Monthly Archives: April 2006

Nocturnes (Chopin) Roger Woodward (piano)

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Nocturnes (Chopin)

 

 

Roger Woodward (piano)

Celestial Harmonies
TPT: 2:04:12 2-CD

 reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

As a teenager – and much to the annoyance of my parents – I played and endlessly replayed an LP of the complete Nocturnes of Chopin. The soloist was Arthur Rubinstein and the passionately extrovert manner of his interpretations made a huge impression on me. Certainly, those performances of long ago are still as vivid and meaningful for me as they were when I first encountered this keyboard treasure.
These interpretations established for me the standard by which all other performances of the Nocturnes were measured. But the other day, I came across no less lustrous musical gold: Roger Woodward’s account of the complete Nocturnes, a set that includes the two posthumously published Nocturnes – one in C sharp minor, the other in C minor – neither of which formed part of the Rubinstein recordings of the early 1950s to which I have referred here.
Woodward’s offerings are wonderfully considered interpretations. There is nothing remotely glib or cheap about the presentation which comes across with near-faultless taste and refinement of expression. Woodward’s performance has the inestimable advantage of recording engineers who clearly know exactly what they are doing; the end result is magical, piano tone right across the range as true and honest as one could ever hope it to be.
If you value the music of Chopin at the highest level, I urge you to obtain these wonderful recordings. Treasure them; they are a cornucopia of wonders, entirely justifying Rubinstein’s own comment that Woodward was one of the best Chopin interpreters he had ever encountered.
Listen to the first of the set – opus 9 no 1 – glowing toned, unhurried, bordering on the languid, and op 9 no 2, surely the most hackneyed of all the Nocturnes, music routinely massacred by earnest but wooden young piano players at eisteddfodau. Hear it, for once, shorn of honeyed sentimentality. And the third of the set, seldom encountered in live performance is rather too long for its material (in Rubinstein’s famous recording, a hefty segment of it is deleted). In Woodward’s hands, one can savour the ecstatic edge brought to its flying arabesques, its interior mood of turbulence finely revealed but always within the line and contour of Chopin’s idiosyncratic style.
The three nocturnes of opus 15 are given memorable treatment, too: the central section of the Nocturne in F is darkly dramatic, the outer sections essays in tenderness. I specially admired the second of the set – the F sharp minor Nocturne – not least for the refinement that informs the outer sections. And in the third of the set, Woodward captures its elusive essence like a moth in the gentlest of hands.
Other marvels are a profoundly expressive opus 27 no 2 – and the unhurried unfolding of opus 37 no 2 (its thirds are immaculately essayed). And Woodward transforms the great Nocturne in C minor from opus 48, its pizzicato-type bass chords and surging climaxes the stuff of high inspiration.
Highly recommended.




Neville Cohn Copyright 2006


 


 







 


 


 


 




 














Bist du bei mir – Anna Magdalena Bach’s Book




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Bist du bei mir – Anna Magdalena Bach’s Book


Jacob Lawrence (boy soprano)

Elizabeth Anderson (harpsichord)


MOVE MCD 3304


reviewed by Neville Cohn


 


 


Innumerable young piano pupils have cut their musical teeth on the easier pieces contained in the Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach such as the two ubiquitous Minuets in G, routinely massacred by indifferently taught youngsters blissfully ignorant of the elegance and stateliness that lie at their heart.


It takes a musician of high order, such as Elizabeth Anderson (in superb form) to reveal the magic enshrined in these deceptively easy miniatures and her every contribution provides unalloyed listening delight. Indeed, I’ve returned to this recording on a number of occasions for the pleasure of experiencing Anderson’s artistry.


bist


How gratifyingly she mines each piece for its aesthetic essence. The French Suite in D minor is meticulously detailed as is the Partita No 3 in A minor. I especially admired the Burlesca which unfolds at a good, sturdy pace – and Anderson elsewhere taps into the joyousness that is enshrined in so many of the movements, not least the finely detailed Gigue.


Among the delights of this compilation is Les Bergeries, its phrasing shaped to allow the music to breathe in the most musical way. And that mainstay of eisteddfod competitions – the Solo per il Cembalo (by C.P.E.Bach) is given splendidly emphatic rhythmic underpinning. The little March in E flat is magically buoyant.


There are also a number of tracks devoted to the singing of boy soprano Jacob Lawrence. Although I am sure that great seriousness of purpose was brought to these recordings, some disconcertingly uneven intonation is problematical.


Not the least of the pleasures of this offering is the quality of the liner notes; they make fascinating reading and contribute in a very real way to enhancing listening pleasure.


Neville Cohn Copyright 2006

















HARMONIEMUSIK The Australian Classical Wind Band




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HARMONIEMUSIK

The Australian Classical Wind Band


Octet in E flat,opus 103 (Beethoven);

Quintet for piano and winds, KV452 (Mozart);

Serenade No 11,KV375 (Mozart)


ABC Classics 476 5256

TPT: 01:10:31


reviewed by Neville Cohn


A generous grant by the University of Western Australia provided the means to purchase a number of fine reproductions of early wind instruments. These have been utilised to praiseworthy effect in a compilation devoted to Harmoniemusik written by Mozart and Beethoven.


Radio and recordings were, of course, unknown in that era when this music was written. And the only way that many music lovers of the time might have heard hits from recently performed new operas (especially if they lived in towns without a resident opera company) was through concerts of opera-extract arrangements.


auswind


As was pointed out at the Perth launch of this CD, these selections played by the local wind band (known in Europe as Harmonie), were the juke boxes of that era; they enjoyed huge popularity playing what were the tops of the pops of the day. In addition to this, there were works purpose-written for Harmonie bands – and two of these are here played by a ensemble of musicians who style themselves The Australian Classical Wind Band.


As was pointed out at the launch of this CD, the instruments that would have been used in Mozart’s or Beethoven’s eras would not have been 200 or 250 years old. They would instead have been crafted in the days in which these composers lived and worked. So there is a strong case for these works to be performed, not on very old instruments of, say, Mozart’s day, but on good quality 20th- and 21st-century reproductions which would give to today’s listeners a far more realistic idea as to how ensembles would have sounded in bygone eras. And that applies to this recording.


At the launch, we were told that recording sessions to place this compilation on disc was not entirely without problems. Some of it was done in the dining room of a convalescent home which had a good acoustic. The recording was made late at night when there was little chance of residents or staff coming into the room which was, we were told, very cold indeed. Heaters were brought in to warm the room but this, too, became problematical as, after a comfortable working temperature was obtained, the heaters were switched off and, as happens with such appliances as they cool and contract, produced – we were told – a range of clicking noises that made recording even more problematical.


But patience had its reward. The end product is altogether appealing, with Beethoven’s Octet in E flat and Mozart’s Quintet for piano and winds, K452 working their customary magic. How strikingly different the works sound compared to performances on modern instruments. Here, playing within the line and contour of their eras, the instruments have an individual and corporate tone very substantially different to that produced by their modern descendants.


The recording is a joy from first note to last, not least for experiencing it much as our ancestors would have heard it.


In passing: I have heard these recordings on a number of ABC Classic FM broadcasts. I hope very much that radio stations abroad will give it the exposure it warrants.


Copyright Neville Cohn 2006

















Organ of the Antipodes




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organtip2Organ of the Antipodes


Volume One: music by Boellman, Vierne,

Wesley and Haydn


Rhys Boak (organ) Ryoko Mori (organ)

MOVE MCD 315


reviewed by Neville Cohn


One of the most musically valuable of the many recording initiatives on the MOVE label is its growing series of compact discs devoted to music for the organ. This is a particularly attractive compilation which features two organists of considerable merit: Rhys Boak who works tirelessly to advance the cause of organ repertoire and the Japanese-born and – trained Ryoko Mori.


There is much to savour here ranging from Mori’s account of Leon Boellman’s Toccata from the Suite Gothic to delights such as an arrangement for organ of the andante movement from Haydn’s Symphony No 94 (The Surprise). The latter, Haydn at his most droll, is pure delight – and the Boellman Toccata is an immensely dramatic opening track. With its massive waves of sound, it is an irresistible call to attention.


How very different is the adagio from Louis Vierne’s Symphonie pour orgue No 3, music that has about it an ominous, dark quality that would have made it ideal as background music for a movie like the 1922 silent vampire movie Nosferatu.


Boak and Mori pool their talents in Samuel Wesley’s Duet for organ. This is music of no great depth but its opening allegro is played with buoyancy and first rate synchronisation that make it some of the most eminently listenable of the CDs eleven tracks. And a couple of extra hands certainly help to bring off the concluding fugue, an initially frothy concoction that concludes in a blaze of grandeur.


In the first movement of Vierne’s Symphonie No 2, Boak, like some musical Zeus, responds to the score by hurling great blocks of sound through the speakers. A softly bouncing scherzo is a pleasing contrast.


This CD marks the centenary of the installation of the George Fincham organ in Malvern Presbyterian Church in Melbourne. Boak is only the fifth organist at Malvern since 1886 and the “CD is dedicated to the memory of three musicians from the former Chinese mission who had an outstanding love for and ability in making music”, among them William Wong Loy (Bill) who was organist from 1920 to 1986 which must surely have broken some records for length of service.


In passing: in 2005, Boak and Mori became the first musicians to give an organ recital series in mainland China.


Copyright Neville Cohn 2006

















Bach/Busoni transcriptions Toccata in C for organ BWV 564




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Bach/Busoni transcriptions Toccata in C for organ BWV 564; 10 chorale preludes for organ BWV 667, 645, 659, 734, 639, 665, 615, 617, 637, 705; Chaconne from Partita No 2 for violin BWV 1004




KUN-WOO PAIK (piano)DECCA 467 358-2

TPT 01:10:35


reviewed by Neville Cohn


Every once in a while – very rarely, in fact – one encounters a recording that is so ennobling, so life-affirming, that it makes an indelible impression on the psyche. This is such a performance – of transcriptions for the piano by one of the early twentieth century’s keyboard giants Ferruccio Busoni of various organ works by Bach as well as the “Chaconne” from the Partita in D minor for unaccompanied violin.


Only seconds into the first track, it becomes emphatically clear that one is listening to a Master, functioning as impressively from the heart as the mind. With an unassailable keyboard technique, the ability to focus on finest detail without for a moment losing sight of the grand design of whatever is being essayed, and, time and again, to awe the ear with the cumulative grandeur of each offering, Kun-Woo Paik stakes his claim – and who would gainsay it? -to pianistic greatness.


With an opening flourish of authority and power that would not have been out of place as an accompaniment to the Second Coming, measure after magnificent measure of the Toccata in C unfolds to dazzling effect. Unerringly, Pack mines this rich musical lode to produce a performance that gives new meaning to the word ‘noble’. Although much of this work is so difficult, whether in its original state or in Busoni’s transcription, as to make it a closed book to any but the most formidably gifted of musicians, Pack sounds in his element, without any hint of strain or rush whatever . It is an astonishing achievement.


 




The rest of the disc is a catalogue of marvels, not least “In dir ist Freude”, its heroic measure which comes across in heroic terms – and in “Nun freut euch”, a left hand melody booms magisterially to rapidly running treble passagework; it’s a little miracle of control and musicianship. So, too, is “Wachet auf”, presented with a simplicity that is the preserve of those few fortunate pianists who, like Kun-Woo Paik, have been touched by the little finger of God. Doubt it? Then listen to his version of the Chaconne in D minor; it ought to melt the stoniest heart.


    

  • Kun-Woo Paik was born in Seoul, Korea. He made his debut aged 10 years playing Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Korean National Orchestra. Later, he studied with Rosina Lhevinne at the Juilliard School in New York. He was the first Korean artist to be officially invited by the Chinese government to perform in China.
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He now lives in Paris.