sonata Archive
BEETHOVEN: Josep COLOM – Late Sonatas and Bagatelles – Eudora
The latest installment by the house pianist of Eudora records, one of the finest audiophile labels in the world.
HAYDN: Piano Sonata; RACHMANINOFF: Corelli Variations; LISZT: Paganini Etudes – Jooyoung Kim – MSR
An excellent recital of superb depth.
SCRIABIN: Preludes, Etudes, Sonatas – Vadym Kholodenko, piano – Harmonia mundi
SCRIABIN: Preludes, Etudes, Sonatas, and other works = 6 Preludes, Op. 13; 5 Preludes, Op. 16; Sonata No. 4, Op. 30; Sonata No. 5, Op. 53; Poeme tragique, Op. 34; Poeme satanique, Op. 36; Eight Etudes, Op. 42; Vers la flamme, Op. 72 – Vadym Kholodenko, piano – Harmonia mundi HMM 902255, 72:01 (7/13/18) [Dist. by PIAS] ****: Vadym Kholodenko (rec. 1 September 2017) celebrates Alexander Scriabin’s “imaginative, fantastic, musical world,” citing his teacher Vera Gornostaeva, with a diverse selection of “poems” which trace the iconoclastic composer’s evolution—via Chopin and Liszt—into a self-proclaimed visionary of light. A master of concision, Scriabin penned for the better part of a decade various series of “poemes,” distilled miniatures —some 34 of them—that, like the paintings of J.W.N. Turner, increasingly become infused with light; if they are indeed poetry, then their obvious kinship lies in William Blake. Scriabin conceived his sets of Preludes, Opp. 13 and 16 (1895), as extensions of his Op. 11 set, meant to complement his appreciation of the Chopin oeuvre, Op. 28. The opening C Major Prelude, Maestoso, from Op. 13 has a Lisztian cast, diatonic in harmony and moving in dotted rhythm as a march. The ensuing Allegro in […]
BLOCH: Music for Viola and Piano – Paul Neubauer, viola/ Margo Garrett, piano – Delos
Virile, robust performances of Bloch’s viola compositions make this collection a must for those who cherish the instrument at its best. BLOCH: Suite for Viola and Piano; Suite for Viola Solo; Suite Hebraique; Meditation and Processional – Paul Neubauer, viola/ Margo Garrett, piano – Delos DE 3498, 56:27 (2/16/18) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: Cultural historians may recall that the music of Swiss composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) indirectly led to aspects of the Harlem Renaissance: in 1925, Paul Robeson and Lawrence Brown, while passing by Carnegie Hall, read the program notes that accompanied an all-Bloch recital: “In my music, I have tried to capture the spirit of my people.” What Bloch could accomplish for “Jewish” music, thought Robeson, he and Brown could provide for Negro music in America. The 1919 Suite for Viola and Piano by Bloch does not, strictly speaking, belong to his Jewish works but to a vision of the Far East of Java, Borneo, Sumatra, perhaps in the “visual” manner of Gauguin and Henri Rousseau. Bloch called the opening motif “a kind of savage cry, like that of a fierce bird of prey.” The secondary theme, misterioso, proceeds as a meditation. The music moves into a virile Allegro, […]
SCRIABIN: The Final Recital = Recreation of Scriabin’s program from his final concert – Jeremey Thompson – MSR
Pianist Jeremy Thompson recreates the composer’s last public appearance as a performer. SCRIABIN: The Final Recital = 2 Preludes, Op. 35; 4 Preludes, Op. 37; Prelude in G Major, Op. 39, No. 3; Mazurka in E Major, Op. 25, No. 4; Etude in b-flat minor, Op. 8, No. 7; Valse in A-flat Major, Op. 38; Sonata No. 3 in f-sharp minor, Op. 23; 3 Preludes, Op. 74; Nuances, Op. 56, No. 3; Danse languide, Op. 51, No. 4; Guirlandes, Op. 73, No. 1; Flammes sombres, Op. 73, No. 2; Etrangete, Op. 63, No. 2; Sonata No. 4 in F-sharp Major, Op. 30 – Jeremy Thompson, piano – MSR MS 1669, 65:57 (11/2017) [Distr. by Albany] ****: Pianist Jeremy Thompson realizes his ambition to recreate the ambitious program that composer Alexander Scriabin presented in St. Petersburg, Russia on 2 April 1915, Thompson’s homage to the composer’s centennial (rec. 22-23 May 2015). Scriabin would perish just three weeks after he gave his recital; a pity, for he had peaked as a performer, and his imagination, busy comprehending his virtual “Universe,” likely had cosmic possibilities. A contemporary writer for Etude magazine, Ellen von Tiedehohl, reported that Scriabin’s eyes “blazed fire” during the concert. […]
Rosanne Philippens Plays PROKOVIEV = PROKOFIEV – Violin Concert; Violin Solo Sonata; Five Melodies; “The Love for Three Oranges”, March ‒ Rosanne Philippens, violin / Julien Quentin, piano / Sinfonieorchester St. Galen / Otto Tausk ‒ Channel Classics
A beguilingly varied program that’s a showcase for violinist, composer, and orchestra alike. Rosanne Philippens Plays PROKOVIEV = PROKOFIEV – Violin Concert No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63; Violin Solo Sonata in D Major, Op. 115; Five Melodies, Op. 35bis; March from “The Love for Three Oranges,” Op. 33 (arr. Heifetz); Piano Sonata No. 4, Second Movement: Andante, Op. 39bis (arr. for orchestra by Prokofiev) ‒ Rosanne Philippens, violin / Julien Quentin, piano / Sinfonieorchester St. Galen / Otto Tausk ‒ Channel Classics CCS 39517 (11/17/2017) [distrib. by Harmonia mundi], 65:23 *****: It’s not unusual for recordings to pair one or other of the Prokofiev violin concertos with one or more of the sonatas. And Five Melodies often shows up on recordings of the sonatas. The current recording, however, offers even more variety, with an arrangement of the ever-popular “March” from The Love for Three Oranges and—surprise!—a turn by the orchestra alone in Prokofiev’s own arrangement of the slow movement from his Fourth Piano Sonata. To boot, we thus get a sampling of Prokofiev from his earlier years of exile to his years in the Soviet Union. Some listeners were puzzled when Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto (completed in 1917, […]
MOZART: Fantasie in c minor; Sonata No. 14 and No. 13 – Menahem Pressler, piano – La Dolce Volta
MOZART: Fantasie in c minor, K. 475; Sonata No. 14 in c minor, K. 457; Sonata No. 13 in B-flat Major, K. 333 – Menahem Pressler, piano – La Dolce Volta LDV 34, 76:38 (9/8/17) [Distr. by Harmonia mundi/PIAS] ****: Menahem Pressler’s latest installment of his Mozart sonata-cycle brings gracious pleasures at every turn. I recall having first heard the first, few measures of the Mozart 1785 C Minor Fantasie played not by some legendary concert artist, but by veteran actress Lillian Gish in the 1960 John Huston film, The Unforgiven, in which the music meant to dispel the attacking Kiowas’ magic. The eerie opening bars—first in unison and then in chromatic steps of F-sharp-G-A-flat—made a singularly dire impression on me then, as now, in this October-November 2016 recording by Pressler, which adds to his Mozart sonata survey. The piece proceeds in a series of alternating tempos, with some bold modulations that embrace D Major, B-flat Major, and B minor. But the unnerving pathos of the work proves most impressive, since its tragic affect does not find relief in the placid sections. Pressler (b. 1923) captures the expressive qualities of this audacious work—its constant application of a Lydian fourth—without false […]
Horowitz Live at Carnegie Hall, Vol. 1 = Works of HAYDN, SCHUBERT, SCRIABIN, KABALEVSKY, CHOPIN – Pristine
Horowitz Live at Carnegie Hall, Vol. 1 = HAYDN: Piano Sonata No. 62 in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI:52; SCHUBERT: Impromptu in G-flat Major, D. 899, No. 3; SCRIABIN: Vers la flamme, Op. 72; Poeme in F-sharp Major, Op. 32, No. 1; Etude in F-sharp Major, Op. 42, No. 4; Etude in d-sharp minor, Op. 8, No. 12; KABALEVSKY: Piano Sonata No. 3 in F Major, Op. 49; CHOPIN: Fantasie in f minor, Op. 49; Nocturne in e minor, Op. 72, No. 1; Impromptu No. 1 in A-flat Major, Op. 29; Nocturne in F-sharp Major, Op. 15, No. 2; Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op. 53 “Heroic” – Vladimir Horowitz, piano – Pristine Audio PAKM 071, 79:52 [www.pristineclassical.com] *****: The immortal Horowitz returns to us from private archives to enchant and astound us. This from Producer and Recording Engineer Andrew Rose: “This recording is the first of a collection of recordings made for Vladimir Horowitz’s private use of concerts given in New York’s Carnegie Hall. The recordings were captured on 78rpm acetate discs and survive in various states of disrepair in a collection held at Yale University.” Horowitz performs at Carnegie Hall on 2 February 1948, and he appears in excellent form, […]
Klavier 1853 = LISZT: Ballade No. 2; C. SCHUMANN: Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann; R. SCHUMANN: Gesaenge der Fruehe; BRAHMS: Piano Sonata No. 3 – Hyeyeon Park, piano – Blue Griffin
Klavier 1853 = LISZT: Ballade No. 2 in b minor; C. SCHUMANN: Variations on a Theme of Robert Schumann, Op. 20; R. SCHUMANN: Gesaenge der Fruehe, Op. 133; BRAHMS: Piano Sonata No. 3 in f minor, Op 5 – Hyeyeon Park, piano – Blue Griffin BG351, 77:00 (9/5/17) [Distr. by Albany] ****: Korean virtuoso Hyeyeon Park certifies 1853 as a banner year in keyboard music. The premise of this recital (rec. 7-9 July 2015) establishes 1853 as a seminal year in classical music, embracing the founding of two piano manufacturers, Steinway and Bechstein, as well as the premieres of prominent operatic works by Verdi, La Traviata and Il Trovatore. Taking Johannes Brahms as a central musical persona, we follow him in 1853 in the company of the violinist Remenyi, and thus to meetings with Liszt, Joachim, and the Robert Schumanns. The rest has become standard Romantic-music history, with Remenyi’s remaining in the Liszt entourage, while Brahms became a prodigy championed by the Schumann partisans, even having admitted as part of the intimate family circle. Liszt’s 1853 Ballade No. 2 takes its literary cue from a poem, “Lenore,” by Gottfried August Buerger, that same poet from whom Franck fashioned his tone-poem […]
On Scarlatti
Scarlatti Sonata in G Minor K 8 The dotted figures partner each other through a room in which light dapples motes. The couple embraces languidly as they spin, familiar with the arc of passion, ardent, but not frantic— There will be time. The left hand strums keys like strings while a breeze from the open casement billows curtains. Clothing, pressing flesh, reveals the dancers’ quickening as they move to the final reverberation. “An ingenious jesting with art,” was what Scarlatti called his compositions, 555 of them, no two alike, all disobedient to the rules of music, inviting peasant dances and roughhousing into halls of gilt and inlay, all done while thumbing his nose at Mr. Oratorio, Mr. Opera—his father— All tumbled into the world from a man no longer young. With luck, rejection, the lapidary roil of hurt, polishes dazzling. Listen to their lilt, fingers dappling keys like wind or rain the surface of a lake, a shaking loose of light. Are his japes aimed at or made from artistry, an ingenious declaration? Hands rush to ripple, slow, and rest, releasing a beauty close to anguish, what a poet called “a hail of glistening pearls, bubbles of watery beauty.” […]
BRAHMS: Piano Sonata; Intermezzi; Capriccio; Ballade; Klavierstücke; Waltz – Nelson Freire, piano – Decca
Nelson Freire plays BRAHMS = Piano Sonata No. 3 in f minor, Op. 5; Intermezzo in A-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 3; Intermezzo in B-flat Major, Op. 76, No. 4; Capriccio in d minor, Op. 116, No. 1; Intermezzo in E Major, Op. 116, No. 4; Intermezzo in b-flat minor, Op. 117, No. 2; Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118, No. 2; Ballade in g minor, Op. 118, No. 3; 4 Klavierstücke, Op. 119; Waltz in A-flat Major, Op. 39. No. 15 – Nelson Freire, piano – Decca 483 2154, 73:14 (8/25/17) [Distr. by Universal] ****: Nelson Freire’s historic reunion with the music of Brahms on disc marks a powerful, audacious occasion. So far as recording history is concerned, Nelson Freire (b. 1944) returns to the Brahms 1853 f minor Sonata after 50 years, the year 1967 having marked his CBS exploration of this work’s large, romantic gestures. In this respect, Freire reminds me somewhat of Artur Rubinstein, who likewise revisited this grand canvas twice in his recording career. The tumultuous first movement, Allegro maestoso, exploits constantly shifting rhythms amidst explosive, symphonic outbursts, from which a poignant melody in warm D-flat arises that will achieve even more luminosity in G-flat. […]
Ossy Renardy: The Complete Remington Recordings = PAGANINI: Caprices; FRANCK: Sonata in A Major; RAVEL: Violin Sonata No. 2 – Ossy Renardy, violin/ Eugene Helmer, piano/ Eugene List, piano – Pristine Audio
Ossy Renardy: The Complete Remington Recordings = PAGANINI: Caprices, Op. 1 (arr. F. David); FRANCK: Violin Sonata in A Major; RAVEL: Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major – Ossy Renardy, violin/ Eugene Helmer, piano/ Eugene List, piano (Franck & Ravel) – Pristine Audio PACM 103 (2 CDs) TT: 1:49:22 [www.pristineclassical.com] ****: The short-lived Austrian violinist Ossy Renardy enjoys a fine restoration in his Remington legacy. The name of Viennese violin luminary Ossy Renardy (nee Oskar Reiss, 1920-1953) may invoke the image of a “fingerboard gymnast,” compelled to play spectacular showpieces and flamboyant repertory, but he had gleaned respect for his formidable technique and sensitive interpretations, often likened to his compatriot, Fritz Kreisler. Renardy died in a car crash, only just having begun to reap the repute his hard work and commitment had earned. The decision to record the complete Paganini Caprices in the Ferdinand David edition, with (an anachronistic) piano accompaniment, comes as a result of Renardy’s having performed this version in 1940, and here again in 1953, for Don Gabor’s Remington label. Ruggiero Ricci would perform the pieces in their solo capacity—in 1947—but Renardy must have felt that the popular consensus would favor the “enriched” harmonization between him […]
Angelo Maria FIORE: Complete cello sonatas & 17th c. Italian Operas – Elinor Frey (baroque cello) – Passacaille
Angelo Maria FIORE: Complete cello sonatas & 17th c. Italian Operas – Elinor Frey (baroque cello) – Passacaille 1026, 74:38, (5/1/17) ****: Late Baroque ascendency of the cello in Northern Italian sonata and vocal music, brilliantly played on original instruments. (Elinor Frey; baroque cello / Lorenzo Ghielmi; harpsichord / Suzie LeBlanc; soprano / Esteban La Rotta; theorbo) If asked to guess the origin of the major human inventions such as the mechanical clock, gunpowder, the compass, or paper, the safe guess is usually China. When it comes to musical forms and instruments, however, one should posit an Italian source, the heritage that has bequeathed us the very word “invention.” The recording under review documents the debut of the cello as a solo instrument at the end of the 17th century in the Northern Italian courts of Bologna, Padua and Modena. The cello enjoyed a most dramatic triumph over the viol family, until then the long-standing instrumental choice of the nobility and amateurs throughout Europe, ending in the total eclipse of its rival. The Sonatas of Angelo Maria Fiore demonstrate just how the ‘“veni, vedi, vici” attitude of the instrument managed this conquest. First, a number of cellist composers attached to […]
RACHMANINOV: Piano Sonatas; TCHAIKOVSKY: Lullaby – Rustem Hayroudinoff, piano – Onyx
RACHMANINOV: Piano Sonata No. 1 in d minor, Op. 28; TCHAIKOVSKY: Lullaby, Op. 16, No. 1 (arr. Rachmaninov); RACHMANINOV: Piano Sonata No. 2 in b-flat minor, Op. 36 (ed. Hayroudinoff) – Rustem Hayroudinoff, piano – Onyx ONYX 4181, 66:38 (6/23/17) [Distr. by Harmonia mundi/PIAS] ****: Pianist Rustem Hayroudinoff injects voluptuous energy into the Rachmaninov piano sonatas. Rachmaninov in 1907 confessed to pianist Konstantin Igumnov that the spell of Liszt’s Eine Faust-Symphonie had held him in thrall, and that he conceived his d minor sonata as a representation of the three main characters: Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles. Following Liszt—and to a degree, Wagner—Rachmaninov employed an amalgam of sonata-form and leitmotivic development in the first movement to express Faust’s simultaneous attraction to earthly and spiritual pleasures. Five identifiable motifs crowd the Allegro moderato first movement, among which a Russian orthodox chant emerges amid the welter of often polyphonic activity that often recalls Liszt’s own Dante Sonata and its own urgency for spiritual ascent. Huyroudinoff plays the opening movement with an ongoing, unbroken sense of sweep and directed energy, much as he might realize a sonata by Beethoven. The sparkling figures at the movement’s end enjoy the pearly-play we associate with the Etudes-Tableaux, […]
Domenico SCARLATTI: Vol. 1 thru Vol. 11 – Fernando Valenti / Wanda Landowska (1934), Playel harpsichord – Pristine
Domenico SCARLATTI: Vol. 1 thru Vol. 11 – Fernando Valenti, harpsichord / Wanda Landowska (1934), Playel harpsichord – Pristine Audio Nos. PAKM010 thru PKM027 & PAKM 004 for Landowska CD – [avail. in mono from Pristine Audio] *****: An amazing remastering of probably the best D. Scarlatti Sonatas ever. Domenico Scarlatti was one of the most amazing composers ever; the harpsichord (in spite of its lack of dynamism) is a fabulous-sounding instrument in the proper music. He was primarily an Italian (the son of Allesandro Scarlatti) a monk at the Spanish court at Escorial, who wrote over 550 little sonatas full of extraordinary energy and elan (they keep discovering new ones which is partly why there is no complete set of all of them), written in pairs to contrast and complementary to one another. Landowska had a metal-sounding board revival harpsichord which she convinced piano-maker Playel to build and offer for sale. She single-handly inserted the harpsichord into the music of the 20th century; in addition to these 1934 78s of Scarlatti (only 500 sets were pressed) convinced several famous composers to write harpsichord concerti. The speed at which she takes her favorite 20 Scarlatti sonatas is often astonishing, and […]
BERNSTEIN: Complete Solo Works for Piano – Andrew Cooperstock, piano – Bridge
BERNSTEIN: Complete Solo Works for Piano = Seven Anniversaries; Four Anniversaries; Five Anniversaries; Thirteen Anniversaries; Touches: Chorale, Eight Variations and Coda; Sonata for the Piano; Non Troppo Presto; Music for the Dance, No. II; Four Sabras; El Salon Mexico (arr. Bernstein); Bridal Suite; Three Encores – Andrew Cooperstock, piano – Bridge 9485A/B (2 CDs) 44:09; 60:13 (6/16/17) [Distr. by Albany] ****: The diverse range of Leonard Bernstein’s keyboard style has comprehensive realization from Andrew Cooperstock. Professor of Piano Andrew Cooperstock—at the University of Colorado Boulder—celebrates Leonard Bernstein’s centenary (1918-2018), with performances that feature the composer’s complete solo piano works. A special bonus lies in the witty and charming Bridal Suite for piano duet, composed in 1960 but published in 1989. In addition to the better known Anniversaries, Sonata for the Piano, and Touches, Andrew Cooperstock includes Leonard Bernstein’s very first published work, the highly effective transcription of Aaron Copland’s orchestral tone poem El Salón México, together with the Four Sabras, Non troppo presto, and Music for the Dance, No. II. This new recording features music from the composer’s teenage years through his late composition for the 1980 Van Cliburn Competition, Touches. Cooperstock includes music Bernstein dedicated to friends and distinguished […]
BACH: Solo Works for Marimba – Kuniko Kato-Linn
J. S. BACH: Solo Works for Marimba – Kuniko Kato-Linn CKD 585 : 79:04, 78:21 (6/23/17) *****: A deeply felt and perfectly realized expression of Bach solo works on marimba. On the phylogenetic tree of musical instruments, in terms of sound production, the ancient marimba would be a low branch. Its massive limb juts out with no further developments, fundamental, but non-dynamic in its organizing principles. Its evolutionary equivalent in biology might be the turtle, changeless and serene in its formal perfection. While the dinosaurs demonstrated a baroque inventiveness in the areas of feather and beak with spectacular results, the turtle didn’t wish to press its luck, preferring to stay inside its shell, the very symbol of conservatism. So it has been with the marimba: it remains a piece of wood perched on a sounding device, hit with a stick. (The evolutionary relationship of the marimba to the vibraphone is a matter of debate.) A hypothetical scenario of its origins comes readily to mind. By chance, a man hits a hollow log with a stick and then the larger log alongside with the stick in his other hand. Insight dawns as he arrives at the essential relation of sound […]
American Sonatas for Violin and Piano = IVES: Sonata No. 2; BOLCOM: Sonata No. 2; CORIGLIANO: Sonata – Ching-Yi Lin, violin /Zachary Lopes, piano – MSR Classics
American Sonatas for Violin and Piano = IVES: Sonata No. 2; BOLCOM: Sonata No. 2; CORIGLIANO: Sonata – Ching-Yi Lin, violin /Zachary Lopes, piano – MSR Classics MS 1553, 54:07, ****: Three diverse American violin sonatas that will please conservative modernists. In his 1958 “Young People’s Concerts” entitled, “What is American Music?” Leonard Bernstein answered the question by naming the diversity of the American musical personality as the primary element that defines our music. Each of the three composers represented in this cross section of 20th century American violin and piano sonatas represent that diversity—albeit conservative—that makes American music distinct. Charles Ives (1874-1954) became an independent Yankee individualist who composed music that was a combination of radical musical techniques (use of cross rhythms and polytonality and many layered textures) and the well-known music and sounds that he heard growing up in New England. His music could vacillate between the sublime and ridiculous. It could lead to spiritual redemption or a good laugh. Often it sounds familiar and new at the same time. Ives’ music is clearly American. After all, what’s more American than a cantankerous individualist who experiments with music, but becomes a millionaire selling insurance? Ives never had to […]
Eugene YSAŸE: 6 Sonatas for Solo Violin – Sharon Park – MSR Classics
Eugene YSAŸE: 6 Sonatas for Solo Violin – Sharon Park — MSR Classics MS 1631, 66:55—7/29/17, ****: Ysaÿe lived during an interesting period of history (1858-1923). Having witnessed the advances in the first third of the twentieth-century, his music reflects models of the old but in quite modern clothing. Dr. Sharon Park has recorded his six violin sonatas—a crowded field—that were originally modeled after the sonatas and partitas for solo violin by Bach. The title for Park’s recording is apt: Ysaÿe dedicated each one to a contemporary violinist, including Szigeti, Thibuad, Enescu, Kreisler, Crickboom, and Quiroga. Park currently enjoys a career with feet both worlds: she specializes in both chamber music and serves as lead second violinist in an orchestra. Her performance is captured with very ample reverb which worked best for me in my listening room with conventional two-way loudspeakers. Using headphones, I noticed ambient noise that is typically absent from top-shelf productions. But that slight hum was the only blemish in the production that showed polish by Park across all six sonatas. Ysaÿe was a violinist and his sonatas, when written, were state of the art. He employs every practical technique for performance, from extreme ranges of the […]
Lynelle James, piano = BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 28; ROSLAVETS: 5 Preludes; SCRIABIN: Piano Sonata No. 4; SCHUMANN: Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13 – Lynelle James, piano – Blue Griffin
Lynelle James, piano = BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101; ROSLAVETS: 5 Preludes; SCRIABIN: Piano Sonata No. 4 in F-sharp Major, Op. 30; SCHUMANN: Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13 – Lynelle James, piano – Blue Griffin BGR435, 61:28 (5/1/17) [Distr. by Albany] ****: A gifted pianist makes a resonant impression in a recital of diverse musical colors. Pianist Lynelle James recorded this recital 13-15 April 2016, which displays her capacity for rich colors in a variety of musical styles. After a somewhat hesitant—or just too slow—Allegretto ma non troppo opening for the 1816 Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major of Beethoven, Ms. James becomes more confident in her stride and declamations as the movement unfolds, and she finds excellent energy in the second, martial movement and the pungently contrapuntal last movement. As in many of the “later-style” Beethoven opera, this sonata condenses classical form into tight, cogent spaces, often indulging in sudden and canonic excursions into the minor modes of the main themes. The Allegro last movement enjoys an extremely fluent sense of musical transition, especially as the competing motor elements traverse a panoply of registers. The music of Nikolay Roslavets (1881-1944) has a special attraction […]
Pablo Casals and Rudolf Serkin: BEETHOVEN: Works for Cello and Piano – Pablo Casals, cello/ Rudolf Serkin, piano – Praga Digitals
BEETHOVEN: Works for Cello and Piano = Sonata in F Major, Op. 5, No. 1; Sonata in g minor, OP. 5, No. 2; Seven Variations on “Bein Maennern, welche Liebe fuehler” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, WoO 46; Twelve Variations on “Ein Maedchen oder Weibchen” from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Op. 66; Sonata in A Major, Op. 69; Sonata in C Major, Op. 102, No. 1; Sonata in d Major, Op. 102, No. 2; Twelve Variations on “See, the conqu’ring hero comes” from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, WoO 45 – Pablo Casals, cello/ Rudolf Serkin, piano – Praga Digitals PRD 250 372 (2 CDs) 80:35; 81:30 (6/16/17) [Distr. Harmonia mundi/PIAS] ****: Praga restores the classic set of Beethoven works for cello and piano by the legendary Casals and Serkin. Most lovers of the great cello masters will acknowledge Pablo Casals (1876-1973) as the legendary representative of the 19th Century “romantic” school of musicianship, which rather came to an end with the advent of Emanuel Feuerman. Casals collaborated with Bohemian pianist Rudolf Serkin (1903-1991) in 1952 and 1953 specifically to record Beethoven’s oeuvre for cello and piano, excluding the transcription of the Op. 17 Horn Sonata. The two veteran musicians had endured […]
BRAHMS: Piano Quintet in f; SCHUMANN: String Quartet No. 1 – M. Pressler, p./ Pacifica Q. – Cedille
An unusual pairing sets music of Brahms and Schumann together as masters of their respective idiom. BRAHMS: Piano Quintet in f, Op. 34; SCHUMANN: String Quartet No. 1 in a, Op. 41 – Menahem Pressler, p./ Pacifica Quartet – Cedille CDR 90000 170, 71:39 (3/10/17) [Distr. by Naxos] ****: The etiology of the Brahms 1865 Piano Quintet (rec. 19-21 November 2014) has become common parlance, its having experienced two prior incarnations, as both a string quintet and a sonata for two pianos. The latter incarnation still survives and occasionally finds acolytes (as Op. 34b) in devoted musicians who wish to endure what the composer lamented as its “lack of charm.” And true, the opening Allegro non troppo does project a sense of broad melancholy, set as two contrasting ideas which provide the through-composed nature of the entire movement. Pressler (at ninety-one) himself can still impress us with his suave, cascading runs. The “symphonic” aspect of the writing constantly urges the music to the limit of what the ensemble can project without distortion. Much of the music’s evolution takes cues from Beethoven and Schubert, particularly the latter’s combination of grandeur and intimate nostalgia. Menahem Pressler and the Pacifica Quartet take a […]
Stereotypes Audio
Cembal d’amour
Pure Pleasure / Speakers Corner
Cedille
