BACH: Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord – Tamestit/ Suzuki – Harmonia Mundi

BACH: Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord – Tamestit/ Suzuki – Harmonia Mundi

J.S. BACH: Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord – Antonie Tamestit & Masato Suzuki – Harmonia Mundi 902259 ((44:40), 6/19 (Distr. by [PIAS])*****:

(Antoine Tamestit; viola “Mahler” Stradivarius 1672, Masato Suzuki harpichord William Kroesberger after Johannes Couchet 1996)

When it comes to Bach, one is used to sorting out the relatively small (compared to the liturgical works) works of purely instrumental compositions in packets of six. For our listeners, how many purchases of double-fold-out lps or discs offer six portals into the magically sublime world of the Bachian apotheosis of the Baroque trio sonata, typically, the works for violin solo, the six cello suites, the sets of suites for keyboard, and the partitas? Even the Brandenburgs, as diverse in form and weight as they are, roll the “lucky six.” All the more puzzling to encounter this half-set of three works for viola da gamba and harpsichord. I recall my initial feeling of being shorted an entire record. And then, having fully absorbed the splendor of the solo cello, there was the oddness of this antecedent instrument, the viola da gamba, which seemed on first hearing to be excessively subdued and (in the case of my first record) nasally congested. Over the years and a dozen recordings, I have come to revere these works and appreciate the HIstorically Informed Practice (HIP) that animated the rediscovered viola da gamba among other baroque instruments. The issue under review here, while following the illustrious tradition of Early Music practice, manages to achieve something new entirely; it elevates them even higher to the celestial realm of violin sonatas BWV 1017-1023. This required not only the specific, unparalleled skills of these performers but also recourse to a legendary instrument, the “Mahler” stradivarius, built more than a decade before Bach’s birth, and a recording technique that captures and indeed flatters the darker register of the viola, which unabashedly stands in for the viola da gamba on this recording.

Bach Viola ImageAntonie Tamestit plays the instrument on loan from Habisreutinger Foundation. (He discusses the strad here with able support from the harpsichordist of the bach Collegium Japan Masat Suzuki. [https://www.thestrad.com/video/antoine-tamestit-talks-about-his-1672-stradivarius-viola/6976.article] Together, the pair offer a meticulously refined yet emotionally sweeping tour of the three sonatas, BWV 1027-1029. There are a couple of twists to the recital which prompted me to a reappraisal. First, they begin with the G minor work, which from the first announces itself as a polyphonic wonder on a large scale. For ears conditioned to the lighter texture of the first gamba Sonata, which by contrast seems like a pedagogical exercise for a beginner much like its key companion solo suit for cello, this piece, longer than the other by half, breathes the same air as the violin sonatas.

The harpsichord holds an animated dialogue with the viola on a breath-taking scherzo that hurtles breathlessly for nearly five minutes. There are intense passages of virtuosic semiquavers, leaps, twists, and dazzling ornamentation. It feels like a miniature concerto with the deep-voiced viola holding its own as the string section. I have never heard a viola like this. After the roaring of the Vivace comes an affecting Adagio. Tamestit coaxes sweetness form the upper register without resorting to vibrato. Meanwhile, the bottom register of the harpsichord plucks pearly notes of rounded perfection. The three voices possess exceptional clarity and resolution for a spellbinding 4”40’. Brisk imitation follows on the Allegro, and finally, the strad leaps to its highest register with dazzling effect.

This will be a benchmark performance for this singular sonata. It is a fine idea to start off the recital with the heaviest of the set. But an even more unexpected treat awaits the listener. For a second offering, the musicians deliver an arrangement of an Aria from Cantata BWV 5 “Ergiesse dich reichlich” which translates as “pour forth abundantly.” The viola begins with an elaborate accompaniment figure built of circling semiquavers, then alternates to a series of cantabile utterances as the harpsichord echoes the floating first pattern. It is a most peculiar reworking of the cantata, and its success is ultimately made possible by an uncanny ability of the viola parts to juggle the thick contrapuntal duties of two voices even as the continuo parts are elaborate in harmony without becoming murky.

Bach Viola Score ImageThere follow the two shorter sonatas: the D major BWV 1028 and the G major BWV 1027. Both exhibit the slow-fast-slow-fast form of the so-called Church Sonata. The adagios repose in Bachian solemn splendor while the crisp Allegros dance cheerfully, constrained only by the always-disciplined counterpoint from the left-side of Mr Suzuki’s elegantly forceful harpsichord.

These fine musicians play exceptionally well without a demonstration of virtuosity. Tempos are unhurried, dynamics relieve the occasionally overwhelming business of the three voiced harmony. There is one moment of pure magic in the Andante of the G major sonata in which the viola holds a vibratoless low note over which the harpsichord plays a sequence of punishing dissonant figures. The gamba is losing air in quiet despair while Bach relentlessly plows his way to a hard-won resolution. No other composer could have (or would have deemed it proper) to stretch the ears like this.

In short, this recording offers a distinctive and perfect performance. Harmonia Mundi deserves high praise for the entirely satisfying production which includes excellent notes and a handsome picture of the illustrious Stradivarius.

—Fritz Balwit




Keith Jarrett – J.S. Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 – ECM 

Keith Jarrett – J.S. Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 – ECM 

Keith Jarrett – J.S. Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 – ECM New Series 2627/28 4818016 [2-CD Set] ****1/2:

(Keith Jarrett – piano)

A rite of passage for trained pianists is J.S. Bach’s The Well Tempered Clavier. WTC was a collection of two sets of preludes and fugues written for all of the major and minor keys. They were composed for solo keyboard which in the early 18th century meant harpsichord, clavichord and possible organ. The sets were written twenty years apart with the chromatic progression alternating prelude and fugue. The series begins with a C major prelude, followed by a C minor fugue and eventually concluding with a B minor fugue. The preludes are noted for their rhythmic, musical themes, while the fugues have a contrapuntal element that involves different voices and repetition. From Mozart (who is said to have practiced WTC religiously), Beethoven, Chopin Brahms and Shostakovich to modern day classical pianists, this exacting ritual is an eternal basic learning tool of musical expression.

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Keith Jarrett in his long, accomplished collaboration with ECM Records has explored the world of classical music, including Bach, Shostakovich, Bartok and Mozart. He has composed various pieces in this genre.  In 1987 he released a studio album of J.S. Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier. At that time he performed a  concert of WTC at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. The combination of numerical precision, improvisational gravitas, and arduous challenge showcases the live skill set of Jarrett. ECM has released Book 1 (BMV 846-869) of this memorable concert. Jarrett’s commanding technique and feel for composition is on full display. Whether it’s the flowing, hypnotic two-minute melancholic ecstasy of the C major Prelude or the animated punctuation of D major prelude and fugue, his intrinsic balance of crisp notation and restrained flourish is compelling. There are a variety of approaches to the different keys. A sense of counterpoint in F-sharp major fugue is spirited, and the integration of muscular left hand and right hand trilling in g-sharp minor prelude is  impressive. Jarrett injects a commitment and vigor to baroque-flavored classicism. He possess the ability to distill melodic essence and rhythm fluency in concise parameters. The tracks run from 0:48 (G major prelude to 6:51 (b minor fugue). The entire performance grabs the listener and never lets go.

Keith JarrettThe Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 is a great example of a jazz musician who finds matching passion in classical music. As with all ECM live recordings, the acoustics are top-notch. The mic placement for the piano is balanced, with resonant clarity at both the upper and lower registers. The intimacy (even in a concert setting) is captured with deft subtlety by engineer Tom McKenney. The music world will be looking forward to a future Book 2 release.

TrackList:
CD 1: Prelude And Fugue: C Major, c minor; C-sharp major; c-sharp minor; D major; d minor; E-Flat major; e-flat major/d-sharp minor; E major; e minor; F major; f minor

CD 2: Prelude And Fugue: F-sharp major; f-sharp-minor; G major; g minor; A-flat major; g-sharp minor; A major; a minor; B-flat major; b-flat minor; B major; b minor

—Robbie Gerson

 

 




“Bach to the Future” – Olivier Latry, Grand Organ of Notre Dame of Paris – La Dolce Volta

“Bach to the Future” – Olivier Latry, Grand Organ of Notre Dame of Paris – La Dolce Volta

“Bach to the Future” – Olivier Latry (Grand Organ of Notre Dame of Paris) [Tracklist below] – La Dolce Volta LDV 69, 77:37 ****:

How you feel about this recording will likely mirror your feelings about how Bach should be performed in general. For me, I love the Stokowski transcriptions and the Liszt reworkings, and the Carlos electronica. In fact, Bach seems to be one of the few composers who can take a licking and keep on ticking, at least from the orchestration and broadness of interpretative fantasy. This does not mean that he can stand bad performances or outlandish stretching. But for those who were raised on the likes of Helmut Walcha, this release will likely come as more than disappointing, perhaps even heretical or blasphemous.

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

This is a shame, for it is the last recording done on the famous Cavaille-Coll organ of Notre Dame Cathedral before the devastating fire last April. Though it is said that the organ survived, no one is really going to be able to ascertain the situation until the building is restored, everything is cranked up, and a recording made—not, sadly, anytime soon. The organ itself is not what most would consider a “Bach” organ, because its vast resources and the reverberance of the cathedral itself lend to a mushing of the counterpoint. Nevertheless, it is a honey of an instrument, and though Bach might have written a different way for it, this doesn’t mean that he should be banned from the premises.

Enter Olivier Latry, who is/was titular organist in Notre Dame from the young age of 23, and who has no qualms about Bach interpretation/reinterpretation at all. In fact, the above mentioned Stoky and Liszt efforts are inspirations in his mind, and he doesn’t hesitate to use all the volume and swells necessary to get his points across. Some things work better than others—the famous Toccata and Fugue in g sound a little outer space like to me, though the Passacaglia and Fugue in c is quite brilliant. Registration choices will shock some. The program mix is good, giving a wonderful demonstration of Latry’s hits and misses, and the inherent power in Bach’s work.

So, while I would not recommend this as a “first” Bach recording for anyone, those feeling nostalgic about Notre Dame—and who doesn’t—or those wanting to hear the sonic dexterity that an amazing organist can create on an amazing organ should not hesitate to give this an audition.

Organ Works by Bach, including:
Ricercar a 6, BWV 1079
Fugue in g, BWV 578
Toccata and Fugue in d, BWV 565
Chorale “Erbarm’ dich mein, o Herre Gott”, BWV 721
Fantasie in g, BWV 542
In dir ist Freude, BWV 617
Chorale “Herzlich tut mich verlangen”, BWV 727
Organ piece, BWV 572
Passacaglia and Fugue in c, BWV 582

–Steven Ritter

 




In Celebration of BACH – Kathleen Ferrier, contralto – Somm Ariadne 

In Celebration of BACH – Kathleen Ferrier, contralto – Somm Ariadne 

Kathleen Ferrier: In Celebration of BACH = Magnificat, BWV 243; Cantata No. 11 “Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen”; Cantata No. 67 “Halt im Gedaechtnis Jesum Christ”; Cantata No. 147 “Herz und mond und Tat und Leben” – Kathleen Ferrier, contralto/ Selected Soloists/ Vienna State Opera Choir/ Vienna Philharmonic/ Volkmar Andreae/ The Cantata Singers/ The Jacques Orchestra/ Dr. Reginald Jacques (BWV 11, 67) – Somm Ariadne 5004, 77:41 (4/19/19) [Distr. by Naxos] *****:

In 1950 Vienna, the International Bach Festival celebrated the composer’s bi-centenary with three major performances of St. Matthew Passion, B Minor Mass, and Magnificat, having invited – via Herbert von Karajan – British contralto Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953) to participate, the only non-German speaker of some fifteen vocalists to take part in all three works.  For Kathleen Ferrier, her appearance in the Magnificat on 10 June would be her last; and for sixty-eight years the recorded performance had been lost and only now resurfaces for our edification.  The two 1950 Bach cantatas led by Dr. Reginald Jacques (1894-1969) had been issued on London Decca as ten-inch LPs, here remastered in fine sound. For the performance of the 1733 Magnificat revision the conductor is Swiss composer Volkmar Andreae (1879-1962), more often associated with scores by Anton Bruckner.

Bach composed two versions of Magnificat – the canticle of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Luke I: 46-55) – the first, in E-flat Major, written in Leipzig for the 1723 Christmas Vespers. For the second version, Bach lowered the key to D Major and removed four hymn arrangements. Since the work would be programmed with Cantata No. 63, Bach opted for brevity in the Magnificat, setting twelve movements, some of whose terseness rather shake us in their compacted drama. The first two arias, sung by different sopranos (Friedl Riegler and Irmgaard Seefried), depict the young Mary. The bass aria (Otto Edelmann) leads to a ravishing appearance (in Et misericordia) of Ferrier (with tenor Hugo Meyer-Welfing) accompanied by muted strings and flutes. The ensuing chorus Fecit potentiam surges in feverish energy, a colossal pageant in a small space. The fiery tenor aria Deposuit potentes features Hugo Meyer-Welfing. Kathleen Ferrier returns for the lovely Esurientes implevit bonis, pairing her voice with two flutes. Ferrier joins Seefried and Riegler for the exalted trio Suscepit Israel, in which the oboes intone softly the Magnificat chant tune. The Sicut locutus est chorus presents a relatively academic four-part fugue, but the concluding Gloria Patri sets the doxology to a visionary pitch.

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Bach may have composed his Cantata No. 11 in 1735 for Ascension Day, the fortieth day of Easter. William Herbert, tenor; William Parsons, bass; and Ena Mitchell, soprano join Kathleen Ferrier for this 1949 – in the 1906 Novello edition – recording, made in English, which conductor Jacques preferred. The cantata relates Christ’s ascension and the various reactions of his Apostles.  In eleven movements, the first six would have been performed prior to the sermon, the last five following its conclusion. The text combines Gospels from Mark, Luke, and Acts, with added words for the closing chorales from 17th Century writers Johann Rist and Gottfried Wilhelm Sacer. Ferrier appears in piercing voice in the expansive “Ah, tarry yet awhile” whose melos well resembles the Agnus Dei from the Mass in B minor. Christ ascends to Heaven, and the Chorus sings a noble “Now at Thy feet” in measured tones. Ferrier appears only once more, to intone the recitative, “Ah Lord, now quickly come again,” so as to invite Ena Mitchell’s sweet aria, “Jesu, all Thy loving kindness.” The pomp and ceremony of exaltation concludes with the Chorus’ “When will then night be over?”

Bach composed Cantata No. 67 prior to his Leipzig residence in 1723, the seven-part work set to texts from Timothy II and selected writers. The resurrection of Christ – announced by tenor William Herbert – shall dismiss all fear and doubt. Nikolaus Herman’s central chorale celebrates – in the Lutheran vision – the joy of the Easter message. Ferrier appears in the troubled alto recitative, “Lord Jesus, thou the sting of death has drawn. . .” which projects yet still doubt, but the bass (William Parsons) aria of Jesus’ return with Chorus, “Peace be unto you,” dispels the last anxieties. The final chorale, “Lord Christ, thou art the Prince,” comes from a text by Jakob Ebert.  To be performed on the first Sunday after Easter, the very opening orchestral and choral tissue rises in grand, solemn ecstasy. Dr. Jacques leads the 1930 Novello edition, with a few slight modifications in the soli.  Herbert’s “Oh Lord, in pity here” in his opening aria well conveys both the emotional and spiritual import of the occasion.

The disc concludes with the famous “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” from Cantata 147 in the setting for solo Chorus. Bach had been installed as Thomascantor in Leipzig in 1723, and this cantata represents his first cycle for the city. It marks the Feast of the Visitation which, ten years later, would invite the composition of the Magnificat. The 8 October 1949 recording, restored by Adrian Tuddenham and Norman White, carries us into a realm of rapt devotion.

–Gary Lemco

 

 

 

 

Johann Sebastian BACH: Harpsichord concertos 1, 2, 3—Marcin Swiatkiewicz—Channel Classics

Johann Sebastian BACH: Harpsichord concertos 1, 2, 3—Marcin Swiatkiewicz—Channel Classics

Johann Sebastian BACH. Harpsichord concertos 1, 2, 3 (BWV 1052-1054)—Marcin Swiatkiewicz (harpsichord), Zefira Volova, Anna Nowak-Pokrzywinska, violins, Dymitr Olszewki, viola, Tomasz Pokrzywinski, cello—Channel Classics CCS 40418—56:00, ****1/2

[headline quote]: Just another Bach concerto recording this is not! This team puts strong improvisational skill at the head of their imaginative performance of three of Bach’s harpsichord concertos, ushering us to re-think about historical performance practice and the beautiful merits of what is most certainly a lost art.

As old-fashioned as we might characterize Johann Sebastian Bach, writing a musical treatise on contrapuntal writing near his death in 1750, at a time when his own sons were adopting a much lighter, more melodic galant aesthetic, it’s just as easy, perhaps, to view Bach as an innovator as well. It’s easy for us to point out that the first concerto with a solo keyboard instrument may be, in fact, his fifth Brandenburg Concerto. Or that through his cantatas he matched the color of instruments to themes.

But it is the pragmatic composer/musician that is the best way to view Bach in the context of his concertos for solo harpsichord, including those recorded here, BWV 1052-1054. Given the responsibilities of providing music in Leipzig with young musicians as entertainment in the gardens or inside the Zimmermann Coffee House, Bach most likely took center stage at the keyboard, employing university students to round out the ensemble with strings. The pragmatic part of the whole enterprise is that Bach, more than likely, conceived of these concertos as a platform for his own improvisation, after being wrought as arrangements of earlier, original concertos for other instruments.

The musicians in this recording have adopted very small forces, accompanying the harpsichord with just four strings and no violone (8’ or double bass). I contrast this with one of my first exposures to these concertos from the Pinnock recordings in the 1980s with a chamber orchestra (to my memory, Pinnock used around four strings per part, at least for the violins). Swiathkiewicz joins harpsichordist Jean Rondeau in using smaller forces, one to a part, for his recording.

In the first concerto, a 16’ instrument is used. Most listeners will find the timbres of this instrument different than what we typically hear; when the 16’ strings are engaged, they sound an octave lower than regular pitch. This richness was explored in the recordings made my Aapo Hakkinen in his Aeolus recordings with Helsinki Baroque. Hakkinen argued that this type of instrument was at the Coffee House and may be the most appropriate type of instrument for Bach’s harpsichord concertos.

In BWV 1053, the E major concerto, a French-style harpsichord is used. This lighter instrument, combined with the lack of a double bass, gives a particular lightness to the entire texture of the concerto. The transparency is perhaps even more intense than what was achieved in Monica Huggett’s recording of the Bach violin concertos with one per part forces. The E major concerto exposes the hallmark of the recording: no one instrument seems emphasized in the mixture; instead, the musicians can expose or hide themselves in a very natural acoustical setting. What’s not there is the fundamental boost of bass, any special stereo effects with extreme panning, or any perception I have of techniques used to isolate the the articulation of the harpsichord from the overall texture. Kudos to the team for going “honest” in the recording; what’s captured more or less is a front-row seat in an intimate concert space.

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

The D major concerto, BWV 1054, is a re-working of Bach’s E-major violin concerto, BWV 1042. For this concerto, Swiatkiewicz uses a Flemish instrument. While I think the diversity of instruments is interesting on account of us, the listeners, discerning the differences between the timbres of each harpsichord, I question the decision from a pragmatic angle: would Bach have had the luxury of switching instruments between concertos? And since I’ve brought up that there are audible differences, it’s the Flemish instrument in this concerto I favor the best.

In his album Dynastie, Rondeau also records BWV 1052, the D minor concerto. The two recordings are therefore worth comparison. This concerto aside, I am not sure the albums compete, per se, as Rondeau’s is conceived more as a recital/concert featuring concertos by other Bachs as well. But beyond the surface, they are not similar. Rondeau’s recording of the first movement is quicker, with the entire ensemble making a more musical expression out of the opening theme, using dynamics, space between phrases, and perhaps just a tighter integration. The recorded sound is also very different; the Rondeau recording is richer sounding, with the use of a double bass adding luxury to the sound, and the percussive aspect of the keyboard instrument cutting through the texture (which I suspect was made possible by the sound engineers).

But before we dismiss this newer recording by Swiatkiewicz as thin and anemic, I’ve said nothing of what makes this recording truly shine: the very real commitment Swiatkiewicz has made at improvisation (the effect is even taken up by the strings as well). To my memory, I can’t think of any recording of the Bach harpsichord concertos that have included such a florid rendering of music from the score. Sure, it’s easy to add an ornament here or there, but this is something altogether different. The slow movements, which I have been known in haste to skip over from time to time, come alive under Swiatkiewicz’s fingers. The outer movements get this especial treatment as well. In approaching these pieces in this way, I think these musicians have truly internalized the purpose behind these works. Transcribing these concertos to feature the harpsichord (in lieu of a violin, or say, an oboe) was more than just about tone color. Let’s be honest: Bach was known as an awesome keyboard player. We have evidence of his improvisational skill in the written-out cadenza included in his fifth Brandenburg Concerto. I applaud Swiatkiewicz and his team for re-inventing these concertos (the closing Allegro from BWV 1054 is very short, but sweet example of their ingenuity) with organic freedom and flair. The effects they achieve would be far more difficult in the context of a fuller chamber orchestra. And all the extra filigree added by Swiatkiewicz might have been lost with larger forces, too.

The packaging hints that we may get more from these musicians and I will eagerly await to see what’s next. They question in their liner notes the need for another Bach concerto recording, as did I, pulling the plastic away from the CD. However, after auditioning these tracks, I applaud the innovative vein that feeds their performance. And I am with them in the belief that we need to keep re-inventing. My only want on repeated listens was more bass. I know adding an extra octave in some of Bach’s concertos creates some unwanted parallels, but I simply missed that lower octave outside of BWV 1052. I don’t think having another player doubling the bass line would have prevented the musicians for exploring the inventive components of their interpretation.  I assuage this want of mine by closing my eyes and imagining the bass player was sick, unable to join the Leipzig capellmeister that evening at the coffeehaus.

With coffee or without, warmly recommended!

—Sebastian Herrera

More Information and Music at Channel Classics Website:

Logo Channel Classics

 

 

BACH: St. Mark Passion, BWV 247 – Bell’arte Salzburg/ Cantorey St. Catharinen/ Andreas Fischer – MDG

BACH: St. Mark Passion, BWV 247 – Bell’arte Salzburg/ Cantorey St. Catharinen/ Andreas Fischer – MDG

BACH: St. Mark Passion, BWV 247 – Katherina Muller, soprano/ Jan Borner, alto/ Matthias Bleidorn, tenor/ Manfred Bittner, bass/ Richard Logiewa, Christus/ Bell’arte Salzburg/ Cantorey St. Catharinen/ Andreas Fischer – MDG Scene 2+2+2 multichannel SACD MDG 902 2104-6 (2 SACDs), 62:55, 68:18 ****:

This small statement by conductor and reconstruction composer Andreas Fischer in the notes says it all: “there was, and is, no scientifically proven possibility of bringing Bach’s Passion to a performable state – at least as long as new sources do not emerge.” And here is what I said in my review of the last attempt at this, in 2009 for a Carus release reconstructed by Andreas Glockner (and on this website): “All we know about BWV 247 for sure is that there are two complete texts that testify to the fact of its existence, the latest being discovered in St. Petersburg Russia in 2009 commemorating a performance in March of 1744 on Good Friday. Previously it was thought that the passion was not performed after 1731. The music was most likely of the parody type, garnished from existing Bach scores, most notably the Cantata BWV 198, his Funeral Ode. Bach added two arias to the 1744 performance, and a reconstruction was attempted in 1961, of which the present recording is a variant on that edition by Andreas Glockner. It is admittedly a work of ‘best guess’ reconstruction, but that is what the St. Mark Passion has always been and will always be until further light is shed—or the music shows up somewhere complete.”

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Okay, I admit that is a lot of personal plagiarism, but there isn’t a lot else that can be said for any attempt at putting together a work that Bach himself performed, yet, aside from the text itself (and his changes), we don’t have anything but speculative clues to go on. We do know that some of the music is among the most marvelous found in the Bach corpus—it was written after the St. Matthew Passion—and perhaps that makes it worthwhile, but nevertheless the attempts go on to cast it in a “relative” manner so that one may perceive more meaning in the piece, i.e., in a liturgical construct. Maybe. I must admit that I remain unconvinced, but this disc has attractions, mainly for the admission of sung recitatives (all genuine Bach), something the Carus release eschewed in favor of a narrator reciting the texts, which is not only unconvincing, but a little weird. The Carus has excellent singing, yet so does this one, and I can’t complain about hearing much of Bach’s familiar music even in a forged setting. So, the Carus will most likely go.

MDG’s sound is also a distinct plus, the Super Audio resonating finely as in all their releases. We will have to simply wait for another St. Petersburg miracle—maybe this time with music attached—before getting anything more realistic than what is given here.

—Steven Ritter

MDG Logo

 

 

 

 

Johann Sebastian BACH. Sonatas and partitas—Gottfried von der Goltz, violin—Aparte 

Johann Sebastian BACH. Sonatas and partitas—Gottfried von der Goltz, violin—Aparte 

Johann Sebastian BACH. Sonatas and partitas (BWV 1001-1016)—Gottfried von der Goltz, violin—Aparte AP176—137:00, *****:

If at all you are familiar with Gottfried von der Goltz, it is as leader of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. His recordings, until recently, have been made with this ensemble in full orchestral and chamber configurations. That he now presents the Bach sonatas and partitas is a welcome addition to his musical portfolio as soloist. From the liner notes:

…the unusual compositional style of the Sei Solo, presenting many technical challenges, obviously requires perfect mastery of the instrument; but not until musicians have grasped the fact that the prime aim of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violinis to provide a musical representation of the human soul, will it be possible for them to approach a true under- standing of this complex music, leading to a profound emotional experience. 

So I worry when I read such things as “musical representation of the human soul.” It puts a profound weight on the musician’s shoulders to go beyond playing notes, dynamics, and rhythmic motifs. It labors them to turn the production of sound into something so profound as… a mirror into the human soul?

Perfect mastery of the instrument? Calling anything “perfect” is dangerous, but I kept thinking after each audition of this recording how the phrase “perfect mastery” sums up von der Goltz’s style. He’s a clean player using an instrument that is extremely even throughout its gamut. Nothing about his playing is introverted or extroverted. It’s in the middle. It’s balanced, and above that, we never really hear anything that indicates the technical challenges in the music. “Mastery of the instrument,” I think, can mean many different things. In light of this recording, it means I believe von der Goltz has ultimate control of his playing. And that’s pretty special, and even unique in the canon of available recordings.

The performance of these pieces—like that of other popular music—becomes a risky business. Today, in our enlightened time of older playing styles, when there are choices to be made between “baroque” and “modern” violin setups, the choice of style becomes a subject of debate in addition to what instrument we use. Pushing too far into any one direction presents the possibility of delighting some listeners, but too at the cost of offending others. And some performers may be better aligned particular tempo preferences. Or performing in an overly dry acoustic versus in the reverberant space of a cathedral. Continuous vibrato versus non at all? What does Mr. von der Goltz offer in his recording?

First and foremost, if his aim has been to somehow turn the music into a representation of the soul, it’s a soul that is calm, tempered, and open to appreciating the beauty afforded to life on this planet. The recording as a whole is remarkably consistent and seems clearly focused on presenting Bach’s ideas clearly, without any extroverted expression (or continuous vibrato) from the performer. In short, I’d call von der Goltz’s approach as balanced. It’s devoid of anything I’d think whiffs of twenty-first century histrionics to appeal to “a modern audience.” But balance is a tricky word, too. Balance sounds as if you gave something up to achieve something else. But balance here is something to be admired.

If we think of the soul the emotional center of a human being, of experiencing extreme loss, profound joy, and a connection to a world beyond our planet, then that’s not what this recording is. Instead of pushing the limits of Bach’s music, this recording clearly is playing safely within the lines and in the historical context. To be sure, this in some ways is the protestant Bach reading, and not a version, say, imitating something by Locatelli, Tartini, or some other extroverted Italian player from the era. And with all the recordings available of these pieces, this approach is, for me, a welcome one. It forces us to listen. And the rewards, of course, are profound.

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

In the opening Preludio from the third partita in E, BWV 1006, the very familiar cascade of notes is played cleanly and clearly, with a sympathetic reverb, but nothing so wet that it smears the music. Von der Goltz applies dynamic shading, but never is the instrument pushed to extremes. Instead of going out of his way to point out the differences between phrases, his approach pulls you in. The balance we get is one of temperament. We get a performance that makes it easy, perhaps more easy in some cases, to enjoy the freshness of Bach, rather than the heaviness we sometimes experience with performers attempting to point out every profound musical idea Bach wrote. To be sure, I like some of those performances too. But the balance here is refreshing.

The ending of this same piece offers one of many treats von der Goltz infuses into his performances: the small ornamentation we hear at the end is clever and perhaps unexpected. It’s again about balance. He’s added his mark on the music in a subtle, but beautiful way. We hear it all over the set. The ending of the Presto from the first sonata, BWV 1001, with his introduction of a major third in the last chord. Or the chordal note he adds near the ending of the first Corrente from the first partita, BWV 1002. Or in the ending of a phrase, 1:45 into the Andante of the second sonata, BWV 1003. You’ll hear his mark too in the Corrente of the second partita (BWV 1004), both rhythmically and harmonically. It’s the type of subtle personalization that comes from someone who feels comfortable enough with the music to infuse their own turn. And in so doing I feel von der Goltz is living, breathing, and living in true baroque style without going too far afield. I’ll say it again: it’s balanced.

Two of my favorite tracks from the Bach set are the Giga and Ciaccona from the second partita. The Giga is full of call-and-response figures, or “echoes.” Like some “modern” interpretations, von der Goltz enhances these repeated phrases with dynamic shifts, but they are subtle. Mezzo-piano to mezzo-forte, perhaps, not pp to ff, as I’ve experienced elsewhere. And then into the Chaconne, the approach is altogether similar. In some performances I feel there’s such a profundity associated with the piece that performers guild the performance with extra dynamics, more pauses, more space between the notes in the opening line. I applaud von der Goltz for forging ahead. At 13:40, his reading is not the fastest, but certainly his is on the faster side. Nothing, however, feels rushed. The momentum he begins the piece with feels natural. The phantasitcus-style shifts (quick changes in character between phrases, one after the other), are treated with the same delicate balance of dynamics and tempo that has ruled the other pieces in the set. It’s balanced. Not too much or too little, it’s clearly being controlled. The result is music left to breathe on its own.

When I reflect on albums from the Freiburg orchestra they too subscribe to a balanced, clean performance style. To hear this style distilled so nicely by one performer shows, I believe, a performance philosophy under the microscope. The consistent control conveyed throughout between tempo (even when rubato is applied subtly), tone, and dynamics is the opposite of being showy. Von der Goltz is putting the music front and center in lieu of himself, the performer. Upon repeated listenings this reveals to me the sublime achievement of this recording, enough, I think, to consider it a true reference recording: clean, technically-precise, and respectful of the bounds and limits of the instrument for which this music was composed without resorting to extraordinary gimmicks.

—Sebastian Herrera

Link to more information and track samples here:

Logo Aparte

 

 

 

Wilhelm Backhaus: The Complete pre-War Beethoven recordings – Wilhelm Backhaus, piano – APR 

Wilhelm Backhaus: The Complete pre-War Beethoven recordings – Wilhelm Backhaus, piano – APR 

Wilhelm Backhaus: The Complete pre-War Beethoven recordings = BEETHOVEN: Various sonatas, Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5, and works by Bach.  Complete listing below – Wilhelm Backhaus, piano/ London Symphony Orchestra / Royal Albert Hall Orchestra / Landon Ronald – APR 6027 (2 CDs) 65:57; 76:21 (10/26/18) [Distr. by Naxos] ****:

    “I place Beethoven before all others. He transcends them all in dynamic power and his titanic spirit and intensity of thought seem to suggest a god or superman. His music satisfies my nature, in joy or sorrow, like no other.”

—Wilhelm Backhaus

The Beethoven works collected here complement the APR set of Romantic pieces assembled and edited by Mark-Obert Thorn (APR 6026). The first disc, embracing the Piano Concertos 4 (25 September 1929 and 12-13 March 1930) and 5 (27 January 1927), had previous issue on the Biddulph label in 1998 (LHW 037), and they display a fleet, often incredibly lithe and athletic virtuoso, especially in the respective cadenzas in the outer movements of the G Major Concerto. The “Emperor” Concerto, taken for posterity in one recording session, possesses its own, driven momentum, tends to downplay the woodwinds’ contribution in the first movement, a pity. Still, the thoughtfulness of phrase and application of touches, trills, and roulades never ceases to astound those who attend to the subtleties of the Backhaus style. The explosive transitions alone compel our admiration, if not awe. The music-box chords late in rhe first movement glisten and glitter with a silken panache to make Michelangeli jealous. The exaggerated slides in the Royal Albert Hall strings notwithstanding, the second movement Adagio un poco mosso moves—rather quickly—with refined poetry. The Rondo: Allegro sings as well as cavorts in large, expansive periods. If the tendency in Backhaus celebrates German Romanticism rather than some “echt” and “pure” notion of Beethoven, the results remain both passionate and dramatic.

Portrait Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven,
by Hornemann

The Backhaus Beethoven sonatas recorded1927-1937, as well as the Bach pieces that served as filler for the shellac sets on HMV, have been transferred and remastered by Andrew Hallifax. The Pathetique Sonata (28 January 1927) resonates with thoughtful authority, its first movement a dramatic confrontation of the composer’s pain, in chromatics, and his will, expressed diatonically. The lyrical Adagio cantabile sings according to Backhaus’ own lights.  The Rondo: Allegro adjusts the flux while maintaining its surface speed. The moments of counterpoint and stretto achieve a streamlined, three-hand effect. The extended coda well indicates the virile power that Backhaus commands. The Moonlight Sonata (6 and 8 November 1934) reveals the ‘romantic’ strain in the Backhaus approach, but the Adagio sostenuto does not dawdle not cloy in its suave, intimate progression. The Allegretto accepts a slight ritard that the modern ear may find mannered. Typical of the younger Backhaus, his tempos tend to be quick. The strength and agility in the pianist’s rendering of the Presto agitato convince us that bravura could be his in a heartbeat.  The suddenness of the sfzorzati rival anything in Serkin, but perhaps less percussive. The Les Adieux Sonata (6 and 8 November 1934) may open somewhat “preciously,” but once the “farewell” gestures recede, the subsequent Allegro reveals an aerial buoyancy quite exhilarated, especially in his acceleration in double notes.  The “Farewell” motif exerts itself in the minor for the Andante espressivo, and Backhaus makes his diminished 7th chords jar us. The happy return of the last movement’s Vivacissimamente accommodates Backhaus’ agile 16ths in the course of a vigorous last movement, only slightly interrupted by a tender, thoughtful moment. The ever-potent Sonata in C minor, Op. 111 (13 May 1937) seems to absorb, even fixate, Backhaus in its driven, contrapuntal throes. Backhaus takes the Maestoso – Allegro first movement as a manic toccata meant for keyboard competition. Breathless and nearly shapeless, the music hurtles in a staggered frenzies, con brio ed appassionato, to be sure. Backhaus does impose a heavy tread to the martial figures that Beethoven turns into a fugato. The last pages might suffice in the absence an orchestral transposition. While the Arietta does open Adagio molto, the subsequent chains of trills, semi-parlando, and scherzando passages must abide Backhaus’ controlled frenzies, technically astounding as they may be.

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

The Bach Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C (14 May 1937) reveals a master of controlled touch and fluid pulse, and Backhaus’ tempos inject calm and repose; but my own favorite lies with Elly Ney’s arch-romantic version. The Bach Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor (8 November 1934) projects a mystery, almost in the form of a chorale. The serene delicacy of the Fugue proper provides a dramatic foil to the heaven-storming sensibility of the Beethoven Thirty-Second Sonata.  Backhaus allots to the Pastorale from Christmas Oratorio (6 November 1934) an easy gait, a rocking canter, in the course of its gentle dialogue and passing trills. The bass sound, a bit tinny, does not distract from the transparency of the occasion.

—Gary Lemco

Wilhelm Backhaus: The Complete pre-War Beethoven recordings =
BEETHOVEN
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat Major, Op. 73 “Emperor”
Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 “Pathetique”
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op 27, No. 2 “Moonlight”
Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat Major, Op. 81a “Les Adieux”
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111

BACH:
Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C Major, BWV 846
Prelude and Fugue No. 22 in B-flat minor, BWV 867
Pastorale from Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248 (arr. Lucas) 

 

Johann Sebastian BACH. The suites for solo cello “Six Evolutions”—Yo-Yo Ma, cello—Sony 

Johann Sebastian BACH. The suites for solo cello “Six Evolutions”—Yo-Yo Ma, cello—Sony 

Johann Sebastian BACH. The suites for Solo Cello: “Six Evolutions” (BWV 1007-1012)—Yo-Yo Ma, cello—Sony 19075 85465 2—134:00, *****:

“Better than average, yes. And the best of Ma’s recordings of Bach’s cello suites. This is a recording devoid of an artist’s ego; it showcases his love for music.”

I was in elementary school when Yo-Yo Ma released his first recording of the Bach suites on CBS Masterworks. I was in graduate school when I picked up his second recording, in addition to a series of six movies around the suites, each featuring Ma working with another artist. In this rendition, which he claims will be his last recording, he brings yet another take on these pieces which have seemed to have been so integral to his musical life. The liner notes reveal his close association with Fred Rogers. I’m led to believe his relationship with the personage of Johann Bach is no different, really, in the end. He’s had the time to know and consider the music of a musical friend.

And then there are obvious assumptions. There’s nothing wrong with this recording. You and I are both very safe in making this assumption. It’s Yo-Yo Ma. He plays the cello. Sony’s made good recordings. And this is his third recording. The interpretation will be, we might both guess, better than average.

Comparing the recordings, the newest is, I believe, his best. The recorded sound is most definitely the best. And there are small nuances, such as the execution of an ornament, or the the approach toward a cadence that might be different, but in general, Ma is quite consistent in some of his interpretative decisions. The biggest evolution between his first and third recordings is less reliance on an overly connected, almost legato style of playing. In this reading, Ma is more willing to detach between phrases or within a phrase in faster movements.

In general, Ma is a fan of large phrase lengths. Baroque music, and especially so with Bach, is made up of smaller rhythmic groupings and even melodic sequences. Ma’s vision for the larger, longer phrases is a keystone of his performance style. It’s no better shown than in the opening of the second suite in D minor, BWV 1008.

This observance of long phrases isn’t always in vogue with baroque performance. The competing idea would be to present musical material in phrases that could be sung: the longer phrases, therefore, would be unlikely candidates for the singer would lose sufficient air. Musically, the long phrase works: Ma is masterful in his restraint in the second movement of the same suite, the Allemande. With shorter phrases in the Courante, the effect is less pronounced. My reference recording for the Bach suites, the third recording by Pieter Wispelwey, is an interesting comparison. His phrases in the same dance are shorter. Ma’s second recording too features the longer phrases, but in this third recording, especially so in this Courante, he emphasizes more of the smaller phrases within the longer stretch. This new recording therefore is consistent but somewhat evolutionary.

The consistency also means that ideas that I may not have liked in the first or second recordings are here again. My best example is Ma’s tempo choice for the Gigue in the fifth suite, which I still believe drags. Consistency is also a good thing. Things I thought were done so well in the earlier recordings, such as the Sarabande from the second suite, thankfully too are around again.

His reading of the Gigue from BWV 1008 gives me goosebumps. Track number twelve from the first disc deserves many repeats.

Yo-Yo Ma is a remarkable musician and someone who I have always enjoyed hearing talk about music and life, in general. This latest recording is a superb refinement and testament to a lifelong journey with this music. And in that, I believe, Ma has found a distillation of his ideas that we might say are wholly authentic. I have often felt his first recording was entrenched in a more traditional performance style; his second, made contemporaneously with his recordings named Simply Baroque used a lower, baroque pitch. And while comparisons with baroque cellists may show at least some influence on Ma, the consistent bits—and there are many of them—show what Ma wants us to hear about this extraordinary music.

In total this is a very beautiful recording that really is divorced of any semblance of ego or extreme, new interpretive decisions. The recording reveals Ma’s continued devotion to his ideals, his musicianmanship, and his love for the music of J.S. Bach. And for those in large cities, it signals the start of a tour with Ma performing the suites again in public.

—Sebastian Herrera

Link to more information at Sony Classical, here:

Logo Sony Classical

Sony Classical

 

 

Double Review: Guitar Music by BACH, BROUWER, BARRIOS – Ricardo Gallén / Bin Hu – Eudora

Double Review: Guitar Music by BACH, BROUWER, BARRIOS – Ricardo Gallén / Bin Hu – Eudora

BROUWER, BARRIOS, VILLA-LOBOS, MOREL: En Silencio: Latin American Guitar Music  – Ricardo Gallén – Eudora SACD 1801 – 74:48 (4/18): ****½:

(Ricardo Gallén, guitar by Paco Marin)

An exquisite recital of  Latin American guitar music including the magnum opus La Catedral of Agustin Barrios and two fine Brouwer pieces played by one of the giants of the instrument.

J. S. BACH: Ciaccona – Bin Hu – Eudora SACD 1803 – 62:24, (8/18): *****:

(Bin Hu, guitar by Andreas Kirmse)

Audiophile recordings of the highest merit from both a sound and interpretative standpoint.

Eudora Records, out of Madrid, has been around for a number of years but still has a catalog of only 14 titles. These releases, however, amply reflect the label’s deliberation in bringing together state of the art recording and world-class performances of rare distinction. We at Audiophile Audition first encountered Eudora Records in a stunning recording of Bach cello suites in new arrangements for guitar by Petrit Ceku. (https://dev.audaud.com/bach-the-cello-suites-arr-by-valter-despalj-petrit-ceku-guitar-eudora/)

The acoustics were remarkable for vibrancy and three-dimensional clarity. There followed an exquisite recording of Haydn (https://dev.audaud.com/haydn-piano-sonatas-nos-31-33-47-59-enrique-bagaria-p-eudora/), more first rate guitar recordings, and an astonishing recital by Norwegian theorbist Jonas Norberg. Eudora’s finest in-house pianist, Josep Colom, offered two recitals that imagined encounters between Bach and, alternately, Mozart and Chopin (https://dev.audaud.com/mozart-chopin-dialogue-josep-colom-p-eudora/).

For guitarists, Eudora Records is a label to dream about. It is a mystery how producer and engineer can recruit this level of talent and plumb the depth of acoustical research to deliver recitals like those in these recordings. Most recently, a major figure in classical guitar, Ricardo Gallén, has contributed two additional recordings to their catalog. Well-known for a series of Naxos recordings, Gallén delivered a fine recording of sonatas by Ferdinando Sor followed by an anthology of Latin America works titled En Silencio. 

This 2018 release features Gallén’s remarkable Paco Marin (2003) 19th century-style instrument which, in a spacious room with lively overtones, yields a sweetness of tone especially in the bright upper register. In the introductory liner notes, we are graced with a fine essay by Mario Alcaraz that skips over conventional musicological information in favor of musings on what it means to be a true artist or master. He reminds us that it involves, beyond the requisite technical virtuosity attained through hard-work, “a kind of peaceful, pleasurable understanding of the world – a mixture of love and insight.” Indeed. The brief essays in Spanish and English that accompany these discs are very well-done.

The finest works on this program are probably the two pieces by Leo Brouwer, Suite No. 2 and Dos temas populares cubanos. The composer himself encouraged the guitarist to record these for posterity, and it would be hard to imagine more moving and insightful renditions. I await the day when this superb composer will be recognized beyond the classical guitar world as a major figure in 20th century music, perhaps attracting transcriptions of his work for other instruments.

Less well-known is Jorge Morel, but his twilit Sonatina here is a wonder of lyrical economy. Even the Allegretto, probably the easiest movement on the recording, is a guitarist ballad drenched in middle register honey, evoking Satie at his best with a little of the Balkan guitar tradition emerging from the wings. There is more introspective beauty to come in the two pieces by Carlos Farinas, the inevitable cancion triste, and the title track en silencio. These quiet pieces achieve the finest concentration of both sonic detail and nuanced playing.

Portrait Astor Piazzolla

Astor Piazzolla, 1971

Given the popularity of all things tango and of Piazzolla, it is not surprising to encounter one of his Portenos.  Technically demanding and effusively rhetorical, this piece serves up all the by-now-(too)-familiar tango gestures. Like so much of the music of this composer, the melody line has the attention span of a short-haired pointer. I would guess that many in AudAud’s audience will like this piece more than me. Gallén’s performance, though, is admirable. His fingers warmed up, Villa-Lobos follows. If not for the musicality of the guitarist, these pieces might evoke the conservatory practice room, the technicality of expressive balance tips only slightly to the latter. Fortunately, everything that follows is a notch better, starting with three pieces by Antonia Lauro. These are brisk, invigorating polyphonic swirls; the guitar is at its most orchestral, no space is left uncolored by decorative detail. These must be extremely challenging pieces, but it is joy rather than effort that is communicated here.

In comparison to the superb Augustin Barrios, the first third of the recital must be humbled. Barrios has been called “the Mozart of the guitar”; I would upgrade that to the Haydn of the guitar. His harmonic wit complements an inventive melodic genius, which is as inexhaustible as the famous Austrian composer’s. There is also an economy of form and love of delight that reminds one of Scarlatti. His magnum opus, La Catedral, is on another level from the works of the earlier composers.

This a very fine recital by one of the elite players today, a guitarist who also has the distinction of having made the finest guitar recording ever of the Bach lute suites. This will serve us as a bridge to the next artist who studied under Gallén and presumably took this recordings as inspiration for his own Bach project.

Chinese-born Bin Hu is a student of the first classical guitar school in near Beijing. He has since embarked on a world-wide tour, which has brought him accolades from all quarters. Now an instructor at the University of Arizona, he finds himself at the beginning of what promises to be a brilliant career as both player and scholar of Baroque literature. No more auspicious beginning could be imagined than his release Ciaccona: J.S. Bach which is devoted to the famous title piece as well as new transcriptions of the other famous Bach violin works.

I typically avert from Chaccone played on the violin. There is too much suffering for both instrument and player, not to mention the enormous cloud of religious iconography that hovers over the work. However, transcriptions for plucked instruments are another thing altogether. Bin Hu succeeds in navigating the nearly quarter-hour work with poise and intelligence. In the main, we are spared effortful scraping and polyphonic morass. A clear pulse prevails in even the darkest moments, and the middle voices, the specialty of the Gonzalo Noque studio, are realized with radiant clarity.

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Superior counsel placed the Chaconne second to the end. (it is followed by the lovely Sinfonia which is a restorative meditation). We begin with the stupendous Prelude from Partita BWV 1006. It is the most overtly-ecstatic work from Bach’s pen, a great leaping about and gamboling in space. It is also a fine demonstration of velocity over the neck of the instrument, which in Hu Bin’s hand is done without strain. The two other Sonatas, BWV 1001 & 1003, are taken in sequence. These are staples of the repertoire and present a just a modicum of newness in the arrangements. Hu Bin is unhurried and exact, but there are moments of pure ravishment too. The guitarist is apparently also a scholar of Baroque research. We might have guessed as much from the elaborate attention to the ornamentation throughout. All manner of appoggiatura and acciaccatura are deftly translated to the guitar in nuanced ways. He is not above a little guitaristic “shredding” too; The coda to the Allegro in BWV 1001 is flamboyantly original. Certainly one would need only this recording out of the dozens of choices if there is a reader who seeks a first. Other can make their own comparisons.

Curious about the Eudora sound, I decided to match both of the above recordings with a SACD on Teldec of the incomparable David Russell. This performer, whose endorsements are often a major point on a  performers resume, possesses superhuman prowess. The recording in question, Art of the Guitar, revealed an artist at the top of his game; The surround-sound hybrid SACD recording, however, was vastly inferior to the Eudora recording, the guitar sound alternately brittle and opaque.  I invite readers to further investigate the niceties of guitar acoustics. One might have to compare Eudora with M-A Recording or BIS to find competitors.

The liner notes include  well-informed (footnoted), cogent essay on the music as well as some striking photos. It is not a positive sign that the Spanish translation is gone, perhaps an indication that this country of such deep musical traditions and abundant performers represents a negligible audience for this labels productions.

Ciaccona effectively bookends the earlier Bach recording by Petrit Ceku and both connect to Ricard Gallén’s comprehensive recital of the non-transcribed standard works. We heartily commend these spectacular recordings to our readers and salute yet another recording triumph by this tiny but hugely significant label.

—Fritz Balwit

Bin Hu

Bin Hu

Richard Gallen

Ricardo Gallén

En Silencio

Ciaccona

 

Johann Sebastian BACH. The suites for solo cello “Six Evolutions”—Yo-Yo Ma, cello—Sony 

“Six Evolutions” = BACH: Six Suites for Solo Cello – Yo-Yo Ma, cello – Sony Classical 

“Six Evolutions” = BACH: Six Suites for Solo Cello – Yo-Yo Ma, cello – Sony Classical 19075854652 (2 CDs), 133 minutes *****:

Ever since Yo-Yo Ma first learned Bach’s Suite No. 1 under the tutelage of his father at age four, the music seared itself into his soul like an indelible seal. The general public anxiously awaited Ma’s first attempt at these six suites, and were rewarded with an energetic, relatively straightforward but radiantly enthusiastic recording done before he left his twenties. About fifteen years later he returned to them, this time filming the process resulting in performances that are exceptionally competent yet somewhat contrived in their effectiveness.

Now, in his last stab (as he admits) at these seminal pieces—he is in his early sixties now, which makes me feel really old!—the promised land looks to have been attained. These readings are by far superior to anything that went before. The acoustics are rather dry and close, and that can sometimes be deadly in a solo cello recording, but here the harsher aspects of the instrument have been tamed, and we get a mellow, resonant, and communicative sound that is most pleasant on the ears.

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Interpretatively, these are probably the most intimate readings of any music Ma has ever recorded. There are liberties taken, but never do they emanate from willfulness or some perverse ideology, but rather from a deep sense of love and commitment to the music. Ma believes that these works have the power to reach out to a universal audience, yet he chooses to present them in a way that is extremely personal and highly subjective, an almost intrusive overhearing of the most private sentiments. At the same time, when all is said and done, the feeling is not one of exclusivity, but instead a sense of genuine expression well within the perceived limits of what Bach might have imagined.

Lovers of this music will want several renditions of these works, and I continue to favor the incandescent readings of Winona Zelenka above all others. Nevertheless, this swan song issue from the most famous cellist living is required listening for anyone who loves Bach.

—Steven Ritter

Link for more information:

Six Evolutions Album Cover, Yo Yo Ma

BACH:  Dual Review of Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, Complete – Cedille and Harmonia Mundi

BACH: Dual Review of Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord, Complete – Cedille and Harmonia Mundi

BACH: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord (Complete) – Isabelle Faust, violin/ Kristian Bezuidenhout, harpsichord – Harmonia mundi HMM 902256.57 (2 CDs), 87:39 *****:

BACH: Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord (Complete) – Rachel Barton Pine, violin/ Jory Vinikour, harpsichord – Cedille CDR 90000 177 (2 CDs), 99:45 *****:

A dual review of two excellent renderings of Bach’s Violin/Harpsichord Sonatas!

It isn’t often that one gets a chance to do a head-to-head review of seminal works by JS Bach as played by two of the leading practitioners of the Bachian art. But, lo and behold, here we have nearly simultaneous releases of very important works by the master—and complete at that—which show that these pieces, for all the supposed scholarship of historical informed performances, can be as varied and different as can be imagined.

Rachel Barton Pine, Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord by Bach

Bach Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord
Rachel Barton Pine

These sonatas have never been as popular as the six solo partitas and sonatas, though there is no good reason why they should not be. Consistency in sources is a problem, no doubt, as these works, dating from Bach’s time in Cothen, have many different origins, and are more of a pastiche than the solo works. Nonetheless, the final products are simply superb in every way, and with performances as we have here, it is hard to believe that anyone hearing them won’t immediately reassess any previously held prejudices against them.

Bach himself couldn’t let these pieces alone. A note by Johann Christoph Friedrich even indicates that Bach “wrote these trios before his death”, meaning that he was still tinkering with them then, even though we know from existing evidence that as of 1725—a quarter century earlier—the first product issued from his pen. And they had a lasting impact, as CPE Bach said in 1774 that they “still sound very good now … even though they are over 50 years old. Despite the varied and many ways that the music came together—and you will hear many of these movements in other, sometimes wildly different ensembles—the six sonatas form an integrated set—they were not put together later by a publisher or someone with ulterior motives for profit. And the fact that the composer visited them at least four times shows the great interest he had in them.

Isabelle Faust, Bach Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord

Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord
Isabelle Faust

Though a unified collection, the individual sonatas show great variety and strength of character. Each one demands a fresh and completely focused approach that doesn’t easily transfer from one sonata to the next. Hearing these two fabulous women interpret this music shows how deep are the Bachian feelings and how incredibly diverse the emotive content. Rachel Barton Pine’s approach, on her 1770 Nicola Gagliano violin, with partner Jory Vinikour on a 2012 copy of a Pascal Taskin harpsichord from 1769—and a gorgeous instrument—is by far the more “personal” performance here. She is direct and fervent, almost like she is performing for you alone, and that the music is designed by Bach to be communicated in this same, intensely personal manner. Both ladies are, of course, converts to the period cause, and neither of them are exclusively period practitioners, but listening to either of these recordings you would never know it. Isabelle Faust, on her 1658 Jacobus Stainer violin, accompanied by Kristian Bezuidenhout’s 2008 harpsichord after a 1722 Grabner, sees the music in a much different way. If Barton Pine is an intense Jane Austin conversation, Faust is a trip to the discotheque. Bright, wildly lit colors and dazzling virtuosity show the Bachian muse to be anything but echt personal—this is a sermon for the masses, stirring, exciting, and even mildly enervating, though never dull.

It’s nearly impossible to pick between the two, and I sure don’t want to. I suspect that when I pull these down it will be according to the mood I am in at the time. If pocketbook is a concern, the Barton Pine is two CDs for the price of one, while Faust remains stubbornly set at the high end $25 plus range. But get one of them at least—they are that good. Sound on each is wonderful, Pine closer and more directed, with Faust reverberant and airy.

—Steven Ritter

Changyong Shin – Keyboard works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven – Steinway and Sons

Changyong Shin – Keyboard works by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven – Steinway and Sons

Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven (Piano Works)—Changyong Shin (piano)—Steinway and Sons 30041—59:22, ****1/2:

I always enjoy hearing recitals by emerging artists. Shin studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and has been a winner in a number of prestigious competitions. This recital is a means to showcase his versatility with the standard repertoire. He performs Bach’s Toccata, BWV 912, Mozart’s Hunt sonata, K. 576, Haydn’s sonata no. 60, and Beethoven’s A major sonata, op. 101.

Shin is a technically-precise musician, but likewise applies rubato and dynamic shading to his playing. The recorded sound in this release is first-rate. The piano—a Steinway D—is even-toned, blooming ever so much in the middle register. The acoustic is live enough to celebrate the piano’s sound without anything feeling washed-out. Shin descends into the quiet shadows capable of the instrument many times so that the few outbursts come across as grand, rich explosions of color, as in the Beethoven Vivace Alla Marcia.

Shin’s Bach for me is polite and somewhat underwhelming. This is a pianist approaching Bach, with no attempt to reference the sound world of Bach’s keyboard instruments. The opening is played forte, with even pressure but then the first cadences feel artificial. There’s nothing distasteful about his approach, but the dynamic contrasts are artificial constructs. That said, these dynamic contrasts help to underscore the somewhat fleeting styles Bach includes in his toccatas, making use of the piano’s capacity over, say, a harpsichord. Three-quarters of the way through the piece, Shin’s Bach for me improves, his command of articulation in the almost percussive theme Bach weaves is clearly present; the finale shows no mercy, with Shin only slowing down into the final cadence, offering us likely Bach’s original intention of arresting attention with an exciting flurry of notes.

In terms of interpretation, I feel Shin is more at home and comfortable with the classical literature.

Shin’s Mozart is wrapped up in a capricious style that prioritizes the transparency between melody and accompaniment. His phrasing is nearly perfect, with no shortage of dynamic shading. The full power of the modern grand is kept in check. Shin probably does exceed the dynamic capacity of a period piano, but only in small amounts, and always in service to the music.

The Mozart sonata is a bit of a miniature, presented smartly, I believe, ahead of the more serious Haydn. Shin’s lightness of touch in the opening Allegro of the Haydn sonata is a technical marvel. He has very good control. This control is also on display between the dynamic contrasts; either in concert between both hands, or when the melody needs to cut through the texture.

In the Haydn Adagio, another talent of Shin’s shines: his talent with phrasing pulls us along as Haydn presents variations of his melodic material. The shape of phrase makes for beautiful music in the opening of the Beethoven sonata as well. The most challenging piece may be the Beethoven third movement, at least when it comes to interpretation. The short movement starts out much more like a somber sung chorale. Paul Lewis, in his recording, exercises more constraint. The difference is that Shin is more willing to let more “light” into his interpretation. Full light, of course, emerges in the finale, marked Allegro.

A very strong recital that combines technical polish, gifts in phrasing and dynamic contrasts, and a musical understanding that reveals for the listener with transparency the voicing of different pieces. Shin has an excellent ear for the classical style. The recital chosen, ending with the Beethoven sonata that concludes in almost Bachian counterpoint, and beginning with a Bach toccata, seems very well conceived.

—Sebastian Herrera

Sei Solo = BACH Sonatas and Partitas – Thomas Bowes – Navona Records

Sei Solo = BACH Sonatas and Partitas – Thomas Bowes – Navona Records

Johann Sebastian BACH. Six sonatas and partitas for violin alone—Thomas Bowes (violin)—Navona Records NV6159—164:00, ***1/2:

This recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, the “Sei Solo,” are recorded across three discs. My immediate reaction was to question why the recording took three discs, while every other recording I have heard took just two. And so I went reading before I listened to try and discover what was novel about this recording from Thomas Bowes.
Liner notes are funny things; they’ve long been associated with classical albums and give an opportunity from someone [performer, producer, record label, musicologist, etc., etc.] to educate the listener on some aspect (or many aspects) of the music, the recording, or even the instrument(s) used. And as a collector of albums, I feel qualified in saying that not all liner notes are equal and not all recordings come with them (as is often the case when purchasing re-issues). In 2018, I am not sure we need liner notes in the same way we did in 1998, or we travel back to the origin of the term, from somewhere in the mid-twentieth century when all this commentary was printed on the sleeve of a vinyl record.
To wit, this release of Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas for violin has a dedicated page online from Navona Records (Sei Solo – Thomas Bowe) which is a nice thing indeed. There are great notes from Bowes himself in addition to his producer. You can also virtually meet Bowes through YouTube, Thomas Bowes Bach Pilgrimage – YouTube.
I enjoyed learning about Bowes’s approach to Bach, and the series of church concerts that inspired the album. What’s interesting from the liner  notes are two things. First is that these are not live performances from any of the churches Bowes performed within, but instead are takes put together in the Abbey Road studios. It is nevertheless easy for us, I think, to close our eyes and imagine some several hundred year old church or cathedral when we listen to the album; the controlled atmosphere of a recording studio has been adapted to give us the reverberation and spaciousness of a church. The second interesting thing written about is Bowes’s knowledge of, and “sampling” of historical performance practice. The instrument used, an Amati, was fitted with gut strings but with an otherwise modern setup. While acknowledging period scholarship, he writes: “I have always given way to what I feel could be a more universal or timeless expression… it is profoundly private music and the attitude in which these recordings were made was at all times to try and play as if on my own.”
The “three disc” question wasn’t particularly satisfied in these notes. Bowes simply takes some of the movements at a slow pace. The opening Adagio from the G minor sonata, BWV 1001, clocks in at over six minutes; his Chaconne from BWV 1004 at over eighteen (!). The question about timing becomes an interesting one, especially if you’re an outlier. Is it because you need to play them slower, to accommodate the acoustics? Because you want to linger and savor the music? Or because you feel it was the intent of the composer to play them slow(er), or because there’s something new to hear when we slow the tempo down?
The initial impression of the set is that opening Adagio, BWV 1001.1. And that first impression for me was not a fair one; the slow speed at which Bowes plays seemed agonizingly painful. I couldn’t finish the track played that slow. There is a “wet” acoustic (similar to the nave, perhaps, of a medium sized gothic church), but it seemed an intentional practice to slow the music down. Perhaps it was, as I opine, Bowes wanting those notes for himself (e.g., it is profoundly private music).
Bowes doesn’t linger the same way with the remaining movements of the opening sonata. By the time we arrive into the Presto, we’re not speeding, but he adopts a quite springy rhythmic pulse that is punctuated with heavy accents, offering us a nicely contrasted style to the opening movement.
As someone who almost exclusively spends time listening to baroque music on historical instruments (in their historical setup), there is always interest in hearing this music from a different perspective. Bowes desire to present this music as personal, with the style coming from him, rather than a musical treatise, is something I can appreciate. The sound of his instrument is sweet and the recording supports it well. I am less inclined to understand how an expression can be “timeless,” as he writes, because there are elements of his performance that, taken as a whole, are an amalgamation of baroque and romantic styles. The controls he is toying with, from tempo, to accents, space, performance of double stops, vibrato, and dynamics are all his to manipulate.
Vibrato is the one I have a distaste for. And I know my distaste for continuous (and worse, continuous wide) vibrato spans beyond baroque repertoire. That said, Bowes vibrates, but it is done in a way that offers a real sweetness to his tone. It is not so overdone that we might conclude that the recording was made fifty years prior. Yet, I do need to come clean and point it out. It’s not my thing, and I know plenty of folks for whom vibrato is not a big issue.
Those other elements I mention, dynamics, the utilization of space between some notes (and not others, played legato), tempo, and most of all, accent, are all elements I find attractive in Bowes’s performance. Aside from the aforementioned opening movement of BWV 1001, other movements with longer-than-average tempos are all executed with service to the music. The seven minute Andante from BWV 1003 is difficult piece, interpretation-wise. You’re playing two parts on one instrument, a lovely melody supported with a pulsing bass underneath. It’s one of the movements that can challenge the greatest technicians. Bowes, here, despite approaching the piece quietly and softly, uses the slower tempo to his advantage. I don’t always want to hear this piece played this slowly, but the chosen tempo here is a welcome departure in service of the music. Bach’s music is surprisingly tolerant of elements like speed, and while more violinists today may err toward the fast side of things, I like this counterpoint.
The same could be said for the Giga that precedes the final Chaconne, or Ciaconna in the second partita, BWV 1004. This piece can survive a fast tempo. The energy is infectious. But this reading is very different; it’s thoughtful, it’s beautifully shaped, and in slowing things down, allows us all to enjoy the mechanics all the more carefully.
The eleven minute fugue from the third sonata, BWV 1005 might scare some at the track length. But again, Bowes does no disservice to the music by taking his time; instead, I believe, he illuminates the music in a way that might be best described as getting the special opportunity to examine a fine oil painting with a magnifying glass. We are afforded the opportunity to appreciate some detail when the tempo is slowed. That’s not to say a fast performance can’t work as well, but this, I think, is what I discovered when it comes to the “personal” approach Bowes brings to the music.
I no doubt believe that Bowes likely tried a lot of different interpretations throughout his Bach Pilgrimage performance project. Sadly in a recording, at least those produced today, we have to stop at one interpretation. But these are issues no doubt in the minds of Bowes and his producer Stephen Frost. And while this recording wouldn’t be my single desert island interpretation of the three solo sonatas and three solo partitas by Bach, I am a richer person for having experienced them. Bowes is a most competent musician with deeply musical ideas and gifts to convey them. His recording would make a welcome addition to a collection of Bach, proving once again how many different ways we can experience this profound music.
— Sebastian Herrera
J.S. Bach: Sonatas for Flute and Harpsichord – Stephen Schultz, Jory Vinikour – Music and Arts

J.S. Bach: Sonatas for Flute and Harpsichord – Stephen Schultz, Jory Vinikour – Music and Arts

The best performances of these works of the new millenium.

J.S. Bach: Sonatas for Flute and Harpsichord – Stephen Schultz (flute) Jory Vinikour (Harpsichord) – Music and Arts 1295 55:18, (3/2/18)  *****:

This writer subscribes to the view that the Sonatas BWV 1017-1023 for violin and harpsichord obbligato by Bach are his finest chamber works. A new recording of these by Rachel Barton Pine and Jory Vinikour were recently and favorably reviewed on these pages. It seems only fitting to acknowledge a 2018 recording of pieces that are nearest rivals to these eminent works, the Sonatas for Flute and Harpsichord, BWV 1030-1032, (featuring, as it happens, the same harpsichordist, Jory Vinikour); They are part of the inspired innovation to realize a trio sonata with two instruments by asking of the obbligato accompaniment a division of hands. The left hand merrily chases around the soloist, now in imitative counterpoint and now in extravagant improvisations, each instrument with its own themes, which converse with each other. The left hand soberly performs the work of the basso continuo, carrying along the swiftly-moving harmonic progressions.

From a historical perspective, these sonatas were remarkable for the use of the transverse flute as a solo instrument, an innovation coming out of the French Court and new to German musical traditions. This instrument was at a crucial stage of its evolution, and Bach, a restless explorer of instruments from the medieval Serpent to the Lute-Harpsichord (Lautenwerk), was well positioned at Leipzig to test its possibilities in chamber and concert music. These works date from the exact years, 1722-23, of the more famous violin sonatas. However, a manuscript from 1736 shows what is most likely a revision of an earlier draft, testimony that these works continued to occupy Bach later in life.

It has been suggested that Bach wrote these pieces with a specific flute virtuoso in mind. This individual would have been in possession of formidable skill, for the technical demands are considerable. Practitioners of the baroque flute must come to these pieces with some trepidation but also with the exhilaration of scaling a mountain. In this recording, we are fortunate to have veteran Stephen Schultz demonstrate his peerless abilities and understanding on the instrument in a meticulous recording of the three sonatas plus a work of uncertain authenticity but great charm, the BWV Sonata in G minor.

I first encountered this musician on a most intriguing recording of Boismortier’s Concertos for five flutes, which takes on all the parts of the concerto.  Apparently, Schultz was unable to rally four flute-playing colleagues to man the parts, so he recorded them all himself. These are sui generis works by a French composer who was a one-man industry with a verve for experimentation. Schulz does wonders with this music, which impresses both by the complexity of the part writing and by the haunting quality of the unisons. While strange enough, it is more than a baroque oddity and should be discovered anew, especially on Schultz’s 2008 Dorian recording, which will not easily be surpassed for elegance and pleasing sonics.

In this repertoire, the bench-mark recordings have always been those by Marc Hantai and Wilbert Hazelzet. I revisited those works with Grado professional level headphones to get as close to the music as possible, evaluating a host of musical values and and the even more important pleasure-index. Unfortunately, the older DHM recording by Hantai, pehaps the greatest ever on this instrument, is marred by suboptimal studio feng shui, specifically, a cranky harpsichord. Hazelzet benefits from the luxuriously sweet sound of Glossa recordings, which nicely balance his icy tone. Schultz comes in between: better sound than the Hantai recording and equal if not superior technique to Hazelzet.

The Music & Arts recording was made at Skywalker Sound in Marin County in 2016. The harpsichord (A= 415 Hz) is a John Phillips 2010 crafted after J. H. Gruber’s, Dresden 1722 model, as close to period authenticity as you can get. Microphones nicely catch every nuance of the flute, as well as the inhalations and the doppler sway of the flute from side to side. Vinikours playing definitely deserves note. It was only last year that I patiently absorbed his remarkable recording of the Bach Partitas, where I was struck by his freer play of time and his triumph of expressive joy over fussiness. Here he is at his best. The right-hand melodies concede no pride of place to the flute. They dance and swing. Ornamentation allows for a greater range of textures. If anything, the flute playing wears more than the accompaniment. Nor is the upper range of the harpsichord lacking in sweetness. It is a magnificent performance from start to finish. However, no amount of fiddling with knobs helped to bring out a sufficient bottom end of the instrument which is occasionally drowned out. One doesn’t know if it is a problem with the instrument or the choice of the engineers. It is the only flaw, and only intermittently noticeable, in an otherwise perfect recording.

The sonatas are not equal. By far the best known, and deservedly so, is the BWV 1030 work in B minor. The first movement alone is over 9 minutes long, an Andante made out of the same cloth as Bach’s gorgeous largos from the violin sonatas. The unabashed lyrical beauty is balanced against the thick harmonic tension of the harpsichord. Indeed, the keyboard provides a never-ending series of surprises, sometimes commenting on the melodies, at others investigating tangential harmonic landscapes like an over-curious hound on a zigzagging course over interesting terrain.  After the sumptuous Andante, taken even slower than Hantai’s version, one does not expect a Largo, but that is what ensues. On this four minute excursion, the harpsichord behaves more conventionally, strumming along like a guitar to a floating melodic line, while the flutist allows himself the slightest vibrato. Again it is all sunlit calm, Bach filtering through his Italic pastoral lens.

The Presto and Gigue put the test to the duo’s ability to sprint together. Vinikours articulation keeps the whole thing from chaos, especially as the two hands go their separate ways on contrary motion jaunts. The Gigue is a lively waltz with just a bit of craziness to the accompaniment, reminiscent of Bach’s eccentric use of the instrument in the Brandenburg concertos. In fact, the spirit of the concerto is everywhere present; Paradoxically, this founding moment of the Trios Sonata for two instruments is also the apotheosis of the concerto.

The next two sonatas are smaller in scale, lacking in the solemnity and harmonic rigors of the minor key work. They are delightful, and the rapport of the two players is faultless, There is tremendous feeling of relaxation, at its most exquisite in the alert pauses and inflections of the Largo e Dolce of BWV 1032. The Sonata in G minor, attributed to Bach, seems to my ears to be echt Bach. For some reason it makes me think of evening entertainments at the Court of Frederick the Great, the most famous patron of French art in general, who raised the status of the flute to its highest ever level. The slightly hectic accompaniment of the harpsichord recalls C.P.E. Bach in one of his flamboyant moods. In the end, it doesn’t matter much who is the real author if this fine sonata.

To conclude, this is a very distinguished recording of Bach masterworks by two of the finest early music experts. It should find a huge critical and popular welcome. Congratulations to Music and Arts for yet another masterpiece. (I refer to their ongoing project of recording pianist Carlo Grante’s tour of the entire Parma books of Domenico Scarlatti on a Bosendorfer Imperial Piano, one of the greatest works of our time)

—Fritz Balwit

Johann Sebastian BACH. The sonatas for violin and harpsichord—Rachael Barton Pine, Jory Vinikour —Cedille Records 

Johann Sebastian BACH. The sonatas for violin and harpsichord—Rachael Barton Pine, Jory Vinikour —Cedille Records 

Johann Sebastian BACH. The sonatas for violin and harpsichord—Rachael Barton Pine (violin), Jory Vinikour (harpsichord)—Cedille Records CDR 900000 177—99:45, **** :

While we can’t afford Bach the title as inventor of the sonata for violin and continuo, he did provide us examples of the first concertos for keyboard and orchestra. And in a form that would be continued since his time, he left us six sonatas for keyboard and violin. What makes these different from the scores of sonatas that first appeared in Italy after 1600 is that the keyboard part acts not as a “continuous bass” but as bass and a second voice. The result are pieces written predominately in trio texture, with the right hand and violin often intertwined in harmony or else chasing one another, as Bach is known to do, in counterpoint.

Jory Vinikour (harpsichord) and Rachel Barton Pine (violin) take the historical approach in their recoding of the six sonatas (BWV 1014-1019) using period instruments and saving left-handed vibrato for another day. Bach’s structure for the sonatas is unusually consistent, save for the last sonata in G, which survives with alternative pieces, wrought in five instead of four movements. Vinikour and Barton Pine offer us first the version with a central solo harpsichord movement, but also includes an alternative cantabile for violin and harpsichord, BWV 1019a, if we’re so inclined to program our player.

Barton Pine shares in her liner notes wanting to learn all these sonatas after having to learn one for a performance. The high quality of her playing reveals both her love for the music and long association with the pieces.

RBP is a versatile musician and not strictly a baroque specialist. Bruce Haynes, in his book The End of Early Music: A Period Performer’s History of Music for the Twenty-First Century, makes a distinction between different performing traditions, one in particular that approached the baroque repertoire with grounding in the romantic repertoire. Specifically when it came to phrasing, long phrases, played with a legato approach, was the norm. What the historically-informed movement did, in part, was have musicians re-evaluate their approach to the text by starting over. One result was a different approach to phrasing. Phrases became smaller and interpretation, in kind, changed as well. This distinction became apparent in my comparison of this recording’s version of the Vivace from BWV 1018 with other recordings in the historical tradition. Where Barton takes the short phrases as one larger arc, fusing the notes together, Stephano Montanari (in his recording with Christophe Rousset—Ambroisie) and Reinhard Goebel (in his recording with Henk Bouman—Archiv Production) articulate the line both with space between the notes and between the smaller phrase groups. The distinction too is illustrated in another comparison. In the Cantabile, BWV 1019a, the phrasing is less about the insertion of space, but how articulation is pronounced in one long arc versus smaller groups of notes. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Barton Pine’s approach is to perform the line as one long string, as we might equate to a long, deep breath. Musica Alta Ripa (Anne Röhrig—Dabringhaus und Grimm Gold) and Goebel group their phrasing similarly. Their approaches are still an organic solution, but the musical breaths here and faster tempos are don’t conjure images of one’s face going blue. Finally, the opening of BWV 1016 would require giant gulps of air if Barton Pine’s rendition were sung. Monica Huggett’s phrases, playing with Ton Koopman (Philips Classics), is organized around smaller, tighter groupings. The long-form phrasing is alive and well in the 1976 recording of the same sonata by Jaime Laredo with Glenn Gould (Columbia-Sony).

Portait Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

These distinctions are made to frame the interpretive decisions made in this recording. There is room, as I often argue, for different approaches to the same repertoire. And while I want to highlight the disjunction in historical performance traditions (with a choice of instruments making up only part of this tradition), there is no question that both RBP and Jory Vinikour have approached this repertoire with open arms and generous hearts. RBP’s warm sound, lack of continuous vibrato, and clean technique are all admirable. JV is a suitable and sympathetic partner.

In the final Allegro of the first sonata, BWV 1014, RBP and JV are in lock-step, sparkling together. The balance between the right hand and the violin are near-perfect. The duo is likewise locked rhythmically in the Adagio of BWV 1018, an interesting texture with double stopping in the violin and the moving figurations in the harpsichord part. The result, however, was less satisfying for me. I wanted more of the fire from their collaboration in BWV 1014; for me this is one of Bach’s most intense chamber movements. The recording of this movement by Montanari and Rousset remains a favorite.

My only issue with the recording is the harpsichord’s sound, which is only made more apparent when comparing this recording to others. The instrument lacks the clarity in the mix. Further from the microphones, perhaps, its sound becomes duller in the lower range. JV uses a number of different registrations throughout which I appreciated, offering some variety in tone. The distinction is less problematic when you resign to live within their sound world for some time. To that same end, I liked the instrument itself, which offers a rich sound and weight, missing in some of the comparison recordings made above.

My reason for collecting so many recordings of these pieces is founded in not yet finding any one, perfect interpretation. It speaks to Bach’s original ideas and the variation in viable interpretations left possible. This new release is a celebration of affection for Bach’s music. I have found some real sparkling gems among the movements, all diamonds, sapphires, rubies. But this recording further contributes to my belief that we’re not done in our quest to further explore these pieces and find new things to admire about them. We should welcome these two new voices to the party.

—Sebastian Herrera

The Music Treasury for 15 July 2018 — Tatiana Petrofina Nikolayeva, Pianist

The Music Treasury for 15 July 2018 — Tatiana Petrofina Nikolayeva, Pianist

This week, The Music Treasury will present piano music performed by Tatiana Petrofina Nikolayeva.  Nikolayeva was raised in a musical family—her father a string player, her mother a professional pianist.  Tatiana Nikolayeva was particularly noted for her interpretation of works by Bach; her performance inspired Shostakovich to write his own set of preludes and fugues for her.

Dr Gary Lemco hosts this week’s show, airing between 19:00 and 21:00 on 15 July 2018, PDT.  It can be heard from its host station KZSU in the SF Bay Area, as well as its live streamed simulcast from kzsu.stanford.edu.

Tatiana Petrovna Nikolayeva, pianist, teacher and composer

Tatiana Petrovna Nikolayeva, pianist, teacher and composer was born in Bezhitza, Russia 4 May 1924; twice married (one son); and died San Francisco 22 November 1993.

It is difficult to imagine anyone forgetting the experience of hearing Tatiana Nikolayeva play. She was one of those rare artists who had the ability to win over an audience before even reaching the keyboard. Rotund, and frequently wearing a rather startlingly bright dress, she would make her way to the front of the piano, give the audience a heartwarmingly big smile, and then settle her ample frame on to the stool. Everything radiated humility, generosity of spirit and, above all, happiness.

Born in the small town of Bezhitza, near Bryansk, roughly half-way between Moscow and Kiev, Nikolayeva came from a musical family. Her mother, a professional pianist, had studied at the Moscow Conservatory under the celebrated pedagogue Alexander Goldenweizer (1875-1961), and her father was a keen amateur violinist and cellist. Tatiana Petrovna began piano lessons when five and started composing at 12. In the following year she was admitted by competitive examination to the Central Secondary School of Music in Moscow, a branch of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she had instruction from her mother’s teacher, Goldenweizer – and she continued with him once at the Conservatory proper. The professor had been a friend of Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Medtner, and inculcated into his students the need to develop the highest proficiency in contrapuntal playing. Bach was very much the order of the day. Amongst Goldenweizer’s other students who reached the top of their profession were Grigori Ginzburg, Samuil Feinberg, Dmitri Bashkirov and Lazar Berman.

Portrait of Tatiana Nikolayeva

Tatiana Nikolayeva

She was, above all, a Bach player and had won first prize at the International Bach Competition in Leipzig, inaugurated to commemorate the bicentenary of the composer’s death in 1750. Dmitri Shostakovich had been a judge at the event and was so impressed and inspired by the 25-year-old pianist’s playing that he had written his 24 Preludes and Fugues for her. She would visit his apartment to play them over to him almost one-by-one as they were composed. The Opus 87 set became one of the most important works in Nikolayeva’s repertoire, taking up a whole recital programme. Indeed, it was while she was performing the big B flat minor fugue at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco on 13 November 1993 that she suffered a massive brain haemorrhage and soon lapsed into a coma.

Despite the raucous sound quality of her Melodya LP of Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto, recorded in the early 1950s, one immediately became aware of a pianist whose technical accomplishment was imperially comprehensive and yet who also possessed a rarely developed ear for polyphonic writing.

Graduating from the class in 1947, Nikolayeva then studied composition with Yevgeni Golubev. The fruit of this course was a cantata Pesn o schast’ye (‘Song about Happiness’) and a piano concerto in B, the latter a piece that she later recorded with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra under the eminent conductor Kiril Kondrashin. Ultimately, though, her best-known works are a set of 24 Concert Studies, firmly polyphonic in style, and a faithful and unfettered transcription of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a recording of which has been released by RCA Victor in Japan.

Though she had made her official debut in 1945, it was not until after the Leipzig Bach Competition that Nikolayeva’s career really took off. Appearances, however, were very much restricted to Eastern Bloc countries, and she never achieved the ‘favoured artist’ status that was the prerequisite to enable any Soviet musician to play abroad during the Cold War years. Nikolayeva started teaching at the Moscow Conservatory in 1959, and from 1965 was a professor. It was her standing as such that led her to be invited to sit as a jury member for various different international piano competitions; she was at the Leeds Competition in 1984 and 1987.

Nikolayeva’s career in Britain resulted from contacts made during the course of these visits. By this stage there was a dearth of older Russian pianists playing in the West: Emil Gilels had died, and Svjatoslav Richter’s concert-giving was becoming, at best sporadic. Probably, however, no concert promoter in Britain  guessed at the extent of the success Nikolayeva was to enjoy. Her appearances at the Proms were greeted with terrific enthusiasm and in 1991 Hyperion’s CDs of the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues were given a Gramophone Award.

It is only to be hoped that several of her earlier Melodya discs will be reissued. She had a colossal repertoire and specialised in playing cyclical works. Aside from the Shostakovich, though, Tatiana Nikolayeva will be remembered as a Bach player who flung stylistic considerations to the winds and played the music with an irrepressible musical intelligence and knowledge of the resources of her chosen instrument. [quoted from Ms. Nikolayeva’s obituary, by James Methuen-Campbell, 27 November 1993, in the Independent]

Program List for 15 July 2018

Bach: French Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 815
Shostakovich: Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Nos 1-3
Bach: Klavier Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, BWV 1052 (w/Rozdestvensky)
Beethoven: Sonata No. 25 in G Major, Op. 79: Andante
Bach: Ricercare a 3 Voci from The Musical Offering, BWV 1079
Bach: Partita No. 5 in G Major: Praeliudium
Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring from Cantata No. 147 (arr. Hess)
Shostakovich: Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87: Nos 14, 7, and 15
Tchaikovsky: Concert Fantasy in G Major, Op. 56 (w/Kondrashin)

The Music of Lucien Caillet, Vol. 2 = Works by BACH; BUXTEHUDE; VIVALDI ; DEBUSSY; RACHMANINOV; TCHAIKOVSKY; CAILLET – Pristine Audio 

The Music of Lucien Caillet, Vol. 2 = Works by BACH; BUXTEHUDE; VIVALDI ; DEBUSSY; RACHMANINOV; TCHAIKOVSKY; CAILLET – Pristine Audio 

Both sophisticated and splashy, the transcriptions from Lucien Caillet compel some virtuoso playing from various ensembles.

The Music of Lucien Caillet, Vol. 2 = Works by BACH; BUXTEHUDE; VIVALDI; DEBUSSY; RACHMANINOV; TCHAIKOVSKY; CAILLET – Symphony of Los Angeles/ Werner Janssen/ RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra/ Charles O’Connell/ Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra/ Eugene Ormandy/ Philadelphia Orchestra/ Eugene Ormandy/ Boston Pops Orchestra/ Arthur Fiedler – Pristine Adio PASC 532, 69:12 [www.pristineclassical.com] ****:

[Complete content list below]

Producer and Recording Engineer Mark Obert-Thorn assembles a second set of transcriptions by Lucien Caillet (1891-1985), clarinetist of the Philadelphia Orchestra during Leopold Stokowski’s tenure as music director. The performances, from a range of sympathetic conductors, embrace the years 1935-1952. Werner Janssen opens the program with the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, competing with the more renowned Stokowski transcription by injecting various brass riffs and swooping effects in the strings. The general impression evokes a kind of melodrama in music, similar to the use of the piece in the Fredric March version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Splashy and emotionally intense, the 1946 performance retains a colorful glamour that resounds with chills and thrills.

Charles O’Connell (1900-1962) served as an occasional conductor and arranger for RCA as well as one of the company’s executives. He leads the ubiquitous Air from the Orchestral Suite No. 3, a moderately paced, pious rendition that leans to intimacy rather than spectacle. Even before he assumed the helm of the Philadelphia Orchestra to succeed Stokowski, Eugene Ormandy felt impelled to lead Caillet versions of Bach in Minneapolis: here, he displays the power of winds and strings in the yearning 1611 Christoff Knoll chorale, Herlzlich tut mich verlangen, a devout testament of faith in a just afterlife.

The remaining selections of Bach, Buxtehude, Debussy, and Rachmaninov all derive from Philadelphia Orchestra collaborations with Eugene Ormandy. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in B minor assumes a pastoral character in the streamlined sonorities of the Philadelphia winds and strings.  Along with the Organ Chorale, the Buxtehude, and the Vivaldi transcription, this Prelude and Fugue went unissued on 78 rpm, and the Buxtehude work had been previously unpublished broadcast recording.  The Buxtehude Passacaglia begins low enough in the strings and winds, over a pedal, that we at first believe we listen to an alternative firs few measures of Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony.  Having acceded to Buxtehude, we then become swamped in the huge bass sonority against the aspiring high strings and flute, though the ostinato bass pattern never relents.

Caillet to a degree championed the music of Vivaldi, basically unknown except for a performance by Koussevitzky or Ormandy of the Concerto grosso in D minor. The concerto for two violins from L’Estro armonico becomes via Caillet a dramatic assortment of contrasting colors, especially in the brass and strings.  The woodwinds, too, receive opportunities to thin out the textures over a hearty bass line.  The coda to the opening Allegro proves particularly splashy.  The haunting  Larghetto e spiritoso allows oboe Marcel Tabuteau a moment in the sun, as well Caillet himself.  The layered string effects of the final Allegro find their foil in the wind section. At one point Caillet retains the 2-violin-concerto sonority before unleashing his grand tutti. The persistent use of pulsating arpeggios might become hyper-romantic for some tastes, but the color effect strikes our virtuoso chord.

Debussy and Rachmaninov occupy the last set of Caillet transcriptions from Philadelphia.  Ormandy led the orchestration of Clair de Lune three times, and here we have the first.  With lush strings and harp, we are ready to sit once more through a screening of Ben Hecht’s fantasy Portrait of Jennie, with Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten.  Ormandy recorded the three Rachmaninov preludes but once for 10” LP, and the long-play LP transfer omitted the C-sharp minor.  The huge sonority and dark color of this transcription, given the lugubrious tempo—excepting the manically convulsive middle part—align the piece with a complete rendition of Boris Gudonov! The diaphanous Prelude in G Major finds orchestral representation in harp and solo violin; then the upper strings and flute intone the aerial capacities of Russian soul, though there are moments when I might ascribe the effects to Delius. The militant G minor Prelude struts and parades forward, a shimmering display for the Philadelphia brass and battery. Solo violin and harp, flute and horn and oboe invoke the more tender middle section prior to the da capo, which resolutely regains its aggressive tenor.

Arthur Fiedler with his Boston “Pops” holds pride of last place, rendering first the Tchaikovsky song None but the Lonely Heart, perhaps in recollection of the Cary Grant/Ethel Barrymore 1944 classic film.  In Volume One of the Caillet restorations, Obert-Thorn had included the “Pop! Goes the Weasel Variations.”  This tour concludes with “Happy Birthday to You,” which at first opens in brass and winds.  Then a string pedal underlines the evolving melodic grit of the piece, although I can’t help seeing in mind’s eye Marilyn Monroe croon this one for President Kennedy, despite the orchestral flourishes.  Fielder ends the piece with Wha-Wha riffs from his brass that launch a jazz-fantasy worthy of Cab Colloway and Paul Whiteman, combined.

—Gary Lemco

The Music of Lucien Caillet, Vol. 2:
BACH:
Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
Air from Suite No. 3 in D Major, BWV 1068
Organ Prelude “Herzlich tut mich verlangen,” BWV 727
Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544
BUXTEHUDE: (arr. Caillet): Passacaglia in D minor, BuxWV 161
VIVALDI (arr. Caillet): Concerto for 2 Violin in A minor, Op. 3, No. 8
DEBUSSY (arr. Caillet): Clair de Lune
RACHMANINOV (arr. Caillet): 3 Preludes
TCHAIKOVSKY (arr. Caillet): None but the lonely heart, Op. 6, No.
CAILLET: The  Birthday Fantasy

Carlo Zecchi: The Complete Cetra Solo Recordings – Carlo Zecchi, piano/ Arrigo Tassinari, flute/ Giaconda da Vito, violin/ E.L.A.R. Symphony Orchestra/ Fernando Previtali – APR 

Carlo Zecchi: The Complete Cetra Solo Recordings – Carlo Zecchi, piano/ Arrigo Tassinari, flute/ Giaconda da Vito, violin/ E.L.A.R. Symphony Orchestra/ Fernando Previtali – APR 

The piano artistry of Italian master Carlo Zecchi finds a resplendent tribute in Obert-Thorn’s meticulous restoration. 

Carlo Zecchi: The Complete Cetra Solo Recordings, works by BACH, SCARLATTI, VIVALDI, CHOPIN, DEBUSSY, SCHUBERT, SCHUMANN, TICCIATI, RAVEL, LISZT, GALILEE – Carlo Zecchi, piano/ Arrigo Tassinari, flute/ Giaconda da Vito, violin/ E.L.A.R. Symphony Orchestra/ Fernando Previtali – APR Recordings APR 6024 (2 CDs), TT: 2 hrs 32 mins (6/1/18) [Distr. by Naxos] *****:

[ Content details listed below]

The name of Roman piano virtuoso Carlo Zecchi (1903-1984) brings to the minds of most auditors the talented conductor who often appeared on records with luminaries such as Clara Haskil.  But Carlo Zecchi’s early fame rested on his apparently flawless pianism; and it may well astound collectors to witness the range of his repertory, given the arsenal of technical demands the various pieces incur. Editor and Restoration Engineer Mark Obert-Thorn has gathered the Cetra label recordings Zecchi made at the peak of solo career, which had been influenced through his brief but potent studies with Ferruccio Busoni in Berlin.

The set opens with Zecchi’s “concession” to ancient music, with two transcriptions by Ottorino Respighi of “Ancient Airs and Dances,” a Gagliarda and Siciliana (4 May 1937), played with lyrical fervor. The solidity of Zecchi’s technique and color capacity informs every bar of his ensuing four sonatas (2, 4 May 1937) by Domenico Scarlatti, of which the lithe C Major, K. 159 enjoys quicksilver figures and wonderful shape. No less diaphanous and fleet, the Bach transcription of Vivaldi’s G Major Concerto (2 May 1937) should enthrall all who delight in digital aerobics. The Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major from Turin 1938 follows two short works of varied temper, the pearly F-sharp Major Prelude and Fugue (from WTC I) and the meditative chorale transcribed by Max Reger, Ich ruf’ zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, here (25 October 1942) transposed from its usual F minor into a more chromatic F-sharp minor. In the Brandenburg Concerto, Zecchi finds able assistance in the gracious flute part from Arrigo Tassinari and in the violin part from the esteemed virtuoso Giaconda da Vito (1907-1994) who found favor with Wilhelm Furtwaengler in his Italian tours. The ease and fluidity of performance finds Zecchi’s keyboard unobtrusive and restrained; but by degrees, in the first movement Allegro the keyboard cadenza arises naturally and luminously triumphant, much in the manner of Edwin Fischer. A stately, noble Adagio affetuoso allows us to savor Tassinari’s flute in tandem with da Vito, while the concluding Allegro delights in the spirit of the (canonic) dance in the form of an orchestrated trio-sonata.The often under-rated conductor Fernando Previtali (1907-1985) leads a responsive chamber ensemble.

The two remaining selections on Disc One move us into the realm of Romantic music—much of which evolved from studies with Artur Schnabel—with Schubert’s last of the Moments musicaux, that in A-flat Major, D. 780, No. 6 (rec. 4 July 1942). Zecchi exploits this marvelous Minuet and Trio for its harmonic shifts, especially those from A-flat into E Major and A-flat minor. The central section, in D-flat, gains from Zecchi’s pregnant pauses that urge unrest in the midst of apparent symmetries.  Schumann’s Kinderszenen (4 July 1942) proffers one of the few performances I know from an Italian pianist, though Scarpini, Tipo, and Ciani championed Schumann. The Hasche-Mann proves robustly fleet. But Zecchi has a sensibility for Eusebius, too, witness the lift he gives both Bittendes Kind and Glueckes genug. The martial, poetic-fairy tale element dominates Wichtige Begebenheit. We might ascribe the poetic Traeumerei to Schnabel himself, but looking forward to colors we hear in the marvelous Poissons d’or (25 October 1942). Some lovely pedal and dynamic contrasts mark Am Kamin prior to a study, chivalric Ritter vom Steckenpferd. Eusebius reigns in the final quatrain of pieces, with Fuerchtenmachen’s emerging like a light-touch etude. The child then sleeps and the Poet dreams, or speaks, in veiled mysteries.

Disc 2 opens with a Cetra series of Liszt etudes, two from the “Paganini” series and the patented “La leggierezza” Etude (2 May 1937) that Zecchi claimed as his own calling-card. But do not ignore the panache of “La Chasse” Etude in E Major, whos remarkable speed does not sacrifice a moment of lustrous clarity. The “Arpeggio” Etude in E Major has all the fleet ingredients we might expect had we been listening Ricci’s violin.  The tempered hues in registration in Zecchi’s “La leggierezza” testify to a master’s kinship with Liszt’s intent. The scalar runs evince a panoply of color, and Zecchi’s trills rival Hofmann’s for dragonfly transparency. Besides the 1937 incarnation, Obert-Thorn includes the (relatively muddy) 1930 version Zecchi made for Moscow’s MusTrust, the forerunner of the Melodiya label in Russia.

Much of this disc testifies to Zecchi’s mastery in the music of Chopin: Zecchi opens (2 May 1937) with the 2/4 Waltz No. 5 in A-flat Major, which bristles with rhythmic excitement, nervous energy, and a clarion top line. The plaintive Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4 (25 October 1942), moves deftly in variation, with added grace notes and a poignant lilt. Some distortion in the original plagues an otherwise seamless concept. The Mazurka in C-sharp minor, Op. 30, No. 4 projects a militant mystery, aided by an alertly disturbed bass line. The Mazurka in B minor, Op. 33, No. 4 remains perhaps the most “Iberian” of the set, a model for the likes of Granados. The largesse in Zecchi’s design may have influenced the later version from Michelangeli. The virtues of the Zecchi jeweled style find their home in Chopin’s elegant Berceuse in D-flat, Op. 57 (25 October 1942), here in a music-box rendition that rivals my own preferred version by Solomon.  The studied grace of the Barcarolle (4 May 1937) certifies to canny pedal technique and subtle gradations of harmonic-rhythm. Zecchi’s sense of (passionate) rubato and pellucid tone suit Chopin as elegantly as do those elements in Rubinstein or Cortot. The move from F-sharp minor into sunny A Major makes our gondola ride as refreshed as it has been erotic.

The two Chopin Op. 10 Etudes—in G-flat and F Major—come from the Paris-based Ultraphone label, recorded 1934/35.  Sturdy as they are fluent, literate and poetic, they enjoy that fertile vocalism that urges Chpin beyond anything academic. The big Chopin work from these sessions, the Grande Polonaise brillante in E-flat, seems scaled to the salon rather than the concert hall. Its suave, gem-like flame, however, still burns in a muscular kaleidoscope of ravishing tones and shades.  The other magnum opus from Chopin, the G minor Ballade, Op. 23, derives from Russia, 1930. Zecchi left us only this account of the most Neapolitan of the Chopin ballades, his “answer” to the Beethoven “Appassionata” Sonata. The reading, idiosyncratic and stylized, suffering from impaired piano tone, nevertheless possesses potent drama. Zecchi milks the repeated arpeggios and their harmonic inflections with due care, achieving a rhetorical intensity that carries its inevitable sense of ferocious closure.

The four remaining pieces carry their own sense of Zecchi’s personality. In May of 1937 Zecchi recorded Toccata by Francesco Ticciati, a glittering piece whose explosive fioritura conveys something of Moszkowski, cross-fertilized by militant Debussy harmony. The Debussy selection from Images, Book II (rec. 25 October 1942) delivers cascading, diaphanous tremolos, sudden, thrilling colors in the water as two Japanese fighting-fish literally transcend the lacquer medium of their musical depiction. In the 1934/35 Paris studio, Zecchi recorded another Scarlatti sonata, this is A Major, K. 113, a dazzling guitar piece in the manner of a toccata, featuring vivid, hurtling finger-work that easily rivals the kind of meteoric energy Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli would cultivate in another ten years. Lastly, from those same Ultraphone sessions, we have Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso from the Miroirs suite, whose flippant runs, glissandos, and repeated staccatos became immortalized in the recording by Dinu Lipatti. For Zecchi, too, the sense of the morning-song, haunted by the vestiges of the prior evening’s bacchanalia, becomes vivid, oppressive, undeniable, and once more delirious.

—Gary Lemco

Content:
GALILEI/RESPIGHI: Gagliarda
Anon/RESPIGHI: Siciliana
SCARLATTI:  Five Sonatas
VIVALDI/BACH Concerto in C Major
BACH Prelude and Fugue No 13 in F sharp major
BACH/REGER Ich ruf’ zu dir, herr Jesu Christ
BACH Brandenburg Concerto No 5 in D major
SCHUBERT Moment musical in A flat
SCHUMANN Kinderszenen

LISZT Two Paganini Études, Étude de concert ‘La leggierezza’
CHOPIN:
Waltz No 5 in A flat major, Mazurka Op 17 No 4, Op 30 No 4; Op 33 No 4
Berceuse in D flat major, Op 57, Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op 60
Études in G flat major, Op 10 No 5; F major, Op 10 No 8
Grande Polonaise in E flat major, Op 22
Ballade No 1 in G minor, Op 23
DEBUSSY  Poisons d’or
TICCIATI Toccata
RAVEL Alborada del gracioso

BACH: Mass in B Minor – Les Arts Florissants/ William Christie – Harmonia mundi 

BACH: Mass in B Minor – Les Arts Florissants/ William Christie – Harmonia mundi 

A well-intentioned, hugely successful interpretation of this timeless work.

BACH: Mass in B Minor – Katherine Watson, s/ Tim Mead, ct/ Reinoud Van Mechelen, t/ Andre Morsch, b/ Les Arts Florissants/ William Christie – Harmonia mundi HAF 8905293 (2 CDs), 52:16, 52:47 ****:

The B-minor’s keep on comin’. I suppose we cannot be too critical of the efforts, seeing as how one of the world’s greatest masterworks automatically serves as a recording magnet. And when you add names like William Christie to the mix, whose involvement with this work spans decades and goes back to his very youth outside Buffalo, New York, the results will be something to talk about. This indeed proves the case here.

Christie’s goal in this recording is to not only present the work as a testament to the Christian faith, which he readily admits it is, but also to provide a humanistic covering to the work, an equally inspiring testament to the human race. With that in mind, his musical aspirations here include some quick tempos—by his own admission—that serve to slightly undermine the fully religious immersion found in this piece, an act of homage to the dance-like elements that he finds in the music. I am not convinced, at least by the verbal argument, that dancing through the B-minor Mass is something acceptable, at least philosophically. However, in terms of actual performance and its reception on the ears, his tempi are not as fast as some other recordings, and the natural bounce and bend of Bach’s eloquent lines are delineated in a manner fully compliant with what a non-idiosyncratic rendering should be like.

This is Christie’s house band, as period performance rules the day, but as I have mentioned before, we seem to be in a time now when the eccentricities of previous period practice have reassessed itself and taken a firmer, perhaps soberer road than in years past. The playing all around is excellent, as is the singing—no one to a part, thank the stars—and overall the sound spectrum is full and robust, though I would have liked Super Audio in this instance.

The B-minor is a partitioned work in the sense that the first two movements were composed some seventeen years before the final completion. The Kyrie and Gloria were to serve as monuments to the death of Elector and King Friedrich August I (the “Strong”), and Bach would add four other of these types of masses to his oeuvre the next few years, the so-called “short” masses. Around 1740 he decided to return to our piece under discussion and expand it into four sections, only later completing it with both original and recomposed works. Make no mistake though, this work is monumental in scope and affect, transformational in the way it incorporates so many source materials over a long period of time.

Christie is neither overly-devotional or piety-light. While he does not service the work with the same import that Shaw gave it, or even the perfect balance and tempi of Herreweghe, his reading is infused with subtlety a detail overlooked by many. Even though a “live” recording, you won’t notice any distractions in this marvelously compiled production.

—Steven Ritter

 

Clara Haskil Complete Recital Ludwigsburg 1953 = Piano Works by BACH; SCARLATTI; BEETHOVEN; SCHUMANN; DEBUSSY; RAVEL – SWR Music 

Clara Haskil Complete Recital Ludwigsburg 1953 = Piano Works by BACH; SCARLATTI; BEETHOVEN; SCHUMANN; DEBUSSY; RAVEL – SWR Music 

History enjoys a bit more closure in our having Clara Haskil’s complete recital from Ludwigsburg, 1953. 

Clara Haskil Complete Recital Ludwigsburg 1953 = BACH: Toccata in e minor, BWV 914; Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659; SCARLATTI: 3 Sonatas; BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 32 in c minor, Op. 111; SCHUMANN: Abegg Variations, Op. 1; Bunte Blaetter, Op. 99: Nicht schnell, mit innigkeit; Sehr rasch; Frisch; Abschied from Waldszenen, Op. 82; DEBUSSY: Etudes Nos. 10 and 7; RAVEL: Sonatine in f-sharp minor – SWR Music SWR19052CD, 75:48 (2/9/18) [Distr. by Naxos] *****:

The 11 April 1953 had a previous issue on the Music&Arts label (CDS-859), but it did not contain the encores by Bach and Schumann here included. Clara Haskil (1895-1960), the great Romanian pianist, combined a devotional sincerity in her playing with brilliant pearl play and litheness of touch. Though she suffered throughout her career from shyness and stage fright, she became the preferred soloist of many of the great European conductors – Rosbaud, Schuricht, Karajan, Klemperer, Fricsay, Swoboda, Ackermann, and Kletzki – she also found a warm reception in America with Munch and in Prades with Casals. Her work in chamber music, with Arthur Grumiaux, the Winterthur Quartet, Geza Anda, and Dinu Lipatti still retains strong adherents among collectors.

The opening Bach Toccata in e minor may appear to lack warmth, given its drive and objectivity, yet the reading has much in common with that by Robert Casadesus, who also subdues the passion into cool, liquid, polyphonic figures.  The Bach influence becomes less detached in the Frisch section of the Schumann Op. 99, where the facility of execution reveals a sterling motor control. The Scarlatti triptych enjoys a transparent intimacy, especially the first, the Sonata in C, K. 132, with it gentle guitar strums. The E-flat Major, K. 193 proceeds in canon and brisk runs, topped off by a shimmering trill. The lyric music-box effect charms and haunts us, at once. The b minor, K. 87 projects the kind if inwardness we associate with Schumann, whose own first selection from Bunte Blaetter assumes the wistful introspection that borders on Mendelssohn’s vocal power.

The Beethoven Op. 111 long remained a Haskil specialty; here, in the midst of her program, the massive work seems to extend rather than conclude a progression into refined Romanticism. The performance has its finger-slips and rhythmic disjunctions, but the tenor of the performance remains fixed and logically driven without having sacrificed the exalted tension of the work. She rather takes the sonata in one massive gulp, the maestoso elements significantly weighted, then matched by startling, hectic propulsion and aerial velocity.  The Arietta and its labyrinthine evolution assumes a highly personal and fluid reading, again subsumed to a pre-determined vision of its transcendent purpose.

The Schumann F Major Variations, Op. 1 “Abegg” (1830) represent, along with the two Debussy Etudes – Pour le sonorities opposees and Pour le degres chromatique – and the Ravel last movement, the virtuoso components of the recital.  The Schumann divides into four, fleet sections: Tema, three Variations, Cantabile and Vivace: Finale alla Fantasia. By virtue of juxtaposition, the first of the Debussy etudes sounds “modern,” indeed, only a step away from German atonalism.  The middle section of No. 10 does humanize itself in the dance hall, however fleetingly. Elusive balls and bits of Golliwog dance by. Liquid scales and “fireworks” ostinati permeate No. 7, a true extension of those polyrhythmic moments in Chopin, or better, Godowsky. Originally, a competition piece for a local music journal, Ravel’s Sonatine (1904) is cast in three movements, the first of which conforms to sonata-form, in f-sharp minor, D Major and b minor. The charming, chant-like Menuet in D-flat Major, enjoys a pearly, carillon effect that could pass for a Lipatti rendition.  Marked Anime, the last movement flashes an incandescent toccata  at us rife with bird calls in 3/4 as well as dancing waters in 5/4.

The two encores might incur “religious” overtones, especially given Haskil’s great affection for her belated colleague Dinu Lipatti (d. 1950). The Busoni transcription of the chorale-prelude retains the organ sonority in the chromatic bass line while the upper voice sings ardently.  “Abschied” constitutes No. 9 from the Forest Scenes, which some might recall lay on Dorian Gray’s keyboard before Sir Harry converted Dorian to the joys of artificial life.

—Gary Lemco

Jascha Spivakovsky: Bach to Bloch, Vol. IV = Works for Solo Piano by BACH; BEETHOVEN; CHOPIN; SCHUMANN – Jascha Spivakovsky, piano – Pristine Audio 

Jascha Spivakovsky: Bach to Bloch, Vol. IV = Works for Solo Piano by BACH; BEETHOVEN; CHOPIN; SCHUMANN – Jascha Spivakovsky, piano – Pristine Audio 

The fourth installment of the Spivakovky Edition revels in the Romantic ethos of composer and performer. 

Jascha Spivakovsky: Bach to Bloch, Vol. IV = BACH: Fantasia in c minor, BWV 906; BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110; CHOPIN: Impromptu No. 1 in A-flat Major, Op. 29; Etude in c minor, Op. 10, No. 12 “Revolutionary”; Etude in f minor, Op. 25, No. 2; Etude in G-flat Major, Op. 25, No. 9 “Butterfly”; Bolero in C Major/a minor, Op. 19; SCHUMANN: Carnaval, Op. 9 – Jascha Spivakovsky, piano – Pristine Audio PAKM073, 71:30 [www.pristineclassical.com] *****: 

The latest installment of the Jascha Spivakovksy (1896-1970) legacy derives from a series of recordings that span approximately eighteen years, 1948-1966, derived from radio appearances and home recitals. Many of us who audition these rare and recently-revived performances marvel at the musical acuity and innate, Romantic sensibility of this magnificent artist, who never enjoyed the prestige of a commercial recording contract. Each interpretation bears Spivakovsky’s idiosyncratic temper and musical line, his astute rhythmic pulse and sense of the dramatic space between notes. Nothing that we hear bears the sense of routine or mediocrity of thought. We seem to become eaves-droppers on a highly private musical world, where the individual soul communes directly with the spirits of the composers he champions.

Spivakovsky opens with a 1948 reading of Bach’s Fantasia in c minor, composed around 1738 in Leipzig. In binary form, the piece reveals an ornamental, broad structure based on arpeggiated figures and chromatic imitation, and it seems Bach meant to attach to it a complex fugue, of which some 47 bars exist. The Fantasia begins on a c minor descending arpeggio which will proceed into the dominant key.  From a painstakingly restored shellac source, we can still glean the sonorous propulsion and secure clarity of Spivakovsky’s attacks, his fluid transitions.

The Beethoven 1821 A-flat Sonata, from a 1952 radio broadcast, delivers the poised maturity we know from the esteemed Myra Hess recording for EMI.  Beethoven asks of the performer of the opening Moderato cantabile molto espessivo to play con amabilita, with loving tenderness. Spivakovsky realizes the music’s gentle spirit, moving as it does pulsating chords, transparent trills, and limpid harmonies, seductive in its bass tones. Suddenly, our emotions suffer affective displacement in the fierce Allegro molto Scherzo, an antiphonal whose jarring accents imparts a nervous instability derived from two raunchy German folk tunes. The Trio section, rife with cross-hands figuration, embraces much of the keyboard in eighth notes, leaping wildly.  Spivakovsky’s breathless approach exhibits a manic drive that belies the tenderness in the preceding movement and the learned spirituality of the succeeding movement.

Whether the opening Adagio ma non troppo constitutes a separate movement seems a moot point: following Bach, Beethoven provides us a huge prelude and fugue.  Declamation, arioso, and recitative elements cooperate in extraordinary balance. The fugal subject emanates from the first movement’s figures, establishing a subtle but palpable unity to the whole. Spivakovsky’s motion for both fugues – the second’s occurring after repeated and crescendo Gs and inverting the subject – has evenness and dramatic weight.  The Gs themselves bear the dynamic of Russian bells that lead us into the Kingdom of Heaven, the mystery of the One and the Many having been resolved.

The Chopin triptych derives from three separate venues, arranged in a reconstruction of a Spivakovsky recital: Impromptu in A-flat (1955), three etudes (1963), and Bolero (1966).  The middle section of the A-flat Impromptu provides an object lesson in Spivakovsky’s rubato, which turns the piece into a nocturne. The outer sections, fleet and happily energized, could be from Horowitz. The Etude in f minor studies contrary metrics, polyrhythm, in each hand, eighths against quarter-notes. The “Butterfly” tests Spivakovsky’s talent for detached chords, which he executes with the same panache we know from Hofmann. But the first of the set, the “Revolutionary,” will grip your heart: meant to celebrate the 1831 uprising of Polish mutineers against Russia, the piece achieves the same “ocean” effect under Spivakovsky as Op. 25, No. 12. Prior to this Spivakovsky Bolero (1834), I would proffer Horszowski as my favorite; now, I am not so sure. The music exhibits a lightly refined Spanish character, but soon transforms into a kind of barcarolle. The quicksilver runs and depth of bass tones characterize a fluid, dashing reading of this score, a thoroughly idiomatic a Bolero as we have heard from Artur Rubinstein.

The “big” work—as Mark Ainley aptly calls it the “pinnacle”—comes from a 1954 broadcst of Schumann’s Carnaval suite, his cast of literary and historical character derived from “little scenes on four notes.” We well know that Schumann embraced the two sides of his own nature in his piano pieces. The whole Schumann ethos encapsulates this 22-section divertissement, and Spivakovky includes the ever-elusive Sphinxes, as had Rachmaninov in his recording. The most spectacular aspect of Spivakovsky’s briskly fluent rendering lie in his diversity of touches, from bold, solid landings and progressions to detached, dragon-fly colors from the surface of the keyboard. The resultant panoply of (polar) colors defies verbal approximation, for this is truly a musician’s Carnaval.  Pregnant pauses, bold strokes and high-flying gestures, capture the personages and their various waltzes, pirouettes, and marches, and maerchen, their fairy-tale enchantment. By the end of the suite, both Schumann and Spivakovsky have dismissed the philistines from the hall and from our moral/aesthetic purpose.

—Gary Lemco

“This review is dedicated to Maestro Carmine Arena, my teacher and mentor of over 50 years.”