Excellent diction and a plaintive melody line from Lucinda Rae with steady guitar chords and Louise McKay’s gentle cello musings make Gardiner’s Incense and Arabie a splendid opening track.
An arrangement of Greensleeves, that timeless Tudor evergreen, is given most sensitive treatment, too, in a performance blissfully free of the extraneous noises – squeaks, clanks, creaks – that so often bedevil the playing of lesser musicians. And in My Song (for you), composer/guitarist Gardiner gives us a gently melancholy, restful utterance.
Gardiner’s Peridot Suite for piano is played, beautifully, by Faith Maydwell in a performance which comes across in turn wistful, yearning and melancholy as if heard, rather delightfully, on a fine quality musical box.
Gardiner also plays his Tears All Around, music that’s informed by a gentle sadness.
Cradled in Time and Space places violinist Lena Bennett firmly in the spotlight. She plays most expressively in synchronisation with Gardiner’s perfectly pitched, arpeggionated accompaniment.
In And so the Peacock Cried, we listen to the versatile Gardiner playing on recorder; it has a haunting quality.
There is much else in a delightfully laidback presentation. Bravo
If you’ve not yet come across the name Nemanja Radulovic, make a note of it. Because if his recent debut CD for DGG, titled Songs My Mother Taught Me, is anything to go by, this young man with an immense shock of hair and a frankly astounding musical gift, is on a fast track to fame. I listened in astonishment as he demonstrated phenomenal insight and finesse in this collection of encore-type miniatures.
Although many of these pieces have long been in the standard concert repertoire and recorded umpteen times, in this young fiddler’s hands, they sound transformed – newly minted. This is no small achievement.
Listen, for instance, to the Russian Dance from Tchaikowsky’s score for Swan Lake. Radulovic’s account is a miniature music miracle. Is there a more murdered piece than Monti’s famous Czardas? Yet, here too, the performance is revelatory, making familiar notes sound as if being heard for the very first time.
But although there are numerous pieces here that are very widely known, there are also a number of fascinating, seldom heard items from Eastern Europe. Here, too, Radulovic makes magic, wielding his bow like some enchanted wand to take the listener into a sonic world that will be new and engaging for an international audience.
I would very much like to listen to Radulovic in one or other of the great fiddle concertos or, say, one of Bach’s works for unaccompanied violin to gauge the full extent of his phenomenal skill on the violin.
Kalajic’s Vatra Suze (Tears of Fire) ranges from a powerful, blazing intensity to ear-caressing gentleness. And Pasona Kolo, a traditional Serbian dance, is taken at absolutely phenomenal speed with piano, percussion and whistles combining to thrilling effect.
A seductive, sweet-toned nocturne by Khachaturian is delivered with a finesse which is beyond conventional criticism. The Romance which Shostakovich wrote for the Gadfly movie is offered at a similarly high level. As well, there’s a delightful take on Prokofiev’s March from The Love for Three Oranges.
The theme from Schindler’s List is given profoundly moving treatment, music that is a distillation of sadness and regret.
On the basis of this debut recording for DGG, Radulovic’s star is clearly on the ascendant – and it shines dazzlingly in this compilation.
Recently, I conducted a mini-poll at an orchestral concert. During the interval, I asked a number of people whether they knew who Johann Peter Pixis was. No one had a clue. I followed up by asking the same question concerning Sigismond Thalberg. Identical outcome except for one concertgoer who wondered if he was a property consultant!
For this reason alone, Howard Shelley’s tireless work in retrieving and recording long-forgotten concertos deserves every encouragement. Certainly, it resuscitates music of an era when pianistic giants roamed the earth. Unlike the dinosaur, however, these piano concertos, courtesy of Shelley’s artistry, have been brought back to pulsing life.
Pixis’ Piano Concerto in C is a charm-laden opus. It might not be music of any great depth but it is put together with skill – and Shelley plays it as if to the manner born.
From an authoritative opening statement, Shelley is entirely in command both of keyboard and orchestral accompaniment. And if through some miracle of time-travel, the shade of the composer had hovered over the recording session, I imagine the phantom Herr Pixis would have saluted a job well done.
This is music which in lesser hands, could well descend into drabness or meretricious note-spinning – but not here, performed as it is by a pianist/conductor at the top of his game.
In physical terms, the playing is entirely convincing. Even in the midst of avalanches of notes, there’s no hint of strain. It unfolds with an ease and clarity that warrant the highest commendation.
In the slow movement, Shelley’s playing is beautifully expressive – and he romps through the finale, in turn delightfully delicate and robustly emphatic.
Also on disc is the first ever commercial recording of Pixis’ Concertino in E flat. How easily the first movement could come across as a succession of Czerny-like studies – but Shelley, like the pianistic conjuror he is, makes the piece sound very much better than it in fact is.
There’s some fine horn playing in the adagio sostenuto, the piano part given a deeply expressive reading with contrasting moments of rapid fingerwork.
There’s an utterly engaging, jovial and devil-may-care insouciance to the finale.
Pixis, incidentally, was, as well as a composer, a fine pianist. Chopin, in fact, thought so highly of him that he dedicated his Fantasy on Polish Airs to him.
Shelley seems positively to revel in Sigismond Thalberg’s Piano Concerto in F minor, whether in dramatic flourishes or extraordinarily nimble passagework. He does wonders, too, in the adagio which comes across like an exquisitely considered nocturne; it is the high point of the concerto. And in the concluding rondo allegro, Shelley’s astonishingly nimble fingers steer a faultless way across treacherous terrain where even a split second of hesitation could cause a musical crisis.
Not the least of this recording’s many pleasures is the consistently meaningful accompaniment which Shelley coaxes from an in-form Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Its playing is a joy.
Many years ago, as a very young music producer with the South African Broadcasting Corporation, it fell to me to supervise a recording to be made by ace cellist Pierre Fournier with Lamar Crowson at the piano.
In the third movement of the sonata, Fournier’s intonation weakened very noticeably. It was an uncomfortable moment for me. I left the control room wondering how I ought to address the great man who was having an off-day. Before I’d said a word, he looked at me with a smile and said “the intonation?”. I stammered “Yes, Mr Fournier”. “We do it again, yes?”, asked the great man. I nodded and retreated to the control room. He gestured his readiness to begin, the red light went on and the recording began again. It was as near perfection as anyone could have hoped for.
In Saint-Saens’ Cello Concerto No 1, Fournier most certainly has no problem with intonation. Indeed, the persuasiveness of his artistry makes this rather shallow work sound far better than it in fact is. And in Lalo’s Cello Concerto, with Martinon coaxing a powerful response from the Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux, Fournier sounds inspired.
An oddity is Lalo’s Norwegian Rhapsody for orchestra. It does not sound in the least Scandinavian.
Recently, the West Australian Opera Company’s decision to drop a scheduled production of Bizet’s Carmen because – horrors!! – it would feature some of the chorus smoking cigarettes in front of a tobacco factory, triggered an outraged response from opera aficionados. I wonder how the tobacco nazis would react to the fifth movement from Lalo’s First Rhapsody from his ballet Namnouna. It’s title is Valse de la cigarette!
Both Rhapsodies here recorded make for delightful listening.
Harpist Nicanor Zabaleta is in peak form, bringing to Saint-Saens’ rather superficial Morceau de concert such rhythmic control and tonal clarity, especially of glissandi, that, as Fournier does with the same composer’s concerto, he makes it sound far better than it is. It’s rather like the sonic equivalent of painting by numbers but offered in a way that would charm even the grumpiest bird from its twig.
More significant is that rarity, the Concertino by Germaine Tailleferre (the least known of Les Six – and the only woman in the group). Its busy, bustling note streams require a harpist with an iron nerve to negotiate Tailleferre’s score as well as a conductor with the skill to hold things together. Zabaleta and Martinon are on top form here.
Zabaleta’s account of Ginastera’s Harp Concerto recorded on LP in 1960 is only now available on CD – and it draws the listener at once into the composer’s unique creative world. From abrupt, urgent and rapid repeated chords to the quietly mysterious close of the first movement, Zabaleta and Martinon are as one in music terms. The slow movement is an introverted, melancholy meditation followed by a lengthy cadenza. It leads into an upbeat, noisy finale.
Martinon’s own Violin Concerto is ushered in in intensely dramatic terms with Henryk Szeryng an inspired choice as soloist. Whether in the hair-raisingly treacherous cadenza or the interplay between soloist and orchestra, it is gratifyingly clear that Rafael Kubelik presiding over Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks has the full measure of the work – and that Szeryng is wondrously on-form. One can only speculate what riches might have emerged from Martinon’s pen had he gone into composition full time or had a longer life. He died in his sixties..
A selection of some of Bizets’s most loved works comes across in frankly delightful fashion, Martinon seeming positively to revel in the Symphony in C, Jeux d’enfants and La Jolie fille de Perth.
Beethoven: piano sonatas: ‘Pathetique’ opus 13; ‘Moonlight’ opus 27 no 2; ‘Waldstein’ opus 53; Sonatas opus 49 nos 1 and 2
TPT: 76’ 35”
MSR Classics MS 1466
reviewed by Neville Cohn
With notes clothed in consistently fine tone and the dramatic essence of the slow introduction to Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata conveyed to a nicety, James Brawn goes on to essay the allegro section in an unfailingly nimble and fluent way. Momentum is splendidly maintained. This is an impressive account, not least in making familiar notes sound fresh, indeed newly minted.
How pleasing, for once, to listen to the adagio cantabile coming across refreshingly free of the excessive sentimentality that has scuppered so many lesser accounts of the movement. Brawn’s is a model of good taste – and the finale unfolds impeccably.
An unhurried, consistently calm reading of the famous opening movement of the Moonlight sonata is a model of good taste. And the second movement, taken a shade slower than usual, with a rather restrained trio, is a fine foil to the finale. Virtuosic and tempestuous, the playing of the finale is informed by an altogether fitting sense of urgency and intensity. This is a splendidly muscular reading.
In Op 49 no1 in G minor, Brawn allows the music to speak for itself without, as it were, interposing himself between composer and listener. The rondo is unfailingly nimble in a charming account that underscores the carefree, upbeat nature of the piece.
In opus 49 no 2 in G, the opening movement is often mutilated by earnest, well-intentioned young piano students. Here, it falls most pleasantly on the ear. And the minuet, which years earlier had a place in the composer’s hugely popular (at the time) Septet, is unfailingly buoyant in this piano version.
In the opening movement of the Waldstein sonata, Brawn sets a blistering pace but there is some inequality of the beat, an occasional state of rhythmical unease. Much of the playing is commanding and confident but there are brief moments when focus
lessens. Beethoven’s trademark sforzandi are impressively handled.
In Brawn’s hands, the adagio molto is finely focussed and beautifully presented.
Skilled use of the damper pedal ushers in the finale in an altogether appropriate sonic haze, a fine tonal mist against which the melody line is etched. Many of the more assertive moments have a magisterial, muscular quality. At times, though, one senses a pianist under some pressure in the movement’s most cruelly demanding measures – but this reservation is minor in relation to so much that is thoroughly worthwhile such as the calmer, dreamy episodes which are consistently successful. The extended trills in the prestissimo conclusion are beautifully spun.
Brawn’s recording of the Waldstein is a good second to Benno Moiseiwitsch’s peerless, long-ago recording on mauve label HMV 78 rpm records which, in my view, has never been surpassed.
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An arrangement of Greensleeves, that timeless Tudor evergreen, is given most sensitive treatment, too, in a performance blissfully free of the extraneous noises – squeaks, clanks, creaks – that so often bedevil the playing of lesser musicians. And in My Song (for you), composer/guitarist Gardiner gives us a gently melancholy, restful utterance.
Maydwell in a performance which comes across in turn wistful, yearning and melancholy as if heard, rather delightfully, on a fine quality musical box.
