by Audiophile Audition | Jun 30, 2009 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
HAYDN: The Creation (in German) – Sally Matthew (Gabriel, Eva)/ Ian Bostridge (Uriel)/ Dietrich Henschel (Raphael, Adam)/ London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/ Colin Davis, conductor – LSO Live Multichannel SACD 0628 (2 discs), 102:49 ***** [Distr. by Harmonia mundi]:
Because of Haydn’s two earlier visits to London in the 1790s, and his exposure to Handelian oratorios, we have, providentially, this masterly work of the same genre that really has no predecessors in the composer’s catalog. 40 years after the death of Handel, the late composer reigned supreme, and the English were fairly confident that none would take his place, even though Haydn’s trips were supremely successful and made him a wealthy man.
Until, that is, the year of 1798, when The Creation was completed. Haydn had been, admittedly, overwhelmed by the experience of hearing so many Handel works done with large choral forces, and felt that “he was struck as if he had been put back to the beginning of his studies and had known nothing up to that moment” according to a biographer. He learned quickly—when a libretto of The Creation fell into his hands—and the origins of this work are still shrouded in mystery, except that Baron Gottfried von Swieten first caught it and thrust it into the view of Haydn—and put the full powers of his now mid-sixties advancement in age directly into this work. The work was fashioned in English though Von Swieten was asked to make a German translation as well. After the 1798 premiere in Vienna the work was launched worldwide to unparalleled acclaim everywhere it was given. The skill in the recitatives and choruses, while not like Handel, certainly bore his influence, and few pieces have been so unanimously praised since.
There have been innumerable recordings of this piece, from the stately Karajan in an older style to the recent period instrument McCreesh on DGG, certainly the one to get if one seeks a period performance. There are of course other considerations. German and English versions abound, though curiously the German seems to have prevailed recording-wise. Bernstein had much to say about this work in his two readings, still very fine. Robert Shaw’s English reading is the last word in that language, even though his instruments are modern, and the work has never been sung better. Colin Davis has never (!) recorded this work before, and so that makes this issue all the more interesting. I cannot think of a better version done with traditional forces in many, many years, though Davis does prefer German. The singing is superb, the soloists all the more so (especially the radiant Sally Matthews), and for once the typical LSO Live boxy stage sound seems to have been tamed. This is one of their best releases to date, with lovely surround sound adding much to the presentation. This is truly a wonderful achievement, and with McCreesh, Shaw, and Davis on my shelves, I think I am set for life.
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 30, 2009 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
The Celtic Viol = Airs and Dances by O’Carolan, Simon Fraser, Niel Gow, James Macpheson, William Marshall, and traditional Irish and Scottish – Jordi Savall, Treble Viols/ Andrew Lawrence-King, Irish Harp and Psalterium – AliaVox Multichannel SACD AVSA 9865, 75:53 ***** [Distr. by Harmonia mundi]:
Jordi Savall has finally turned his mind to Scottish and Celtic music which he first encountered in 1975, and has become increasingly enamored of ever since. Please bear in mind that this is not music as you might hear on a Chieftains album, though some of the tunes are the same. Most of these pieces only attainted written status at the end of the 1600s or later, and Savall approaches them all in the spirit of oral tradition, where the melodies were passed from generation to generation. Indeed, he freely admits in the excellent notes (and superb production, as usual) that for many of these works there is no known way of accompaniment or even of how to render the melodic lines. But using his musical instincts he has produced renditions in as caring and thoughtful a manner as possible, also taking into consideration the living performance practice of these works by other artists dating back to the earliest years of recording.
This SACD is divided pretty much equally between solo treble viol melodies and those with improvised and steadily supportive harp work by Andrew Lawrence-King, surely the most creative such musician in this sort of work alive today. You will not find a lot of rambunctious performances a la Fiona Ritchie’s public radio program The Thistle and Shamrock. These are unadulterated, bare-bones readings of an important and underrated aspect of Celtic national heritage, true period practice if ever the word had any meaning at all. Much of the music comes across as meditative, subtly foot-tapping, and yet gloriously beauteous melodies that one can only imagine gracing the hearths of many an Irish or Scottish household over the last 500 years, with their remnants transported to many similar homes in olden North America as well.
The playing on this disc is simply beyond criticism, and it should hold great attraction for folk song enthusiasts, classical aficionados, and Celtic music buffs alike. This is crossover in the very best sense of the word.
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 30, 2009 | Classical Reissue Reviews
Michael Rabin Collection, Vol. 2 = BRAHMS: Violin Concerto in D, Op. 77; PROKOFIEV: Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63; WIENIAWSKI: Violin Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Major, Op. 14; First Movement (second performance)/BRUCH: Violin Concert in G Minor, Op. 26; MOHAUPT: Violin Concerto; CRESTON: Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 78; BACH: Double Concerto in D Minor: first movement; MENDELSSOHN: Violin Concerto in E Minor: third movement; MASSENET: Elegie; BRAHMS: Contemplation; KREISLER: Caprice Viennois, Op. 2; SAINT-SAENS: Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28; PAGANINI: 6 Caprices, Op. 1; YSAYE: Sonata No. 3 for Solo Violin: Ballade, Op. 27; SPALDING: Dragonfly; MILHAUD: Tijuca; SZYMANOWSKY: La fontane d’Arthuse, Op. 30 – Michael Rabin, violin/ Brian Sullivan, tenor (Massenet)/Zino Francescatti, violin (Bach)/Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Rafael Kubelik )Brahms)/Andre Vandernoot (Prokofiev)/National Orchestra Association/Charles Blackman (Wieniawski)/Los Angeles Philharmonic/Alfred Wallenstein (Wieniawski first movement)/Berlin Radio Symphony/Thomas Schippers (Bruch)/New York Philharmonic/Dimitri Mitropoulos (Mohaupt)/Little Orchestra Society/Thomas Scherman (Creston)/Bell Telephone Hour Orchestra/Donald Voorhees/Lothar Broddack, piano )Milhaud, Szymanowski)
Doremi DHR-7951-3, (3 CDs) TT: 240:53 [Distr. by Allegro] ****:
A second volume of rare and historic collaborations and solo work from Michael Rabin (1936-1972), the tragic American talent whom we lost much too early in a meteoric career, warrants our attention. Never having committed the large-scale concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, and Prokofiev to commercial discs, we can revel in these issues via Jacob Harnoy’s Doremi label, dedicated as it is to great instrumentalists.
For the 3 August 1967 performance of the Brahms Concerto at the Ravinia Festival, Rabin played a 1735 Guarnerius del Gesu lent him by conductor Kubelik, the wonderful instrument having belonged to Jan Kubelik, Rafael’s father. The scale of the Brahms first movement proves quite streamlined, the tempos brisk, but at no cost to the wonderfully arched cantabile Rabin brings the lyrical sections. The collaboration, moreover, has the authority of Rabin’s “comeback years,” that period post-1964 after drug addiction and nervous tension had forced Rabin to take a needed hiatus from the concert world. Here, with the Chicago Symphony, Rabin seems secure as ever technically, and his playing enjoys the molded plasticity of experience and emotional depth. Kubelik, likewise, urges ardent, rounded phrases from his orchestra, particularly when the development section throws sequences and leaping motifs around with something like gypsy abandon. The drive to the Joachim cadenza resonates with particular authority. The sweetness of Rabin’s tone finds a perfect, soaring vehicle in the Brahms Adagio, where the oboe (Ray Still?) and French horn complement his plaints. You would be hard pressed to find a more compelling realization of this movement, anywhere. The visceral aggression of the last movement quite startles us, the tympani and the Chicago brass explosive. Even Rabin’s brief cadenza has his digging into the strings with more electrical zeal than was his wont as a youth, the four-note motif assuming the fateful character of Beethoven’s Fifth.
Rabin championed the second of the Prokofiev concertos, eschewing the D Major. His attack (11 July 1968) and phraseology remind me much of that of Zino Franceascatti and Dimitri Mitropoulos made for Columbia records some 12 years prior. Immediately, after a razor-sharp opening, Rabin launches into the lyrical sequence, its sympathy with Romeo and Juliet’s love-theme, with especial empathy and ardor. Vandernoot keeps our focus on the woodwind interplay and the series of syncopated cross rhythms that compete for attention. Despite some crackle in the original tape, the slashing, vivid tones compel us with blistering authority. The world has been held in thrall by the Adagio assai ever since Heifetz and Koussevitzky inscribed it for posterity. Rabin and Vandernoot do it no less heart-wrenching justice, Rabin’s silken tone rising over punctuated string pizzicati, mystically amoroso. Violin and flutter-tongue flute engage in a delightful colloquy, where Romeo’s face might be set amongst the night stars. A bit of the savage still insinuates itself into the lyrical canvas, just enough to remind us how elemental these passions are. So, too, the quasi-Spanish dance that ends the concerto, its mad, coloristic fandango in 5/4 and 7/4 and permutations thereof. The whirling momentum takes us forward with nary a hesitation, only the elastic onrush of two musicians possessed by a divine love of music.
The last of the mature Rabin collaborations, post-1964, is the Bruch Concerto in G Minor from the Berlin Radio Symphony (15 October 1969) with Thomas Schippers. The granite force of the realization becomes evident at the outset, Rabin’s tone and digging attack uncompromising. The transition to the second subject, tympani raging, comes like a sweet revelation of divine mercy. Even in less than perfect sonics, the performance has guided, sincere direction and astonishing nobility of phrase. The fast passages daunt Rabin not at all; he seems to relish the speeded accents and articulation as part of his renewed frenzy to make music. Schippers himself is caught up in the emotional sweep–as he proves to be in his commercial inscription with Francescatti of this piece–and the second movement Adagio hews out a burnished valedictory elegy. If this and the incendiary Finale, these assertions of the life force, provide Rabin’s funeral oration, we owe ourselves the agonized pleasures of his ecstasy, which sings in its chains like the sea.
From Carnegie Hall, 17 December 1951, the fifteen-year-old Michael Rabin appears on the Bell Telephone Hour, smoothly playing the Heifetz arrangement of the Brahms “Contemplation,” then the familiar Caprice Viennois of Kreisler, with a thoroughly idiomatic lilt in the rhythm and sugar bouquet in the heart. The sizzling pyrotechnics and flying spiccati, however, testify to a temperament well beyond schmaltz. Vorhees supplies a transparent aura for the Saint-Saens, which Rabin begins marcato et lento, but we can already sense the explosiveness beneath the sleek veneer. The huge trill, and the race in dotted rhythms opens with a swagger and bravura thoroughly seasoned. The middle section enjoys the Moroccan-oasis sensibility of incense and erotic caravans. The Mendelssohn third movement (16 May 1955) from the E Minor Concerto proves dashing and deftly articulate, as per expectation, gay spirits all around. Tenor Brian Sullivan joins Rabin’s obbligato for Massenet’s poignant Elegie, shades of a world that passed with Mischa Elman and Efrem Zimbalist. The “culmination” of Rabin’s appearances at the Bell Telephone Hour concerts must be the first movement of the Bach Double Concerto with friend and confidant Zino Francescatti (28 April 1952). As gorgeous and rife with natural brio as the Vivace is, we long to have heard their second movement. How ironic, that Francescatti’s last recording was of this same work (for DGG) with Regis Pasquier.
To supplement the Bell Telephone broadcasts, we have an appearance from Santa Barbara’s 1953 The Standard Hour, where Rabin and Alfred Wallenstein collaborate on Rabin’s signature Wieniawski F-sharp Major Concerto. Quick, lean lines display Rabin’s total security in the convulsive, over-wrought pathos of the piece–especially in the high registers–its haunting melos welded to a Polish national style that nods constantly to Paganini.
For a complete performance of the Wieniawski as played so inimitably by Rabin (7 April 1950) we sojourn to Carnegie Hall for a collaboration with Charles Blackman and the National Orchestra Association. Only a mite broader than the Standard Hour interpretation, the first movement certifies to what degree the rhythms and velocities of this sensational piece had ingrained themselves into Rabin’s 14-year-old musical persona. The perfect segue from raspy cadenza to the elegant last pages remains a thing of beauty. The second movement Wieniawski marks “Preghiera” (Prayer), Larghetto. The purity of Rabin’s line strikes us at once: Elman heard Rabin and exclaimed, “That’s the only way to play it!” The last movement allows us Rabin’s take on a krakowiak, a spirited rondo in strident, whiplash Polish style. Even as a youth, Rabin commanded the Paganini unaccompanied Caprices, recording them as a boy for CBS. In Berlin (17 October 1961), Rabin at 35 takes the chromatic Etude No. 5 in one gulp; the glissandi of No. 13 acquire a steamy luster than breaks into a series of staccato figures and double notes in raspy, quickly shifting accents. No. 14 “La Chasse” takes us in double notes to a hunting party, the violin becoming a clarion chest of trumpets. No. 17 works on broken figures and wrist articulation, the scales and slides all over the fingerboard. Heroic No. 24 in A Minor, the penultimate offering, we know as the pregnant source for the whole Romantic (and beyond) taste for variations. How can No. 9 avoid becoming an anticlimax? By Rabin’s playing this etude–which sounds like a battle between honey bees and wasps–so stunningly that we see why Liszt wanted it for piano transcription. The Ysaye’s D Minor “Ballade” Sonata only lasts seven minutes, but Rabin takes us into a world splicing Bach to pre-Bartok, Enesco, and Ravel, and whose modal flames burn with Rabin’s particular phosphorus.
A year later, Rabin’s colossal energies are back in Berlin (30 October 1962) with pianist Lothar Broddack, the lion’s share of the recital on Doremi DHR-7715. Albert Spalding’s Dragonfly for violin solo sounds like a cross between Sarasate and Locatelli’s Harmonic Labyrinth. Stokowski played the piece as “The Zephyr” in an orchestral transcription. Milhaud’s swoozy portrait from Brazil is a tango in unabashed erotic colors. Szymanowski’s Myth “The Fountain of Arethusa” shimmers in post-Debussy pool of tinted light-infused waters, an invitation to dangerous thoughts and “cures for the soul through the senses,” if I remember my Oscar Wilde.
The first of the two premiers by Rabin, the Richard Mohaupt (1904-1957) Violin Concerto with Dimitri Mitropoulos (29 April 1954) has Rabin taking a stance similar to Louis Kaufman, another pioneer in violin repertory. The Mohaupt Concerto, in three movements, projects in its opening Capriccio a kind of neo-classic militancy, all battery and percussion in strident, dotted rhythms and snaky outbursts. Its spiritual guide might be Hindemith. The Notturno has a plastic, arioso violin line over woodwind ostinati and bass grumblings. The concluding Rondo Rustico sounds like a modernist attempt to re-write the Sibelius’ finale, only too academically predictable. If anyone can make this music tragically lyrical, Mitropoulos can. Still, critic Olin Downes found the work “dry” and of little significance to its acolytes. From New York’s Town Hall, the under-rated Thomas Scherman (1917-1979) leads the Paul Creston Concerto No. 2 (19 March 1962), a work that combines lyrical folk and bluesy elements with a debonair aerial virtuosity, often in moto perpetuo. The sound quality of the first movement is severely compromised and distant. The Andante nods to Gershwin–maybe Louis Moreau Gottschalk–in its intimately transparent colors, flute and horn floating over low strings–but the writing is anything but derivative. Violin and tympani dialogue against dance rhythms in African or Creole guises. A long, plaintive, moody, high-strung cadenza follows that takes us almost to the end of this introspective music. The concluding Presto strikes us with its light, impish textures, busy, hinting of tropical breezes. The intensity breaks out in the last three minutes with that fervent pulsation that Creston’s best music–like his Dance Overture--contains. Rabin’s violin soars like Yma Sumac or some rare bird of southern climes, impressive, unforced virtuosity at its best.
–Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 30, 2009 | Classical Reissue Reviews
Clara Haskil, piano = MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 19 in F Major, K. 459; Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 (two performances); SCHUMANN: Bunte Blaetter, Op. 99: 3 Pieces; Albumblatter; Abegg Variations, Op. 1; BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 – Clara Haskil, piano/RIAS Symphony Orchestra/ Ferenc Fricsay/Dean Dixon (Beethoven)
Audite 23.421 (2 CDs) 71:57; 61:42 mono [Distr. by Albany] ****:
Recordings from the studio and the concert hall 1953-1954 by the inimitable Clara Haskil (1895-1960) feature the great Romanian virtuoso in her favorite repertory of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann. Accompanying Haskil in all but the live performance (24 November 1954) of the Beethoven Concerto is Hungarian maestro Ferenc Fricsay (1914-1963), always a superb collaborator with ideas of his own. Lotte Lenya once spoke of “sprechgesang,” the cross of speech and singing in acting–according to the Brecht method–that dominated her aesthetic. So, too, Haskil’s ability to make a singing tone of the keyboard embodied her especial gift, her searching yet spontaneous musicianship, which few have equaled or surpassed. Truth and Poetry–Goethe’s artistic credo–was no less Haskil’s, and we rush to these unearthed treasures with heady anticipation.
We open with Mozart’s F Major Concerto, K. 459, whose hunting-party ethos carries happy sounds throughout. Fricsay, typically, keeps the woodwind openwork perpetually present; yet, his uncanny subito allows Haskil free reign to comment upon or dominate all instrumental developments. Clarity of line blends with affectionate musing in phrasal units at every turn; we reach the first movement cadenza before we quite aware of how much lyrical colloquy has passed us. Haskil’s pearly, music-box figurations and facile runs and trills suave segue into the coda, whose strings, winds, and horn take the hunt to a blithe conclusion. Flute and bassoon add their distinctive colors to Haskil’s keyboard finesse in the Allegretto, a piano-wind serenade of the highest, vocal order whose tempo never drags. Delicacy and impish grace mark the final Allegro assai, the high winds and bassoon particularly witty, even irreverent. The pulsation from the bass fiddles proves quite thick, despite the briskly intense pace of Fricsay’s chosen tempo. How similar Haskil and Robert Casadesus are in their quicksilver approach to Mozart! Rocket figures, polyphony, runs, breezy cascades–all fly by in a torrent of playful bravura, always beguiling, always concealing the severe craft behind the façade of “mere” ingenuity.
We go to the three Schumann Bunte Blaetter, just for contrast, the Romantic’s character-pieces of introspection and initiated passions. The choppy metrics of the Sehr rasch section hint at internal struggles of the spirit; yet, a sublime, steady pulse dominates. The Frisch becomes a kind of martial-legend, in the manner of one of the Waldszenen. We inhale the piece deeply, but it ends in less than a minute. Five plus minutes are allotted the Albumblaetter, inward and rife with nostalgia for the dream of life. The “Schnell” entry sounds like a fevered reverie; the last three each calls for a degree of “langsam,” slowness, but tempered by layers of affect. “Sehr langsam” lies a hair’s breadth away, temperamentally, from dark Brahms, Berg and Webern. Haskil took great pains over the 1830 Abegg Variations of Schumann, his opus one. She plays it as a salon etude in contrasted chiaroscuro, the line brittle, evanescent, and elastic or pounding and aggressive, Euebius and Florestan. Its Cantabile section assumes a florid, operatic bombast, all rhetoric; then a syncopated treatment of the main theme leads us to a stellar, Chopinesque Fantasia (Vivace) of clean, liquid proportions, pompous, scintillating, confident.
Two inscriptions of the volatile Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 provide us an opportunity to hear Haskil on two consecutive days, the first the studio performance from the Jesus-Christus Kirche (11 January 1954), the “live” performance having been given at the Europa-Palast, Berlin (10 January 1954), with slightly diminished sonics. Without the audience on which to draw fear and energy, Haskil plays in the studio with a firm, staid resolve, the sonic qualities eminently present in the woodwinds and the keyboard runs. A powerful tension resides in the atmosphere, despite the empty hall. With the audience, a dynamic electricity emanates in all parts. The essential, sweeping sturm und drang elements that Fricsay brought to the fore in an otherwise “rococo” period of Mozart interpretation still quite stun and captivate us. Haskil’s keyboard manages to grumble, to heave with surging emotions. Haskil’s own cadenza has the two hands in contrary motion, runs and trills juxtaposed, progressingto a furor of chromatic intervals that finally cadence, so Fricsay’s fierce entry can catapult us to the murky coda.
In each case, the Romance movement rings with pearly beauty, a poised resonance whose every note and turn emanates from an aristocrat of the keyboard. The tumultuous middle section might burst into flames until bassoon and strings help reestablish something like the idyllic grace of the opening. Deliberate, articulated enunciation of the theme opens the emotionally frenetic Allegro assai, hardly a traditional rondo, but rather a lyric dramatic excursion into D Minor and D Major. Haskil’s cadenza, once more, enjoys a brief, divine frenzy. The live version is a hair brisker, yet the two performances stand a mere five seconds apart in playing time, in spite of their idiosyncratic momentum–a phenomenon of motor consistency attributed to Mozart himself as a performer of his own works!
For the Beethoven Fourth Concerto, Haskil joins the Afro-American conductor Dean Dixon (1915-1976), whose musical career flourished in Europe despite a rough start in America after Juilliard. The collaboration takes place at the Hochschule fur Musik, Berlin, whose warm acoustic compensates for a wee distance in the miking. Dixon’s opening tutti has a marvelous breadth, much in the Scherchen or Schuricht mode, a sweet surface rife with the inner conflicts of the C Minor Symphony. Mellifluous and poised, the performance enjoys the taut polish and urbanity we love in Haskil, a thorough identification with this Aeolian Harp of piano concertos. The drive to the first movement recapitulation alone is worth the price of admission! A somber, studied Andante con moto sees the light at the end of the tunnel, the opening of the Rondo: vivace bristling with serene, nuanced execution. Dixon has the bass fiddles churning away, the upper strings buzzing and whirling in fine syncopation to Haskil’s pyrotechnics. Ardent, colorful, this collaboration marks another important, recorded milestone in the expansive Haskil discography that accumulates around a selective, seminal body of works.
–Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 30, 2009 | Pop/Rock/World CD Reviews
Jon Balke & Amina Alaoui – Siwan – ECM 2042, 1 hour [Release date: June 30, 09] ****:
(Amina Alaoui, vocals; Jon Hassell, trumpet & electronics; Kheir Eddine M’Kachiche, violin; Jon Balke, keyboards & conductor; Helge Norbakken percussion; Pedram Khavar Zamini, zarb; Baroque Soloists/Bjarte Eike, violin & leader)
While clearly in the world music/jazz area, this Jon Balke release seems so strongly world music that I thought it should be in this area. The Arabic poems are adaptations and melodic co-compositions by vocalist Alaoui, and the primary composer is pianist Balke. The Baroque Soloists ensemble includes theorbo, archlute and clavichord in addition to the usual strings and harpsichord. They are heard on some of the 11 tracks. The zarb is also known as the tonbak and is a single-headed goblet drum with a skin on just one end and many different special techniques for playing it. The project draws on the sounds and ideas of pre-Renaissance and Baroque music and is intended to draw attention to the realization of what was lost during the Inquisition and expulsion of the Muslims from Spain – the rich blending of Arabic and European cultures which had been going on and was lost due to religious intolerance.
Balke, Alaoui and their friends explored Andalusian classical music, which they feel was born in the Cordoba court in the 9th century, when Moorish Spain was a center of musical idioms and ideas. They point out a common denominator between the three idioms of Andalusian music, early Baroque, and jazz, saying they all show flexibility, openness to interpretation, and improvisation, which results in a rich variety of forms and variations. It’s interesting that since the making of this recording in 2007 and 08 at a studio in Oslo, the Siwan ensemble has performed live in both Norway and Egypt.
The backgrounds of the ensemble’s members are extremely varied. The Baroque Soloists are some of the top players on the European early music scene. Andreas Arend is a German lutenist who performs in both Baroque and Renaissance music. The leader of the group, Bjarte Eike, has been a violinist in early music in Copenhagen and is also a member of Balke’s Magnetic North ensemble. Violinist M’Kachiche is from Algeria and steeped in the tradition of Arab-Andalusian music. Percussionist Norbakken mixes world and jazz traditions in his work. Trumpeter Jon Hassell is known for his unique sound blended from the avant garde, Indian classical music and minimalism – which he dubs “Fourth World.” Amina Alaoui was born in Fez, schooled in the Moroccan tradition, and explores connections between Fado, Flamenco and Andalusian music. Pianist-composer Balke is Norwegian and has been involved in many projects combining jazz and world music, as well as composing works for sinfoniettas and chamber orchestras.
The overall feeling of the album struck me as similar to Jon Hassell’s efforts but with vocals. I have been upfront previously in explaining that I’m not heavily into vocal music – preferring instrumental – but those who are would I think find this CD a most worthwhile listening experience. The melodies are lovely and tonal. There are complete translations of each of the songs – even with Arabic script for those of Arabic origin, and the poetry is often very moving to read. (Thank you ECM for providing more information than your spare booklets normally do.) Some of the songs are in Spanish or Portuguese. Alaoui has a vocal delivery that seems very secure and sure, but it is not easy to follow the English translation while listening. The exotic sounds of the various instruments are beautifully captured in the recording. The general mood is dreamy and laid back, in spite of the variety of percussion often heard.
TrackList: Tuchia, Ya Andalucin, Jadwa, Ya Safwa Ti, Ondas Do Mar De Vigo, Itimad, A La Dina, Zahori, Ayshyin Raquin, Thulathyath, Toda Sciencia Trancendiendo.
– John Henry
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 30, 2009 | Jazz CD Reviews
Joey Peró – “Resonance” (self-published, no #), 52.7 minutes ****:
(Joey Peró, trumpet; Adam Nussbaum, drums; Andy Snitzer, tenor sax; Artie Reynolds, bass guitar; Bill Moring, upright bass; Paul Livant, guitar; Peter Rish, piano; Ralph Rolle, drums; Robert Walker, clarinet; Roger Rosenberg, baritone sax; Stephanie Cummins, cello; guest vocalists: Freddy Cole, Daryl Sherman, Phoebe Snow, Jack Antonoff)
Young Peró is a virtuoso trumpeter, trained at Julliard, who played at Obama’s inauguration. He can sail thru anything in any genre, and brings together his wide-ranging interests and abilities in this CD which seems to try harder to combine classical, jazz and rock strains than any previous effort. To my ears it doesn’t always succeed, but I think it would appeal more strongly to those coming to it from a strictly pop music background.
Peró’s style and sound is obviously inspired by Maynard Ferguson. He can soar to stratospheric heights with ease, and so does Phoebe Snow on her vocalizations at the end of Birth. (Though I love Phoebe Snow, they got on my nerves after awhile.) The dozen tracks are arranged as flowing from one to another without breaks, and never mind that the transition might take one from a classical-sounding trumpet piece to funky jazz with fuzz guitar or a rap-influenced number. The excerpts from the Arutiunian trumpet concerto take the classical work into the rock arena with rock guitarist Jack Antonoff distorting up a storm; Joey himself is the uncredited vocalist on the rather dreamy jazz track Looking In. The arrangement (co-written with co-producer Simon Boyar) of Brubeck’s (no credit for Brubeck) Blue Rondo a la Turk is a kick; it reminded me of something by Raymond Scott. The next-to-last track of Karl Jenkins’ (also no credit) music for the diamond commercial is also fun – giving it the status of a Vivaldi trumpet concerto but with a jazz big band accompaniment.
The sonics are first rate and for most this should be a fascinating listen. Peró follows in the footsteps of trumpeters such as Wynton Marsalis, who are equally at home with the classics or jazz. The CD sets itself apart too: one of those all-black pressings with a super-smooth playing side, looking like one of the 78 rpm kiddie records of the distant past. And the gold-on-black caricature of Peró on the cover is also striking.
TrackList: The Finest Romance, BACH: Partita No. 2 “Preludio,” Crazy, Birth (based on HANDEL’s “Ode to the Birthday of Queen Ann,” Defying Gravity, Excerpts from ARUTIUNIAN Trumpet Concerto, Wrapt, Looking In, BRUBECK: Blue Rondo, BACH: Goldberg Variation 1, JENKINS: Palladio, Resonance.
– John Henry
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 30, 2009 | Jazz CD Reviews
Scotty Barnhart – Say It Plain – DIG 137, 1.1 hours *****:
(Scotty Barnhart, trumpet; guest trumpeters: Clark Terry (tr. 12), Wynton Marsalis (tr.7); pianists: Ellis Marsalis, Marcus Roberts, Lindsey Sarjeant, Bill Peterson, Bruce Barth; Jamie Davis, vocal (tr. 9); others)
We seem to be getting in a number of jazz releases packed with guest artists; it does add more interest and variety to albums. In addition to the bevy of trumpeters and pianists, this one adds both recording and editing by many different people and at many different locations. The final result is of a piece, though, a fine assembly of swinging small group jazz in a conservative and accessible style that is never a bore. A lot of the dozen tracks are originals by Barnhart, but there are classics too – such as Coltrane’s Giant Steps, Dizzy’s lovely Con Alma, Frank Loesser’s I’ve Never Been in Love Before, and Young at Heart, which has the album’s first vocal by Jamie Davis – the second vocal is the closing Pay Me My Money by Clark Terry in his inimitable vocal style.
The CD’s title tune is a madly swinging medium-tempo number showcasing Barnhart’s easy-going style and warm tone. Saxist Todd Williams takes some fine solos on four of the tracks, and Clark Terry helps wrap things up with a kick on the final track, contributing both his trumpet and voice. On the Con Alma track Wynton Marsalis joins in a duet with Barnhart, and the whole thing chugs along on an enhanced percussion background contributed by players on both the left and right sides of the soundstage.The whole album is very well put together and a testament to the skills of trumpeter Barnhart – who is Professor of Jazz Trumpet at Florida State University and featured soloist with the Count Basie Orchestra.
TrackList: Giant Steps, Say It Plain, The Burning Sands, Haley’s Passage, Dedicated to You, Put on a Happy Face, Con Alma, Jnana, Young at Heart, I’ve Never Been in Love Before, I’m Glad There is You, Pay Me My Money.
– John Henry
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 29, 2009 | Classical CD Reviews
VINCENT D’INDY: Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 = Symphony No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 57; Tableaux de voyage, Op. 36; Karadec, Op. 34 – Iceland Symphony Orchestra/Rumon Gamba – Chandos CHAN 10514, 72:52 [Distr. by Naxos] ****:
Almost forgotten except for the “singular success” of his 1886 Symphony on a French Mountain Air, Op. 25, Vincent D’Indy (1851-1931) remained an active composer, musicologist, educator, and conductor, despite the paucity of performances of his remaining oeuvre. Dimitri Mitropoulos, for instance, programmed the Wallenstein Trilogy for the New York Philharmonic concerts in the 1950s. Pierre Monteux did perform and record the Symphony No. 2 (1903), but it has never enjoyed anything like the popularity of “Mountain Symphony.” Adhering to classical principles and a post-Wagnerian (or Franckian) harmonic syntax, the B-flat Symphony reveals in the course of its four cyclic movements a thorough grounding in sonata-form and counterpoint. Busoni led the symphony in 1906 Berlin and praised it in his aesthetic document, Outline for a New Aesthetic of Music.
D’Indy embodies the irony of theory-and-practice, since, despite his personal objections to Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande and the ‘symbolist’ school of composers, D’Indy, too, falls into whole-tone techniques that often cloud his subject-dominant (B-F), structural design. The harp’s glissandi play a huge role in adding exotic allure to the rather martial aura of the first movement. A lyrical second subject begins to sing, but it trails off diaphanously a bit soon, to my taste. The original motto is built on a tritone (B-flat, D-flat, C, E), so there lies throughout a sense of menace. The music rises at its conclusion to a resolved, firmly confident assertion of ego. Those who know the B-flat Symphony by Chausson–even though D’Indy’s work is dedicated to the memory of Paul Dukas–will find allusions.
The English horn figures in the meandering, D-flat second movement, the atmosphere of an extended song aided by clarinets, horns, and violas. D’Indy uses the Lydian fourth to invoke the folk sensibility. A harp carries a lighter mode, a kind of gigue or bucolic intermezzo that Percy Grainger could have claimed. The tapestry becomes exotic and erotic, the colors having expanded into a Gallic equivalent of Scheherazade. A D Minor intermezzo ensues, the solo viola and the woodwinds laying out the melancholy air. Like Schumann, D’Indy provides two trios–the first another airy gig or reel–each of which exploits a whole-tone scale. The last movement opens like Beethoven’s Ninth, with a slow survey of past motifs. The tritone material of movement one becomes “civilized” in the form of a fugue–shades of later Shostakovich–then the spirited main theme for the rondo emerges in 5/4 time. The mottos from movement one appear, mix, and dark double basses trigger a solo violin (leader Sigrun Eovaldsdottir) of ethereal aspirations. Huge, upward scales take us to a vivid–perhaps ’inflated’–chorale in a spirit of triumph.
D’Indy composed a suite of thirteen piano pieces in 1882 based on his excursions in the Black Forest and Tyrol. Rife with thirds and variants on mediant chords, the pieces have sophistication and color. D’Indy orchestrated six of them in 1889. C Minor strings argue with A-flat Minor horns to open the Preambule. En marche struts out in F Major, a happy folk song in syncopations. Le Glas, played lento, is a C Minor episode in grave, rustic tones enhanced by clarinet and viola, open fifths in the cellos. Tympanic rolls accentuate the drama, and we might think of Elgar. Lac Vert in E-flat Major proceeds like a lullaby in thirds, almost Brahms. La Poste stays in G Major, tonic and dominant, the trumpet heralding some buzzing strings in F, the brief whole a bit of Schubert. Reve is the last longest episode: in C Minor, it takes a cyclic cue from Preambule, but darker in hue. The jaunty rondo identifies once more tunes from Le Glas and Lac Vert as well. Rather virtuosic playing from the Icelanders here, recorded 8-11 September 2008.
In 1890, D’Indy composed music for Karadec, a play by Andre Alexandre, of which D’Indy preserved three pieces lasting about 11 minutes. The Prelude’s G Minor March might invoke rustic allusions to both Grieg and Nielsen, the harmony moving to B Minor before it is over. The brief Chanson opens with a flute in E-flat Major which proceeds to horns, violas, and cellos, violin trills from "the beyond,” and some tinkling from the triangle. The march tune, transfigured, from the Prelude opens the Noce bretonne, a vivacious wedding that has the oboe in G Major against chromatic sixteenth notes in the strings. I had not heard Mr. Gamba in the first volume of D’Indy on Chandos, but this disc convinced me he knows what he is doing.
— Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 29, 2009 | Classical Reissue Reviews
Three Violinists play BACH = Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, BWV 1041; Violin Concerto No. 2 in E Major, BWV 1042; Double Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1043; Concerto for Violin and Oboe in C Minor, BWV 1060 – Devy Erlih, violin (A Minor and D Minor)/Henri Merckel, violin (E Major and D Minor)/Reinhold Barchet, violin/Kurt Kalmus, oboe/The Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra/Kurt Redel
Opus Kura OPK 7043, 67:49 [Distrib. by Albany] ****:
Taken from a Ducretet Thomson LP, these transfers, c. mid-1950s, brng back memories of Kurt Redel leading various Baroque ensembles for the Vox label, just as the so-called “Vivaldi Revival” was in full swing. An heir to Adolf Busch, Redel worked in Stuttgart with the likes of Karl Munchinger. True to the spirit of the “authentic” style (whatever that is) Redel uses the harpsichord for his continuo, and he plays ornaments on the upper note, as required. Here, he leads a group of select French musicians, some more famous than others. Devy Erlih (b. 1928) won the Premier Grand Prix at the Long-Thibaud International Competition, making his the heir-apparent to Jacques Thibaud. A strong technique and a nasal incisive tone are his hallmarks, though he was to be eclipsed by the more spectacular Chirstian Ferras for flamboyant bravura. Henri Merckel (1897-1967), another powerful French virtuoso noted for his Saint-Saens, brandishes a long, flexible line, but it cuts very thin, as his vibrato is quite fast, his tone a step away from Szigeti’s razor-wire, cut-gut sound. Merckel makes the Allegro assai of the E Major Concerto dance and strut with a resolute panache, the intonation sure, the catty figures in the ensemble on point.
I found only old-world charm in the D Minor Double Concerto, a sweet plastic line evolving from the two soli, Erlih and Merckel. The slow movement becomes a kind of swan-song for a whole sensibility of negotiating Bach. The Concerto for Oboe and Violin has my recalling Stern and Tabuteau in Philadelphia or Stern and Gomberg in New York. Kurt Kalmus packs an elegant elastic oboe tone, somewhere between Holliger and Mitch Miller or Tabuteau himself. He and Reinhold Barchet–who did record for Vox often–seem joined at the musical hip, their respective sonorities blending in a noble dance and ariosi for the outer movements. For sheer mysticism in Bach, the beguiling Adagio steals the berries, a love-song of two amorously intertwined sea-weeds. Quietly-restored surfaces guarantee unruffled, devotional Bach. Recommended to the adventurous who look backward for sweeter sounds.
— Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 29, 2009 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
RUED LANGGAARD: Messis – Flemming Dreisig, Copenhagen Cathedral Organ – DaCapo multichannel SACDs (2 discs) 6.220528-29, 56:4, 68:56 ***** [Distr. by Naxos]:
Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) was something of a musical teenage delinquent in Denmark’s musical scene; for some years his music languished nearly forgotten until it was reassessed in the 1960s. No one has done more to rehabilitate Langgaard than Bengt Viinholt Nielsen, author of the fine essay accompanying this release.
Messis, which means “The Time of Harvest” is a substantial work lasting nigh on two hours in total and written almost entirely for organ solo. The child Langgaard had made something of a name for himself in 1905 as an 11-year-old improviser on the organ. His First Symphony, most recently recorded by DaCapo and released on SACD 6.220525, and also included in the boxed set of all the symphonies on 6.200001 was first performed when the composer was but 18, and is a sizeable work for large orchestra and lasts about an hour. Unfortunately, this work was not greeted warmly, and while his music was occasionally performed in Germany until the late 1920s, performances at home rather petered out. Derogatory remarks about Carl Nielsen made by Langgaard and his mother helped move him to the very fringes of musical life in Denmark.After the mid-1920s, Langgaard’s music had become backward-looking, harking towards the age of Gade and Schumann, and during the 1930s, he had almost ceased writing, that is, apart from Messis. It took until 1940 for Langgaard to obtain his first and only full-time post, that of organist at Rabe, and it was here that Messis was completed and revised – Langgaard was an inveterate tinkerer with his works.
Langgaard himself performed parts of Messis at Rabe Cathedral in the very early 1950s. Written in three sections and a postlude, the work is meant to be performed over a series of evenings, and the music has much variety. There are passages which are open and confident, others which are discordant and acid. Use is made of chorales, small quotations from other composers and folk tunes. Above all, there is the feeing of a free spirit extemporising, and I found much pleasure in sitting back, enjoying the sound and just let it waft over me.The first disc opens with In Tenebras Exteriores, written after the three Messis evenings, and was inspired by the Parable of the Wedding Feast, in which the groom’s father is noticed by the King as inappropriately dressed, and so is cast, bound hand and foot, into the outer darkness. Langgaard may well have considered this a self-portrait, the misfit of Danish music. The piece ends B, A, D, Eb, spelling out HADES. The three evenings’ music was inspired by biblical quotations, these all included in the handsome booklet.The performance made on the organ of Copenhagen Cathedral sounds superb; Flemming Dreisig conjures a very wide palette of sound from the fine five manual Marcussen organ whose specification is included. Certainly it contains a frighteningly accurate “goat stop”!
Technically, this is, I feel, a superb recording of an organ, the sound particularly in multichannel mode reproducing the ample acoustic with complete success. Indeed, this is one of the finest organ recordings I have heard; and with such rare and rewarding, largely romantic sounds, it is to be highly recommended.
SACD 1-
In ténebras exteriores, BVN 334 (1947)
Messis (Høstens tid), Drama for orgel i tre aftener, BVN 228 (1932-37) Første aften: Messis, BVN 228a (1932-35, rev. 1951-52)
SACD 2-
Anden aften: Juan, BVN 228b (1936)
Tredje aften: Begravet i helvede, BVN 228c (1937, rev. 1937-39)
Postludium til Messis, BVN 228d (1937)
— Peter Joelson
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 28, 2009 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
MOZART: Piano Concertos No. 5 in D, KV 175; No. 8 in C, KV 246; No. 23 in A, KV 488 – Christian Zacharias, piano/ Chamber Orchestra of Lausanne – MDG Multichannel SACD 940 1562-6, 66:23 ****: [Distr. by Koch]
We have now reached Volume 5 of MDG’s estimable series of Mozart piano concertos with Christian Zacharias, the first such SACD series to my knowledge [there is a so-so bargain boxed set on Brilliant Classics…Ed.], and a highly worthy effort. There is some backtracking to the early concertos here, featuring KV 175, actually the first piano concerto Mozart wrote, even though it is numbered as “five”. The earlier works were all arrangements of other composers. So 1773 was somewhat of a banner year for the young 17 year-old genius, and he continued the efforts with his eighth work in this most original of genres (at least a genre brought to perfection by him) during the year of 1776 and written for a pupil of father Leopold. One mustn’t be put off by these earlier works, for despite their youthful origins there are sparkling hints of the vivacity and ingenuity that are to come, and hold the attention of any listener for their own sake. Even KV 175 remained popular for many years after the composer had graduated to bigger and better things.
KV 488 is of course one of the most popular concertos ever written—and maybe Mozart’s most popular—and the combination of intimate chamber-like appeal along with gushy bravura passages have endured it to many over the years. The Marriage of Figaro was completed only two months later, and the innovative twists and turns of harmony and melody present in that seminal work also find their way into this concerto. (Keep in mind that Mozart’s piano concertos are essentially operatic in their essence.) The sound of this work is different also, in that there are no kettledrums and trumpets, and the oboes are replaced by clarinets, likening it to a smoother, more homogenous texture that supports Mozart’s lyrical moments.
Zacharias’s articulation is spectacular in these pieces, just the right amount of separation between the notes in the faster passages, and an almost organ-like style of playing that allows the melodies to truly soar with a seamless and unobtrusive melisma. The sound is fabulous, the best on any Mozart concerto series so far, and is recommendable without hesitation.
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 28, 2009 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews
Fricsay: Music Transfigured – Remembering Ferenc Fricsay–Une vie trop breve
Director: Gerald Caillet
Studio: Medici Arts DVD 3078528 [Distrib. by Naxos]
Video: 4:3 Black&White and Color
Audio: German PCM Stereo
Subtitles: English
Length: 51 minutes; Bonus tracks – ROSSINI: La Scala di seta Overture; BEETHOVEN: Leonore Overture No. 3 (23 minutes)
Rating: ****
From beneath the stage, the late Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay (1914-1963) emerges, smiles congenially to his ensemble, acknowledges the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, and together they rehearse (1960) Smetana’s The Moldau from Ma Vlast, the village-dance section. “Play it as a peasant dance. . .with a vital force that turns into tenderness,” urges Fricsay. Leading without a baton, Fricsay makes his bare hands, eyes, feet, and hips suffice to manage the beat and capture every nuance from the ensemble. He adjusts the string tone, their attack, insisting on short bow strokes, more rhythm, crisper attacks and a pounding, earthy rhythm. “I am Hungarian, and I know these people, this music.”
“If you watch him,” offers conductor Antonio Pappano, “you see everything is keen, controlling every detail and gesture and how it tells a story. . . .His gypsy downbeat is so quick, it growls. Everything is raised up, intense, quicksilver, transparent. When he senses something is not alive, his radar hones in–it’s frightening.” Tamas Vasary, the pianist-turned-conductor, remarks, “You can see who is in control. . .his eyes are everywhere, and he speaks so fast, covering all the details; it’s like ten rehearsals in one, so it saves time for all concerned.”
Fricsay, doomed to die young (cancer or peritonitis; it’s all the same); so he becomes a rabid workaholic in the last five years of his life, and director Caillat assembles concert footage from the period, interview sequences, home movies, rehearsals, and Fricsay’s own narrative for DGG’s “A Life,” to create a flowing collage of Fricsay’s meteoric career which blazed forth from the ruins of post-WW II Germany and Hungary. We see historic footage of Fricsay’s family, his band-master father. Fricsay is born in August 1914, the very day WW I started. From his father he learns violin, piano, the “insides” of music of the military band. He will master every instrument except the harp. He leads Hary Janos by his teacher at the Franz Liszt Academy, Zoltan Kodaly. We see color movies of him and Kodaly at the Fricsay estate, where Yehudi Menuhin is kissing both men on the cheek good-bye. We will see excerpts from the Brahms and G Minor Bruch concertos with Menuhin and Fricsay. As Fricsay narrates his life, the director cuts to the modern Liszt Academy, where a student practices the piano near a bust of Bartok. “We never questioned the wisdom of our teachers,” proffers Fricsay. “Were we cowards? No, their words were full of a wisdom we wanted without revolution.”
Fricsay embarks to rebuild European music in bombed-out, postwar Berlin. Baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recalls that he had recently been released from a POW camp. “I met Fricsay in a burnt-out area of the Opera. At first he was skeptical, but after I sang for him, he exclaimed that he’s never expected to meet an ‘Italian baritone’ in Berlin!” Fischer-Dieskau delivers a hearty “Champagne Aria” by the Don. We see artists like Fournier and Menuhin in profile with Fricsay. Fricsay leads his favorite, Mozart, in Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, some extensive shots from different angles of his The Magic Flute Overture. In a panel discussion on Wagner, Fricsay says his blood beats faster to Mozart, but he has a passion for Tristan and Die Meistersinger. We see an excerpt, lovingly phrased, from A Siegfried Idyll. The head of the Fricsay Society remarks how much Fricsay shares with Toscanini, their technique, their service before a military band as a training ground for larger forces. We have more of The Moldau, which opened the video. Fricsay coaxes the nocturne segment, then the waters cascade to The High Castle, and the tension, majesty, and jubilation of the piece resounds.
The two, brief concert pieces, the bonus segment, gives us a rousing Silken Ladder Overture of Rossini, Italianate and diaphanous; then, Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 in C, the canvas large and dramatic enough to substitute for the actual opera. Fricsay’s concentration is fierce. Several commentators have by now remarked that since his illness and operation, Fricsay is a changed man, one back from the grave, from a confrontation with the Infinite. His emaciated features, his eyes, measure every musical nuance against Eternity. He has no time left; he has all the time in the world. As one recent initiate into the Fricsay “mysteries” remarked, while hypnotized by his performance with the Berlin Philharmonic of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, “What a patient conductor!”
–Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 28, 2009 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews
Woodstock – 3 Days of Peace and Music – 40th-Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition – Director’s Cut, Blu-ray (1969/2009)
Director: Michael Wadleigh
Performers: Joan Baez, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, Country Joe McDonald and The Fish, Crosby Stills & Nash, Grateful Dead, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Mountain, Santana, John Sebastian, Sha Na Na, Sly & The Family Stone, Ten Years After, The Who, Johnny Winter
Studio: Warner Bros. (2 discs + many keepsakes, photos, booklets, fringe-trimmed box) [Release date: June 9, 09]
Video: 16:9 with other multi-image shapes within, color 1080p HD
Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, DD 5.1 & 2.0 & mono
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish & Thai
Extras: Lucite display with festival images, 60-page LIFE magazine commemorative (reduced size) reprint, Iron-on Woodstock patch, Woodstock fact sheet, Reproductions of festival memorabilia incl. handwritten notes on paper plates and 3-day tickets, Over 2 hours of additional performances on film, Retrospective: “The Museum at Bethel Woods: The Story of the 60s & Woodstock,” “Woodstock: From Festival to Feature” – comprehensive gallery of short featurettes on all aspects of filming the festival – incl. interviews with Martin Scorsese, Michael Wadleigh, Festival Producer Michael Long, Grace Slick, many others, Enhanced BD-Live features
Length: Feature: Over 4 hours; Extras: Over 3 hours
Rating: *****
This stuffed box is a quite amazing collection of hi-def images, hi-def sound and paraphernalia from the standpoint of pop music history, political and social developments, and the filmmaking itself. Coming in a leather-fringed box that imitates Roger Daltry’s outfit in The Who, it is packed with stuff that may give those of us who weren’t there in l969 a sense of this supposedly largest gathering ever of human beings on earth (half a million, it is said). (I was at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, which was the template for Woodstock two years later.)
The music was a continuous lineup of the top names in rock and roll of the period. In fact, going over the above list I think the only group that doesn’t still have a great reputation and fans yet today was Mountain – which I frankly never heard of. Of course the film couldn’t possible have covered every minute of performance at Woodstock – they had to pick and choose – but the footage they got under difficult conditions is really something. The film won an Academy Award for Best Documentary and fully deserved it. It includes filming not just of the performers but of the preparations for the event, the massive crowd, people eating, smoking, skinny-dipping in the nearby lake, rolling in the mud when it rained on the crowd three times during the three days, and even the massive cleanup by 500 people who stayed behind afterwards to handle that. A few of the chapter titles will illustrate my point: Too big for the world, the invasion of Sullivan County, getting high on yoga, rain chant, the bodies beautiful, coping with the mess, the Port-o-San man, etc.
The unbelievable challenges of filming the event interested me strongly as a former filmmaker myself. Director Wadleigh had to beg, borrow and steal enough 16mm stock to supply all the different cameramen. Communcation with them via headsets didn’t work at all because of the loudness of the sound at the stage area, and when it rained the cameramen often got shocks from their Eclair cameras. The 16mm footage was blown up to 70mm for the theatrical showings, using many different multi-image sizes. There were many picture-frame-bordered shots that went on for some time, and I attempted to zoom in to fill the 16:9 screen but then there would be a wide split screen and the zooming would cut off part of the left and right screen images. The cameramen kept calling the lighting director for more light on the performers but he usually refused saying he was lighting it for the audience, not for their filmmaking. The crew included a young film editor named Martin Scorsese, and he and the other editors had to deal with over 300 hours of footage to create the original 225-minute feature, which has now been lengthened in the Director’s Cut. I had some difficulty navigating to the additional over two hours of performances that didn’t make it into the feature film, but they are well worth seeing. You can create your own playlist of those you especially want to view. The audio on the extra performances is also 5.1 Dolby TrueHD but the images vary between HD and standard 480 definition.
This was a unique, totally peaceful event – a high point of the hippie culture, antiwar protests, liberating music, and major social changes. With this Blu-ray package you can time-travel back to that unique event yourself.
– John Henry
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 28, 2009 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
HANDEL: Sonatas for Recorder and Harpsichord – Heiko ter Schegget, recorder/ Zvi Meniker, harpsichord – MDG Multichannel SACD 905 1564-6, 63:45 ****: [Distr. by Koch]
Early in his career, Handel, under the not-too stringent requirements of his patrons, and well before his fecund period of opera writing began, wrote a lot instrumental music. These works are perhaps the most “German” of his entire career, offering him a chance to glory in the strictest counterpoint and richest environment for embellishments. These six sonatas, many of the melodies quite famous, and from which the composer would continue to draw upon his entire life, represent some of the sparkling jewels in the Handelian crown. Tightly woven, melodically expansive, and emotionally varied, one can see even in these early works the penchant for dramatic genius that was to bloom only a few years later.
It has always been one of the mysteries of Handel how he achieved such wondrously beautiful and moving music with such an economy of means. For instance, one only has to look at the scores to any of his organ concertos and be amazed at how simple they are versus how profoundly moving the music is. He had discovered, early on, freshly in London with a few operatic successes behind him and a penchant for good times and good port, the secret of making use of all the basic tools of counterpoint, especially the sequence, in order to strike the chill buttons of people’s spines. The recorder works are almost Schubertian in the way that the exact twist of melody causes so much to happen, and how the brilliance of his bass lines can almost function independently as melodies of their own. This is writing that serves as a primer in counterpoint for any age, though one must concede that the writing of a melody is strictly a function of genius.
I have had a perverse attraction to the RCA disc by Keith Jarrett and Michala Petri for some time now. This unusual combination of artists provides a wonderful and very fresh take on these sonatas, though with quite a bit of ornamentation, even though the notes to that release specify that both performers tried to avoid overdoing it. Well, that was 1991 and times were different. This new release, in wonderful surround sound, does sacrifice some of the detail of the RCA, but the performing stage is far more natural, the recorder not spotlighted at all, and with plenty of air around both instruments. The ornamentation is also toned down quite a bit in keeping with current practice, but what is there is done tastefully and thoughtfully. There are 30-odd recordings of this music currently available, so to do a blow-by-blow comparison is not feasible, nor is the idea of choosing a “best” very practical. Suffice it to say that this disc is as good as any I have heard, and an easy recommendation, though in this market it’s tough to go wrong.
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 28, 2009 | DVD & Blu-ray Video Reviews
Inside Man, Blu-ray (2006/2009)
Starring: Denzel Washington, Clive Own, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Director: Spike Lee
Studio: Universal Pictures
Video: 2:35:1 anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9 1080p HD
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1; French, German, Castilian, Spanish, L.A. Spanish (!), Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Traditional Mandarin, Greek
Subtitles: English SDH; French, German, Castilian, Spanish, L.A. Spanish (!), Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Traditional Mandarin, Greek
Extras: Feature Commentary with Spike Lee; Deleted Scenes, “The Making of Inside Man,” Number 4: Spike Lee and Denzel Washington discuss their collaborations.
Length: 129 min.
Rating: ****
Spike Lee’s Inside Man is a bank heist thriller that keeps you guessing almost up to the very end. When three bank robbers dressed as painters, led by Clive Owen, seize control of a New York City bank and force everyone inside to wear identical painter’s clothes, Detective Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) is brought in to defuse the situation without any hostages getting killed. When the bank’s president, played by Christopher Plummer, learns his bank has been taken hostage, he brings in professional fixer Madeline (Jodie Foster) to make sure a secret he has hidden in a safety deposit box isn’t discovered. Since I don’t want to reveal too many of the film’s twists, I’ll merely drop the hint that having the hostages dressed exactly like the robbers creates quite a few problems for the police.
Inside Man, like most thrillers, is greatly served by the Blu-ray format. The DTS-HD Audio is crisp and sharp, and if you have the luxury of surround sound, it creates an immersive experience that’s as close as you can get to seeing it in the theater. While the film is mostly in muted colors, the picture quality allows for noticing the rich mix of subdued blues and grays and browns, as well as the effect created by small pockets of bright colors, like those found on neon restaurant signs and police lights.
One of my favorite extras was “Number 4,” a discussion between Lee and Washington about their four films together. Though it’s difficult to tell how personal of a friendship the two men have, it’s clear they have an incredible professional camaraderie and each man respects the other deeply. Washington talks about using an unconscious connection to his ancestors to summon the power necessary for his role as Malcom X, while Lee, speaking about that same film, jokes that he feared for his life when had to speak to a Nation of Islam representative about the movie.
I highly recommend Inside Man on Blu-ray. Well-acted, well-paced, and full of twists, the film manages to breathe new life into the heist genre.
– Daniel Krow
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 27, 2009 | Classical Reissue Reviews
Mordecai Shehori plays SCHUMANN and LISZT–The Poet and the Visionary = SCHUMANN: Arabeske in C Major, Op. 18; Widmung (arr. Liszt); Sonata in G Minor, Op. 22; LISZT: Harmonies du Soir; Saint Francis of Assisi’s Sermon of the Birds; Ballade No. 2 – Mordecai Shehori, piano – Cembal d’amour CD 135, 68:37 ****:
The recital at Alice Tully Hall (8 June 1995), devoted to Schumann and Liszt, featured Mordecai Shehori’s attempting to project the dualisms that pervade these two Romantics’ perspectives of the artist and his response to worlds both natural and interior. Shehori opens with the popular Arabeske in C of Schumann, played with a devout, subdued gentility, so perhaps Eusebius holds forth, nostalgic for the dream-quest of youth and hope. Shehori, however, is not shy to expose the detached, jarring chords that infiltrate that idyllic surface. The Schumann penchant for march-ballade (maerchen) reveals itself, only to succumb to the composer’s “persistence of vision.” Widmung (Dedication) remains one of the glories of vocalized keyboard transcription, and here Shehori can exult in colors, almost an evocation of Watteau or Monet’s lilies. Liszt called the song “Liebeslied,” and the passions of the love-song sigh and sweep us along the piano’s full instrumental panoply. The bold chords at the end resound with an allusion to Schubert’s Ave Maria.
The G Minor Sonata (1830-1838) Shehori presents with its original last movement, the Presto passionate the composer ill-advisedly discarded as too difficult for Philistine ears and fingers. The opening movement rants and raves in bold gestures, the fevers from E.T.A. Hoffmann and Jean-Paul Richter’s Kreisler. Much of the writing resembles chromatic etudes, often moto perpetuos and ostinati within whose counterpoint a fierce resolve rises, nodding to Paganini and Beethoven. Wistful and a tad manic, the Andantino waxes close to the inner world of Schlegel and Eichendorff, the former whose poetry influenced the Brahms F Minor Sonata, Op. 5. A bristling Scherzo reminds us of the knotty passages in the Novellettes or the Vienna Carnival-Jest. Shehori manages both bravura and pearly play in the insistent Finale, its syncopes and outbursts proceeding in heady pulsation that gallops in faint hints at the Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13 and the ubiquitous Carnaval, Op. 9.
Liszt makes his first appearance as a composer of mystical nocturnes, the Harmonies du Soir from the Transcendental Etudes (No. 11), whose repetitive, chromatic chords and pregnant fermatae progress in diaphanous layers and parlando meditation to an ecstatic, erotic vision. The incremental phrases gather a fabulous momentum, insisting on Heaven. We can hear echoes the Vallee d’Obermann in the fierce, repeated notes and tremolandi, the pounding at the doors of Paradise by an ardent sinner. Whether the St. Francis Legend invokes birds or water-colors at its outset is anyone’s guess, since the pantheistic aesthetic of the piece approaches the techniques we hear in the Jeux d’eau a la Villa D’Este. Shehori projects a clean, piercing upper register, the twittering and peals from the avian flock intently concentrated on their inspired pastor, who speaks in recitative. A blissful vision ensues, likely God Himself, rising from the waves in a Botticelli moment. The spiritual and the erotic fuse in a most suggestive series of chordal progressions, and Shehori’s Steinway sounds like an organ: the twitterings walking on water or borne into the aether, the effect is the same. We can hear wherein Franck derived much of his own sound-world.
Last, Shehori descends into Stygian night for the Ballade No. 2 in B Minor (1854), a keyboard companion to the Dante Sonata and the Dante Symphony. Another instrumental response to Paolo and Francesca da Rimini, likely, the piece explores passions high and low, ecstasies of pain and erotic, visionary bliss in F-sharp Major. A martial element plays like a Hungarian Rhapsody, but the figures hammer us into huge crevasses of despair. Carillon-like chords transport us away from earthly concerns, these rendered plastic and mesmeric by Shehori. As hints of Liszt’s own Funerailles impose the gloom once more, the battleground of the spirit takes on Miltonic proportions. The last page gives us divine consolation; at least the chromatic rhetoric, virtually Wagnerian, allows Shehori to convince us that he and Liszt have been to the Mountain.
–Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 27, 2009 | Uncategorized
Clara Haskil, piano = MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 19 in F Major, K. 459; Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 (two performances); SCHUMANN: Bunte Blaetter, Op. 99: 3 Pieces; Albumblatter; Abegg Variations, Op. 1; BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58 – Clara Haskil, piano/RIAS Symphony Orchestra/Ferenc Fricsay/Dean Dixon (Beethoven)
Audite 23.421 (2 CDs) 71:57; 61:42 mono [Distr. by Albany] ****:
Recordings from the studio and the concert hall 1953-1954 by the inimitable Clara Haskil (1895-1960) feature the great Romanian virtuoso in her favorite repertory of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann. Accompanying Haskil in all but the live performance (24 November 1954) of the Beethoven Concerto is Hungarian maestro Ferenc Fricsay (1914-1963), always a superb collaborator with ideas of his own. Lotte Lenya once spoke of “sprechgesang,” the cross of speech and singing in acting–according to the Brecht method–that dominated her aesthetic. So, too, Haskil’s ability to make a singing tone of the keyboard embodied her especial gift, her searching yet spontaneous musicianship, which few have equaled or surpassed. Truth and Poetry–Goethe’s artistic credo–was no less Haskil’s, and we rush to these unearthed treasures with heady anticipation.
We open with Mozart’s F Major Concerto, K. 459, whose hunting-party ethos carries happy sounds throughout. Fricsay, typically, keeps the woodwind openwork perpetually present; yet, his uncanny subito allows Haskil free reign to comment upon or dominate all instrumental developments. Clarity of line blends with affectionate musing in phrasal units at every turn; we reach the first movement cadenza before we quite aware of how much lyrical colloquy has passed us. Haskil’s pearly, music-box figurations and facile runs and trills suave segue into the coda, whose strings, winds, and horn take the hunt to a blithe conclusion. Flute and bassoon add their distinctive colors to Haskil’s keyboard finesse in the Allegretto, a piano-wind serenade of the highest, vocal order whose tempo never drags. Delicacy and impish grace mark the final Allegro assai, the high winds and bassoon particularly witty, even irreverent. The pulsation from the bass fiddles proves quite thick, despite the briskly intense pace of Fricsay’s chosen tempo. How similar Haskil and Robert Casadesus are in their quicksilver approach to Mozart! Rocket figures, polyphony, runs, breezy cascades–all fly by in a torrent of playful bravura, always beguiling, always concealing the severe craft behind the façade of “mere” ingenuity.
We go to the three Schumann Bunte Blaetter, just for contrast, the Romantic’s character-pieces of introspection and initiated passions. The choppy metrics of the Sehr rasch section hint at internal struggles of the spirit; yet, a sublime, steady pulse dominates. The Frisch becomes a kind of martial-legend, in the manner of one of the Waldszenen. We inhale the piece deeply, but it ends in less than a minute. Five plus minutes are allotted the Albumblaetter, inward and rife with nostalgia for the dream of life. The “Schnell” entry sounds like a fevered reverie; the last three each calls for a degree of “langsam,” slowness, but tempered by layers of affect. “Sehr langsam” lies a hair’s breadth away, temperamentally, from dark Brahms, Berg and Webern. Haskil took great pains over the 1830 Abegg Variations of Schumann, his opus one. She plays it as a salon etude in contrasted chiaroscuro, the line brittle, evanescent, and elastic or pounding and aggressive, Euebius and Florestan. Its Cantabile section assumes a florid, operatic bombast, all rhetoric; then a syncopated treatment of the main theme leads us to stellar, Chopinesque Fantasia (Vivace) of clean, liquid proportions, pompous, scintillating, confident.
Two inscriptions of the volatile Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor, K. 466 provide us an opportunity to hear Haskil on two consecutive days, the first the studio performance from the Jesus-Christus Kirche (11 January 1954), the “live” performance having been given at the Europa-Palast, Berlin (10 January 1954), with slightly diminished sonics. Without the audience on which to draw fear and energy, Haskil plays in the studio with a firm, staid resolve, the sonic qualities eminently present in the woodwinds and the keyboard runs. A powerful tension resides in the atmosphere, despite the empty hall. With the audience, a dynamic electricity emanates in all parts. The essential, sweeping sturm und drang elements that Fricsay brought to the fore in an otherwise “rococo” period of Mozart interpretation still quite stun and captivate us. Haskil’s keyboard manages to grumble, to heave with surging emotions. Haskil’s own cadenza has the two hands in contrary motion, runs and trills juxtaposed, progressingto a furor of chromatic intervals that finally cadence, so Fricsay’s fierce entry can catapult us to the murky coda.
In each case, the Romance movement rings with pearly beauty, a poised resonance whose every note and turn emanates from an aristocrat of the keyboard. The tumultuous middle section might burst into flames until bassoon and strings help reestablish something like the idyllic grace of the opening. Deliberate, articulated enunciation of the theme opens the emotionally frenetic Allegro assai, hardly a traditional rondo, but rather a lyric dramatic excursion into D Minor and D Major. Haskil’s cadenza, once more, enjoys a brief, divine frenzy. The live version is a hair brisker, yet the two performances stand a mere five seconds apart in playing time, in spite of their idiosyncratic momentum–a phenomenon of motor consistency attributed to Mozart himself as a performer of his own works!
For the Beethoven Fourth Concerto, Haskil joins the Afro-American conductor Dean Dixon (1915-1976), whose musical career flourished in Europe despite a rough start in America after Juilliard. The collaboration takes place at the Hochschule fur Musik, Berlin, whose warm acoustic compensates for a wee distance in the miking. Dixon’s opening tutti has a marvelous breadth, much in the Scherchen or Schuricht mode, a sweet surface rife with the inner conflicts of the C Minor Symphony. Mellifluous and poised, the performance enjoys the taut polish and urbanity we love in Haskil, a thorough identification with this Aeolian Harp of piano concertos. The drive to the first movement recapitulation alone is worth the price of admission! A somber, studied Andante con moto sees the light at the end of the tunnel, the opening of the Rondo: vivace bristling with serene, nuanced execution. Dixon has the bass fiddles churning away, the upper strings buzzing and whirling in fine syncopation to Haskil’s pyrotechnics. Ardent, colorful, this collaboration marks another important, recorded milestone in the expansive Haskil discography that accumulates around a selective, seminal body of works.
–Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 27, 2009 | Classical Reissue Reviews
GOUE: Troisieme Quatour; Sonate pour violon et piano – Quatour Loewenguth/Alfred Loewenguth, violin/Francoise Doreau, piano
Azur Classical AZC 081, 45:27 mono [Distrib. by recitalmedia.com] ****:
Emile Goue (1904-1946) studied with Charles Koechlin and received considerable support from Albert Roussel. From having auditioned his Third Quartet (1945), I discern a post-Romantic voice heavily indebted to the formalism of Franck and D‘Indy, with modal inclinations and strong, melodic aspirations. It seems Goue suffered as a prisoner of war from 1940-1945, and his imprisonment caused an illness from which he never recovered. The intensity of his expressive Third Quartet (recorded 1956) suggests that he is the French counterpart to Kurtag, Ligeti, Martinu, and Wiener. The Loewenguth Quartet (estab. 1929) made Goue their mission after 1938, these (from a set of three discs) the first recordings of his output. The disc itself is a non-commercial enterprise, offered by The Friends of Chamber Music and The Friends of Emile Goue.
The Third Quartet, penned in captivity, is through-composed, the original, gloomy kernel’s saturating all subsequent movement. Much sounds like Faure spliced to Franz Kafka, dark, introspective, filled with gentle but persistent shadows. The second movement achieves a long, sustained aria, even identifying itself in E-flat for a tender moment. The last movement scours us with harsh and strident harmonies that might have come from Bartok and his musical kin. Expressive, haunted, it plods forward, weary but mysterious, the cello (Pierre Basseux) plunging some eerie depths. Goue urges counterpoint upon us, the funereal austerity often looking to the dominant, which is the composer’s calling card. The last minute of music achieves an apotheosis close to his and Bartok’s idol, Beethoven. The key (B-sharp?) delivers us a nervous apotheosis, salvation with strings attached, I daresay.
The Violin Sonata (1941) had its birth in the German prison-camp, Oflag XB at Nienburg/Weser. This piece‘s recording, too, is a product of the 1956 Festival International Albert-Roussel. The Violin Sonata is in three movements, the opening Anime rather demanding that the solo violin climb along the fingerboard in small steps, the chromatic line askew, angular, and expressive in the manner of jaded Ravel or Koechlin. Certainly the Franck and Debussy sonatas prove an influence, but Goue’s style transcends the epigone. His is a lyrically disturbing, personal sound. The second movement is marked Mort d’un autre (The Death of Another), an insistent, even cruel, funeral dirge worthy of Elie Wiesel. Goue varies the theme’s sonority but not its essential character. Loewenguth makes some tender points; and Doreau, a pupil of Marguerite long, supports him artfully. Two themes dominate the last movement, and Goue combines and opposes them in sometimes jazzy, Bartokian harmony, the sun’s trying to peep through chthonian, volcanic vapors. Though I am not convinced the tension has subsided, at least Dedaelus has not been consumed by the death of his flighty son.
–Gary Lemco
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 27, 2009 | Classical CD Reviews
ARENSKY: Violin Concerto in A minor; TANEYEV: Suite de concert – Ilya Gringolts, violin/ BBC Scottish Sym. Orch./ Ilan Volkov, conductor – Hyperion CDA67642, 60:18 **** [Distr. by Harmonia mundi]:
Hyperion’s illustrious series showcasing the Romantic Violin Concerto continues with the juxtaposition of two Russian works, each written by a composer with a close connection to Tchaikovsky and each one dedicated – as Tchaikovsky’s own violin concerto had been – to the masterful violinist and teacher Leopold Auer (1845-1930). Auer was one of the principal violin virtuosi in Imperial Russia for nearly 50 years. Like Joseph Joachim, who served as Brahm’s technical advisor in all matters related to the violin, Russian composers often turned to Auer for technical advice.
The first of the two works on this disc is the Violin Concerto in A minor Op. 54, the only violin concerto composed by Anton Arensky (1861-1906), appointed Professor of Music at the Moscow Conservatory while only 21 years of age. Students in the harmony class that he taught included Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, both of whom absorbed some of Arensky’s stylistic attributes. Arensky in turn had developed a strong affinity with Tchaikovsky’s expressive lyricism. There is an expansive lushness in Arensky’s music, the source of which is probably his close friendship with the great Russian romantic whom he attempted to emulate. Arensky was also a gifted melodist like Tchaikovsky, a trait that was definitely passed on to both Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. This created a stylistic continuity in Russian music – one of elegiac beauty and deeply expressive soulfulness – that persisted through the 20th century and that can even be found in the music of that supreme modernist Igor Stravinsky.
This relatively short concerto is rather restrained, even withdrawn in its musical polemics. Although Arensky uses the musical equivalent of verbal ellipsis in a Harold Pinter Play, he still manages to convey all of the latent tragic beauty and melancholy turmoil that roils the Romantic Russian artistic soul. It is a lovely work beautifully performed by violinist Ilya Gringolts and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ilan Volkov. Some may find this work not quite flashy enough for a concerto. Nevertheless it is a refined work, without a hint of vulgarity, that will reward repeated listening.
The Suite de concert Op. 28 composed in 1908-09 by Sergei Taneyev (1856-1915) is an eclectic composition that stylistically straddles the 19th and 20th centuries. Although deeply indebted to Tchaikovsky’s lyrical romanticism, the music flashes an intermittent undercurrent of emotional uneasiness that suggests a more modernist sensibility. Taneyev was a master of Renaissance counterpoint and this work is structured something like a Baroque suite with several dance movements. The middle two movements are a Marchen (tale) that is like a miniature tone poem and a Theme and Variations that contains its own dance movements. With its strong neoclassical overtones the Suite de concert predates Stravinsky’s premier efforts in the new style by more than a decade.
The piece is beautifully played by Gringolts and the orchestra. They emphasize the work’s relatively complex polyphony and the Suite makes an interesting contrast to the Arensky concerto. This disc is a strong and convincing entry in Hyperion’s ongoing Romantic Violin Concerto series. It is a pleasure to discover works that are so expertly retrieved from their undeserved musical oblivion.
Hyperion’s sound is warm and clear though slightly recessed, suggesting that their engineers opted for somewhat more distant miking. Emphasis on the midrange makes it easy to appreciate Taneyev’s contrapuntal mastery while heightening the violin’s unique vocalic expressiveness. These works would surely have benefited from the immediacy and spatial presence that is offered by surround sound. Unfortunately, Hyperion seems to have discontinued their SACD line of recordings. Perhaps that decision will be revisited someday.
— Mike Birman
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 27, 2009 | Classical CD Reviews
"The Thrill of the Chase" = BACH: Toccata and Fugue in D minor; Prelude and Fugue in D; Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor; Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C; Fantasia and Fugue in G minor – Florence Mustric, organ – MSR 1271, 65:23 ***1/2: [Distr.
by Albany]
This is volume 2 of Mustric’s series on the Rudolph von Beckerath organ at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cleveland. This versatile instrument is approaching the refurbishing stage, and these recordings are designed to show off the pre-restoration qualities of the machine. The sound is indeed quite vibrant and powerful; but I fear that the recording is too close as there is little sense of space around the instrument, and this is something that is essential when trying to record an organ. Part of the very nature of the sound resides in the reverberant silence that flows from the end of any produced note. Here I do not hear much of that; instead it is as though the listener is trapped in a large practice room. Clarity is superb—rarely will you hear Bach’s lines so clearly delineated. But the sapping of the sound also saps the emotive content of the music.
Ms. Mustric for the most part has mastery over this music, but I wish her rather vanilla emphasis on the downbeat was a little more subtle. This ends up giving us the impression that her understanding of rhythmic elasticity is to step through the sidewalk one concrete panel at a time. Bach demands a more flexible approach to rhythm, one that adds a certain amount of lilt in order to more fully project the complexities of his counterpoint.
Nevertheless, I can hear the commitment in this music, and the emphasis on lucidity and cleanliness of line is most impressive. I still wish there was more resonance around the instrument, but what we do hear is very well recorded and the felicities of this organ are captured with no loss of quality. Indeed it is hard to imagine any virtues of this organ being lost in the recording, so attentive are the microphones. The program itself is extremely attractive, some of Bach’s most famous and beloved pieces. If this cannot be recommended as a primary source for this music it certainly serves well as a second opinion.
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 27, 2009 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
SCHUBERT: Symphony No. 1 in D; No. 3 in D; No. 7 (8) in b minor – Bamberg Symphony/ Jonathan Nott, conductor – Tudor multichannel SACD 7141, 79:07 ****1/2 [Distr. by Naxos]:
This is the concluding SACD of Jonathan Nott’s path breaking first surround sound edition of the complete Schubert Symphonies. As you can see by the header, they are using (as did Harnoncourt) the revised numbering system so that the famous “Unfinished” becomes No. 7. Well, we will see if that catches on. The revisions to Dvorak’s symphonies took awhile also, but eventually caught on. Performance-wise this series has had a few issues, but overall the quality has been very high, and Nott has a lot to say in this music. For the two lesser works, Nott easily is able to compete with the very best, and by that I mean No. 1 with Harnoncourt and No. 3 with Beecham and Bohm, the latter being especially noteworthy and standard-setting.
In fact the early symphonies benefit from Nott’s carefully planned phrases and smashing fortes, and the surround spread gives Schubert’s youngster-orchestration a vivid and panoramic spectrum of color and clarity that is too often lost. Tempos are up but not rigidly so (the minuets are taken at scherzo speeds) and the Bambergers play with a lot of finesse. No. 1 is superb, No. 3 not quite the equal of Bohm’s more measured and probing reading though it still has much to offer, and the sonics are something Bohm could have only dreamed about.
The one disappointment (and I use that word with much reserve) is the “Unfinished”, and even it has many wonderful moments. The opening is somewhat of a letdown; Nott’s foursquare rhythmic underpinning sounds too hackneyed when taken at this slow tempo, and the eighth notes too detached, presenting us with a sort of lumbering march feeling that destroys the mandatory mystery and potent mystical power that Schubert invests in these seed-filled bars. Nott also misses the delicacy in the string line that I so memorably recall from Roberto Abbado’s performance with the Atlanta Symphony about 12 years ago—truly magical. But he has the right amount of trombone heaviness that anchors the work, and this performance is nothing to be ashamed of.
Overall I rate this disc highly, and Nott and Tudor can rightly be proud of their new Super Audio achievement.
— Steven Ritter
by Audiophile Audition | Jun 27, 2009 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews
JACOB GADE: Jealousy – Suites, Tangos and Waltzes = Jalousie; Leda and the Swan; Suite D’Amour; Rhapsodietta; Romanesca (Tango); Wedding at Himmelpind – Rustic Suite; Valse Capriccio; Copenhagen Life Waltz; Douces Secrets – Valse Lente – Odense Symphony Orchestra/Matthias Aeschbacher – DaCapo multichannel SACD 6.220509, 66:42 [Distr. by Naxos] *****:
Danish composer and violinist Gade, who lived until 1963, is immortalized by his catchy tango Jealousy – which 78 rpm recording by the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler was the biggest-selling one that orchestra ever did. Gade had a fine ability to write light music that didn’t sound corny and had wide appeal. He was a bit like a European version of America’s Leroy Anderson. He learned early in his composing career to often give his music French titles and even sometimes wrote under the pseudonym Maurice Ribot – to give his works a more exotic appeal to European audiences. He is not to be confused with the earlier Danish composer of heavier symphonies – Niels Gade.
There is another Gade tango here – Romanesca. It also has a catchy melody and lovely orchestration, but was not the big hit that Jealousy was. The 11-minute suite Leda and the Swan is a ballet score on the well-known Greek legend. Another suite is the four-movement Wedding at Himmelpind, which depicts a country wedding scene the composer recalled from his childhood. Some of the shorter pieces were written originally for the composer to perform on violin accompanied by a small cafe orchestra; these have been orchestrated for the Odense Symphony. Gade and his orchestra were engaged by some of the upscale movie houses in Denmark to play scores for the silent movies – which were therefore not silent. But when sound came in in the late 20s Gade quickly realized that era was over and moved on. He also worked in the U.S. on more than one occasion.
This disc came out originally and was popular as a standard CD about a decade ago. It has now been remastered for SACD. I guess the original recording was multitrack because the side/rear surround signals sound like the real thing – not reconstituted from an original two-channel recording. It’s unusual and most enjoyable to have lighter music such as this on surround SACD.
– John Sunier
