Sebastian Herrera Archive
Neave Trio: Celebrating Piazzolla with Carla Jablonski—Azica
Celebrating Piazzolla — This was a remarkably well-done album… Bravo!
In a Strange Land: Elizabethan Composers in Exile (Dowland, Byrd…) – Stile Antico – Harmonia Mundi
Stile Antico is radiant in their rendering of this Sacred and Secular Choral Music!
Anima Sacra — Baroque Sacred Arias, featuring Jakub Józef Orlinski—Erato
A dramatic presentation of unknown religious arias that carry the operatic traditions of high baroque opera.
Johann Sebastian BACH. Sonatas and partitas—Gottfried von der Goltz, violin—Aparte
“A reference standard on baroque violin, sublimely balanced; free of gimmicks and histrionics.”
Johann Sebastian BACH. The suites for solo cello “Six Evolutions”—Yo-Yo Ma, cello—Sony
“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.”
The Lily and the Rose — Medieval Music—The Binchois Consort—Hyperion
A rich visit into the choral music of Medieval Music of England.
Stephen Yip – Whispering Fragrance – Navona
Whispering Fragrances — a window into the world of contemporary composer Stephen Yip, with instruments ranging from solo violin to chamber ensembles with saxophone, bassoon, strings, piano, guzheng…
Ray Chen – The Golden Age – Decca
The Golden Age—Ray Chen plays works by Kreisler, Bruch, Debussy, Gershwin, Scott, and others. Ray Chen (violin), Julien Quentin (piano), London Philharmonic Orchestra, dir. Robert Trevino; Made in Berlin (quartet)—Decca 483-3852—53:26, *****: The promise of music from the “Golden Age” of violinists—namely by the likes of violinists such as Kreisler, Heifetz, and Joachim and composers like Debussy, Satie, and Gershwin—is the theme behind this new release from Australian violinist Ray Chen. Decca does a superb job of capturing the music in full fidelity, especially so when the music is divided among three ensembles recorded in different locations: violin and piano, violin and orchestra, and string quartet. To my ears, it all sounds as if it was recorded during the same take in the same location. Despite the name of the album, the sound is not pushed behind a gauzy golden veil, but instead is lean and forward. Not every artist might appreciate the transparency of this sound, but it has the effect of putting us, the listeners, right in the front row. It’s really well done. The piece that might set you back into the Golden Age most forcibly is the performance of Debussy’s Clair de lune, which sounds straight […]
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 […]
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 […]
Life Force – Peter Moore, Trombone – Rubicon
In a brilliantly clean recording featuring trombone and piano, Peter Moore and James Baillieu make beautiful music. Life Force — Peter Moore (trombone), James Baillieu (piano)—Rubicon Classics RCD1028—66:31, ****1/2 : The trombone speaks by amplifying the buzzing of the player’s lips into a small, diminutive cup. Notes are differentiated by either extending the length of tubing through which this vibration travels, or else by traversing the harmonic series, as a bugler does. Tone is changed by limiting the amount of air, or else, by re-directing the direction of the stream of air within the mouthpiece. Hearing a trombone without all the mechanical fuss that’s part of playing, from sloppy movement of the slide to imprecision in the focus of the lips within the mouthpiece, betrays the amateur from the professional. What I admired most about Peter Moore’s recital is his technical perfection and clarity. The recording is pristinely lucid to also capture the depth of feeling from pianist James Baillieu. Coupled here are two expert musicians. Moore made his mark at the age of 12 as the BBC’s Young musician of the year. He now plays for the London Symphony Orchestra, appointed at age 18. The recital is an eclectic […]
Franz Josef HAYDN: Piano Sonatas — Anne-Marie McDermott, piano — Bridge
Franz Josef HAYDN: Piano Sonatas, Volume 2 — Anne-Marie McDermott, piano — Bridge 9497, 69:00, (5/27/18) ****1/2: The love comes across in this recital of Haydn sonatas by an experienced artist Anne-Marie McDermott presents four sonatas by Haydn in her second volume of his piano sonatas: numbers 48, 39, 46, and 37. I already knew McDermott for her technical abilities with fleeting fingers alongside her panache for crisp articulation. Despite my personal preference for a period piano and a chamber acoustic, this album presents an honest recital that’s chock full of love for this music by an experienced and capable artist. Haydn would have known the earliest pianos and harpsichords as the keyboard instruments in his time. The modern piano offers a significantly wider dynamic range and more significant sound. The modern performer on the piano has decisions to make: do I limit my playing to limit the dynamic range and volume, or, perhaps, see what the modern instrument can offer the music? McDermott takes the latter approach, employing the full capabilities of Yamaha’s top-tier concert grand to Haydn’s music. A profound example of this approach is the slow movement of the 37th sonata, marked Large e sostenuto. Complete with […]
H.I.F. BIBER: The Mystery Sonatas — Christina Day Martinson, Boston Baroque — Linn
H.I.F. BIBER: The Mystery Sonatas — Christina Day Martinson, violin; Boston Baroque, dir. Martin Pearlman — Linn CKD501, 120:21, (5/19/18) ***: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber today is remembered as one of the great virtuosos of the middle baroque and an important innovator in Germanic violin composition. And among his surviving works, this collection, the Sonatas of the Mystery of the Rosary, receive a lot of attention due to their baroqueness. Each of the sonatas is based, it would seem, on a prayer from the Rosary. The printing of the collection was made with scenes depicting stories from the life of Christ. Some consider the pieces as musical meditations. Beyond the suggestion of these sonatas as program music, these sonatas are more curious because of Biber’s use of string mistuning, often called scordatura, from the Italian. Only the first and last pieces use a normally-tuned violin; the others vary the tuning of one or more strings which promote different chordal possibilities, but moreover, change the sonic quality of the instrument. As depicted on this cover, the most interesting sonata for scordatura is the tenth sonata, the Crucifixion. The performer must cross the middle two strings, forming a “cross” between the […]
Joseph Haydn: Piano Trios – Trio Wanderer – Harmonia Mundi
Trio Wanderer brings a superb presentation to five piano trios by Joseph Haydn—a welcome addition to the library! Joseph Haydn: Piano Trios, Hob XV: 14, 18, 21, 26, 31. Trio Wanderer—Harmonia Mundi HMM902321—69:00, ****1/2: This is my first survey of the Trio Wanderer (Vincent Coq, piano; Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian, violin; and Raphaël Pidoux, cello). Their newness to me, however, betrays their prodigious career, recording the variable canon of trios for piano, violin, and cello: Discography | Trio Wanderer. This marks their second recording of trios by Haydn, the first appearing in 2001 (Harmonia Mundi HMG 501968). To help situate these works, I turned to Charles Rosen’s The Classical Style (Norton, 1972) who devoted a chapter to Haydn’s trios, considering them Haydn’s third great collection of works, following his symphonies and string quartets. They are not chamber music in the usual sense, but works for solo piano, solo violin, and accompanying cello. For the most part the cello serves only to double the piano’s bass, although in a very few places it is briefly independent. Despite liking the pieces, he also says: They may be splendid pieces, but they are unprogressive, backward in style, and should have been written differently. And… In […]
G. P. Telemann: Essercizii Musici – Florilegium – Channel Classics
G. P. Telemann: (sections from) Essercizii Musici – Florilegium (dir. Ashley Solomon, flute) – Channel Classics CCS 40118—119:30, ****1/2 Telemann, a contemporary of Handel and Bach, is remembered best today for being a prolific composer. Trained as a lawyer, he took extraordinary means to pursue music and later promote his music, in a variety of genres and by incorporating a number of regional styles. Most notably, Telemann integrated French and Polish elements into his music. Among the collections he took to publishing was a collection he entitled Essercizii Musici, trio sonatas and solo sonatas in four movements, for a variety of instruments. The title of the work itself is interesting. When composers used the word “exercises” in their pieces, they almost seemed destined to an amateur audience. In some cases, these solo sonatas could be played by just two players; the trio sonatas, by three. The use of Italian in the title, I am guessing, was to impart another regional connotation to the works. Some years ago I became acquainted with this collection, which takes the space of four CDs, performed by Camerata Köln on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi. I soon learned the pieces weren’t overly simple; they no doubt presented […]
Re-structures = Piano music by Lansky, Ruders, Machover, Kurtág, Ben-Amots – Quattro Mani – Bridge
Quattro Mani: Re-Structures Piano music by Lansky, Ruders, Machover, Kurtág, Ben-Amots for four hands. Quattro Mani (Steven Beck, Susan Grace)—Bridge 9496—49:00, *** 1/2: I often think of Johann Sebastian Bach when I think of combining multiple keyboard instruments. The image of Bach, with one or more of his sons performing at the Zimmermann Coffee House in Leipzig, performing one his adoptions for concerti for two solo instruments, comes to mind. The tradition may well have started before Bach. In the album from Quattro Mani (four hands) with Steven Beck and Susan Grace, we get to hear a set of five virtuosic and contemporary pieces written for two keyboards. Two instruments allow a composer to create some interesting possibilities: differences in timbre, fuller, richer sonorities and harmonies, and a play with the stereo image, exchanging voices between the two performers. To be clear, the album features two players on two instruments. The first piece, the most approachable, is entitled Out of the Blue by Paul Lansky. Its percussive opening plays with that stereo image capability. Composed of repetitive musical cells, it’s an overall energetic piece that seems to come and go, out of the blue. Cembal d’Amore by Poul Ruders is […]
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons – Rachel Podger / Brecon Baroque—Channel Classics
Vivaldi: Le quattro stagione, concerti, Il grosso mogul, Il riposo, L’Amoroso. Rachel Podger, Brecon Baroque—Channel Classics CCS SA 40318—76:00 [Distr. by Pias] ****: I’ve been following the historically-informed performance movement for most of my life, coming to collect recordings by Hogwood and Pinnock in the late 1980s as a teen. Rachel Podger came on the scene as those ensembles began to transition, first leading the English Concert, then going on to find success in chamber music. She’d go on to concertize with Andrew Manze, another one of the second generation of British baroque violinists, and more recently, she organizes a Baroque music festival and leads her own ensemble, Brecon Baroque. Brecon, as it turns out, is the name of her hometown in Wales. This new recording follows Podger’s other Vivaldi projects, including L’estro armonico (op. 3), La Stravaganza (op. 4), and La Cetra (op. 9). The opus four and nine editions of Vivaldi have been recorded by HIP ensembles, but their availability are fewer in company compared to the available recordings of the Four Seasons from opus 8. That being said, recording Vivaldi’s Four Seasons becomes a tricky enterprise for the modern-day violinist, akin to Coca-Cola offering another version of […]
![Mozart: 16 Sonatas for Violin and Piano. Tomas Cotik (violin), Tao Lin (piano)—Centaur [Dist. by Naxos]](https://www.audaud.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Mozart_TomasCotik_512x512.jpeg)
Mozart: 16 Sonatas for Violin and Piano. Tomas Cotik (violin), Tao Lin (piano)—Centaur [Dist. by Naxos]
Mozart: 16 Sonatas for Violin and Piano. Tomas Cotik (violin), Tao Lin (piano)—Centaur CRC 3619/20/21/22—4:27:43 [Dist. by Naxos] ****1/2 : In this new recording from Tomas Cotik (violin) and Tao Lin (piano) are presented sixteen sonatas by Mozart on modern instruments. Cotik has a very warm tone which contrasts nicely with the more acoustically-distant piano which has a colder sound, especially so in the upper register at softer volume. And while modern instruments are adopted, Cotik is wise, I believe, in playing with one eye looking backward: in the use of vibrato he uses the effect lightly in a very sympathetic way. This is well displayed in the Andantino sostenuto e cantabile from the Sonata in B-flat, KV 378. It’s a beautiful movement where the duo shines. Reviewing a recording is more than a commentary on the music, or the quality of the performance. I want to know the performers’ point of view. I can’t escape the contribution of the recording engineers. And I am also sensitive to matters of historical performance practice. The faster movements, for all their energy, suffer somewhat in this recording from the acoustic. All the technical precision by Lin on piano is somewhat washed together. […]
The Topping Tooters of the Town = Music of the London Waits 1580-1650 — The City Musick / William Lyons — Avie
The Topping Tooters of the Town. Music of the London Waits 1580-1650 — The City Musick, dir. William Lyons— Avie, AV2364, 50:00 ****: This recording of 30 tracks is a compilation of pieces—dances really—from the likes of Anthony Holborne, John Adson, Peter Philips, Thomas Morley, Thomas Ravenscroft, and John Playford. These are names I haven’t heard of late, but reading them right now I can think back to my music history classes. The music represents, according to the liner notes, the zenith of the town musicians in London around 1600 who performed in all sorts of public venues with wind instruments. You may have been exposed to this repertoire, as had I, through arrangements for brass ensemble. The City Musick, however, brings authenticity to this repertoire with recorders, cornetto, shawm, bagpipes, dulcian (a predecessor to the bassoon), and hoboy (early oboe). The harmonies and sound world of these instruments certainly do speak of an earlier time. This music very much belongs to the Renaissance but in a time where the sophistication of instruments and the station of performers was on the verge of meeting the renown of vocal music. The character of these pieces does not betray the pragmatism from […]
Handel Goes Wild – L’Arpeggiata, dir. Christina Pluhar — Erato
Handel Goes Wild – L’Arpeggiata, dir. Christina Pluhar — Erato 019295811693, 75:33, **** (9/30/17) (Valer Sabaus, countertenor, Nuria Rial, soprano, Gianluigi Trovesi, clarinet, Boris Schmidt, double bass, Francesco Turrisi, piano, Dorn David Sherwin, cornetto) Soon I will be at Carnegie Hall to see L’Arpeggiata again. “What kind of group is that?” a friend asked. That’s where I pause. Putting your finger on just what L’Arpeggiata is poses a challenge. “They play baroque music,” I start. I get a nod in return. “But they do it in their own unique way…” Then I load a YouTube video, and now my friend nods, smiling. “Good stuff!” Then the conversation moves to “what kind of music is that?” Ah, well… The piano and jazz clarinet that both play roles in this release of Handel wasn’t part of Christina Pluhar’s ensemble when it was founded. I felt the ensemble went into new territory with their release of Music for A While, featuring the music of Henry Purcell. In my own opinion, it has been their most successful release (and it did include both piano and clarinet). It’s a modern take on Purcell, for sure, but the creativity and arrangements just worked. It was a […]
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
