German cellist Gabriel
German cellist Gabriel Schwabe is in simply superb form on a new Naxos CD of solo sonatas by Zoltán Kodály and György Ligeti, with the equally fine violinist Hellen Weiß joining him in the Kodály Duo for Violin and Cello (8.574202 naxosdirect.com/ search/747313420278). Kodály’s Sonata for Solo Cello Op.8 dates from 1915, and has been recognised as the most significant work for solo cello since the Bach Suites. It’s a monumental work, given a thrilling performance here that explores every inch of its depth. Ligeti’s Sonata for Solo Cello is a relatively brief piece of two short movements that were written in 1948 and 1953 respectively but not heard in public until 1979 thanks to the political restrictions of the Hungarian Composers’ Union. The first movement shows a folk music influence, with the second movement inspired by the Paganini solo violin Caprices. Kodály’s Duo for Violin and Cello Op.7 from 1914 opens the disc. It’s a work that combines classical forms with the folk music in which Kodály was immersed at the time. Weiß’ violin is a Matteo Goffriller from 1698, Schwabe’s cello a G. Guarneri, Cremona from 1695-97. The sound they produce is quite superb. Restricted to his Berlin apartment by the cultural and social lockdowns earlier this year, violinist Daniel Hope wondered if he could find a way to perform from home but with top-quality sound. With the support of the TV broadcaster ARTE he turned his living room into a high-tech television studio and scheduled a six-week series of online chamber concerts with specially invited guests. The result was the Hope@Home livestream project, a series of recitals that was broadcast live on ARTE and on the Deutsche Grammophon YouTube channel, and from which the label has now released highlights as an album (483 9482 deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue). The pianist and composer Christoph Israel was involved from the start; he accompanies Hope on most of the tracks and also contributed several of the terrific arrangements. Every track is a live, single-take performance, with no editing. What strikes you first is the stunning sound quality. What strikes you second is Hope’s sumptuous playing – I’ve never heard him sound better. The 21 tracks include classical favourites like Schubert’s An die Musik, Fauré’s Après un rêve and Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise and popular standards like Moon River, Summertime, Autumn Leaves, La vie en rose and Over the Rainbow. It’s an absolute joy from start to finish. You may well have heard the opening track of City Lights, violinist Lisa Batiashvili’s new CD with conductor/pianist Nikoloz Rachveli on the classical radio channels, City memories – Chaplin offering sumptuous arrangements of two themes from Chaplin’s Limelight together with two from Modern Times, plus José Padilla Sánchez’s simply gorgeous La Violetera from City Lights. Batiashvili’s ravishing tone makes a captivating start to the disc, followed by a series of 11 special arrangements that offer multi-layered musical portraits of cities that are important to Batiashvili (Deutsche Grammophon 00289 483 8586 deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue). Nothing else quite reaches the heights of that first track, but short pieces representing Munich, Paris (Michel Legrand’s Paris Violon), Berlin, Helsinki, Vienna (the Strauss Furioso Galopp), Rome (Morricone’s Theme from Cinema Paradiso), Buenos Aires, New York, London, Bucharest and Tbilisi offer plenty to enjoy. Guest artists include guitarist Miloš Karadaglić on the Buenos Aires track. Orchestral accompaniments are shared by the Rudfunk- Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra. Batiashvili says that “for more than two years we put all our energy, love and dedication into this project. It became my most personal journey.” Her commitment and involvement shine through on every track. You can always count on violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja to come up with something different and interesting, and so it proves with her latest release What’s Next Vivaldi? with Il Giardino Armonico under Giovanni Antonini (ALPHA624 naxosdirect.com/ search/alpha624). The CD interweaves ultra-virtuosic concertos by Vivaldi with short pieces by current composers mostly commissioned specifically for this program. The five Vivaldi concertos are the Violin Concerto in E-flat Major “La tempesta di mare” Op.8 No.5 RV253 (complete with storm effects), the Violin Concerto in C Major RV191, the Concerto in E Minor for Four Violins and Strings from “L’estro armonico” Op.3 No.4 RV550, the extremely brief Concerto in G Minor for Strings RV157 and the Violin Concerto in D Major “Il Grosso Mogul” RV208, featuring some Kopatchinskaja improvisation in the slow movement and one of the very few extant cadenzas by Vivaldi in the finale – a long, unabridged and dazzling episode. Kopatchinskaja describes this recording as inviting Vivaldi into a time laboratory and engaging him in a dialogue with today’s creative voices from Italy, the five younger Italian composers having been asked to react to Vivaldi’s music in miniatures. The short contemporary works are by Aureliano Cattaneo, Luca Francesconi, Simone Movio, Marco Stroppa and Giovanni Sollima. It’s an intriguing disc full of top-drawer playing. The Estonian violinist Triin Ruubel is the soloist on Elgar Violin Concerto / Stenhammar Two Sentimental Romances with Neeme Järvi conducting the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (Sorel Classics SCCD016 naxosdirect.com/ search/sccd016). There’s a rather unsettling sound to the Elgar at times, with the orchestra tending to sound a bit too distant and with the soloist sometimes seeming to be buried in the general orchestral texture. Still, Ruubel is clearly a fine player and Järvi a hugely experienced and highly respected conductor, and there are many really lovely and finely crafted moments in an excellent performance of a notoriously long and difficult work. Stenhammar’s Two Sentimental Romances Op.28 – No.1 in A Major and No.2 in F Minor – are attractive and absolutely delightful pieces, with Ruubel clearly in her element with the Romantic nature of the music. It’s really lovely playing. Violist Georgina Isabel Rossi, who was born and raised in Chile, and pianist Silvie Cheng are the duo on MOBILI: Music for Viola and Piano from Chile, a CD featuring world-premiere recordings of works by the Chilean composers Rafael Diaz, Carlos Botto, Federico Heinlein and David Cortés (New Focus Recordings FCR268 newfocusrecordings.com/catalogue). The only work previously recorded is the four-movement title track, Mobili Op.63 by Juan Orrego-Salas, who passed away at 100 just a few weeks before the CD was recorded, and to whose memory the album is dedicated. The Diaz works are Will There Be Someone Whose Hands Can Sustain This Falling for amplified viola, and In the Depths of My Distance Your House Emerges for viola and piano. Botto’s Fantasia Op.15 from 1962 and Heinlein’s Duo “Do not go gentle” from 1985 are followed by Cortés’ Tololo, written in 2011 for viola and string orchestra and heard here in an arrangement for viola and piano by Miguel Farras. Carlos Guastavino’s really lovely El Sampedrino from 1968 is an extra track, not included in the booklet notes. Fine playing of introspective and quite atmospheric music that really exploits the viola’s sonority to the full, results in an excellent CD. 32 | November 2020 thewholenote.com
VOCAL JL Dussek – Messe Solomnelle Academy of Ancient Music; Richard Egarr AAM Records AAM011 (aam.co.uk) ! Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760- 1812) is one of Western music’s most underrated yet influential personas, credited with guiding the expansion of the pianoforte’s range to six octaves and being the first performing pianist to sit with his profile to the audience, rather than facing them head-on. In addition to his work as a performer, Dussek was also a prolific and inspired composer, writing works which feature great lyricism and striking contrasts. Although once respected and highly regarded throughout Europe, Dussek fell out of popular favour after his death and performances of his works remain unjustly rare today. Amidst this apparent neglect, the Academy of Ancient Music’s new recording of Dussek’s Messe Solemnelle shines a much-deserved light on this magnificent work and its creator. Discovered in the Conservatory Library in Florence in 2015, the manuscript score was transcribed by AAM director Richard Egarr and musicologist Reinhard Siegert, leading to its first modern performance in 2019. A late classical-era work, the mass is reminiscent of the works of Beethoven and Mozart, with Dussek’s own unique voice at the forefront. Throughout the Messe one is struck by the beautiful melodiousness and expert craft in each movement; nothing feels extraneous or unnecessary, but rather that every note is exactly where it needs to be, resulting in a sound that is effortless and streamlined. As we expect with Dussek, the dynamic contrasts are extraordinarily effective and contribute tremendous energy to the entire work, both within individual movements and between the larger sections of the mass itself. One of the world’s finest period instrument orchestras, the Academy of Ancient Music does not disappoint. From beginning to end, the care and attention they give to every musical subtlety and nuance breathes life into this newly discovered work, inviting listeners to embark on a journey of their own to discover Dussek and his Messe Solemnelle for themselves. Matthew Whitfield Mahler – Das Lied von der Erde Lucile Richardot; Yves Saelens; Het Collectief; Reinbert de Leeuw Alpha ALPHA633 (naxosdirect.com/items/ das-lied-von-der-erde-543432) ! The project to create a chamber version of Mahler’s 1908 orchestral song cycle Das Lied von der Erde was an initiative of Arnold Schoenberg, who intended to perform this reduction for 13 players for his Society for Private Musical Performances, an exclusive concert series devoted to new music which ran for three years from 1919 to 1921. Schoenberg indicated roughly how this might be achieved by annotating the full score, leaving the details to be worked out by an acolyte (likely Anton Webern). Ultimately, however, the project was abandoned as the Society went bankrupt due to the hyper-inflation that ravaged post-war Austria. In 1980 Universal Edition commissioned Rainer Riehn to make a performing edition of the score, which has proved compelling enough to have received over a dozen recordings to date. In 2019, the Belgian Het Collectief ensemble invited the esteemed Dutch maestro Reinbert de Leeuw, well known for his passionate advocacy for the music of Messiaen, Ligeti, Kagel, Kurtág, Vivier, Gubaidulina and Ustvolskaya, to create and perform his own interpretation of this autumnal masterpiece at the Saintes Festival in France in July of that year; sadly, this would prove to be his last public performance. Subsequently, an ailing de Leeuw implored Thomas Dieltjens, the artistic director of the ensemble, to record his arrangement as soon as possible. In February 2020, following the completion of the recording sessions in Amsterdam, de Leeuw died at the age of 81. De Leeuw’s version of the work for the most part follows the broad outlines of the Riehn version but amplifies it with the addition of a second clarinet, assigns the bassoon to double on the contrabassoon (its cavernous low C is an indispensable element in the finale) and, most tellingly, adds a harp part to the ensemble while curtailing the incongruous piano part to the bare essentials. Add to this the outstanding sonic alchemy of the recording team and de Leeuw’s finely balanced direction and the result is a performance that for the first time didn’t leave me feeling short-changed by the reduced ensemble. The stunning interpretation by the French mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot is notable for its intimacy and finely nuanced word painting while the Belgian tenor Yves Saelens lends an appropriate swagger to his alternating extroverted numbers. In the closing movement of the finale, Der Abschied (The Farewell) de Leeuw provides a touching detail: while the voice gradually recedes into darkness on the word “ewig” (forever) the ensemble maintains an inexorable clockwork indifference, ignoring the indicated diminuendo. The earth alone survives, “the horizon is ever blue.” Farewell, Reinbert! You will be greatly missed. Daniel Foley What we're listening to this month: thewholenote.com/listening Jaap Nico Hamburger: Piano Concerto Jaap Nico Hamburger This dramatic concerto is full of drive, explosive energy and pathos, reminiscent of the great works of Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Désordre Eric Huebner This virtuosic release of Ligeti’s etudes alongside his Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano underscores his attraction to various sources of inspiration. Once and Again Edward Smaldone A collection that balances "classical" values of formal cohesion with "modernist" values of capturing an improvisatory sensibility, asymmetry, and irregularity. Percussion Works Thomas Meadowcroft and Speak Percussion Speak Percussion is thrilled to announce the release of Percussion Works, a portrait of composer Thomas Meadowcroft’s works for percussion, released through Mode Records. thewholenote.com November 2020 | 33
