Georges Bizet's Carmen is so popular that it suffers somewhat
from overexposure, but his writing is superb, clear and seemingly
effortless, with very catchy melodies. Carmen eventually found strong
advocates in Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Wagner, which certainly speaks
well for it. Bizet's short life included several now popular compositions
whose brilliance may be somewhat masked by their easy beauty.
Conductor Mark Ermler's performance of the first and second Suites
leading the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, paired on CD with Grieg's
Peer Gynt, is just about perfect: lively, but tastefully paced
and well-recorded.
Taking a closer listen to the CD and reading the liner notes
it seems this recording was multi-miked, using
"up to forty-eight carefully positioned microphones" and
likely utilized Sony equipment, and the resulting sound is
unnaturally close and bright, which is unfortunate. A
more natural recording technique could have resulted in a
much more pleasant listening experience and realistic perspective.
KDFC's San Francisco Opera broadcast of
Carlisle Floyd's
Susannah,
based on the fable
Susannah
and the Elders,
has interesting vocal writing, a mix of Americana,
and pretty orchestral writing.
The string orchestration in particular is bit like a denser,
richer, more indulgent Copland.
It strikes me as some of the best string writing I've heard
from an American composer.
The vocal writing is nearly as apt as the strings, generally
suiting the instrument very well
and, like the strings, demonstrating an unusual beauty.
Brass and percussion writing are also outstanding.
All the parts are perhaps a bit too strong and bold,
or the contrast of the quieter, delicate parts isn't as well handled.
That said, the brash, dramatic, emotive style fits the
repressed anxiety underlying the American psyche very well.
Thematically, the opera brings up righteous protestant guilt,
presumption, lust, innuendo and paranoia.
Premiering in 1955,
these can be interpreted as echos of historic witchunts forward
into an era of McCarthyism. These explain a context
by attempting to explore its basis in culture.
Michael Torke's
composition Stiltsville on his late 2014 album "Miami Grands"
played on 12 pianos has interesting polyrhythms that
beat like rock or jazz. The music has texture, color
and structure that are perhaps in part a product of his synesthesia.
Synesthetes have neural pathways that can can cause sensations
like seeing sounds as colors, and perhaps he's able to combine
strong musical ability and understanding of music theory, and lots
of effort and exploration with his unique perception of sound
(and color, and light and other senses...) to produce extraordinary results.
KDFC broadcast the San Francisco Opera's
September 2013 performance of
Norma by Vincenzo Bellini with soprano
Sondra Radvanovsky in the lead role.
The orchestral overture reminded me most of Mozart,
and the vocal sections were very pretty, with
very long melodies, fairly simple yet rich harmonies,
excellent instrumentation, and
appealing solo lines both for the players and singers.
In Norma, Bellini seems to have followed his teacher Zingarelli's
advice to find great melody and present it simply.
The result is spectacularly enjoyable if a bit simplistic.
Bellini is a very appealing, talented and accomplished composer.
Based on a single exposure, I'd be tempted to put him almost on par
with Mozart, but in a distinctly Italianate early Romantic
context. Sentimental, his music builds on classical structure
with just enough artifice to support series of lovely melodies.
The result is delightful and unusually tasteful,
neither dry classicism nor bombastic romanticism,
but pleasantly-balanced, good music.
Check out Jian Wang's playing of
Saint Saens' Swan
on YouTube.
His tone is pure, playing effortless, articulation perfectly clean,
artistry and emotion beautiful.
His conceptions of the pieces are masterfully formed and slightly
unconventional, but completely consistent and true to the music.
His use of dynamics is natural yet appealing and really draw the
listener in.
Arthur Sullivan's Cello concerto as played by
Julian Lloyd Webber and London Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Charles Mackerras is a disappointment.
The playing by the orchestra is fine, and the soloist
workmanlike, but the composition is almost painfully bad.
The soloist's parts are simplistic, and not in a good, minimalist way,
but in the sense of lacking depth, intellect, beauty, interest.
The orchestra's parts are competently written, but not really noteworthy.
Definitely not one of the best cello concerti.
There's so little of note to even recommend listening.
I happened to hear Yo-Yo Ma's Haydn Cello Concerti
with the English Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Jose-Luis Garcia
just before
Johann Christian Bach's
Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Cello in A major, C 34
played on the radio.
The latter performance also happened to feature Ma on cello, but
with Pinchas Zukerman conducting the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra from
his violin.
What really struck me hearing the Bach and Haydn together was their
similarity, with Bach only a few years Haydn's junior.
Haydn's work is structurally and stylistically more complex
and also melodically more rewarding, but the J. C. Bach
was equally pleasant musically, if in much simpler form.
The comparison is of course aided by both being cello concertanti.
Ma's performance of the Haydn is clean and relatively unsentimental,
which seems appropriate for the Classical period, though Haydn
interpreted with a romantic sensibility finds willing support in
his characteristic singing melodies.
The J. C. Bach was a revelation; a Galant period piece with
little baroque counterpoint, short pleasant melodies: a seeming
preview of the Romantic period. Haydn also presaged Romanticism
to the extent that he always had a strong focus on beautiful melody
while working within rigorous and fundamentally sound classical
structures. Haydn is admirable for his bridging and advancing of
music from Baroque through Classical periods, while not
excluding the future Romantic revolution.
J. C. Bach's surprisingly pretty Concertante revealed a
transition between Baroque and Classical that seems
more liberated and evocative than either, exemplifying
the distinct and tuneful Galant period well.
As an aside, the Sony (CBS?) Haydn recording is disappointing,
with oversteely solo cello, generally indistinct sound, and some
very poor edits, even while the playing is excellent.
Maxim Vengerov's version of Edward Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole
with Antonio Pappano leading the Philharmonia Orchestra on 2003's out
of print EMI CD 57593 is marvelously well conceived and played.
Vengerov brings a playful lightness which suits the music so much
better than oft heard heavy-handed histrionics.
The Philharmonia is a perfectly appropriate playful partner.
Together they show a real joy for the music
as a lively, witty conversation between two friends.
The piece is so commonly overplayed by others
as to make most performances nearly unlistenable.
This very refreshing performance de-workhorses the piece for me.
Thank you Mr. Vengerov and Maestro Pappano.
Very nice recording also, though clearly close miked on the soloist
with possible extra spot mikes in the orchestra. While this works
artistically for the light and airy reading, it's not the right
way to do recordings in general since it destroys the natural sound field.
The sound on Telarc's 2002 "The Fantastic Stokowski Transcriptions"
CD 80338 is phenomenal. The massed horn sound on his transcription
of Great Gate of Kiev is startlingly good, and Stokowski's arrangement
masterful.
Rachmaninoff's piano works are arguably at the zenith of the arc of music.
Martha Argerich and Lilya Zilberstein give a spine-chilling performance
of his Suite No. 1 on EMI CD 67051
"Martha Argerich And Friends - Live From The Lugano Festival 2008".
The music and performance are sublime beyond words.
The energy is phenomenal and technique very strong.
Nice recording, good instrument and hall sound, if a bit close miked.
The 3 disc set includes chamber works by
Schumann, Mozart, Shostakovich, Arensky, Dvorák,
Saint-Saëns, Piazzolla and others, with a host of collaborators,
mostly other pianists, but also some chamber players.
Murray Perahia gives a fine performance of Johann Samuel Schroeter's
third Piano Concerto with the English Chamber Orchestra
on CBS CD 39222, conducting from the keyboard.
The first three pieces on the disc are Mozart's first
piano concerti, and what's most remarkable is that Schroeter's
could easily be taken to be one of these early Mozart works.
Schroeter's third concerto is structurally a bit simpler and more
ornate than Mozart's later works, but has its own dazzling
beauty nonetheless. Perahia's keyboard playing has the
wonderfully clear, pealing bell-like tone that he's famous for,
and the recording is generally good, though very close-miked
on the soloist as is unfortunately far too common.
Joseph Haydn found Schroeter's music charming, as he did
the other composer's widower Rebecca Schroeter.
She was Haydn's lover and main muse during his London years.
Previously I had not found much Baroque music I enjoyed or
found interesting aside from J. S. Bach and to a lesser degree
G. F. Handel. That changed when
KDFC broadcast an oboe and orchestral arrangement of Domenico Zipoli's
All'Elevazione played by oboist Gordon Hunt and harpsichordist
Leslie Pearson with Hunt
also conducting the
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra on Bis CD #5017.
Zipoli was regarded as the most accomplished Jesuit musician,
and his composition is truly exceptional: well-structured,
beautiful, spiritual. It has an Italian sense of
balance and proportion several decades before the classical
period of Italian music.
It also has a baroque delicacy, but its ornamentation
is tastefully human and not ostentatious or superfluous.
Unlike other
baroque writing it does not feel like a mere exercise in form.
Searching for Zipoli's music on YouTube, mostly choral
works accompanied by harpsichord and strings reveal a range
of sublimely well-written, uplifting, pretty pieces.
Above all Zipoli's music exists to elevate the human spirit,
and it does so beautifully.
1903's Slovak Suite by Bohemian nationalist Vitezslav Novak
is lushy paleo-romantic; maybe a bit too rich, but a very
beautiful piece. Conductor Karel Sejna leads the
Brno State Philharmonic Orchestra on CD Supraphon 110682
in a wonderful interpretation that is surely close to their
own mostly Bohemian hearts.
Howard Shelley's performance of the Mendelssohn Piano Concerti
with the London Mozart Players on 1994's Chandos 9215 is
jovial and lively in the outer movements and charming and languid
in the inner movements.
Sound as usual for Chandos is excellent, with nice hall sound from
both soloist and orchestra, though it still sounds a bit close
miked or even possibly spot-miked. Due to the somewhat close
miking, all the instruments sound more prominent than they would be
if heard as a live audience.
Got the first three Soft Machine albums on CD. The first two,
from 1968 and 1969 are most like a fusion of jazz and progressive
rock, sounding more towards the jazz end of the spectrum.
The third keeps some jazz influences but is more towards
a fusion of mostly progressive/art rock and modern classical
music. It's all very artfully conceived and nicely played and
shows an unusually deep understanding of all three genres of music.
It's also fairly timeless which speaks well to its universality
and quality. This unusual music is definitely worth experiencing
and enjoying. Soft Machine opened for Jimi Hendrix
in his first U.S. tour and stole the show according to many.
Hubert Parry's First Symphony is well above average.
At times sounding like a rambling and less-focused
Brahms, Wagner and Elgar, its construction is nonetheless competent
with lots of interesting devices and pretty melodies.
Parry was a very gifted English composer who eventually
became music professor at Oxford and director of the
Royal College of Music where his students included
Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst.
Parry is better known for his choral works including many oratorios
and songs such as "Jerusalem".`
Even before the first notes of T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday"
on "The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East", it's clear
this is an outstanding live recording. Hall sound is
perfectly captured even in the noise before the song.
The performance is a fantastic rock-tinged blues number
that would be credible in any jazz or blues club
from the Northeast to the deep South.
Other tracks from Statesboro Blues to Whipping Post
range from straight ahead Southern rockers to
jazz-influenced blues.
Throughout all is superb music-making and excellent sound.
Delos' CD "Heaven and Hell" DE 3217 is a collection
of Mussorgsky orchestral works by the New Jersey Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Zdenek Macal in 1996.
Like other recordings engineered by
John Eargle,
the sound quality is excellent.
The disc starts with the choral and orchestral scene
"Dream of the Peasant Gritzko"
from Vissarion Schebalin's arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's
unfinished opera Sorochinsky Fair.
The piece is a different take on
his Night on Bald Mountain theme in the
context of a witches' wild dance followed by a weary dawn.
Choral and instrumental performance sound are excellent.
Vocal distinction, hall reverberation, drum, wind, brass and string
sound are really exemplary. Really its excellent all around.
The Introduction and scene "Galitsin's Journey" from Mussorgsky's
opera Khovanshchina as arranged by Rimsky-Korsakov is next.
As usual Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestrations are superb. Both set
the sad mood of the opera with some of the best orchestral writing.
The Introduction can easily stand on its own as a showpiece of
symphonic grace, beauty and charm.
This is my favorite piece on the program.
Fairly minimalist recording (perhaps 3 stereo pairs) presents
the soloists and groups of instruments
in a very coherent space.
Performances are perfectly attuned to the music; Macal
conveys his innate understanding of the works
seemingly effortlessly through the orchestra.
And that's not at all easy to do. Great players, great conducting.
The final pice is a wonderfully-well played and recored
Pictures at an Exhibition as arranged by Ravel.
Instrumental sound is exemplary, and the interpretation
is artful.
Maxim Vengerov gives a very fine performance of
Beethoven's supremely pretty Romance in F,
wonderfully accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra
led by Mstislav Rostropovich
on EMI 2006's CD 36403.
The recording is very nice, if close-miked.
As usual, close miking results in some balance problems
since the dynamics of individual instruments
have an almost totally artificial relationship to each other.
Live music played in a real space has a much
more favorable balance of instrumental dynamics
than close-miked recordings,
because they are real sounds sources in a real space.
You do not hear a concert with your ear a half meter
away from every instrument. Recordings shouldn't
be made that way either if they are to sound realistic.
Some reviewers on Amazon complained bitterly of the
slower than typical tempo, but most modern performances
of classical music are too fast, some grotesquely so.
Beethoven's score is marked Adagio Cantabile, meaning literally
easy and singing, or stately, lyrical and flowing
at about 66 to 76 beats per minute.
Most other modern recordings seem significantly faster than
Beethoven intended.
Faster often is not better, especially with classical music.
Samuel Wesley's composition in his Symphony #4 in D
has classical elegance but enough musical interest to
rise above other writing in the period.
A contemporary of Mozart, Welsley reminds me a bit more of Haydn
or Handel, though he's often called the "English Mozart".
Hilary Davan Wetton's conducting of the
Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra on Unicorn CD 9098
is perhaps a bit too fast paced, but still lets the pretty
structure of the piece unfold gracefully and presents its
twists and turns nicely.
Wikipedia bio says Samuel's uncle John Wesley was
the founder of the Methodist church.
Sergei Taneyev's Andantino Semplice on Musician's Showcase 042899
is a study in purity of musical line and counterpoint.
Well played here by pianist Todd Crow, the piece
weaves vibrant structure and color using relatively few notes
to showcase Taneyev's great skill as both a music
theorist and practitioner.
Taneyev was deeply involved in the Russian Romantic
scene as composer, teacher and performer.
For example, he gave the Moscow premieres of Tchaikovsky's
First and Second Piano Concerti, Brahms' First, and others.
Taneyev eventually took over Tchaikovsky's
position teaching harmony at the Moscow Conservatory.
Englebert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel Overture is
wonderfully well-written. Humperdinck (not to be confused
with the 1960's Indian-English pop singer who later took his name)
was a late Romantic German student of Wagner, Rheinberger and Hiller.
He composed a 4 part opera for his nieces' Hansel and Gretel
puppet show at home, then expanded it to a full opera.
It immediately became a great favorite throughout the world
around the turn of the 20th century.
The writing is simultaneously lighthearted yet sophisticated,
whimsical yet respectful of the deeply-rooted
folk themes and mythology. Orchestrations and
general writing technique are expert and pretty.
It's music that's both wildly popular and highly competent,
seemingly an unusual combination where great artists are
more commonly unappreciated in their own time.
I'm not sure that I'd call Humperdinck great, but
his Hansel and Gretel is very, very good.
The Bamberg Symphony gives a nice performance
under Karl Anton Rickenbacher on Virgin Classics 61128.
Additional Humperdinck pieces such as Konigskinder
continue to impress with excellent arrangement
and resulting rich tone colors. Like Wagner, horn
arrangement really stands out. Stings and
woodwinds also excellent. The pieces are so
well orchestrated that they stand head and shoulders
above most other late romantic works. Konigskinder
has concert horns, tubas, soulful oboe or cor anglais,
tastefully integrated harp; really a large Romantic
orchestra superbly utilized.
Stephen Hough gives a nice performance of Robert Schumann's
imaginary Davidbundlertanze (Dances of David's League)
on Virgin Classics 90770. I often find Hough's playing too
literal and even-keeled, though some Romantic pieces can
benefit from a suggestion of classical restraint.
Structure is always important, including in romantic works,
and Hough's emotional designs seem well thought through.
Hough certainly gives an appropriately
lyrical reading of these conversations
between mythical figures realized
loosely in the form of dances.
Luigi Boccherini's Cello Concerto in B flat is a revelation.
It's graceful and well-structured,
yet bright, joyous and playful in a way that seems
to fit the Romantic period much better than its Classical period.
A contemporary of Joseph Haydn, Boccherini was Italian
born and studied in Italy and Vienna,
but spent most of his days composing in Spain.
I associate most of his work with more of a restrained,
almost mechanical classical style, but the B flat concerto
doesn't fit that perception at all.
Jacqueline du Pre's performance of the Boccherini with Daniel Barenboim
conducting the English Chamber Orchestra is, like all
of her work, wonderous. She not only makes everything
she plays distinctly her own, but emotes and conceives so well
that her interpretations become exemplars of how well
the pieces could be played, but too seldom are.
The world lost one its greatest artists when Du Pre passed
away far too young in 1987. We are fortunate to have
her brilliant recordings through which to remember her.
I feel fortunate to have picked up a box set of her performances
at Amazon, EMI's 1990 reissue collection called
"Favourite Cello Concertos", which includes
Elgar, Boccherini, Dvorak, Saint-Saens, Haydn, Monn, and
Schumann concerti.
Conductors are Barenboim with the English Chamber Orchestra
and Barbirolli with the London Symphony Orchestra.
Researching writers of some of the big Heart hits like
"What About Love", "Alone", and "These Dreams" led to some
surprises in finding that these beautiful songs were
not written by Heart.
"What About Love" was a romantic power ballad written by the
American-Canadian band Toronto in 1982. Toronto could not get
"What About Love" onto their album "Get It On Credit"
due to lack of perceived commercial appeal.
A song promoter later heard it from co-writer Brian Allen
and though it could be good for Heart. The song
which Toronto's producer thought lacked commercial appeal
turned into a global top 10 hit for Heart.
The Heart arrangement is a bit better worked out and richer
with some vocal and instrumental harmonies added and minor
adjustments for more musical vocal lines. But Toronto lead singer
Holly Woods easily gives Ann Wilson a run for her money
on this and other songs, and the overall sound and feel of
"What About Love" is largely the same in the Heart version.
Holly Woods' performance on Toronto's "Get It On Credit" is
strong throughout, as is the writing and playing in general.
Toronto opened for some huge bands like Journey, Robert Palmer,
Foreigner, Ted Nugent, Nazareth. Their sound and writing
on "Get It On Credit" is a perfect mix of '80s hard rock,
female-led vocal harmonies and a tinge of punk. "You're A
Mystery To Me" and other songs on the album like
"Why Can't We Talk" could easily be
mistaken for the reinvigorated Heart of 1985.
Did Toronto show Heart they way back to success?
The autobiographical "Across The Border"
which traces the band from North Carolina to Canada
easily could be mistaken for Jefferson Starship,
and Starship lead vocalists Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas
can be heard backing up harmonies on Toronto's
"What About Love."
(Holly Woods came to Toronto from San Francisco, where she
fronted two bands. Presumably Slick and Thomas knew Woods from
the local music scene in San Francisco.)
Did anthematic rocker "Across the Border" inspire Taupin and Page
to write "We Built This City" for the Starship?
"Your Daddy Don't Know" is a catchy pop tune that sounds a lot
like Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl." Canadian superband
The New Pornographers did a great, slightly-edgier cover of
"Your Daddy Don't Know" in 2003.
"These Dreams" was written by Bernie Taupin and Martin Page.
Taupin is perhaps best known as Elton John's lyricist on
many of his songs. Taupin and Page also wrote the oft-maligned
but wonderful rock anthem "We Built This City" for Jefferson Starship
around the same time. Page and Taupin also separately
wrote hits for several other artists.
Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly are another composing duo who wrote
"Alone" for Heart. Steinberg and Kelly also
wrote the hits "In Your Room" and "Eternal Flame" for
The Bangles,
"Like A Virgin" for Madonna,
"I'll Stand By You" with Chrissie Hynde for The Pretenders,
"I Drove All Night" which Cyndi Lauper, Roy Orbison
and Celine Dion recorded, "True Colors" with interesting
versions by Cyndi Lauper and Phil Collins, and more.
Steinberg wrote "Precious Time" for Pat Benetar, "How Do I Make You?"
for Linda Ronstadt, others.
Prior to checking out these writers I wasn't aware of the
connection between these really strong works. In some cases
they are the strongest writing of some of these bands.
Another cool connection is that the wonderful Bangles tune
"If She Knew What She Wants" was written by Jules Shear,
who also wrote "All Through the Night" which Cyndi Lauper
had earlier charted with.
"If She Knew What She Wants" is a lovely pop tune
with a call and response between the lead vocal and
really pretty multi-part harmonies.
Its guitar lines are vaguely reminiscent of the Beatles.
The combination of wonderful melody, driving beat and
perfectly-crafted harmonies is beguiling; great songwriting.
Shear's Paisley Underground writing style is also
readily apparent in the title track of
Til Tuesday's "Everything's Different Now".
The breakup song "J for Jules" on that same album
is named after Shear who had recently broken up with
Til Tuesday's lead singer and writer Aimee Mann.
As professor of composition at the Royal College of Music in London,
Charles Stanford taught well a number of very gifted students,
including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams,
John Ireland, Frank Bridge, Charles Wood. For example,
Frank Bridge's orchestral suite The Sea
boldly sweeps a late romantic treatise on the seas in the full
range of their powerful fury, sweet calm, roiling storms, flashing
thunder and constant motion.
Bridge's brilliant writing creates vivid scenes that
remind me of a series of dramatic paintings.
Vernon Handley's recording with the Ulster Orchestra on Chandos 10426
is noteworthy for a very sensitive, thoughtful, appropriately edgy
and energetic reading and Chandos' usual excellence of recording.
Gordon Jacob's 1951 Concerto for Horn and Strings
is modern, funny and interesting. It's modern in the
sense of innovative modalities as opposed to a
consciously modernistic style. The performance
on French Horn by Sören Hermansson
with the Umeå Sinfonietta
conducted by Edvard Tjivzjel on BIS 376 is lively and
engaging.
The CD includes horn and orchestral works by
Lars-Erik Larsson, Mátyás Seiber, Max Reger, Kurt Atterberg.
Mozart's Concerto for 3 Pianos in F, K. 242
is wonderfully played and recorded on CBC 5240
with pianists Ian, James, and Jon Kimura Parker
and the CBC Radio Orchestra conducted by Mario Bernardi.
It's a playful, happy, fun piece Amadeus wrote for
Countess Antonia Lodron and her two daughters.
January 2006 live audience recordings at
Vancouver, BC's Chan Center also
include the K. 467 Concerto number 21
and K. 365 Concerto for 2 Pianos. Cadenzas on all three
pieces are written by John;
particularly rocking is his charming K. 467 cadezna,
which conceals a quotation from the 1950's Superman TV series.
All three concerti are delightful performances,
a bit close miked on the piano(s).
Sonics and especially performance on
"Murray Perhia Plays Handel And Scarlatti" are outstanding.
Multiple award winning, Sony's 1997 CD 62785 features Handel's Chacone
and Variations in G Major, Suite for Harpsichord in E major,
Suites in D minor and F major, and a collection of 7 Scarlatti Sonati.
The Chacone in particular reminds of J. S. Bach.
All are harpsichord compositions played on a modern piano.
Perhia takes a grandiose and disciplined but intelligently
intoned line through these baroque masterpieces.
Andrew Pearce's Elegy for Violin and Orchestra fuses his interest
in film scores with classical composition. It's a pretty,
sophisticated piece rooted mostly in the Romantic tradition
but with some modern idioms, particularly in the soloist's lines.
It joins Pearce's "Cinema Orchestra" and "Celtic Warrior: Prelude for
Orchestra" on MovieScore Media CD MMS08023 with the Royal Scottish
National Orchestra conducted by Jose Serebrier.
These very nice recent classical compositions are well performed.
Marin Alsop's conducting of the Baltimore Symphony performing
Dvorak's 9th Symphony grabbed my rapt attention from the first
notes of hearing the Largo slow movement on KDFC.
It's stunningly beautifully recorded on Naxos' 2008 CD 8570714.
The clarity, coherence and simplicity of the recording lets the
artful interpretation and excellent musicianship shine brilliantly.
Every note is beautifully conceived and flows purposefully
into the next. Pacing is unhurried and in perfect service of the music.
Alsop's Brahms symphonies on Naxos are also said to be excellent.
Happened to catch one of Yundi Li's Chopin Nocturnes on EMI 08391
on the radio,
and it was an excellent performance. His playing is effortless,
emotional, thoughtful, artistic. Definitely an artist to check out.
Albrecht Mayer, currently lead oboist with the Berlin Philharmonic,
gives a really nice performance of Mozarts's Rondo K. 271a with
Claudio Abbado and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra on DG 476 235-2,
a 2004 recording.
Mayer sang with the Bamberg Cathedral Choir as a child, and his
playing on this piece reminds very much of a joyous,
perfect singing voice. It's wonderous to hear the oboe played
this well in a very sweet Mozart composition.
Accompaniment by Abbado and the orchestra is top-notch.
Pierre Rode's posthumous 13th and final Violin Concerto
gets a very nice performance by Friedemann Eichhorn
accompanied by Nicolas Pasquet leading the Southwest
German Radio Orchestra Kaiserslautern on Naxos 8570469.
His 7th and 10th concerti round out the disc.
Rode was one of the key three originators of the Paris Conservatory
Violin Method, the so-called French school style of playing
that continues today as one of the two major violin techniques
along with the Russian.
A prized pupil of Viotti, Rode's concerti are milder and
more balanced than his famous teacher's. This particular
work is well played and has catchy themes that are more
latinate than germanic. They also bridge the classical
into romantic age somewhat like Mozart, though not as
distinctively.
Violin concerti of the French school were prolific and popular
during their time,
particularly Viotti's, but seem relatively seldom performed
or recorded today.
The 1969 recording of the Dvorak Trios on Philips 454 259-2
is exquisitely well played, originally recorded, and later
transferred to CD. The 1996 transfer to digital should prove
to all the sonic excellence of well-recorded analog tape.
There is hardly any discernible tape noise, excellent miking,
excellent instrument sound, great ambience, etc. This is a top
quality recording in terms of the engineering arts. It is
wonderful that the master tapes of excellent analog recordings
like this were so well preserved.
It's difficult to recall piano, cello and violin sound as
well recorded.
The performances are similarly excellent, as one would expect
from the Beaux Arts Trio. Pressler, Cohen and Greenhouse work
together perfectly and also bring out the individuality of the
parts wonderfully. It's clear that Dvorak's approaches to the
trio evolved over the course of the four compositions,
culminating in the strongly-slavic "Dumky". Re-listening to the
F minor, it may be my favorite for it's coherence, expressiveness
and poignant beauty. The Dumky is more of a meditation on Slavic
themes. The earlier trios may be more likely to bear some
similarity to Germanic works such as Brahms'. But there is a
freedom and dynamic approach to the themes that feels more
open-minded, cosmopolitan and universal. Where composers like
Beethoven at times appear to rebel against their German culture,
(non-German) Dvorak inhabits a broader world as a wide-eyed
explorer. Dvorak's result is liberating and refreshing.
These trios have stylistic roots in a European tradition, but
feel like distinctly new music. Perhaps Dvorak's time visiting,
conducting and composing in America has some influence on his
worldly, novel viewpoint. These works remind me of American
composer MacDowell more than the German Romantic tradition
which Dvorak's formal musical training came from. Wherever the
style of these trios can be traced to, the result is outstanding.
These are compositions of the first order; phenomenal music, and
these performances by the Beaux Arts do them full justice.
This recording is both technically and artistically exemplary.
Julia Fischer gives a wonderful performance of Mozart's 4th Violin
Concerto with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra on Pentatone 5186064.
Her playing is pretty, well-conceived, and informed by history, and the
accompaniment led by conductor Yakov Zreizberg is first rate.
American Dad's July 2010 episode "May the Best Stan Win" includes the
first few bars of Japanese technopop group
Perfume's
song "Monochrome Effect" as an example of "Japanese funk" from the future.
In reality Perfume started as 3 teenaged girls from Hiroshima and
this is a song from their 4th album some time before 2006.
I'm going to be prejudiced and say the talent behind the group may
be their respected and experienced producer Yasutaka Nakata.
The writing of all of their top hits is catchy, artistic
and more interesting than what I usually associate with technopop.
The compositions cleverly integrate polysyllables of
Japanese language as a punchy rhythmic elements into
a very musical incorporation of lyrics.
The effect in this very different genre
is like the use of syllables as rhythmic elements in rap.
Their song "Polyrhythm" true to its name includes crossrhythms.
Perfume is frequently compared to Japan's previous major
technopop stars Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Midori joins Nobuko Imai on viola and
Christoph Eschenbach conducting
the Hamburg NDR Symphony Orchestra
in a very nice performance of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in
E-flat Major for
Violin and Viola, K. 364 on CBS/Sony 89488.
The performance is sensitive, lovingly-paced, and well-recorded.
Both string players have wonderful tone and play with great skill
and feeling. Midori flourishes throughout.
Given that this is a CBS or Sony recording, the soloists
and some of the instrumentalists in the orchestra are close or spot miked.
The other piece on the disc, which is or was
also available in SACD format,
is Mozart's concerto in D Major for Piano and Violin, K. 315f
which Eschenbach conducts from the piano.
Together they bring Mozart's music to life wonderfully.
French pianist
Jean-Philippe Collard's performance of the Saint-Saens' piano concerti
with Andre Previn conducting the Royal Philharmonic on EMI on 3 CDs from
the late 80s has been my reference for these wonderful pieces. However,
Stephen Hough gives a fine performance of the "Egyptian" Fifth
Concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony conducted by
Sakari Oramo on Hyperion 67331/3.
Sound quality is very good, as usual for Hyperion, and
Hough's performance is effortless, friendly, graceful.
The Birmingham orchestra provides fine accompaniment.
Timing by Hough and Oramo is a bit more generous
than the Collard/Previn collaboration
which leads to a bit less sense of urgency and perhaps mystery.
In the Hough performance
there is a slight patina of English character particularly in
the orchestral playing, which may or not be a good thing for
these quintessentially French works.
Hough and the Birmingham give a fine performance and the sound of the 2001
recording is in some ways better than the 1987-1988 EMI, but
my preference will probably remain for Collard and Previn
for their more energetic, romantic interpretation
of this flamboyant music.
Bertrand Chamayou's 2008 collection of Mendelssohn piano music
on Naive 5131 is played with great technique and energy.
The Rondo capriccioso has appropriately artistic
contrasts on forcefully rising and retreatingly falling runs.
While many look down on Mendelssohn's piano pieces, including the
composer himself, these are charming works that delighted
Franz Liszt and Clara Schumann.
It's refreshing and reassuring
that there are excellent new recordings of these
works to keep their greatness alive.
Cellist Steven Isserlis gives an outstanding
performance of Richard Strauss'
Romance in F with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks
under Lorin Maazel on RCA 75398, a 2001 release. This all-Richard
Strauss CD includes his
Don Quixote and the Sonata for Cello and Piano in F major
with Stephen Hough.
Alfred Brendel's Schubert: The Complete Impromptus on Philips
456 061-2 is outstanding, as expected.
Pieces included are Impromptus D. 899, D. 935, D. 783, D. 946,
6 Moments musicaux D. 780, and 12 German Dances D. 790.
Brendel gives a
brilliant, sensitive, intelligent, thoughtful, artful, informed,
lively
performance of these
well-known and very beautiful solo piano compositions.
These are wonderfully loving and adept performances,
and the sound quality of these 1972 through 1975 recordings
is excellent. Microphone technique is a bit close but very good.
There is good hall sound and barely discernible analog tape noise.
(State of the art analog tape in 1975 was
outstandingly good, better really than most early digital recordings,
and this is a good example of it.)
There is no indication of the recording venue in the brief liner notes,
but with an artist and collection of this stature, it's probably
known somewhere. I'd guess a small, quiet auditorium;
it has a natural decay of reverberation
like a real space and not a studio.
The 1997 dual CD set is largely out print, though ImportCDs has some.
The Florestan Trio's performance of Beethoven Trio #6, Opus 70 #2
on Hyperion 67327 is very nice
There is a companion Hyperion disc of the rest of the Beethoven Trios.
Anne-Sophie Mutter's Mendelssohn Trio #1 with
Andre Previn and Lynn Harrell
on Deutsche Grammaphon 001253300 is a lovingly sumptuous homage to
the composer on his 3 February 2009 bicentenniary.
The performance is both technically brilliant and highly
emotionally evocative.
This recording reminds us how special Mendelssohn's
eternally masterful yet seemingly effortless
Romantic era compositions are,
and it shows us the remarkable
depth of feelings they can conjure in us.
The recording includes the Violin Concerto with Kurt Masur and the
Leipzig Gewandhaus, and the Sonata for Violin and Piano again
with her former husband Andre Previn.
There's also a DVD version of the same sessions which includes a
20 minute documentary.
John O'Connor's 2007 recording of Beethoven's second and fifth piano
concerti on Telarc 80675 displays his usual very clean and even articulation.
His tone in the slow movement of the 'Emperor' is sweet but rational,
being neither too saccharine nor cloying honey.
Instead the subtle dynamics of the inner passages are explored in
a variety of intriguing colors that appear to grow organically
from the structure of the music.
Accompaniment by the London Symphony Orchestra under Andreas Delfs
is excellent, as is the sound.
Telarc's sound engineering is usually excellent and this recording is no
exception. They may have even tamed their overemphasis of kettle
drums.
I very much enjoyed Rudolf Firkusny's performance of
Dvorak's Piano Concerto
with Vaclav Neumann conducting the Czech Philharmonic on
RCA 60781 for its lighthearted, happy approach
and very pretty and skillful playing.
The soloist is able to get wonderful colors from his piano
particularly in the middle movement of
this outstanding performance by the whole ensemble.
The piano is quite closely-miked, unfortunately.
Unfortunately the 1992 CD appears to be out of print.
The disc includes Janacek's Concertino for Piano and Chamber Ensemble
and his Capriccio for Piano left hand and Chamber Ensemble.
The 2007 recordings of the Brahms and Schumann Violin Concerti
on Avie 2125
with Thomas Zehetmair leading the Northern Sinfonia from
his violin have excellent sonics and fine playing.
Tempi are generally too quick however.
Salzburg born and trained Zehetmair plays Brahms' soloist's
parts with exquisite beauty, taking large, romantic lines
very befitting of the work.
Zehetmair's mastery of the violin and his expressiveness
with it are almost without peer in recent memory.
I wish that he lavished more generous timing on the orchestral parts
which at times feel a bit like rushed material meant to link his solos.
Violin is a bit close-miked and there are some spot mikes
used for some of the other instrument solos.
This mike technique is standard in the commercial recording idiom,
but distinctly not how we hear concerts in person.
When we go to concerts we hear
a holistic perspective of soloist and orchestra working
together in the same acoustic space. Such a perspective
is impossible from recordings where instruments are individually miked.
Recordings should be made with as few microphones as possible
and placed far enough away to capture all the players on the stage
as a coherent, but broadly spaced whole.
In a good multi-channel recording,
instruments are easily discernible spatially
due to correctly preserving the timing relationships
of the arrival of acoustic waves in space.
Spot mikes are neither needed nor wanted
since they artificially break those relationships
in the natural reverberant field.
John Rutter leads the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
in his Distant Land and other compositions
on the 2004 Decca recording 000182102.
Rutter is better known for his lushly arranged choral pieces,
and his orchestration of these works shows similar skill
with brass and string arrangement.
The writing for horns and woodwinds is particularly strong,
as if they are voices sung through instruments.
Distant Land is a sweeping, magnificent modern romantic
work that's both serious and accessible and somewhat
popular in theme and style.
To me the piece proclaims romantic yearning for the
exploration of new frontiers.
James Ehnes performance of the Saint-Saens Havanaise with the
Quebec Symphony is very sweet, emotional and smooth.
Perhaps it's a bit too smooth particularly in the fast passages,
but his French legato playing style would seem historically
appropriate for the French pieces in this collection.
The "French Showpieces" Analekta CD 23151
includes Chausson's Poeme, Berlioz' Reverie et Caprice,
Ravel's version of Debussy's Tarantelle Styrienne and Milhaud's Cinema
Fantaisie.
Ehnes brings very expressive and nuanced playing to these pieces.
Sound quality on this 2002 release is excellent if a bit too
close-miked on the soloist.
Ehnes performance of the Korngold, Barber and Walton concerti
won the 2008 Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra,
and rightly so.
Ehnes and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bramwell Tovey
give outstanding performances of these dramatic,
pretty and interesting 20th
century American romantic violin concerti.
The violinist plays with great conceptualization, passion and intention.
Ehnes technique demonstrates great articulation,
precision and a very pure if slightly thin tone.
The VSO plays like a world class orchestra under Tovey.
Sound recording is generally excellent,
if deliberately close-miked on the soloist.
The close-miking makes for very clearly-recorded violin sound,
but puts the soloist noticeably too far out in front of the orchestra,
leading to some disintegration of the sound and space.
CBC SMCD 5241
Hillary Hahn's performance of fellow
Curtis Institute graduate Samuel Barber's
concerto is joined with a world premier recording
of Edgar Meyer's Violin Concerto
on Sony SK89029. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra conducted by Hugh Wolf
made this recording in 1999 with a then 19-year-old Hillary.
In the liner notes she shares some inside history of the Barber passed
down through generations at Curtis, correcting
some of the commonly misperceived details of its commissioning by
Philadelphia industrialist Samuel Fels for his adopted son Iso Brielli.
Brielli famously rejected the musicality of the final movement.
Hahn brings a big, warm, romantic tone along with big, bold
gestures where appropriate with no less care or beauty in the
quieter passages.
Sound is good despite being close- and spot-miked.
Individual instrument signal integrity in the recording is very high,
though due to the multi-miking, there is a disconcerting
sense of not being recorded in a real space. The many
microphones capture individual instrument sounds clearly,
but can't present a holistic sense of the overall acoustic
space since they mix in so many different perspectives. Each
mike is like having another ear, and at some point (arguably beyond 2 to 5)
there are too many. We don't hear with 10 ears, each in a very
different place in the hall. Recordings should not be made
as if we did.
The musicians' performances are excellent, but unfortunately
the less than realistic sonic perspective distracts from them.
20th Century American composer Don Gillis' Symphony X: Big D
features a big brass and string sound with rich colors
and dense harmonies. Gillis was a music professor, prolific composer
and producer of the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini.
Gillis was later president of the
Symphony of the Air formed from members of the NBC when it disbanded.
His soulful, modern romantic compositions celebrate contemporary
American themes from
the end of the Depression through his passing in the 1970s.
Gillis' orchestration reminds a bit of contemporary
British composer John Rutter's harmonically
complex, romantic orchestral works, and
modern romantic American composer Randall Thompson.
The 1940s were Gillis' most productive era, though he continued composing
throughout his life. For example, Symphony X was released in 1967.
Randall Thompson's second Symphony is a bit busy but has some
wonderful themes and a bold, evocative, and very pretty ending.
The recording by Neemi Jarvi and the Detroit Symphony
on Chandos 9439 is a revelation.
Thompson was a 20th century American composer who taught at Harvard,
Wellesley, Eastman School, Curtis Institute,
University of Virginia and elsewhere.
One of his many students was Leonard Bernstein.
Thompson's powerful "The Testament of Freedom" was a choral
work composed to
honor Thomas Jefferson's bicentennial. It starts with
his powerful quote:
The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time;
the hand of force may destroy but cannot disjoin them.
-- A Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)
The performance on Reference Recordings RR-49
by the Turtle Creek Chorale and the Dallas Wind Symphony
is beautifully-performed and wonderfully well-recorded
in HDCD.
Eduard Napravnik's Concerto Symphonique in a minor, Opus 27
is an above average late Romantic concerto.
It's joined by his Fantasie Russe in a performance by
Evgeny Soifertis and Alexander Titov conducting the BBC Scottish
Symphony on Hyperion 67511.
The CD also features Felix Blumenfield's Allegro de concert, Opus 7.
Scottish composer Patrick Doyle's 1995 score for Ang Lee's film
Sense and Sensibility is very pretty.
It's well-orchestrated
and romantic in a dignified way that's appropriate for the period.
The score was nominated for a Golden Globe and Oscar.
The soundtrack was re-released on CD 2 March 2010 by Sony with catalog
number 760864.
Doyle's score for Kenneth Branaugh's 1996 Oscar-winning film
Hamlet was also nominated for an Oscar.
Doyle has composed dozens of film scores including taking over
for John Williams in the Harry Potter series with Goblet of Fire.
The Lindsay String Quartet's 1994 performance of the Haydn Opus 55
quartets on ASV #906 has a great blend of passion and precision.
Their approach and playing is
ideally suited to this intricate yet emotional composition
done at Eszterhazá in 1788.
As with the Lark quartet below, Haydn was
at the peak of his art later in life.
When well-played, as here,
these late Haydn chamber works engage both the mind and soul
magnificently. They're lively and playful, stirring and beautiful,
dignified and graceful in rare combination.
It's a very special composer who can accomplish
this at any point in the history of music, let alone during
the late classical period.
Gil Shaham gives a nice performance of
Saint-Saens' very catchy and pretty Violin Concerto #3 with
Giuseppe Sinopoli conducting the
New York Philharmonic
on DG 429 786.
Ambroise Thomas' orchestral music for his very popular 1866
Paris opera Mignon includes the cosmopolitan and very pretty
"Connais-tu le pays." Cellist Sol Gabetta joins
the Prague Philharmonic conducted by Charles Olivieri-Munroe
in a very nice recording of the piece on RCA 735962.
Antonin Dvorak wrote a surprising set of "Prague Waltzes"
which are unlike any waltzes Strauss or Brahms might have composed.
They're far more sophisticated and richer than the former's,
and more lushly orchestrated than those by Lehar or Stoltz.
Antal Dorati's performance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
on London 414 370 is sophisticated and appropriately European.
Joseph Haydn wrote the six string quartets Opus 64
for his first trip to London after being released from
the service of the Eszterhazy family in 1790. At the age of 58
his writing continued to grow and evolve, and the six quartets
reveal both his mastery of composition
and constant fluidity of tone and style.
The most famous of these six quartets is the fifth, the Lark,
and it's well represented here. But my favorite of the bunch
is the 4th in G Major. It's lively, fascinatingly rich
with lots of engaging counterpoint, and astoundingly beautiful.
It's difficult to think of another piece that charms
the mind, spirit and soul so fully.
The slow Adagio is particularly pretty, though of course the work
integrates into a whole essay that is greater than the sum
of its parts. Even alone, those parts are very magnificent.
First-rate performances by the Tatrai Quartet on Hungaraton
HCD 11838-39
are appropriately enthusiastic, elegant, rocking and dignified
when the music calls for it.
Sound is a bit bright and close-miked, but clear.
Stephen Kates and Carolyn Pope Kobler give a
truly outstanding performance
of Rachmaninoff's Opus 19 Sonata for Cello and Piano
on 1981's Bainbridge BCD6272 which is almost certainly
out of print.
This is surely one of the most beautiful pieces ever
written, and it gets a phenomenal performance to
go with outstanding sound quality by
Leo
de Gar Kukla.
Kukla's minimalist recording technique eschews
all processing and uses minimal microphones.
Converter is the Colossus A/D.
It's really difficult to think of a better-sounding, better-played,
better-composed recording than this one.
Sound is a bit direct, but very clear and more like
a good live recording than the typically hashy and overly-processed
sound of commercial recordings.
Famous for direct to disc recordings, AES fellow
Kukla comes from the old school of audio engineers
who made recordings sound good by starting with a very few,
very well-placed microphones and a solid understanding
of acoustics coupled with an artist's sensibility
and a critical ear. These are guys who don't
"clean it up in post-production". They get it right
when it's first recorded.
The recording is so good that it highlights just how
good my Sennheiser HD-600 headphones are,
along with my highly
modified high-end Assemblage digital to analog
conversion chain fed by a Pioneer Elite universal
disc player.
I think I can hear the warmth of the Neuman M-49 microphone
on the 1739 Dominicus Montagna Cello played by Kates
and the relative flatness of the two AKG C414
microphones on Pope Kobler's Boesendorfer Grand Piano.
They're both a bit close-miked, though, with
some (likely) Crown PZM mikes used for mixing in some
hall ambience from the room boundaries.
Because of the latter,
the recording technique is not strictly minimalist,
though ambience mikes are somewhat common on audiophile
recordings. Regardless, the overall effect is relatively
seamless aside from the slightly cooler piano sound
compared to a warmer cello. Given the wide frequency range
of the piano, this is arguably appropriate.
Harmonic "preferences" probably would be more noticeable on
the wider-bandwidth piano sound.
Mixing was probably done in the analog domain on
a Quad 8 mixer, though the SPARS code says ADD, suggesting
a digital mixer.
The recording is a bit short at just over
40 minutes, but it's difficult to recall a better 40 minutes
of music.
Rachmaninoff's composition is complex, romantic, frisky, dramatic,
joyous and not too sad. No deep melancholy this time,
just really, really beautiful conversation and interplay.
In the hands of these two very gifted artists
playing extremely well together, it's magical.
They take turns charming and soaring in musical ecstasy.
Rachmaninoff explores a wide variety of colors especially
from the cello but also from the piano,
and it all serves an artistic purpose
that's unlike any other piece or any other composer.
The recording captures enormously subtle sounds
from both instruments.
This is an unusually good recording in that it
requires
equipment to reveal all that it contains and listeners to
perceive as much of it as they can.
There's far too much beauty going on musically and sonically
to fully describe in words, and the artistry is fantastic.
Find a copy if you can.
Of much greater availability, classical star
Gautier Capuçon joins Gabriele Montero on a 2008 recording
of the Rachmaninov Sonata for Cello and Piano in G minor
on Virgin Classics 85786 that's very well recorded and
passionately played, and fortunately not too over-wrought.
It's a bit looser in interpretation and timing than the Kates and
Kobler recording which I prefer above but certainly a worthy performance.
Rachmaninov's Vocalise and a duo arrangement of Variation 18
on a Theme of Paganini along with the Prokofiev sonata in C major
round out the disc.
Capuçon also appears on recordings of Dvorak's concerto paired
with Victor Herbert's, and Tchikovsky's Rococo Variations with
Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto for Cello, all Virgin Classics
releases from the past couple years.
Gautier's performance in the Rococo Variations
is strikingly tuneful, stunningly lively,
and appropriately lighthearted and melancholy.
His cello really sings on the Rococo Variations.
Sound is excellent if a bit close-miked.
These are truly outstanding performances by a superb artist
joined by an excellent St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater Orchestra
led by Valery Gergiev for the Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev
on Virgin Classics 94486.
Adrian Boult
gives a fine performance of Gustav Holst's The Planets
conducting the London Philharmonic.
The playing is superb (as usual), and this popular
piece is brought to life with unusual freshness,
drama and excitement.
This is a truly fine performance.
Joshua Bell's performance of Saint-Saens Third Violin Concerto
with the Montreal Symphony is well-played and recorded.
Bell's tone is generally excellent though a few notes seem
a bit strained. Recording is close-miked, and that may
contribute to hearing a more strident tone than would be heard
by an audience in a concert hall.
Saint-Saens composition is expectably excellent. Chord sequences
are expectably a bit quirky. Orchestrations and solo instrument
parts show strong understanding.
The overall composition is confident and elegant yet emotive.
Oddly it reminds me a bit of Elgar, perhaps due to their classicist
tendencies and
the orderly time period they both inhabited bridging the romantic
era into the early 20th century.
Speaking of nice violin tone, Gil Shaham's performance
of Tchaikovsky's Souvenir d'un leiu cher with the Russian
National Orchestra is fleet-footed in the scherzi,
lyric in the central melodic passages and warm and sweet
without being saccharine in the outer expositions.
Accompaniment by the RNO is in a smooth and polished
European style.
20th century Italian composer Nino Rota is perhaps best known for
his prolific film scores, which are well-liked and respected.
His second symphony has lushly-orchestrated, sweeping melodies,
and nice dynamic and rhythmic contrasts.
String and brass orchestrations are very sophisticated,
and rhythmic devices are fairly well-developed.
Published in the 1930s, Rota's second symphony
seems unashamedly not modern in the sense that it is tonal, melodic, etc.
It might be interesting to compare Rota with Resphigi, where both
are regarded as anachronistic for their times.
Though both make use of folk themes, Rota seems more richly romantic
to Resphigi's at times unusually clear and almost minimalist voice
of pared down, but highly-distinctive orchestrations.
This work also reminds a bit of Mahler, who was anticipating
the modern age but speaking with a musical language from
the romantic age. Rota seems less concerned with his place
in musical progress than in creating beautiful music.
Ole Kristian Ruud's sensitive and sophisticated conducting
of the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra
brings out the folksy nature of Rota's themes presented using
a very densely orchestrated but immensely pleasant sound.
Rota seems an unusually good composer in a bygone style.
The result in this case is some very beautiful music that
also reminds a bit of Scandinavian or slavic composes such as
Sibelius or Dvorak, though Rota is less novel than Sibelius
and less less tied to an older Brahmsian German school than Dvorak.
The first movement of
Wieniawski's second violin concerto has some Bruch-like themes,
but it's busier and less melodically sweet than Bruch's
phenomenally-well-integrated symphonic violin pieces.
The well-known, long, central violin exposition is suitably romantic,
and Perlman's apologetic glissandi but heartfelt vibrati liven up a fairly
stern and spare yet dignified performance.
Perlman does his usual sparkling, muscular
job with the fireworks of the outer movements.
The fine performance of this work is pretty distinctive,
as one might expect from the stylings of Perlman.
The recording with the Orchestre de Paris is good,
but seems a bit close-miked and spot-miked.
I don't know which particular recording it is,
but a performance of Puccini's O Mio Babbino Caro
by Kiri Te Kanawa with the London
Philharmonic is spine-tinglingly beautiful.
Strikingly well sung, played and recorded.
And I don't really like opera yet.
Te Kanawa is, of course, a great opera singer,
but this aria is familiar enough that it almost
crosses over into popular music.
Ruth Ann Swenson singing Verdi's Caro Nome
with the London Symphony is another nice, popular opera
aria also happens to be accessible and overtly beautiful.
There's a lot to be said for Italian classical beauty
and how it carries over to opera.
And wow, does Swenson hit the notes and sound great doing it!
Semyon Bychkov's conducting of the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
in the Brahms First Symphony is lively and fun if perhaps a bit
lacking in drama and angst. He explores the structure and rhythm
perhaps more than he
plumbs the emotional depths, but it makes for an enjoyable performance.
The orchestra itself is excellent. Europe is seemingly blessed with
many fine orchestras.
Pianist and composer Fazil Say's performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto #23
with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra conducted by Howard Griffiths
is engagingly bright and playful.
They bring this widely-recorded, rightly-popular, lavishly-beautiful
piece to life in a way that's fresh and unusually engaging.
Bravo!
The 2004 CD number V 4992 on Naive may be out of print
but available on the secondary market,
and MP3s are available at Amazon.
As always,
I recommend strongly against MP3s
since they significantly degrade sound quality.
I got a used copy of the CD from the Amazon marketplace.
Listening again confirms that Say is a phenomenal artist,
able to communicate both the brilliant joy and tender emotion of Mozart's
finest and perhaps most personal compositions.
His command of the instrument reminds a bit of the articulation and power
of Horowitz, and his emotional reach seems to go directly to the
heart of the music.
Inner notes and passages are colored and shaded with artful skill,
and boisterous parts burst to life.
Fazil Say's extensive Jazz experience may help him extract
emotion from timing variations within the music, particularly
during the more introspective slow portions.
The disc includes performances of concerti 12, 21 and 23.
CD sound quality is excellent, with good hall and stage reverberation.
Some of the excellent instrument sound may be due to close miking, however.
Lalo's Symphony Espagnole is beautifully played by Anne-Sophie Mutter
and Seiji Ozawa with the ORTF.
The performance is spritely where appropriate,
but Ozawa speedy tendencies must have been
somewhat held in check by Mutter's tastefully-paced,
brightly-shining violin playing.
Ozawa evokes very nice accompaniment from the ORTF,
which is languorous, lithe, and still when it needs to be.
Frankly I didn't know Ozawa to be this nuanced or sophisticated,
since I more often hear him frenetically blasting through symphonic works.
I probably need to get to know his work better, if I can find some
other moderately-paced ones.
Other tracks on the disc include Mutter with Ozawa and
the ORTF performing Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen and von
Karajan conducting the Berliner Philharmonic in Massenet's Thais Meditation.
EMI released these 1980s recordings in 2002 with catalog number
74737 and reissued it in 2008 with number 809907 according to cduniverse.com.
The price of the earlier version is nearly
half of the later version.
Sibelius' symphonies are intriguing. The composition of the third
is a complex synthesis of themes evolving throughout the work.
It's interesting and beautiful, dramatic and edgy.
Chords are novel and very pretty. Orchestration of strings with
horns and woodwinds is dense, sophisticated and appealing.
Driving rhythmic development is engaging.
Like a complex cream sauce,
the daringly rich orchestrations remind of Brahms and Dvorak
without being duplicative.
This fresh and interesting work makes it a masterpiece.
The performance by Paavo Berglund and the Helsinki Philharmonic
is fresh and excellent, and it seems well recorded.
It's available as a boxed set on EMI.
Herbert Blomstedt's performance of Sibelius' Second with the
San Francisco Symphony makes it seem like a continuation of Tchaikovsky's
symphonies but with a starker, sunnier disposition.
Does the clarity of the Nordic countryside infuse a
different spirit than Russian?
The progression of styles through Sibelius' symphonies is
fascinating.
This was an artist growing and changing before our ears.
Hyperion's recording of the Paderewski and Moszkowski
Piano Concerti with soloist Piers Lane and
Jerzy Maksymiuk conducting the Glasgow BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
has excellent sound quality and an enthusiastic performance.
The Paderewski is a charmingly odd minor concerto.
This recording is probably one of its better performances.
Very unusually good, modern sound quality.
The power and lyric expressiveness of Evgeny Kissin's playing
comes through clearly on his recent recording of the Beethoven
Second Piano Concerto with Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra
on EMI 06311. It's a very good recording and performance.
Unfortunately somewhat close-miked though.
The tempi are relaxed and authentic. They allow plenty of time
for the music to develop and allow us to savor the beauty.
The middle movement is played very gracefully and with great feeling.
Anne Akiko Meyers 2009 performance with Akira Eguchi of
the Schubert Fantasy in C on Koch 7762 is lively, pretty and
very well recorded. The CD includes works by Chaplin, PÄRT,
Piazzolla, Messiaen, and others.
Another beautiful composition by Bruch is his Romance in F, Op. 95
particularly as played by violinist Janine Jansen
with Ricardo Chailly conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus on
2007's Decca B0007260.
This is a lush, sensitive, pretty performance
with sweeping string lines, nicely contrasting but perfectly integrated
pizzicato,
and singing melodies for the solist that are memorable for their
unabashed beauty.
Sound from the Gewandhaus is precise, yet warm and lush; really beautiful
and well-conducted.
The album's main features are excellent performances of the
Mendelssohn and Bruch concerti.
This is first-rate, very sharp playing and conducting
by the orchestra accompanying phenomenal playing by the soloist.
Sonically and artistically this may be my single favorite performances
of these keystone works in the classical repertoire.
Did Bruch's opera singer parents influence his
singing melodic lines?
Bruch's music isn't just devastatingly beautiful, it's also structurally
pretty with wonderful counterpoint, orchestrations
and generally masterful use of orchestra and solo instruments.
For sheer beauty, Bruch is one of my favorite composers.
Violinist Maxim Fedotov's performance of Bruch's Serenade, Opus 75
with Dmitry Yablonsky conducting the Russian Philharmonic is very
nice. Great playing all around. Naxos 8.557395
An exceptionally fine performance of
Bruch's Scottish Fantasy is the
2005 recording by violinist Rachel Barton Pine with the
Scottish Chamber Orchestra led by Alexander Platt
on the Cedille label.
The two disc set also includes Scottish-themed orchestral pieces
by Pablo de Sarasate, Alexander Mackenzie,
John Blackwood McEwen, and a piece composed by Pine and Alasdair Fraser.
Stephen Hough's performance of the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto
with the Dallas Symphony conducted by Andrew Litton (Hyperion 67501)
is too fast, too smooth and too lacking in drama.
The same goes for the accompaniment, which follows Hough and Litton's
lead just about
perfectly and seems every bit as technically adept as Hough himself.
Technically this is a brilliant performance from both soloist and orchestra.
Sound quality of this lush and romantic recording is also outstanding,
if perhaps a little close-miked on the piano.
Hough makes what is arguably the most difficult piano concerto
ever composed sound easy. Every note of this technically adroit
performance is clearly articulated, and that's really difficult
to do with so much going on in the piece.
The shading of quiet notes in complex passages is deft.
It's clear that Hough is a talent of the highest order,
but his interpretation of this work misses the mark.
My reference for this piece and other Rachmaninoff concerti and solo works
are the historical recordings of Rachmaninoff himself.
Those recordings are not very good, but the composer's maniacal personality
and unbelievable control of the story and color of each note
come through loud and clear.
Any performance of Rachmaninoff that's not overwrought with emotion
and played with large doses of reckless abandon
is probably played incorrectly, at least in terms of the composer's
intentions.
Natalie Clein's performance of Elgar's Cello Concerto
with Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
conducted by Vernon Handley
on EMI 01409 is very charming.
Time to look into some nice versions of this seminal cello piece
and masterful romantic composition,
including this recording.
Ermanno
Wolf-Ferrari's I gioielli della Madonna
(The Jewels of the Madonna) was scandalous in 1911
particularly for its implicit criticism of the church,
but its composition is strikingly rich and beautiful.
The opera's incidental music has dense orchestrations and sweeping,
romantic melodies containing a more than full measure of emotion.
The recording by the BBC Philharmonic on Chandos CHAN10511
is of interest for usually excellent sound
and passionate leadership by Gianandrea Noseda.
Wolf-Ferrari eventually found great success in his own time
and had his works widely performed, but they fell out of favor and
into obscurity seemingly as quickly as they rose.
Modern performances and even recordings are rare,
which is unfortunate given the great beauty of the music.
As an aside, it's amazing how many great works were nearly lost
including those of Mozart, Bruch, even Bach. Surprisingly it
sometimes takes a vigorous, high-profile champion to keep a
composer's works alive.
Karlowicz' Eternal Songs, Stanislaw and Anna Oswiecim and
Lithuanian Rhapsody on Chandos 9986 from 2002 with Yan Pascal Tortelier
conducting the BBC Philharmonic is an excellent recording of
an excellent performance of outstanding music.
It's easy to paint Karlowicz' writing as at times overwrought
or a bit strident,
but that would miss the brilliance of his compositions which
appear to tap into a sublime cosmic energy.
There are folk themes woven into the latter two late romantic
symphonic poems, making them somewhat more conventional than
the Eternal Songs highlight.
Eternal Songs has universal themes of dissolution, yearning,
love, death and eternal being, and powerful, almost psychoactive
orchestrations to go with them. This very powerful, stirring,
striking writing merges the mystical with the romantic.
It's also about as dramatic as its possible to get in the
classical idiom, while also being beautiful and elegant.
Mozart's Concerto for Violin and Piano in D
with
violinist Midori and Christoph Eschenbach conducting the
North German Radio Symphony Orchestra from the piano on
Sony 89488
has violin and piano playing together like a duet,
interacting with the orchestra like a concerto, and
all playing together somewhat like a dense chamber piece.
Mozart's writing is typically playful, pleasant and light.
Michael Ponti's empathetic performance of Friedrich Kuhlau's
Piano Concerto in C, Op. 7 with the Odense Symphony Orchestra
on Unicorn 9110 reveals an interesting and pretty composition.
German-Danish Kuhlau's concerto reminds somewhat of Mozart,
Chopin, Field, but not much of Beethoven whose works
Kuhlau was a contemporary champion and reportedly able interpreter.
Mendelssohn's String Octet rocks! It has a driving hook
which reappears introducing other phrases, wonderful harmonies
that work perfectly with the ranges of the various instruments,
wonderfully good orchestration in general.
With sweeping emotion, a strong pulse and great structure,
it's as good as any string chamber work
and seems more timeless than most.
Obviously a prodigy, Mendelssohn wrote his octet at age 16.
The performance by the Emerson quartet plus friends is very nice
if a bit quick.
But their liveliness and enthusiasm seems to go well with the
composition.
Mendelssohn's Sonata for Cello and Piano No 2, Opus 58 also
delivers a rollicking good time. The 1994 performance by
Steven Isserlis and Melvyn Tan on RCA 62553 is sensitive,
joyous and beautiful. Tan plays a fortepiano, resulting in
a more authentic sound that perhaps shifts more of the balance
toward the cello compared to accompaniment by a modern piano.
It's interesting to ponder whether writing for the weaker-sounding
fortepiano affected how the parts were conceived.
The slow movement features brilliant arpegii
prettily strummed by Tan on the piano and
long lines on the cello lovingly articulated by Isserlis.
They trade off as the movement ends with piano exposition
accompanied by a plucked cello.
The CD includes 5 duos: the first and second sonatas,
Variations Contertantes Opus 17, Song without words Opus 109
and Assai tranquilo in B minor.
Valentin
Silvestrov's Wedding Waltz is an interesting example of
his post-musical echos of romantic music.
The recording by the Munich Chamber Orchestra
with piano soloist Alexei Lubimov
on EC B0009662 captures the ethereal feeling of his compositions.
Garrick Ohlsson's performance of Chopin's first piano concerto
with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra
on Arabesque 6702 is very nice, with very nice sound.
I still enjoy best Istvan Szekely's performance of the
first and second concerti with the Budapest Symphony
on Naxos 8.550123.
Sound on the latter is not as good as the more recent Arabesque,
but the performances are excellent.
Andras Schiff's performance of Beethoven's first piano concerto with
the Dresden Staatskapelle under Bernard Haitink is good.
Teldec 13159.
Makes me want to find some good performances of these wonderful works.
Beethoven's first concerto will always remind me of Mozart,
in a way similar to Brahms' first symphony sounding like a
later work of Beethoven, or Dvorak reminding of Brahms.
Yo-Yo Ma's performance of the
Dvorák's Cello Concerto with
Kurt Masur conducting the
New York Philharmonic is lushly romantic,
very pretty and evokes the feeling of falling in love.
Soloist and orchestra give fine performances
that are both well-structured and -conceived and
highly emotional. Their emotion serves the music
in a meaningful way; they express the emotion of the writing fully.
It's unusual to find works and performances that
can engage the mind and heart so fully.
The 2004 CD reissue on Sony 93072 also includes Ma's enthusiastic
performance of the Victor Herbert Concerto with
Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Mozart's Piano Concerti are delightful, and Richard Goode's
playing on #18, K. 456 with accompaniment by
the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
on Nonesuch 79439 is beautifully done.
Light and joyful, they bring to life the playful spirit of the
pieces as if channeling Amadeus.
Robert Schumann's Cello Concerto in A, Opus 129 is very pretty.
There's lots of lyrical romanticism for the soloist
that's sweet without being overly saccharine.
It's almost a restrained, classical romanticism,
if that makes any sense.
To be honest, I wasn't sure that such a good balance between
expressive and structural beauty was possible,
but in this piece it seems to be.
However one might describe it,
this composition is unusually pretty.
Schumann specialist and proponent
Steven Isserlis gives a wonderful performance with the
German Chamber Philharmonic under
conductor Christoph Eschenbach
on RCA 68800.
Hummel's 5th Piano Concerto is compositionally more sophisticated than
his earlier ones. It's also arguably prettier and more interesting.
Harmonies, orchestration and piano parts are richer and more mature.
The Italianate theme in the middle movement is charming.
Howard Shelley's performance with the London Mozart Players
on Chandos 9558 is excellent.
Christoph Eschenbach and Justus Frantz's performance of
Bach's Concerto for Two Keyboards in C, BWV 1061 with
the Hamburg Philharmonic is very nice, if predictably
too closely miked on DG 415 655.
Bach's concerti for multiple soloists often seem
extra interesting, perhaps created by the opportunity
for greater interplay between soloists.
Joshua Bell's violin really sings on the slow movement of
the Goldmark concerto with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the
Los Angeles Philharmonic.
The Goldmark, while not as deep as other concerti, is a
very pretty late romantic piece that certainly did not
deserve to fall out of the repertoire.
Bell's Sibelius concerto is also excellent and distinctive.
His technique is excellent, and he definitely plays to the
music instead of trying to force it into a contrived interpretation.
The sound quality on this disc, Sony SK 65949, is quite
good, if dry.
About the only technical note anywhere to be found is that
it's a 24-bit recording by engineer Bob Rapley,
presumably using SBM for reduction to 16-bit.
The 2000 copyright confirms it predates 1-bit DSD,
Sony's preferred medium of late.
Julia
Fischer's
performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with
the Russian National Orchestra under Yakov Kreizberg
is outstanding.
She has vast resources of control over tone, articulation,
musical line, etc., explored lavishly in this performance,
if perhaps a bit overindulgently.
Her playing does serve the music, but it also serves to
draw some attention to her own skill, which may be breaking
down the wall between artist, performance and audience
a little too much.
In other words, her playing may be slightly
more showy than is appropriate.
Regardless, her talent is immense.
Wow, Rossini's String Sonata #6 in D sounds very much like Mozart.
Mozart often seems more Italianate than Germanic to me.
Take a listen to Ensemble Explorations performing this
on Harmonia Mundi 901847 and see if you don't agree.
Rossini was reportedly compared to Mozart in his day.
Another interesting comparison is between Boccherini's
Cello Concerto in D and Haydn's cello concerti. Hearing
the Boccherini, I thought it was Haydn.
Hummel's concerto for piano and violin is delightful.
Light and airy,
it feels like a chamber work or a duo with agile touches of
orchestral backing.
It's quite different from his relatively more weighty piano concerti.
The performance by the
Russian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Gregory Rose with
soloists Alexander Trostiansky on violin and Polina Osetinskaya
on piano is excellent, though the soloists are perhaps expectably
too closely miked.
NAXOS 8.557595
Trevor Pinnock's performance of Handel's
Samson overture with the English Concert
on Archiv 447279 is very nicely done.
I'm surprised at the sophistication of
Handel's composition on Samson.
It's a surprise that it seems smoother,
more modern and natural than F. J. Haydn,
which is a comparison I would not usually make.
A very good performance surely helps immensely.
The disc includes four other overtures, Music for the Royal Fireworks,
and the Concerto grosso in C major, "Alexander's Feast."
It's probably unwise to say since there are many great ones,
but Max Bruch may be my favorite composer.
His crisp and clean
yet extremely romantic melodic lines and excellent orchestrations
are highly emotional yet structurally perfect. Brahms, in laboring
for perfection made his great works seem much more burdensome.
That of course is grossly unfair to Brahms' genius,
but that's how his work seems in comparison.
Bruch's works are no less complex, interesting or engaging,
but are brilliantly concise while being emotionally intense.
Check out Philips reissue of Bruch's complete Violin Concertos [sic]
462167 with Salvatore Accardo and Kurt Masur conducting the
Leipzig Gewandhaus.
The two disc set also includes his Scottish Fantasy and Serenade
for violin and orchestra Opus 75.
The lesser known latter two of his
three concerti are stronger works than my first impression
suggested, and the performances here are excellent.
The widely-performed Scottish Fantasy should be trite
for its commonality but is so pretty in so many ways that
it's a perpetual delight.
The concerti for multiple string soloists are the only missing
major concerti from this set.
Contemporary English composer
John Rutter's "Meditations for Orchestra #5", Decca B0001821,
is a piece of light orchestral music in a modern,
almost impressionistic genre. Very pretty.
It's fairly different from his dense, choral works like Requiem,
an outstanding recording of which is on Reference Recordings
RR-57 HDCD.
Imogen Cooper's performances of Mozart's Piano Concertos 9 and 23
with the Northern Sinfonia on Avie #2100 perhaps emphasize flow
and clarity over structure, but are superb performances.
Her perspective definitely anticipates the romantic age
as opposed to looking back towards the classical age.
These performances remind me of Beethoven's early concerti
moreso than other interpretations of Mozart.
But then Beethoven's early concerti clearly follow lines traced by Mozart.
Glazunov's Violin Concerto in a minor is well above average for a
lesser-known work.
The soloist's part is a bit too extravagant and self-conscious,
but very pretty.
The orchestra's accompaniment is amazingly deftly interwoven
and highly skillfully written.
Nikolaj Znaider's performance with the
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Mariss Jansons
on RCA 87454 is quite good, if too close miked.
Glazunov's second symphony is a bit lightweight
but has wonderful string orchestrations in particular.
Fedoseyev's conducting of the (defunct?) USSR TV and Large
Radio Symphony Orchestra on Mobile Fidelity 853 (out of print?)
has good sound and good performances.
George Gershwin's "Lullaby" has very nice string orchestrations.
Gershwin was criticized for having an inferior knowledge of orchestration,
but Lullaby, written as an exercise in orchestration,
shows that he was worst a very talented student.
Slatkin's performance with the St. Louis Symphony on Vox 5007
is rich, warm and soothing.
For another example of outstanding orchestration,
particularly of strings,
check out Hector Berlioz' Romeo & Juliet Love Scene.
Powerful, rich harmonies are the tapestry of its beautiful melodies.
Giulini's performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
on DG 439 895 is technically excellent and stylistically appropriate.
According to the Wikipedia biography,
KDFC,
apparently Stephen Hough's performance with the City of Birmingham
Symphony. Hough's performance is masterful and the Symphony provides
very capable accompaniment. Sauer's very pretty if slightly quirky
late romantic concerto
was influenced by teachers Nikolai Rubenstein and Liszt.
It's paired with Scharwenka's Foruth Concerto on Hyperion's Volume 11
of The Romantic Piano Concerto. Worth getting for outstanding
conceptions by Hough of these interesting compositions.
The performances were modern recording debuts in 1995,
about nine decades from new.
The work has very nice orchestrations, very good piano composition,
pretty melodies, etc.
Definitely an above-average, lesser-known concerto.
Alison Balsom's
performance of the Neruda Trumpet Concerto on EMI 16213
with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen
is phenomenal. Her tone is excellent, playing effortless, but most
astounding is the sheer amount of expression and emotion in her notes.
I was not aware the trumpet could be so expressive.
Her playing reminds me of the nuance a virtuoso violinist
can get from the violin.
The recording also includes the Hummel, Haydn and Torelli concerti.
Her performance of the Hummel is also excellent!
Really nice technique, concept and feeling.
Balsom is an outstanding musician.
The orchestral accompaniment is perhaps a bit too buoyant and
playful at times,
but it's really hard to fault them for enjoying their performance.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Balsom gives a fantastic performance
of the Haydn also, with beautiful rounded tone on all notes,
lots of emotion, warmth and fire, characteristics that are
almost completely lacking
on Wynton Marsalis' recording of the same work.
The Bremen orchestra is again an enthusiastic and highly
competent partner in this work. One could not ask much more
from a soloist or orchestra. Sound quality is very good also.
Max Bruch's music is catching my ear much lately.
- His first violin concerto
is sweeter and more emotionally engaging than Brahms', and to a
Brahms lover, that's very hard to achieve.
His later violin concerti are lesser works,
but are charming in their own way.
- His double concerto for Violin and Cello engages the soloists in
one of the most beautiful musical conversations I've heard.
- Bruch's Concerto for Two Pianos in a-flat is also very, very pretty
especially when played at an unhurried pace for example by sisters
Güher and Süher Pekinel with the Philharmonia under Neville Marriner.
- Bruch also has a very charming and sweet Concerto for Violin and Viola, Opus 88.
It features more lovely interplay between soloists.
The possibly out-of-print
2001 recording by Victor Tretiakov and Yuri Bashmet
with the LSO under Neeme Jaervi on RCA 63292 is very nice.
- Sergei Nakariakov's flugelhorn performance of Bruch's Canzone with Ashenazy
conducting and the Philharmonia is simply incredible.
It is superbly played, and
calming in effect, yet spine-chilling in its beauty.
Nakariakov's tone is arguably perfect and his shaping
of phrases is of the finest artistic design, resulting
in a deep emotional impact from his superlative musicianship.
He's able to elicit as much or more emotion from his
transcription to flugelhorn of
Bruch's beautiful work than the viola it was written for.
Hearing such an unimaginable feat is proof that it's possible
when performed with Nakariakov's acknowledged genius.
It may be somewhat heretical, but his horn rendition of Canzone
may be better than I have heard from viola or violin.
Unfortunately Teldec 80651
CD titled "No Limit" is out of print.
KDFC has Bargiel's Adagio on its playlist.
The romantic composition is pretty, sophisticated, and classically-balanced.
The particular
soloist on their recording infuses the cello with great emotion.
According to the wikipedia bio, Bargiel is Clara Schumann's half brother
and worked with Brahms to catalog the works of Schumann and Chopin.
Heard
Gerald Finzi's
Romance for String Orchestra on KDFC radio and
it seems like a nice composition in a late Romantic English style.
Apparently one of his earlier works, the Romance feels a bit incomplete
in its orchestrations, but still has some very nice structure and is
musically interesting.
Counterpoint is subtle, but reminds a bit of J. S. Bach.
His Cello and Oboe Concerti are reported to be nice. A Piano Concerto
was recorded for the first time in complete form by Chandos in 1999.
My appreciation for English composer
Frederick
Delius has grown much.
His very well-known Florida Suite is very beautiful,
complete, polished, and sophisticated late Romantic orchestral
piece that compares very well against other period works.
It's also serenely pretty, with an easy countenance
that belies its thorough development.
Naxos' collection of Delius' orchestral works (8.553535)
is highlighted by the Florida Suite, played by the
English Northern Philharmonia conducted by David Lloyd-Jones.
Their pacing of the Florida Suite is slightly faster than the
langorous, steamy heat of Jacksonville might suggest, but
the performance is very nice. Lloyd-Jones' conception of
the pieces is sensitive, yet well-structured and full of life.
Sound, as usual for Naxos, is excellent with good hall sound
and great instrumental timbres.
The English Northern is an opera company and perhaps their
best work in this collection is the excerpted final scene
from the opera Koanga,
a romantic tragedy set at a Louisiana plantation.
The orchestration on Koanga is among the best I've heard,
particularly of the horns and to a lesser extent woodwinds and strings.
Vocal arrangement and writing are also very strong with
wonderful counterpoint, harmony and melody.
Delius' composition in Koanga is incredibly rich and sonorous,
yet lithe, effortless, graceful and stunningly beautiful.
It's also highly musically satisfying as both a technical and artistic
masterpiece.
That Delius' work could be considered anything less than extrordinarily
masterful is shocking and disappointing. Thomas Beacham appreciated
and promoted it, however.
Other works include Over the Hills and Far Away, Idylle Printemps,
La Quadroone and Scherzo.
The collection highlights the depth and breadth of Delius influences
and excellence. While studying at the Leipzig Conservatory, Delius'
mentors and colleagues included Edvard Grieg, Sitt, Reinecke, Sinding.
He also raised a family in France.
This disc gets better and better with repeated listening due to the
depth, breadth and exceptionally high quality of Delius' writing.
Performances and sonics are excellent too.
Note that it's really helpful to have a very high-resolution audio system
to listen to Delius' music. Lesser systems really don't allow the
interplay of instruments and the subtle intricacy of the arrangements
to be heard. Listening to the same recordings
through my current computer system is a vastly
different experience of rich and pretty, but largely indistinct sounds.
Hearing a good, live performance is probably the best.
Delius'
The Walk
to the Paradise Garden is a sublimely beautiful
intermezzo from the 1901 play A Village Romeo and Juliet.
Apparently it's one of his most-performed orchestral works,
and rightly so. It evokes a sense of mysterious wonder,
emerging from cool calm into bright joy.
Another superb composition by Delius.
All of the albums around Fleetwood Mac's peak are transcendent.
As great art, they sound as wonderful 30 years hence as they did
when first made. Albums Rumours, Fleetwood Mac,
and to a lesser extent Mirage have earned a special
place for anyone who loves good music. The earlier incarnations of
the Mac with Peter Green, Bob Welch et al were brilliant in their own way,
but the band really captured pop, folk, and rock sensibilities
in perfect form when Buckingham and Nicks joined Mick Fleetwood
and the McVies in 1974.
I've recently come to really appreciate Tusk, the 1979 album
following Rumours.
I picked up the relatively recent remaster
(remaster date not shown on cover or liner notes)
of the double vinyl album onto a single CD,
possibly at a "Super Saver Price" at a now defunct Tower Records
retail store.
The big hits Sara, Tusk with the USC Marching Band, etc.,
have all of their bold and brassy glory.
But the smaller, quieter, spacey numbers by Buckingham and Christine McVie
are charming, emotional and beautiful.
Save Me A Place is a, structurally-simple, languid,
heartfelt blues number
with stunningly-pretty, four-part vocal harmonies.
The funny, funky, quirky Buckingham tunes like I Know I'm Wrong
also charm.
Some say that Fleetwood Mac is a better live than studio band.
That may be true in terms of audience experience,
but Fleetwood Mac is also one of the top studio bands of all time,
and this comes across superbly in hit studio albums like Tusk.
The very nice remastering here really helps.
The original recording quality of Tusk is outstanding, as it should be
for a band of this caliber.
I assume it's an extremely high quality analog multitrack recording
with very careful miking and very clean analog processing.
The original recording is credited to Ken Caillat and Richard Dashut
at The Village Recorder,
with "some tracks recorded by Lindsey Buckingham at home."
Caillat is also credited with the remastering,
with Soundstream equipment used for digital mixdown.
(Soundstream was used for many good-sounding
Telarc classical digital recordings.)
Sound is decidedly better than earlier albums Rumors and Fleetwood Mac.
String, drum, brush and voice sounds are excellent;
far, far above typical commercial pop.
These albums were huge business, but they were also huge art and huge heart.
The deserve their place in the pantheon of popular music.
Ralph Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony
is another beautiful choral work. Written in a modern romantic
style, the vocal and orchestral arrangements are very pretty and unique.
The music is stirring. If you like the work of his contemporary Elgar,
or his teacher Ravel, you'll probably enjoy this piece.
Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem
is hard to compare for sheer beauty and technical excellence
as a choral and orchestral work
The beautiful vocal and instrumental harmonies
and orchestrations of pretty much everything are unbelievably good.
The chord modulations and their timing seem to tug directly at the
human soul.
There's a free version of the Requiem at
"the ghost of the
Free Music project" (Wikipedia), but please don't overload
the poor guy's server.
Note to self: Brüll Piano Concerti are interesting.
Hyperion recorded them in volume 20 of its recent romantic concerto cycle.
Schumann: Bunte Blätter pretty
Dvorak Cello Concerto too
Aaron Rosand is one of the best violinists most people haven't heard of.
It could be because he's on the relatively minor Vox label performing
with relatively minor orchestras, but he's a great player.
His Beethoven and Brahms concerti with the Monte Carlo are well-reviewed
and wonderfully played (VXP 7902 on Vox).
The recording and performances are excellent.
The Monte Carlo Philharmonic under Derrick Inouye has slightly unconventional
readings of these pieces, yet those go well with Rosand's personal,
highly thoughtful and lyrical performances. Reviewers have compared
Rosand to Heifitz, and that's not unfair. However Heifitz never had
sound quality as good as on these recordings, all from the late 1990s.
Rosand's Sibelius paired with the Khachaturian (VXP 7904)
is a bit less enthralling,
perhaps in small part due to the partnership with the Malaysian Philharmonic
under Kees Bakels, but it's thoughtful and interesting.
A Vox disk (VXP 7906) with the Bruch concerto, A Minor Romance and
Scottish Fantasy with the Hannover NDR Radio-Philharmonie has definite charms.
Rosand's tone is charming, his playing fresh and emotionally charged.
His Romances for Violin and Piano with Hugh Sung (VOX 7505) are
wonderful performances of standards by Bruch, Kreisler, Sibelius, Dvorak,
Vieuwxtemps, Wieniawski, Clara Schumann, Nielsen, and others.
As of that 1995 recording date, Rosand was a Professor at the
Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, which is presumably where he
met Sung, who graduated in 1990 after studying with Jorge Bolet
and Seymour Lipkin.
Sound quality is excellent and the performances could be models for
how these pieces should be played.
Sung's performances are excellent, though the violin is given a bit
more prominence over his piano in the recordings.
These were recorded at the Curtis Institute in 1993.
I found a used copy of Pete Haycock's "Guitar and Son" on eBay and am
thankful I did. Interestingly there are many LP versions offered for sale,
but I found the only CD at the time. Sound is good on this 1988 recording,
and the music is excellent. Haycock was the guitarist frontman for the
well-respected and liked Climax Blues Band.
His playing on this solo album is excellent, as are his compositions.
All the tracks are quite different from each other. I'd describe them
as blues, jazz, classical, rock, a Scottish march and other forms in a rock idiom.
The musicianship is first-rate and Haycock's guitaring is soulful, singing,
and sweet or sour to taste. His musical and playing sensibilities are deeper
and seem better-grounded than younger guitarists; perhaps he holds a tighter
temporal connection to the blues origins of rock.
Pete clearly influenced rock guitarists like Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Joe
Satriani, Eddie Van Halen, and others, and if you like their work, you'll
very likely enjoy Pete's as well. Haycock is at least as much of a precursor for them
as Al Dimeola, Jeff Beck or Eric Clapton.
The remastered 2004 collection "Ultimate Survivor"
includes a dozen and a half mostly hits from a group
perhaps best known for "Eye Of The Tiger" and
"Burning Heart" from the Rocky movies. Those are competent pieces,
but some of their other big radio hits immediately impress as outstandingly
good music. The half dozen top-10 pop and AOR hits include "High On You,"
"I Can't Hold Back," "Is this Love," "The Search is Over," and
"Desperate Dreams" as
excellent romantic power-rock ballads from the 1980s.
These are beautiful pieces wonderfully written and lovingly played.
Singer on the later pieces is Jimi Jamison, who took over from an
also excellent Dave Bickler who sang "Eye of the Tiger" and other early hits.
Jamison's got some killer chops and navigates octaves with deft grace.
His is one of the best voices in rock since Pat Benetar, but without
much of her artifice.
But it's the writing that especially impresses me. The best of the tunes
are instant classics with catchy hooks, touching lyrics,
great instrumental sound, and soaring harmonies.
They're brilliant pop pieces that are also very pretty.
If writers Peterik and Sullivan don't have some formal compositional training,
they clearly have an appreciation for classical music.
A couple of the earlier tunes "Rebel Girl" and "Rockin Into The Night"
are straight ahead yet distinctive enough to have opened doors to the
record companies. 38 Special got to debut record "Rockin," and it became
one of their staples. The Survivor version is expectedly a bit flashier,
but is related in spirit to 38 Special's cover version.
Harmonies on later tunes remind somewhat of Journey, but Jamison's voice
seems stronger and more pure than Steve Perry's.
Survivor's sensibilities lean more towards pop, yet retain a tougher edge
than Journey's polish.
Speaking of Pat Benetar, her 2005 Capitol Records complication "Greatest
Hits" is very well done and hits all the high notes. It looks like
there may have been an MTV special to go along with it's release,
and the quotes
in the liner notes from other famous female rockers who followed
in her footsteps help reveal her significance as a trailblazer
in the rock world.
Her singing and the great writing and playing of Neil Giraldo and
many others of New York's finest session musicians really created a
phenomenon. Some of the writing is a bit over the top, but rock is
not about being shy and for the most part it works really well.
Pat had the skills, talent, writing and playing from herself
and those around her to succeed, and succeed she did.
Compilations are retrospective in nature,
but I'm grateful for the chronicles and preservation of some great music.
Sarah Chang's Tchaikovsky Concerto with Sir Colin Davis and the LSO on EMI
(#54753 2 6)
certainly reinforces that she is one of this age's great violinists.
Her teacher at Juilliard, Dorothy DeLay's observation that Chang's approach
to this piece is rhythmic seems apt, and it is indeed a unique reading.
But what really strikes me is her artfully-detailed crafting of every note.
Each is perfectly logical, consistent and meaningful in creating a musical
context. It's also effortless and transparent in creating a whole view
of the piece.
While her intonation of the 3/4 size violin may leave some room for
improvement, her artistry is astonishing.
(Part of the tonality may also be due to some closed-in sonics of
the hall or microphone technique. The sound is good, but a bit opaque.
Overall the sound has a slight, honking, nasal resonance.)
Chang was playing a 3/4 size because she was 11 years old when the recording
was made in 1992! I can't recall many adult violinists with this kind
of mastery of instrument or conceptual capacity for integrating entire works.
Regarding the accompaniment, Davis seems to push the LSO at a fairly
traditional pace, which at times seems to outstrip Chang's somewhat
non-traditional and more leisurely interpretation. If she had a view
of the work with a rhythmic basis, Davis did not seem to fully buy into
it, or arguably he was providing contrast via a more conventional reading
for the orchestra.
Another way to view this might be to say that the orchestra indulged her
experimentation while it drew her performance into the overall dynamic.
Chang also does a more than credible job on four companion tracks of
Brahms' Hungarian Dances. Nothing about her fully-realized
playing says "child prodigy" other than perhaps a little less than adult power,
where the same could be said of the concerto.
Pianist Jonathan Feldman is sympathetic and polished,
everything a young virtuoso could ask for in an accompanyist.
I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from
Sarah Chang's Mendelssohn and Sibelius Violin Concerti with
Mariss Jansons and the Berlin Philharmonic (EMI 7243 5 56418 2 3).
She, Gil Shaham and Hilary Hahn have been recommended by a violin teacher
friend as good young performers.
Chang also gets nearly universally strong, glowing reviews.
(Maxim Vengerov was not mentioned, but what little I've heard of his playing
seems very worthy of more listening and exploration.)
Perhaps I should not have been too surprised to find that this is outstanding
musicianship by Chang. She manages to be lively and fresh while
playing with perfect expressiveness as if she were speaking,
singing her own music.
Each phrase and the indeed entire works are well-conceived
and beautifully realized.
The artist knows the story the music is telling and shares it with us
lovingly.
At the same time she is able to concertize with Old-World dignity and charm,
with a sensitivity to the history of the pieces that puts her in a continuum of
the greats.
The paradox of her acknowledgment of the past together
with a distinct freshness and vitality to her playing is intriguing
and delightful.
Chang brings the knowing heart of the music alive
in a way very few violinists can.
Through great talent, artistry and intelligence,
she is able to express the soul and energy
of the music, as if she has magically become,
for the duration of its performance, part of its universal essence.
For me part of her art and charm are musically sensible tempi
which are not relaxed or slow, but simply in tune with and
appropriate to the music. That the tempi may be slower in places
than the seemingly frenzied pace of other recordings in the past century
is probably just another sign of her musical mastery.
Accompaniment by Jansons and the Berlin is nearly uniformly
harmoniously excellent. Chang seems to have gotten far more respect
from this orchestra than most young soloists, though at the 1996 point of this
recording she was a seasoned veteran at 15 years old, having concertized
since the age of 8 with the likes of
Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic,
and Ricardo Muti and the Philadelphia.
The Sibelius is a live recording, but the Berlin audience is
respectfully silent as is customary in Europe.
These outstanding modern recordings by a very exceptional young artist get my
highest recommendation. I hope to have the opportunity to
hear Chang in concert some day!
I don't care for most of Leila Josefowicz other recorded
performances of the violin concerto standards, but
her performance of the Sibelius on Philips 446 131-2 is outstanding.
She plays with ease, precision, sweet tone and effervescent emotion.
She was 17 years old when these were recorded in 1995.
The conceptualization and performance of this sweepingly Romantic
piece is wonderful by both the soloist and
Sir Neville Marriner directing the Academy of St Martin
in the Fields.
Josefowicz's instrument on this piece is the "Ebersolt"
Guarnerius del Gesu of 1739.
Sound is close-miked and overloaded in a few places, but passable.
The performance of the Tchaikovsky Concerto paired on this disc
is not one of my favorites.
Update: going back and re-listening to Josefowicz' Tchaikovsky
leaves me wondering what I didn't like about it before.
The recording is fairly close multi-miked, meaning every detail
of her intonation can be heard, including perhaps a couple glitches,
but she really plays this piece, and plays it very well.
Perhaps it was the close-miked sound of this recording that bothered
me the most. Its sound is close, but livable.
But more importantly the performances of the soloist and
orchestra are wonderful!
Given my tremendous enjoyment of Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg's other
performances, I had to hear her 1993 Sibelius Violin Concerto with Michael
Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra on Angel EMI,
CDC 7 54855 2 3.
Perhaps it suffers from comparison with the Josefowicz which I
heard earlier and which strikes me as far more energetic and emotional.
(Impressively, Josefowicz didn't have a "youthful" affectation
to her playing of the Sibelius, which one might have expected given her age
at the time.)
Part of that impression is due to the close-miking of the Josefowicz compared
to the more realistic-sounding and distant hall perspective of
the EMI Salerno-Sonnenberg recording with the LSO.
But perhaps a larger part of a sense of ennui
is due to lackluster conducting by Tilson Thomas.
In recordings, broadcasts, and in person, MTT's direction often seems
weak-handed to me. His ensembles too often seem to lack "punch"
and energy where works desperately cry out for it.
In classical music, there is a time for sensitivity and
there is a time for intense, driving energy.
I'm all for sensitivity, but
MTT's performances seem to lack the latter dimension and suffer for it.
Another factor is that Salerno-Sonnenberg learned the Sibelius late
in life at 28 or 29, whereas many other players learn it when young.
It's a difficult piece, and the technical challenges may perhaps have made
Salerno-Sonnenberg overly cautious, then lavish in her treatment.
She alludes to this in her liner note interview, saying:
"It would have been a lot easier if I had learned it when I was 17
and then brought it back. Because by the time I did start to work on
it I was already who I am, so I drove myself crazy with pressure.
When it didn't sound good in one day, I became scared and frightened.
Not to mention frustrated."
You've got to love Nadja's honesty and candor in her admissions, but
I wonder if her "17" comment refers in some part to Josefowicz, who was
17 when she recorded it with Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin
in the Fields.
Where Josefowicz' and Marriner's performances of the Sibelius slow movement
frequently
leave me on the edge of tears, Salerno-Sonnenberg and Tilson Thomas
leave me intellectually curious but largely unmoved. Puzzlement is not
the feeling I look for in pieces from Romanic era.
It's also the opposite of what I usually expect from Salerno-Sonnenberg,
who so often lets her emotions radiate from the bowstrings like a 100 kilowatt
ratio transmitter.
One minor example
is the stark barrenness depicted in the first movement by Salerno-Sonnenberg,
where the composer notes espressivo. NSS takes this to
mean expressing a nordic stoicism against desolation and sadness
with a thin tone,
whereas most other performers, Josefowicz included,
use a fuller intonation to express, well, expressiveness.
Perhaps the biggest lesson to be drawn from this recording is
that the conductor matters a lot.
I suppose I should hurry up and move to Seattle so I can
hear Gerard Schwarz more and MTT less.
It's also a bit surprising
that Salerno-Sonnenberg chose an intellectual approach to
this piece where emotion is her great and clear advantage.
Perhaps this comes from learning the Sibelius much later in life,
unlike the Brahms, Tchaikovsky and others which she learned in
her youth.
Update: Hearing Salerno-Sonnenberg's Sibelius a few more times leads
to a new appreciation of it as more mature and introspective,
but wonderful in its own regard.
As opposed to being restrained or cautious,
one can say that it takes a more subtle approach
still infused with emotion,
yet emerging from a subtext drawn more deeply from within the work itself.
Salerno-Sonnenberg once again manages amazing contradictions in
a performance thoughtful and intelligent
yet pointedly and at all times deliciously emotional.
Even with some more familiarity, a few of the decisions seem
minorly quirky, but they are no longer distracting.
Instead they are small differences of opinion
that make an outstanding performance distinctive.
The orchestra and soloist seem to take somewhat of a
"European" perspective,
with a sophisticated near-reverence for the work apparent.
I still feel MTT's reading is a little timid, but it could also
be said that he defers the orchestra to the soloist
more often, as a good accompanyist arguably should.
The orchestra shares a slightly spare and lean
view of this work with the soloist.
Pacing is generous, and that too is somewhat European in
perspective, but mainly it's probably being more faithful to
composer's original tempi.
In contrast Josefowicz' performance is more extroverted and
perhaps a bit more straightforward, but still sweet and appealing.
Both performances of this extraordinary work
find their own ways to please and delight.
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg's performance of the Mendelssohn
Violin Concerto and other works on EMI (CDC-7 49276 2)
leaves me effortlessly certain that she is one of the greats of
her generation. Her performances are emotional without being cloying,
fresh without being precocious,
exceptionally technically adept without being sterile or mechanistic,
charming and enchanting without being ingratiating.
She is one of the best interpreters and performers of this music
that I have heard.
Accompaniment by Gerard Schwarz and the New York Chamber Symphony
circa 1988 is excellent as is so often the case whenever he picks
up the baton and dedicates himself to whatever work he chooses to lead.
Schwarz is becoming one of my favorite conductors. I'm not even
sure I can describe his musical sensibilities or why I like them
so much, but like Salerno-Sonnenberg's, Schwarz's reading and
performance of many pieces simply seem right to my ear.
Surely part of the attraction is deep thought and consideration
both artists apparently put into their conceptualizations.
So often do
their performances plumb questions of what the music should
say,
and so seldom do they simply seem to be running through the notes
as too many others perhaps may be said to do in comparison.
That this collaboration would be a tremendous
musical success should therefore perhaps not be too great a surprise.
Highly recommended, and by the way where can I find more recordings
by these two? If this is any indication, they should be wonderful.
Sound is very good, if multi-miked and slightly close, as unfortunately
is the commercial norm.
When I reorganized my music collection recently,
Lang Lang's debut concert on Telarc somewhat ironically ended up next
to Nojima's Liszt on Reference Recordings.
The contrast of these two pianists could not be more clear,
despite the different venues and works performed.
In terms of technique, Nojima's solo piano is so proficiently
played that the music simply flows from the instrument as if
there were none. This is all the more startling since Liszt's
works are notoriously difficult to play. Equally importantly,
Nojima extracts the intellectual and emotional content of the music
as effortlessly as he extracts the notes. Both aspects of Nojima's pianism
are domains of genius. In terms of sound, as usual Keith
Johnson's purist recording is a joy and treat if a little bit close-in.
Recorded sound is too seldom this supremely competent.
Lang Lang is technically adept, but like so many current musicians
his pianissimi are consciously quiet, where the quiet
in these passages should come from the spiritual calm
of the player more than the overt physical modulation of the instrument.
Similarly I find Lang Lang's emotional contrasts expressed through the
music to be
more affected and less heartfelt, corporeal and visceral than Nojima's.
Telarc's sound on the Lang Lang recording is excellent,
if somewhat characteristically mechanical and contrived in nature,
which perhaps fits the performances, just as Keith Johnson's more organic
and natural sound fits Nojima's.
So here we have two pianists, one striving for excellence
and the other obviously being it. The contrast could not
be more clear.
Delightful is the single word to describe
Haydn's Piano Trios. I was fortunate to find one of the
apparently few remaining copies of the Beaux Arts Trio's
performance of the complete Landon edition trios on Philips
(Polygram 454 098-2). This ten and a half hour treasure
was originally very well-recorded in the 1970s on analog tape
in Switzerland and the Netherlands, then first released in 1991.
The CD set I got from overstock.com for $45 was released
in 1996 and unfortunately seems out of print as of 2003.
The Beaux Arts plays wonderfully; not much more could be asked
from these performances, other perhaps for a slightly more
distant microphone perspective. It's amazing that F.J. Haydn
had been considered largely irrelevant by his succeeding
romantic generations. His compositions are, for lack of a
better description, classically classical and far less "cute" than
the precocious and better-known works of upstart Mozart.
The Beaux Arts is able to infuse the joyful compositional beauty
of Papa Haydn's trios with skillful elegance and charm.
Haydn's trios may be the best music ever written, and the
Beaux Arts performance of them is outstanding.
Traditionally Haydn's latter trios are held up as exemplary,
but the early trios are wonderful too, if simpler in
structure. The 13th in B flat, for example, speaks
beautifully with an elegant charm and pure joy.
Proof that Bach speaks directly to the soul can be found in
Murray Perahia's performances of Bach's keyboard concerti
on two separate CDs from Sony, recorded in 2000 and 2001.
Conducting the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields from a
modern pianoforte,
Perahia illuminates these great works with a grace and beauty
that is both timeless and temporal.
Keyboard technique, intonation, and overall structuring of the works
is masterful and quite refreshing.
These should be considered nearly essential recordings in any collection.
The sound differs noticeably between these two CDs.
The earlier set with Concerti 1, 2, and 4 (BWV 1052, 1053 and 1055
respectively on Sony Classical SK 89245)
is a bit harder, harsher and more "digital,"
particularly during louder passages.
Given that type of coloration,
I propose that it may be attributable to differing digital recorders,
since that is the kind of effect I believe I hear
from inferior digital conversion, but the hardness could also be
due to microphone choice or placement, mixers or other technical issues.
No information about this recording is included other than an Air Studios,
London location and engineering by Markus Heiland.
The later recording of Concerti 3, 5, 6, 7 (BWV 1054, 1056, 1057, 1058
on Sony Classical SK 89690)
was at the same studio by the same crew,
but aside from BWV 1056, they were recorded a year later and
probably on newer equipment.
BWV 1056 on the second disc
appears to have been recorded in the same session as the first disc
and is noticeably more forward, disintegrated spatially and generally harder.
It sounds like the later recordings also used fewer microphones
since the result is more like a real, whole space and less like spotlighted
instruments or groups of instruments each in an unrelated reverberation space.
The newer tracks are recoded using "24-bit technology" but the note
somewhat in contradiction
also says Direct Stream Digital (DSD) and SBM Direct were utilized.
(In principle DSD and PCM are very different processes, but many
of Sony's so-called DSD recordings are from PCM masters, and some
of the DSD recorders start with highly oversampled low-bit PCM
converters.)
Perhaps the later recording was 24-bit PCM then converted to DSD for further
conversion into 16-bit, 44.1 kHz using Super Bit Mapping.
Or perhaps it was a DSD recording converted to 24-bit before
being Super Bit Mapped into CD format.
Whatever the method,
the sound of the later recording is much smoother and more natural.
Instrument sounds, particularly in the low registers,
is notably more realistic.
Fortissimi are cleaner.
Whatever technology was used,
the sound of the later recordings is quite a bit better than the earlier ones.
My main general critique of the sound,
other than some hardness on the earlier recordings,
is that the miking is unnaturally close, and as is unfortunately
typical for commercial recordings there seem to be many spot mikes,
particularly during the earlier recording session.
The resulting sound is definitely more immediate than one would hear
from the seats in a concert hall.
Spot miking distorts the spatial relationships of the instruments
to the hall and other instruments,
which is why I and most audiophiles since the early days of
high fidelity prefer minimalist miking with a few mikes close to each other
but relatively far from the performers and further into the hall.
However these are very good commercial recordings of great music.
I do find myself better enjoying the music of the later recordings
due to their superior sound.
Superb ensemble playing marks the Eroica Trio's 2002 recording of
the Brahms Trios on Angel EMI (7243 5 57199 2 8). For example,
integration between the string instruments is so seamless at times that
the violin and cello almost sound like a single instrument with a single
player. The artists' personalities still come through where their individual
parts are highlighted by the music,
but they are able to accompany and support each other unusually well
when playing together.
Brahms' beautiful writing is so emotionally evocative that I find
myself drawn immediately into the spirit of the music. The Eroica's
fresh yet informed readings and outstanding musicianship serve the
music wonderfully.
Their playing is occasionally more edgy than ballsy, but there is plenty of
muscle, fire and love of the music and performing arts here.
Oh, and by the way, the Eroica Trio is three beautiful young ladies.
Congratulations to them for bringing us this great music!
This trio is as heroic as their name boasts.
Liner notes say this was "Recorded on SADiE Workstation 20-Bit
using Schoeps 221B Omnidirectional microphones", so we can assume
it was relatively direct to hard disk. Engineer was Marc Aubort
and the venue was Alexander Hall at Princeton University.
The mikes are clearly excellent, though the SADiE
recorder is very likely no longer state-of-the art.
The resulting sound is very good, but
like most commercial recordings the perspective is a bit close.
It makes for good delineation of instrument sound, but the sonic
perspective is closer than one would normally hear,
unless one normally stands on a ladder a few feet from the
performers during a concert!
Brahms Violin Concerto and Concerto for Violin and Cello
"Double Concerto,"
Isaac Stern, Leonard Rose, Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy,
Sony SBK 46335.
A mediocre mid-1960's recording of great performances of
two fantastic works.
As a composition, Brahms' Concerto is staggeringly beautiful,
romantic and touching. I can't find words adequate to describe its greatness.
Though not all of his approaches work for me,
I find most of Stern's reading and playing outstanding.
The accompaniment of Ormandy and his Philadelphia ensemble is wonderful.
Sound on the violin concerto is bearable but far from
state of the art at the time it was recorded.
Sound on the double concerto is a notch or two worse
and borders on the unbearable. Hall reverberation and instrument
sound are decent, but the recording is overlaid with readily apparent
grain and distortion particularly when the orchestra speaks
at any kind of fortissimo. This could be overload somewhere in
the recording chain.
Picked up another version of the Brahms Violin Concerto,
this time paired with the Bruch, played by Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg
(EMI CDC 549429).
Compared with Stern's Columbia Records performance, Salerno-Sonnenberg and
Edo De Wart conducting the Minnesota Orchestra seemed a bit slow.
At first this seemed perhaps to be a case of an indulgent artist
showboating at the expense of the the music.
However as someone who feels modern tempi are generally too quick,
the more I listened the more I came to appreciate that this is a probably
a more faithful approach to the music.
This performance helped reinforce my impression of the Brahms.
This sweet work is pure seduction.
With this thought,
I can compare the performances and say why I think one is more appropriate.
Where Stern plays it as piece of seduction, showing us why we should
fall in love, Salerno-Sonnenberg and company seem to show us they have already
fallen in love with the piece, which is a decidedly less engaging proposition.
Stern uses his charm and persuasion to evoke a longing atmosphere
appropriate to the Romantic Zeitgeist.
I enjoy both performances, and find Salerno-Sonnenbergs performance
in places more skilled and in tune with old-world sensibilities even while
I prefer Stern's interpretation while overlooking some of his rough edges
and too rapid modern pace.
(By the clock, Salerno-Sonnenberg's first movement runs 27:28
compared with Stern's 22:12 -- a huge difference.
Salerno-Sonnenberg's solid but somewhat gratuitous performance of the
Kreisler cadenzas do contribute several minutes of the first movement however.
Stern's other movements are also completed at a relatively rapid pace,
though less so than his first movement.)
Bruch composed his Violin Concerto a few short years before
Brahms, and both are dedicated to Hannover concertmaster Joseph Joachim.
Where Brahms deliberately pares down his composition and dramatically
omits in places, Bruch is fuller textured and more complete-sounding.
Perhaps it's the case that Brahms takes somewhat larger and bolder artistic
leaps
while Bruch more often seeks beauty in classical proportion and balance.
Bruch's orchestrations and tonal progressions sound fully modern.
Perhaps this shows how thoroughly the late romantic has actually
influenced the contemporary musical ear through movie compositions
and so forth.
Bruch's joyous, rollicking final movement benefits from completeness
and proportion,
being pleasingly thorough and fulfilled and a little
more grounded and earthly and less flighty than Brahms'.
Especially in the final movement, it's clear
Brahms was influenced by the spirit of Bruch's earlier concerto.
I'm a huge fan of Brahms so that's a big credit.
While Salerno-Sonnenberg and the Minnesota give a solid,
enjoyable performance of the Bruch, I could have perhaps hoped
for a little more verve and a little less classical restraint.
I guess I'm being a little inconsistent wishing for more modern
performances at times and more restraint at others.
Their particular readings may be very appropriate to each work after all.
Clean sound on both pieces is a bit distant except
for the close miked soloist. Perhaps a compromise microphone
placement could have given a more holistic, consistent sound.
All in all a very good recording and performance, if perhaps not the ultimate.
Update: After a little more familiarity I must say I really like
the more generous pacing of Salerno-Sonnenberg's concerti with De Waart.
The modern tendency is to rush through pieces as if a faster
pace makes them more exciting, with someone like Ozawa as an
extreme example. A slower pace lets the music grow and develop, is better
suited to most works, and is often closer to the composer's original
intentions and historical performances.
Kudos for letting the music thrive by not rushing it.
Bach's Brandenburg Concerti: it's going to sound
trite to those already familiar, but what phenomenal
music this is!
I picked up a bargain set of the 6 Concerti on
the Excelsior label performed by Musici di San Marco
as a Christmas present for a friend and got to listen to it recently.
Performances are nice,
and the recording is somewhat close in perspective yet a little wooly,
but mostly bearable.
But it's Bach's writing that stands out.
The concerti's beauty and perfection are as timeless and
fresh as the day they were written centuries ago.
The most well-known 5th Concerto features
an awesome harpsichord solo in the first movement.
It's easy to hear why Bach is one of the three
"B"s representing musical greatness along with Beethoven and Brahms.
Bruce Springsteen: The Wild, The Innocent &
The E Street Shuffle offers a little better
sound than a first listen might suggest.
Perhaps the many problems with the recording are
now just part of it.
Occasionally a bit overblown, the tunes are alternatingly
poetic, distinctive, evocative, sweet and driving.
String sections, top-notch backing vocals, Clarence on sax,
great piano work, and impassioned singing by Bruce lay
out short stories and colorful scenes from lower-middle-class
East Coast life.
Great music despite the sonic flaws.
My interest in Haydn is nurtured by Adam Fischer's
conducting of the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra
performing Symphonies 18 and 11 on Nimbus.
This is a lively and engaging reading of
these beautifully structured classical pieces.
My focus has broadened from flamboyant romantic
works and romantic/classical crossovers like Mozart,
Mendelssohn and Beethoven to include more purely
classical works from earlier periods.
The beauty of these is more in their finely
counterbalanced structure and graceful construction
than by gratuitous emotional grabs.
Which is not to say that they don't engage the emotions,
but it's more on a level of reveling in the beauty of
proportion and delicate construction.
My copy of this recording (Nimbus NI 5407) was a cut-out.
Don't know if it was there because of defects, but
the recording has annoying taps audible on some of the tracks.
It seems to be generated by the performers during the
original recording and not a later defect.
2 more discs of F. J. Haydn's music definitely increase
my appreciation of his delightful Classical compositions.
Delos apparently produced a series of recordings featuring
symphonies paired with piano concerti at the end of the 80s.
Two of that series I've auditioned feature Gerard Schwarz
conducting the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, joined on the
concerti by pianist Carol Rosenberger.
DE 3061 contains Symphonies 22 ("The Philosopher") and
104 ("London") with his 2nd Piano Concerto.
DE 3064 has Symphonies 51 and 100, known as the "Military"
with the 5th Piano Concerto.
DE 3061 is better recorded. DE 3064 has what sounds
like intermodulation birdies or digital aliasing in a couple places.
Both are otherwise clean and generally very listenable.
Good performances and sound help convey this elegant and
charming music which Mozart took to heart, saying:
"He alone has the secret of making
me smile and touching me to the bottom of my soul"
-- W. A. Mozart
Based on sheer volume, one might casually think of
Haydn's output as workhorses, but these compositions
deserve the thoughtful and lively interpretations given here.
This is some of the best Classical period writing I've heard,
played well.
Update:
I have become beguiled with these works of F. J. Haydn.
Both the 22nd and 104th Symphonies seem musically very satisfying
examples of beautifully drawn classicism.
The gutsy yet subtle dynamics of Haydn's 104th "London" Symphony,
and the intricate, clever and surprising contrapuntal textures,
tonalities, phrasings and modalities are far better than
a casual listen might suggest.
Haydn's harmonies and orchestrations are likewise masterful.
Comparing these with Mozart's oft times cherubic compositions,
I place Haydn among the better late-Classical period composers.
The Haydn Piano Concerti here rival and perhaps surpass
Mozart in their clean lines and pleasing, balanced forms.
It definitely helps that Gerard Schwarz conducts the Scottish
Chamber Orchestra with great intelligence, vision and sympathy,
which infuses the music with strong energy and due reserve where appropriate.
Pianist Rosenberger plays delightfully well with the ensemble too.
I wonder if my lack of earlier appreciation for Haydn stems from
uninspired, underenthusiastic performances.
Here these great works get the care and affection they deserve.
Relistened to Jon and Vangelis'
The Friends Of Mr. Cairo
and really enjoyed it. The recording has a lot of fine detail
and needs good reproduction for best results.
Fun, pretty, sensitive, clever rock/pop/synth.
John Hiatt's album Bring The Family
is simply brilliant. Biting insights into everyday
life, with a slight country tinge.
The music is leaned down here to just the essentials
allowing Hiatt's catchy melodies and rhythms and quirky lyrics and
funny and sometimes wrenching situations to come through even clearer.
John on Acoustic Guitar and vocals
could not ask for better accompanists than
Ry
Cooder
on Electric Guitar,
Jim
Keltner on Drums,
Nick Lowe
on Bass.
The best in rock seem quite happy
playing with one of America's best writers.
Sound ranges from above average to excellent, varying by tracks.
John Field's Fifth Piano Concerto
seems deliberately unusual,
but perhaps not to the same beguiling effect as
Saint-Saëns' similar number.
Chandos (CHAN 9495) pairs Field's Fifth with his Third concerto,
which Miceal O'Rourke and the London Mozart Players perform
pretty conventionally through the first movement.
Their Third's middle movement is unhurried,
allowing time for nuances of the music to be savored.
My appreciation for the charm and gentle grace of Field's Third Concerto
grows with each audition.
In particular the middle Cantabile movement
lingers pleasantly long after hearing.
The outer movements are also memorable.
As with the Field First and Second Concerti on Chandos mentioned below,
O'Rourke's playing with the London Mozart Players
under Bamert is steady and solid.
Sound is a bit soft, yet at the same time occasionally harsh on crescendi.
This 1996 20-bit recording is good but could probably have been better done.
A cleaned-up Stevie Ray Vaughan plays with
renewed energy and clarity on In Step.
In hindsight,
his earlier albums show some of the impairment he may have entered
the studio with, reflected in playing that was sometimes a
little too loose.
"Wall of Denial" is a extrovert's touching introspective about
some of the troubles Stevie was fighting
and how he broke through them.
It's a shame we did not get to hear more from the new found Stevie;
he was truly a master of electric guitar.
Sound quality is about average rock pop,
which is to say generally compressed, thin and quite veiled,
probably due to over-processing.
"Leave My Girl Alone" and "Riviera Paradise" sound the best recorded.
Got the 7 volume set of VOX Romantic Piano Concertos,
14 discs in total.
This is an interesting collection of less often heard works,
and as expected the quality of sound, performance and composition varies.
There are indeed some gems here.
Of the ones I've heard so far, the Ignaz Moscheles G Minor and
Mrs. H.H.A. Beach concerti, Litolff Concerto Sinfonique,
Hiller Konzertstück stand out.
Moscheles clearly influenced concerti by his student Mendelssohn and
others such as Chopin.
Bernhard Stavenhagen's Concerto features sophisticated orchestration.
Concerti by other Liszt students, Eugene D'Albert and
Hans Von Bronsart are also interesting and bold.
Moritz Moskowski's late-Romantic Concerto in E Major
pleases with soaring melodies.
Michael Ponti is consistently strong as the series' most frequent piano soloist.
Interestingly there seems little correlation between
recording date and sound quality. The '68 Moscheles
sounds better than some of the 70's recordings.
Unfortunately the variable sound quality makes
listening and appreciating some of the pieces more of a challenge.
In other words, varying sound quality can distract from the music.
It's fun sifting through these uncommon pieces as possible candidates for
modern high resolution recordings, if performers can still be found.
Hyperion Records
has recently recorded a similar but more extensive series of less-well known
Romantic piano concertos
that seem to be very well-recorded and
in many cases very well-performed. Frankly I'm a little surprised how much
the better sound of these compared to the VOX series
seems to make the music more enjoyable.
Miking seems moderately distant and minimal, resulting in palpable and clean
hall sound, even over the FM radio. Instrumental timbre is also very good.
The Tasmanian Symphony performances seem particularly good.
Bravo, Hyperion!
Additionally, Hyperion's recording of Paderewski's Concerto in a minor
featuring Piers Lane playing with the BBC Scottish Symphony has mesmerizingly
beautiful middle section.
Howard Shelley's performance of the Moscheles Piano Concerti 1, 6, and 7
on Hyperion 67385 has very nice sound and a great performance.
He is accompanied by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
Piano sound is clear and not close. It sounds like a piano in
a distinct acoustic space. In other words, the piano
has some hall sound around it, unlike most close-miked instruments.
Cowboy Junkies' The Trinity Sessions is a simple
recording using a Calrec mike and R-DAT recorder in a
church in Canada. The music is bluesy interpretations
of some standards like Sweet Jane, Blue Moon, plus some
original tunes and arrangements of traditional songs.
The recording is a real challenge for most equipment.
It sounds quite spartan and minimal, with a lot of
instrumental character and room sound. The guitar, bass and harmonica
use soft, fuzzy, distorted tubed instrument amps occasionally driven
into clipping overload. The sound of Margo Timmons'
voice varies widely depending on the playback equipment.
On lesser gear it sounds deep, bloated and grainy.
Husky is the single word to describe it on average digital playback.
On better gear it sounds clear, agile and still pretty breathy.
Overall this is a very soft and natural sounding recording.
On overly bright equipment vocal sibilants occasionally get shrill.
Cymbals are clear and very well recorded as are percussion
sounds in general, and the electric Bass and Guitar sounds
are exemplary of modern folk-rock-jazz-blues fusion.
Drum rim taps are an excellent resolution test. If you can
hear their decay clearly and cleanly in the church along with the changing
character of the decaying sound, then your gear is doing well.
On Rachmaninoff Plays Rachmaninoff (RCA/BMG 09026-61658-2)
Sergei himself plays his four piano concerti and the Paganini Variations
with the Philadelphia under Ormandy and Stokowski.
Recorded in mono between 1929 and 1941, the audio
is relatively clean for the early days of recording technology.
Sound quality is objectively 4/10ths that of the Ashkenazy/Haitink pairing
below, but the energy on these recordings kicks major ass.
The playing is at the same time clean, lush, and manic.
Perhaps a key to Rachmaninoff is
emotional extremes: deep melancholy gives way to scintillatingly
luminous lightheartedness.
His music explores human feeling through astonishing abandon
and delicate intensity.
I would describe the performances here as slightly more reckless and
less sober and restrained than Ashkenazy/Haitink.
But it comes out as passionate rather than sloppy
due to skillful control by all the players.
The music was fresh and the composer certainly has special insights.
Lots of good, old-fashioned string
glissando,
which of course has been regrettably out of fashion for
a half century.
I suppose it's considered too romantic,
but it's perfectly suited to this very romantic music,
itself oft criticized as anachronistic.
A spellbinding and indespensible recording.
Other recordings that are arguably Rachmaninoff
playing his own music and other pieces are Telarc's
A Window In Time discs. These are Rachmaninoff playing
Ampico piano rolls, transcribed to computer by Wayne Stahnke,
then played back on a electronically reproducing Bosendorfer and
recorded acoustically in Southern California in 1998.
Even through this somewhat unnatural and contrived medium
it quickly becomes apparent why Rachmaninoff was
considered one of the 20th century's greatest pianists,
in addition to being one of the great Romantic composers.
His playing is stunningly adept, and this is an intriguing
way to experience it.
Rachmaninoff's exquisite shading and texturing of every note,
coupled with awesome power, delicacy, and effortless fluency are amazing.
Rachmaninoff's interpretation of his own Eligie, Op. 3, No. 1
brilliantly stirs the romantic yearning for something missing
and something greater.
I also enjoy Rachmaninoff's gregarious interpretations of Kreisler's
Liebesfreud and Liebesleid.
These are some of the greatest musical performances I've heard.
By any measure these are outstanding and very enjoyable recordings,
but I can think of a couple things I would do differently.
First, use a Steinway, which is what Rach would have played.
(Alternatively you could match the recording sessions
through Ampico piano playback.)
Second, don't model the mechanical player piano;
model the performer's input and model out
the modern electrical operating system.
In other words, play the modern piano
as if the performer sat down at it today,
not a reconstructed old player piano.
If this can be done, it might sound more like a live human performance
and less like a player piano performance.
Heck I would even place an appropriately tall dummy dressed in a full tuxedo on
a piano bench in front of the piano for more realistic acoustic
phasing, absorptions and reflections.
Irrespective of recording technicalities, the music here is
delightful and fantastically good. Highest recommendation.
You can hear Rachmaninoff playing several of his same pieces above
in addition to the Symphonic Dances on budget-priced LaserLight Digital 14 128.
These are original historical recordings,
but the rather limited circa 1930-1940 sound is well-captured.
The same artist is clearly at work, but I find these
acoustic recordings carry a bit more spirit and less artifice
than Stahnke's high-tech reproductions.
I would still recommend the Telarcs first as a clean, modern
introduction to the music,
but for a handful of dollars, this LaserLight CD is a great way to
hear how he actually sounded (on 70 year old tape).
Stop the presses!
The sound on Symphonic Dances is surprisingly good;
almost as good as the Vox recording from the 1960s.
It has notably good hall and instrument sound
if a sometimes noticeable noise floor and some distortion of dynamics.
While the liner notes are blank,
we can safely assume the recording is no more than 40 to 50 years old.
The basic microphone placement and sound mix is excellent.
If this were made with modern equipment it would be an outstanding recording.
The piece is very sympathetically played by the London Symphony Orchestra
under the baton of Sir Eugene Goosens.
The good performance and historical sound is another reason to recommend.
Early Romantic Piano Concerti on Vox (CDX 5111).
Clementi, Hummel, Field, Cramer, Czerny, Ries concerti
by a variety of artists and ensembles from the 70s.
Sound and performance quality vary. Some interesting
music but unlike the above not essential. In some
ways the 30 year older RCA recordings above are better.
But then RCA made state of the art recordings and these
are certainly not 70's state of the art. Other VOX
recordings from the same period sound better, for example.
Makes me wonder if the mostly Michael Ponti 6 volume
12-disc Vox Romantic Piano Concerto cycle is worth getting.
Probably so, for the unusual, seldom heard concerti contained.
Re-listening to this collection, Cramer's Fifth Concerto stands out
as interesting. With Beethoven, Cramer was an admirer of Mozart,
but Cramer's own work owes more to the Classical period and Haydn.
The Larghetto middle movement is particularly pretty and shows
some of the cleverness and balance of a Haydn,
though Cramer decidedly has his own voice.
He also draws comparisons with acquaintance Beethoven, and
I find some similarities with contemporary Mendelssohn.
His harmonies and orchestration differ significantly,
and it would be interesting to discover where he studied composition.
The thoughtful 1974 performance by Akiko Sagara with Pierre Cao conducting the
Orchestra of Radio Luxembourg piques interest in his other compositions,
including the 7 concerti. According to the liner notes, this
may have been the first recording of Cramer's major works.
Three Piano Concertos of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
are played by Ronald Brautigam and the Nieuw Sinfonietta
Amsterdam (BIS-CD-718) with great beauty, enthusiasm and skill.
Brautigam's playing is occasionally a bit too quick.
Included with the well-known G minor Concerto No. 1 and
Mendelssohn's later D minor No. 2 is an A minor
Concerto he wrote as a 13 year old prodigy in 1822.
Youth is reflected in the middle movement's
less than fully formed textures, but it's also a
fascinating window into the composer's mind.
The BIS recording is clean and quiet reflecting a
simple recording chain of Neumann mikes, Studer 961 mixer,
Fostex PD-2 DAT recorder.
All pieces of equipment are well respected as of the 1994-5 recording dates,
and the sound is good, though if done today
I would substitute a better recorder such as a dCS.
Hall sound of the small church-like venue is well captured.
Pete Townshend's Lifehouse Elements is
a single 65 minute CD of tracks from a 6 disc set
of compositions intended for the unrealized Who Lifehouse concept album.
Tunes from Lifehouse formed most of Who's Next and include
many of my favorite songs such as Pure And Easy and Who Are You
which are sprinkled among other Who albums.
Pete's 1999 Lifehouse seems to be played and sung mostly by Pete himself
in demo-track fashion, so they're a bit sparse sounding.
Exceptions include an orchestral version of Baba O'Riley
played by the London Chamber Orchestra
(sounds like Phil Glass with balls)
and Who Are You played by "Pete Townshend's band featuring Hame".
The songs are generally cleaner and more polished than demo tracks would be,
but the tonalities aren't quite as rich as versions with The Who in full.
But some of these songs for Pete's Lifehouse concept album exist only here,
making them as unique as the whole album.
Telarc's Field Piano Concertos 2 and 3 with John O'Conor,
Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is a bit more
lively than Chandos' Field #1 and 2 with Miceal O'Rourke
with the London Mozart Players. O'Rourke takes a more
deliberate approach that perhaps shows a couple glitches
in composition that O'Conor virtuously dances over.
Field's first concerto is a bit bland except for the
Scottish-themed middle air.
Field's
incorporation of national folk themes makes
his later works of interest, and probably how he
ended up foreshadowing Rachmaninov when Field
taught, composed and performed in Russia.
Field briefly met his chief "rival" Johann Hummel in
Moscow. Chandos' recording of Hummel's A and B minor
Piano Concertos with Stephen Hough and Bryden Thomson conducting
the English Chamber Orchestra (8507) is an interesting contrast to
Field. To my ear Hummel is brilliant on the order of Mozart
but more classically orthodox than Field.
One can definitely hear the influence of Hummel and Field on Chopin's
regrettably few concertos.
It's worth reminding
that were it not for the efforts of folks like Mendelssohn,
the work of composers such as Bach and Mozart might have been consigned to
obscurity. Hummel and Mendelssohn were rightly superstars
of their age but it's surprising how great composers
like Mozart and Bach might have been lost to time without
the actions of their later champions.
Genesis Wind & Wuthering is my current favorite Genesis album
(others are Selling England By The Pound, Trick of the Tail, Duke).
Trick of the Tail remains strangely beautiful.
The Beach Boys The Pet Sounds Sessions:
HDCD remaster including clean new stereo mixes offering
a different richer sound from a modern mono (original) mix also included.
Includes tracking sessions and alternate mixes on 4 total discs.
An exemplary historical re-release of the first-ever
concept album
which spurred the Beatles and George Martin to create Sgt. Pepper.
Rachmaninov, The Four Piano Concertos (1-4),
Vladimir Ashkenazy with Bernard Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw:
graceful, intelligent and mature performances of some of the most romantically
beautiful music ever composed (London 421 590-2).
Rachmaninoff's First Piano Concerto, revised in 1917,
is becoming one of my favorites, with great themes and great writing.
Though still soaringly romantic,
the First owes slightly more to classical themes than his later works,
which are more overtly emotional and perhaps typical of the composer's
solo works.
Rachmaninov's stylistic voice is very clear and unmistakable in
the Third Concerto for example.
The Third Concerto is brilliant and haunting, like a favorite daydream.
The best-known Second creates amazingly strong emotional surges
through broad and powerful orchestrations.
It also has some of the most beautiful pianism written in the romantic style.
In the slow movement of the Fourth Concerto, listen to for a devastatingly
subtle,
brooding manic shift to the discovery of deep, glowing, effervescent
joy and peace.
One of the greatest turns of emotion in music is remarkable
especially for its gradual and gentle but clear and overwhelming shift.
It reminds of another sublime yet striking emotional turn
in the slow movement of Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony.
The Yes Album, remastered by Joe Gaswirt
at Ocean View Digital (Atlantic 82665-2), is spectacular
over my Assemblage D2D-1 and DAC-3 (see next). Steve Howe's
guitar and the room acoustic on "The Clap" is immensely cleaner
and his burning guitar skill and humor dazzle.
The rest of the album, certainly one of the greatest art rock
albums, ain't half bad ever.
Instrumental timbres are much cleaner. Distorted and phased
Fenders, Jon Anderson's voice, miscellaneous drums, cymbals
and shakers never sounded so good.
What matters of course is that the music is.... Wow!