Lang Lang

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Lang Lang (piano)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Barenboim (conductor)
Piano Concerto No 1 in B flat minor (Tchaikowsky)
Piano Concerto No 1 in G minor (Mendelssohn)

DG 474 291-2

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

 

 

Although still in his early twenties, Lang Lang is already a veteran of the international concert circuit. A classic wunderkind, Lang Lang amazed and delighted some of the world’s toughest and most cynical critics when, aged a mere seven years, he gave a performance of the complete Etudes of Chopin in Beijing, China. Unlike so many wunderkinder who burn out before maturity, though, Lang Lang is firmly set on an impressive career path. And although superbly equipped, as here evidenced, to perform the great 19th century concerto repertoire, he is as persuasive in his interpretations of Haydn and Mozart, wondrously evident in recordings made in his late teens.

lang

 

Tchaikowsky’s Piano Concerto in B flat minor is one of the most recorded concertos in history. There’s hardly a pianist of substance who hasn’t placed it on disc – and Lang Lang is one of the latest of these. His account of the work is a compendium of musical marvels, in every way abetted by a near-flawless accompaniment by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra presided over by Daniel Barenboim.

The concerto abounds in massive climaxes and Lang Lang presents them with superb assurance with playing that bristles with grandeur. The young Chinese pianist is hardly less persuasive in some of the composer’s most touchingly lyrical episodes into which he breathes life with an understated artistry that is one of his finest attributes as a musician.

Lang Lang is superbly equipped as protagonist in this most adversarial of all concertos, pitting massive blocks of sound and bursts of virtuosity against the might of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Lang Lang does not succumb to the temptation – as others often do – of presenting the first movement at too rapid a pace. On the contrary, his magisterial approach, deliberate pace and leonine tone enhance the inherent nobility of the writing. It was a most effective foil for the outer sections of the Andantino (taken at an unusually, perhaps excessively, slow pace but with ear-seducing, bell-like tone), the gentleness and introspection of the music conveyed to fine degree. In the soloist’s hands, the central, scherzo-like episode comes across as a little miracle of clear definition at whirlwind speed, daredevil-like scamperings that bordered on the incredible. I specially admired the skill with which gossamer-light note streams give way to the return of the quietness which ushered in the slow movement, the movement as a whole an astonishing achievement that will have many more senior pianists looking to their laurels.

In the opening pages of the finale, piano tone tends to edginess, the only reservation in an otherwise irrepressibly joyous presentation.

The outer movements of Mendelssohn’s Concerto in G minor call for considerable digital virtuosity and Lang Lang is more than up to the challenge in a work which, according to the liner notes, he first essayed at the age of seven years. As a work, the first movement, in particular, has not aged well. With its pompous, blaring orchestral flourishes and outdated, faded charms, it ought, like the antimacassars and aspidistras of the Victorian age, to have long since been consigned to history’s dustbin. So it is greatly to the credit of this sensational young Chinese pianist that, through the persuasiveness of his artistry, this Victorian relic sounds infinitely better than it really is, not least due to phenomenal finger agility and, every now and then, a heart-stoppingly beautiful lift to the phrase. This latter quality is much in evidence, too, in the CSO strings in the central Andante (a significantly more substantial piece of music than the first movement) – and the introverted beauty of its measures is exquisitely realised in glowing tone by the soloist. He is matchless in the finale to which he brings prestissimo, gossamer-light agility that make Mendelssohn’s meretricious note-spinning sound far, far better than it in fact is. In this sense, Lang Lang is a musical illusionist of the first order.

Copyright 2004 Neville Cohn

 

 


The Medium (Menotti)

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menotti

 

 

 

 

Ensemble of Chicago Opera Theatre
Lawrence Rupchak (conductor)

CDR 90000 034
TPT: 1:02:05

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

If there’s any recording likely to trigger a resurgence of interest in the operas of Gian Carlo Menotti, it is this.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, Menotti’s works are not as frequently mounted as was earlier the case –
and, insofar as current CD catalogues are concerned, available recordings are very few and far between.

From a number of points of view, this is a recording to cherish, not least the quality of diction. What a joy to
hear every word of the libretto as clearly and unambiguously enunciated as if by actors of Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company – and praise doesn’t get much higher than that.

For newcomers to The Medium who might perhaps have seen the movie Ghost in which Whoopi Goldberg takes the part of a fraudulent medium who shamelessly milks her gullible clients of their hard-earned money, Menotti’s masterpiece will (no pun intended) sound a familiar chord. As in the movie, in which Goldberg’s character is possessed by the spirit of the murdered Patrick Swayze, Menotti’s shyster medium is bewildered and terrified when a spirit hand grasps her throat.

Opera on CD is a difficult medium. Without the benefit of the visual dimension of the work, without the trappings of theatre, of lighting, décor, costumes and make up, factors which are crucial to developing and maintaining atmosphere, the challenge for the recording musicians is enormous. But it has to be said – and said clearly and unambiguously – that this Cedelle recording is a triumph, a quite remarkable achievement in the sense that, notwithstanding the absence of the features just enumerated, the eerie essence and emotional range of the piece is evoked to an extraordinary degree.

As Madam Flora (known to her family as Baba), Joyce Castle, the opera’s eponymous lead, is impressive. I listened, frankly enthralled, to her immaculate presentation. In the best sense, she lives the part, fleshing it out with such skill that even limited, as here, to being heard without being seen, the unpleasant essence of the character, her avarice, her willingness to take damaged, vulnerable people for a ride, comes through strongly; it’s a notable
achievement. Castle is perfectly cast; she contributes strongly to the verismo quality of the work.

And Patrice Michaels Bedi as Monica, Baba’s daughtger, is equally at home in the part, the sheer goodness of the character shining through, again, a notable achievement, bearing in mind that it is only through her voice that she reaches out to the listener. The casting in this recordingis flawless, typified by Madame Flora’s three clients who
are so convinced of her powers that, even when, after her terrifying psychic experience, she confesses her fraud,
they do not accept what she says, so desperate are they to believe that the lies that Baba has told them, are true. Their confusion and distress make for painful listening.

Throughout, the cast have the inestimable advantage of a near-impeccable accompaniment – the Ensemble of Chicago Opera Theatre – conducted by Lawrence Rapchak.

From first note to last, they give point and meaning to some of the most skilled operatic writing of the 20th century.

This is claimed to be the first compact disc recording of The Medium. And if the admirable quality of this
performance is anything to go by, it is very much to be hoped that there will be further recordings of Menotti’s works – The Consul perhaps? – from this source.

Copyright 2004 Neville Cohn

CREDO

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Helene Grimaud (piano)
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor)
Fantasia on an Ostinato (Corigliano); Piano Sonata in D minor, opus 31 no 2 (The Tempest) (Beethoven); Choral Fantasy, opus 80 (Beethoven): Credo (Arvo Part)

TPT:1:08:31
DG 471 769-2

reviewed by Neville Cohn

 

credo

If you’ve not yet heard of Helene Grimaud, make a note of the name. In fact, write it in capital letters because this young French pianist, seemingly touched by the little finger of God, is almost certain to have an illustrious career.In decades of listening to, and writing about, music, I have never before come across an account of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy played with such magisterial authority. This is Beethoven in titanic, muscle-flexing mode and Grimaud is clearly the pianist for the job. Her playing exudes authority.

Drawing on a seemingly limitless technical armoury and the deepest wells of expressiveness, she informs much of the score with a grandeur that makes for utterly compelling listening.

 

 

This performance is not the product of the recording studio where, with numerous re-takes and the skills of a clever splicing editor, the end version can be made to sound better than it was in reality. There are innumerable instances of this artificial perfection in the discography.

In Grimaud’s recording of the Fantasy, however, made before an audience in the Berwaldhallen, Stockholm, what you hear is what was played. It’s a phenomenal achievement, a near-perfect collaboration between the soloist and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen who will be remembered by many forstartlingly fine direction of the Finnish National Radio Symphony Orchestra on its visit to Australia in the 1984.

It is still fashionable in some quarters, incidentally, to dismiss the Choral Fantasy as little more than a trial run for Beethoven’s Chorale Symphony. This recording, surely, will convert the doubters.

Not the least of Grimaud’s gifts is an ability to produce pianissimo shadings of the subtlest sort which contributed
in a major way to the tonal colouring of the work; it is a crucial factor in what, in retrospect, is a near-perfect assessment of the score’s stature. The Swedish Radio Choir rises splendidly to the occasion, as it does in Arvo Part’s Credo for piano, choir and orchestra. Part here draws on Bach’s Prelude No 1 in C from the first book of the ’48’. It appears on a number of occasions in different incarnations, in different registers, at different speeds
and decibel levels, sometimes mechanically expounded (as in the work’s opening measures), at other times lyrically stated.

Dissonant, ear-grating chords are played, at first slowly, then with increasing urgency to the point where they take
the form of rapid, insistent hammerings, a backdrop of sound against which the choir utters the Credo.

John Corigliano’s Fantasia on an ostinato opens with powerfully stated chords that are a call to attention. Here, too, Grimaud’s performance was astonishingly communicative. As in the Fantasy, tonal colourings are masterfully employed whether in delicato moments in reflective passages or in bursts of bell-like sound. And as the work draws to a close, we hear, phantom-like, the opening theme of Beethoven’s Symphony No 7. And in unadulterated Beethoven – his Sonata in D minor (The Tempest) – Grimaud, still young in years, gives a performance that sounds like the offering of an arrived master.

Rivettingly tempestuous, tonally muscular playing in the first movement, an adagio in which Grimaud gives full due
to its introverted beauty – and a finale mined to reveal its every detail make for memorable listening.

Copyright 2004 Neville Cohn

 

 

Harold in Italy (Berlioz)

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Tabea Zimmermann (viola)
Ballet Music from The Trojans
London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Colin Davis (conductor)

LSO0040
TPT: 52:18

reviewed by Neville Cohn

The viola, that treacherous, ungainly instrument, guards its secrets jealously. Tabea Zimmermann, though, is privy to them all. In her hands, the viola, so intractable for many trying to master it, is, in the best sense, tamed; it does her bidding to often wondrous effect – and with intonation so consistent that it is an object lesson in how to play this awkward instrument precisely in tune.

Harold in Italy, a masterpiece by any standard, is one of the great tests for the violist and Zimmermann is very much to the fore, providing the most satisfying account of the work I have heard since experiencing the artistry of Nabuko Imai a good many years ago.

I  can hardly imagine a more inspiring backing for the soloist than that provided by the LSO under the direction of Davis who is steeped in the Berlioz tradition and brings decades of commitment to this reading.

This is no product of the recording studio with skilled editors to splice out lapses to provide an artificial perfection. No. This is yet another recording in the LSO Live series – and wonderfully immediate it is, too. I cannot imagine anyone failing to fall under the spell of a performance that would surely convert even the most curmudgeonly listener.

Throughout, Davis secures responses of the utmost intensity in ways that reach out to the listener. Here one wonders, as ever, at the epic scale of the ideas enshrined in Harold in Italy; it is Berlioz at his most magically original.

In the opening measures of the work, lower strings and bassoons produce dark, low-register tone that sets the mood perfectly for the first utterance of the solo viola; there is about the latter a rawness of emotion that rivets the ear in some of the most startlingly communicative playing imaginable. Certainly, the solo viola line has a pulsing, almost human quality that irresistibly evokes images of this Byronic creation.

Harold en Italie

Harold en Italie

 

As Zimmermann works her way through the score, she sounds so perfectly attuned to the requirements of the music that in her hands, the viola seems less a construction of wood, gut and varnish than an extension of her musical persona. It is an extraordinary feat of musicianship.

The playing of the LSO is a compendium of musical marvels. In ensemble with Zimmermann, the presentation of the first movement is a near-perfect assessment of the romantic melancholy of the writing. And the woodwind choir is marvellously effective in the third movement, producing playing that ranges from moments of tenderness to episodes that come across as the quintessence of the dance. Laurels to the cor anglais player. Woodwinds, as a choir, are much to the fore, too, in the finale; their virtuosity is breathtaking.

There is more splendour in the filler: ballet music from The Trojans. Phrasing is beyond reproach in Pas des Alemees – and bracing rhythmic figurations in Danse des Esclaves make for frankly thrilling listening.

This recording was made before an audience at the Barbican, London.

Highly recommended.

Copyright Neville Cohn 2004

Pictures at an Exhibition Night on Bare Mountain

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Boris Godunov – Symphonic Synthesis;

Entr’acte to Khovanshchina (Act IV):

Mussorgsky transcribed Stokowski

The Cleveland Orchestra
Oliver Knussen (conductor)

DG 475 646-2
TPT: 1:05:31

reviewed by Neville Cohn 

For much of his career, Leopold Stokowski was second in fame only to Arturo Toscanini. Born plain Leo Stokes in England, a name change, an infallible gift for self-promotion and a genuine musical gift ensured that Stokowski was seldom out of the public eye.

While his flamboyant arrangements for large orchestra of numbers of Bach’s organ works often teetered on the brink of vulgarity, many of his other orchestrations are most effective. And one of the best of these is his re-working of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.

For years, Ravel’s version has been the orchestration of choice in concert programs worldwide. Its justified popularity, though, has largely overshadowed Stokowski’s version. More’s the pity because Stokowski’s orchestration makes for utterly compelling listening. By any stretch of the imagination, this re-writing of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece for the piano is a tour de force. I listened with astonishment to Oliver Knussen’s direction of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Where has this superb instrumentation been since Stokowski placed it on paper in 1939? It is far too fine to fall again into oblivion. Hats off to Knussen for unearthing the score and placing it on disc. He is very much the man for the job, giving point and meaning to every nuance of Stokowski’s often dazzling re-working. Don’t listen to it late at night, though. A combination of a first rate transcription, Knussen’s baton wizardry and an often incandescent orchestra in top form are bound to fire the imagination and put paid to a night’s tranquil sleep.
Listen to it in the morning instead. It’s as vitalising as a bottle of Vitamin B tablets.

I was particularly struck by Stokowski’s orchestration of the opening Promenade and its numerous other appearances as the work unfolds. Initially, it has a stately, expansive quality; on its returns it comes across variously as a dignified amble (expressed in such hushed terms as to border on the inaudible) or played so slowly as to teeter on the edge of inertia. It’s a very different experience to that of Ravel’s transcription – and for those encountering Stokowski’s version for the first time, it may well make for startling listening.

Knussen takes his forces through Bydlo, for instance, at a pace far brisker than usually encountered; as an impression of a lumbering ox cart, it doesn’t really convince. But this is the only reservation in an otherwise utterly absorbing, magnificently coloured alternative view of one the most well-loved masterworks in the canon.

Those exposed to – and offended by – the crassness of some of Stokowski’s re-workings of Bach organ works may need some encouraging to listen to his versions of some of Mussorgsky’s works.

Take the plunge; it will almost certainly be a rewarding experience, not least an account of Night on Bare Mountain where conductor and orchestra seem positively to relish coming to grips with Stokowski’s quite inspired instrumentation; whining strings and the sheer intensity of a presentation that borders on the satanic, inflame the imagination.

The same level of brilliance is apparent in Stokowski’s so-called Symphonic Synthesis of extracts from Boris Godunov with the barbaric splendour of some of Mussorgsky’s themes providing listening that rivets the ear. Much the same can be said of the brief entr’acte to Khovanshchina (Act IV).

Throughout, Knussen is a passionate advocate for both Mussorgsky and Stokowski to whose originality and brilliance he pays unfailingly articulate homage.


Copyright Neville Cohn 2004