Monthly Archives: April 2001

Percy Grainger Tuneful Percussion (complete)

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WOOF!
MOVE MD 3222
TPT: 00: 51:20

   reviewed by Neville Cohn 

Woof! is made up of four versatile, focussed young percussionists who seem positively to revel in this constantly diverting music. Old favourites such as “Country Gardens”, “Shepherd’s Hey” and “Irish Tune” (Danny Boy) sound here freshly minted, engaging reincarnations of little compositions that have a secure place in the affections of thousands. In 1998, Woof! discovered, or re-discovered, Grainger’s so-called tuneful percussion instruments which after decades of silence can again be heard played by musicians who clearly know exactly what they are doing – and do it very well. There are, as well, a host of other performers – variously on strings, flute, piccolo and harp as well as solo and ensemble singers (members of the Osmond College choir) – who contribute to one of the most engaging CDs I’ve encountered in years. Blithe Bells is a delight, with its webs of glowing vibraphone tone contriving to sound both exotic and tranquil. Another haunting miniature is Bahariyale V. Palaniyundi, scored for harmonium, a set of Indian bells – and various drums tapped discreetly and hypnotically. A marimba ensemble offers Sailor Song, a jolly, irresistibly whistleable Grainger original.

Although Grainger grew to despise his hugely popular setting of Country Gardens (claiming that most English gardens grew vegetables rather than flowers). “So you can think of turnips as I play it”, he once bitterly remarked. An arrangement for “hammerwood foursome” is divertingly jaunty, sounding for all the world like an inspired child’s toy orchestra. At the other end of the emotional scale is “The Lonely Desert Man sees the Tents of the Happy Tribes”, a setting of nonsense syllables sung in an unsettlingly forced tone that sounds the essence of a terrible melancholy. There are fascinating liner notes by Alessandro Servadei.

 


Virtuoso ROLF SMEDVIG (trumpet)

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Bach, Bellini, Haydn, Paradis, Holborne, Hummel, Albinoni, Borodin, Saint Saens, Mozart, Tartini, Smetana, Mendez, Falla

Telarc CD-80550
TPT: 00:56:39

   reviewed by Neville Cohn 

 

Sydney Smith once equated heaven with eating pates de foie gras to the sound of trumpets. No pate came with Rolf Smedvig’s Telarc CD-80550, a 17-track compilation called, very appropriately, Virtuoso. But an abiding impression of this collection – although it does not apply across the board – is the celestial quality that borders on the ecstatic, of some of Smedvig’s playing. This is typically evident in the finale of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 with Smedvig negotiating the master’s soaring line with the nonchalance of mastery. This astonishingly accomplished trumpeter is no less convincing in movements from concertos by Haydn and Bellini that unerringly reveal the sunny, optimistic moods of the writing. Listen, too, to the Badinerie from Bach’s Suite in B minor (arranged from the flute original by Smedvig).

It is the essence of irrepressible high spirits. And for sheer virtuosity, one would have to search far to find another trumpeter as agile and accurate as Smedvig in a transcription of the “Rondo alla Turca” from Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A major.

Throughout the compilation, difficult leaps from one note to the next are accomplished with a fearlessness – and accuracy – that places Smedvig to the fore of trumpet athletes. I particularly liked his arrangement for Empire Brass ensemble (with its unusually energetic tuba) of “Danse Bacchanale” from Saint Saens’ Samson and Delilah. With castanets rattling away in the background, these five gentlemen blow up a sensuous and exotic musical storm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Sydney International Piano Competition 2000 (Concertos)

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ABC Classics 461 654-2 (2-CD)
TPT: 2:32:25

  reviewed by Neville Cohn

A 2-CD pack on the ABC Classics label is devoted to performances recorded during the 2000 Sydney International Piano Competition, including those of top laureate Marina Kolomiitseva’s astonishingly persuasive account of Liszt’s Grande Etudes de Paganini. They mark her irrefutably as a worthy winner; these excruciatingly taxing pieces hold few fears for the young Russian who invests each of these studies with poetic insights. Her virtuosity is extraordinary, her hands sweeping up and down the keyboard as nonchalantly as if dusting the furniture. This, as well as faultless tremolo (which gives an imperious quality to the playing), makes “Etude No 2” unforgettable, an amalgam of dazzling flourishes and heart-easingly expressive filigree arabesques. In “Etude No 4”, staccato notes evoke images of sparks in stygian darkness. Kolomiitseva is triumphant, too, in Tchaikowsky’s Concerto in B flat minor – and how wonderfully she invigorates this most tired of war horses. Drawing from a deep well of expressiveness, Kolomiitseva, whether expounding the concerto’s lyrical qualities or hurling great bolts of sound, Zeus-like, at the ear, plays as if the work were specially written for her.

Also spilling out of this splendid musical cornucopia is Vera Kameneva’s account of Mozart’s K467 in C, now known to millions as the Elvira Madigan Concerto. A born Mozart player, Kameneva brings an exultant quality to the opening of the work. Often, the presentation pulses with vitality, as meaningful in its way as delicato note-streams, fragile as gossamer. And the finale glows with power. Christopher Hogwood, too, sounds in his element as he directs the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Yet another instance of high calibre keyboard ability is Evgeny Ukhanov who gives a near-perfect assessment of the music in Rachmaninov’s Concerto in D minor.


Cecilia & Bryn

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CECILIA BARTOLI (soprano), BRYN TERFEL (baritone) & MYUNG-WHUN CHUNG (conductor)
Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia

DECCA 458 928-2
TPT:00:53:26

  reviewed by Neville Cohn

Bryn Terfel and Cecilia Bartoli have remarkable, indeed lustrous and well deserved, careers in a solo capacity. On DECCA, they bring their formidable – and delightful – talents to bear on duets by Mozart, Rossini and Donizetti. It’s a compendium of vocal marvels, singing of such finesse and beauty as to be almost beyond criticism in the conventional sense. Each produces the sort of feel-good, wrap-around vocal sound that is as rare as it is wonderful. And as a duo, the two are frankly sensational, a glorious union of timbres. And it comes across strongly that they ENJOY what they are doing and are as one in their intepretative purpose; there is for much of the time an exultant quality about their singing – and it communicates strongly. If you take pleasure from listening to first rate singers at the height of their powers, this is the CD for you. Myung-Whun Chung does sterling work presiding over the Orchestra dell’Accademia Mazionale di Santa Cecilia. Seemingly inspired by such astonishing vocal artistry, they deliver first rate accompaniments.



The Silver Swan reviewed by Neville Cohn

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New I Voci Singers
Directed by JOHN CHRISTMASS
JC-2000

The White Swan is a collection of choral miniatures, mainly a capella, sung with the sort of understanding that instantly identifies The New I Voci Singers as a vocal ensemble to be reckoned with. In a variety of styles, in each of which the group sounds entirely at home, this impeccably trained small ensemble responds to direction in a way that many a lesser choral director than the indefatigable and meticulous John Christmass would give eye-teeth to experience. Listen to Dowland’s “Come again!”; it pulsates with vitality and glows with golden sound which makes this frequently performed piece sound fresh and newly minted. Thomas Morley’s “Sing we and chant it” has a splendidly light-toned , buoyant quality, and ceaseless vigilance as to quality of harmonic tissue, which is one of the most crucial yet too-often neglected requirements for fine choral singing. Sound engineer Karl Akers has made the most of Perth Concert Hall’s excellent acoustics.