Chamber Orchestra, is able and sensitive, and Barenboim offers his own cadenzas, quite striking, for no. 21. 63'22"

Mozart, Early Piano Concertos (K. 175, 238, 246), D. Greilsammer, Suedama Ensemble (released August 26, 2008) Naïve V 5149

Jerusalem-born pianist David Greilsammer inaugurates what may turn out to be a complete traversal of the Mozart piano concerti, with the Suedama Ensemble (this disc is actually a re-release of an older recording with Vanguard Classics, to celebrate Greilsammer's new contract with Naïve). The instruments are not 18th-century ones, least of all the Hamburg Steinway under Greilsammer's fingertips. This set of three concertos (nos. 5, 6, and 8) are Mozart's first as an adult composer, dating from his late teenage years in Salzburg. (His first four concertos, from Mozart's early adolescence, are juvenile arrangements of other composers' music.) Of the 27 concertos left by Mozart, these three are some of the least often played, but Greilsammer approaches them with freshness and dedication to their attractive qualities, adding embellishments here and there and even replacing Mozart's cadenzas with his own. Greilsammer, who studied at Juilliard and with Richard Goode, has something of an obsession with Mozart, having played a one-day continuous marathon cycle of the Mozart sonatas in Paris earlier this year. He and the Suedama Ensemble, of which he is the artistic director, approach these youthful works with vibrancy, keeping the fast movements ebullient but not harried and the slow ones graceful but not static. Certainly, these are performances that show the early Mozart piano concertos in their best light. Greilsammer and the Suedama Ensemble will perform this fall (December 11) at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. Mozart's 22nd piano concerto is on the program. 62'05"