RECORDINGS

BARRY 1998; All day at home busy with my own affairs; Midday; Le vieux sourd; Baroness von Ritkart; In the Asylum; Ø; Triorchic Blues Fidelio Trio, Gerald Barry (piano) Rose Redgrave (viola)

MODE 332

Music that compels and irritates in equal measure

You never quite know where you stand with the music of inveterate Irish trickster Gerald Barry. Indeed, some of the pieces on this brilliantly deadpan, incisive disc from the Fidelio Trio and friends seem expressly designed as a dialogue between composer and performers, in terms of how far Barry can ask them to go. The early Ø for piano quartet tests ensemble co-ordination in increasingly challenging, mindnumbingly repetitive material, for example, while the gnomic Midday for violin and piano is like a musical Waiting for Godot: Barry imagines a character alone in a landscape anticipating a distant sound, which never arrives, in music of isolated sounds and semi-repetitions reminiscent of Feldman.

Most effective, though, is the way in which the Fidelio musicians play Barry’s musical jokes entirely straight, thereby capturing his elusive, is-he-being-serious-or-is-he-takingthe-mickey sensibility to a tee. Violinist Darragh Morgan and pianist Mary Dullea despatch the deranged, patience-testing march of 1998 with enjoyable rawness, even a certain restrained violence, and a bracing crispness to Morgan’s rasping bow strokes. And it’s hard to imagine a more committed, persuasive account of the piano trio In the Asylum, which speculates on three imaginary operas, misheard in conversation by the composer, in music of wild imagination – not least the explosive, somewhat inexplicable incorporation of the British national anthem just before the end. Like much of Barry’s music, the works here are partly fascinating, partly infuriating, but it’s his ability to captivate the listener only to send them down the garden path that makes his output so compelling. And in their faithful, quite hard-edged accounts, the Fidelio players match that tricksy skill perfectly.

DAVID KETTLE

THE KREUTZER PROJECT

Works by Beethoven, Clyne, Jacobsen and Janáček The Knights/Eric Jacobsen (violin)

AVIE AV2555

Beethoven forms a fertile starting point for an unusual concept album

Here’s a concept album with a difference – works that have in one way or another been influenced by Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata. Apart from the main work, also included are Janáček’s ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ First String Quartet, a piece by conductor Eric Jacobsen’s violinist-composer brother Colin entitled Kreutzings and Anna Clyne’s Shorthand, scored for cello (here, Karen Ouzounian) and strings, and based on motifs from the Beethoven sonata. To add a little extra musical spice, the Beethoven and Janáček pieces are performed in arrangements for small chamber orchestra.

Deadpan incisiveness from the Fidelio Trio

CHRISTOPHER BAINES

In the case of the Beethoven (now dubbed the ‘Kreutzer Concerto’), the effect is remarkably convincing: hearing all those pianistic figurations on sustaining instruments has the bracing effect of freeing the music from its domestic confines. Eric Jacobsen plays the solo part with commanding aplomb, and The Knights enter the fray with a real sense of occasion.

In certain respects, the transformative effect of the Janáček transcription is less startling (and some may object on principle to the notion of this music rendered more easily by a chamber ensemble, as opposed to four players straining at the leash). Yet once again, the sensation of the expressive power of the music being enhanced without the usual attendant sense of effort is persuasive.

Kreutzings and Shorthand form a captivating bridge between the two established pieces and are full of invention. A winning programme, captured in nicely in-depth sound.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

BERG Violin Concerto; Piano Sonata op.1 (orch. Davis); Passacaglia (orch. Davis); Three Orchestral Pieces op.6 James Ehnes (violin) BBC Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis

CHANDOS CHSA 5270

BERG Violin Concerto BRAHMS Violin Concerto Christian Tetzlaff (violin) Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Robin Ticciati

ONDINE ODE 1410-2

Two master violinists offer opposing views of Berg

Here are two new recordings of Berg’s Violin Concerto, by James Ehnes and Christian Tetzlaff, both worthy of attention. Ehnes’s CD comes with more Berg in the form of Andrew Davis’s idiomatic arrangements of the Piano Sonata and Passacaglia, and the Three Orchestral Pieces, all receiving translucent and probing performances. Tetzlaff pairs his Berg with Brahms.

Ehnes is the more Olympian of the two. He steadily warms his tone through the opening statement and continues as if musing, with freedom of phrasing and a touch of rubato.

The orchestra under Davis is a close partner. Ehnes is always primarily melodic, however many notes and accents he has to play at once. The second movement has the necessary vehemence, but here, too, whether hammering out the triple-stopped rhythmic motif pesante as directed, or weaving together the threeand four-part writing of the later tranquillo passage, he maintains poise and tonal beauty. The final pages are timeless and ethereal. This is an expansive reading, always ready to stop and smell the flowers along the way, but never losing sight of its sure narrative line. The orchestral playing is exceptional, and the recorded sound beautifully clear.

In the booklet note to his release, Christian Tetzlaff declares the concerto ‘exclusively concerns extreme states of the human soul’, and he talks through its workings in great detail. He is considerably brisker than Ehnes and comes in nearly two minutes shorter. The opening is purposeful and urgent, and the later Allegretto is capricious and dynamically fluid: he and his colleagues pay close attention to Berg’s hairpins, rendering them dramatic, emphatic and imbued with nervous energy. The Ländler offers a rare moment of repose. Tetzlaff sounds frantic in the opening of the second movement and the multiplestopped theme is hard-bitten – even the tranquillo passages are not exactly tranquil, though the final section has a sublime beauty and the recording is excellent, placing Tetzlaff to the fore.

These are very different readings of Berg’s concerto, equally fine in their own ways, with Ehnes other-worldly and Tetzlaff emotionally vivid.

Tetzlaff’s performance of the Brahms Concerto is brisk, and his interpretation at times feels very much of the moment, as if tomorrow he might play it differently. The first movement’s second subject is deliciously languid, but always moving onwards, and he develops increasing excitement and momentum in the build-up to the great tutti. He launches into the central section of the second movement in a burst of vibrato-rich passion, and drives through the finale with fierce joy.

TIM HOMFRAY

BRAHMS Sonata for violin and piano in D minor op.108 YSAŸE Sonata for solo violin in G minor op.27 no.1; works by Aulin, Chopin, Cui, Glinka, Saint-Saëns, Yamada and Zimbalist Efrem Zimbalist (violin) Samuel Chotzinoff, Francis Moore, Emanuel Bay, Harry Kaufman (pianos) Victor Orchestra/Walter B. Rogers

BIDDULPH 85018-2

Stellar playing from a violin legend leaves a reviewer wanting more

Biddulph is resuscitating Bryan Crimp’s APR Auer School series. Its Zimbalist CD adds extra pieces but this scandalously neglected great artist needs a two-disc set.

Gut strings worked well with acoustic recording techniques and the first eight tracks are full of atmosphere, especially Cui’s Orientale and Zimbalist’s Hebrew Song and Dance, while his Polish Dance displays his haunting cantilena and Glinka’s Lark features fine double-stopping. With Glinka’s Persian Song we enter the electric era and Zimbalist’s pearly legato becomes clearer – this piece incorporates a delicate glissando. Chopin’s Waltz in G flat major really dances, Yamada’s Japanese Lullaby has a graceful soft ending and Zimbalist’s Improvisation on a Japanese Tune is beautiful.

Electrifying Ysaÿe from Efrem Zimbalist

I would trade the Brahms Sonata – well played but badly balanced à la Heifetz and taken from noisy discs – for some of Zimbalist’s electrifying Sarasate. You enter a different world with Ysaÿe’s Solo Sonata, one of the great violin recordings, forwardly recorded in 1939 and sublimely played, with sparing vibrato.

A regret: there would have been room for the exquisite Andantino from Reger’s solo sonata op.42 no.2.

TULLY POTTER

GÁL Piano Quartet in A major; Piano Suite op.24, Concertino for piano and string orchestra op.43; Impromptu for viola and piano Members of the Aron Quartet, Hartmut Rohde (viola) Gottlieb Wallisch (piano) Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra

CPO 555 276-2

A Paul Wittgenstein commission forms a striking centrepiece

Hans Gál wrote his Quartet in A major for piano left hand and string trio for Paul Wittgenstein in 1926. The first movement has an emphatic dance-like opening which soon leads into a more contemplative passage, the strings passing phrases and melodies to each other as the piano ripples along. These alternations of robust assertion and gentle musing continue throughout the movement, with eloquent, shapely phrasing from the players and deft pacing. Violinist Barna Kobori leads off the second movement with lightness and energy, qualities quickly picked up by his colleagues. Here again strength and pliant expression co-exist, with the piano providing driving rhythmic impetus. The Adagio has something of a lullaby about it, its dreaming melodies lovingly sculpted. The strings open the finale, spiky and busy, biting into the strings, before the piano calms the mood. Hartmut Rohde’s playing of the short and beautifully crafted Impromptu is simple and affecting.

The excellent pianist Gottlieb Wallisch has the lion’s share of the disc, showing characterful playing in both the compact Suite of 1942 and the Concertino, ably partnered in the latter by the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra under Rohde. The recording is warm and clear.

TIM HOMFRAY

GRIEG Sonata for cello and piano op.36; Intermezzo in A minor; Sonata no.3 for violin and piano op.45 and various songs (arr. Müller-Schott) Daniel Müller-Schott (cello) Herbert Schuch (piano)

ORFEO C 240221

Cello originals and borrowings played with great allure

Songs and piano music were the genres that provided the chief inspiration for Grieg, and this wonderfully recorded CD eloquently shows their impact on his chamber music, not least in the evocative Andante of the Cello Sonata, to which Daniel Müller-Schott brings captivating simplicity to the folk-like melody. Stylistically the music veers between the richness of Brahms and the emotional turbulence of Schumann, from the introspective to the fiery; Müller-Schott really emphasises these conflicting elements, with driving tempos ameliorated by the tenderest of phrasing, using his vibrato to good effect through colour and nuance. Herbert Schuch negotiates the thickly virtuosic piano parts with a steely nerve, weaving in and out of prominence at a moment’s notice.

Müller-Schott and Schuch: virtuosic Grieg

ANKE KIENITZ-KIRK

IRÈNE ZANDEL

Arrangements by Müller-Schott form the lion’s share of the disc, and he proves particularly astute in forging idiomatic writing for his instrument. The full range of the cello is deployed: the C minor Violin Sonata a familiar friend with a new outfit. It works beautifully, sounding as if it were originally written for the cello – always the acid test. The instrument’s cantabile qualities ensure that the selection of Grieg song transcriptions works equally well, with Müller-Schott presenting a nicely wide-ranging choice.

JOANNE TALBOT

HAYDN String quartets: in D minor op.42, in G major op.77 no.1, in F major op.77 no.2, in D minor op.103 Takács Quartet

HYPERION CDA 68364

Panache and playfulness from a revered quartet

These perceptive performances combine formidable technical expertise and keen artistic sensibility. Leader Edward Dusinberre predominates in op.77 no.1, negotiating Haydn’s passagework with panache, especially in the Hungarianesque finale. The other works’ more democratic role distribution allows greater involvement for all, particularly in op.77 no.2’s Andante and finale and in sophisticated conversational textures such as in the first two movements of op.42. Tonal differences between the two violinists help to clarify the detail of the dialogue but occasionally impact unsympathetically on the blend of the ensemble.

These players bring a telling sense of timing to structural cruxes, introducing a rhythmic flexibility that intensifies the music’s meaning. They shape slow movements with affection and a sure feeling for the long line and draw full value from Haydn’s digressions to remote keys, as in the first movement of op.77 no.2 or the Andante grazioso of the unfinished op.103. Especially striking is their keen realisation of expressive indications, notably their subtle fz treatments in the opening movement of op.42, their effective sotto voce in op.77 no.2’s Allegro moderato and their hushed pianissimos, particularly at the end of op.42’s Adagio and finale. Somewhat tiresome, though, is their persistent rhyhmic hiccup before every contrasting forte in op.77 no.1’s trio. The recording combines immediacy with a pleasing ambient warmth.

ROBIN STOWELL

HAYDN Cello concertos: no.1 in C major, no.2 in D major; Symphony no.13 in D major (Adagio cantabile) HINDEMITH Trauermusik Christian Poltéra (cello) Munich Chamber Orchestra

BIS BIS-2507 (SACD)

Haydn and Hindemith make strikingly sympathetic bedfellows

Christian Poltéra is front and centre in these vivacious performances of Haydn’s two cello concertos. His ‘Mara’ Stradivari is in fine voice, throaty and gruff in chivvying low-register passages but singing plangently in the high-lying lyrical writing that is such a feature of both works. That’s especially appropriate in the D major Concerto, now thought to have been composed for a certain James Cervetto, principal cellist of the Italian Opera in London, whose playing was likened (by Charles Burney, no less) to ‘the best tenor voices’. The white-walled Himmelfahrtskirche in the southwest of Munich offers generous resonance to the slightly recessed Munich Chamber Orchestra, without compromising the impact of woodwind and horns.

Christian Poltéra and his singing Stradivari

The cello remained a favourite instrument of Haydn’s, and he gave it impromptu solos in a number of his symphonies, right up until the Trio of no.102 in 1794. Symphony no.13 dates from three decades earlier; its Adagio cantabile is a sweetly appealing concerto slow movement in all but name, with a chaste accompaniment of strings without woodwind. A more surprising coupling is Poltéra’s assumption of the solo viola part in Hindemith’s Trauermusik, a work that perhaps takes on an unintended significance at the time of writing (early to mid-September). This was composed literally overnight following the announcement of the death of King George V in 1936, and copied, rehearsed, performed (under Adrian Boult) and broadcast in his memory within 48 hours. It represents Gebrauchsmusik in its truest form: music of the utmost practicality but which can still touch the heart. Haydn would surely have approved.

DAVID THREASHER

HEMSI Greek Nuptial Dances; Three Ancient Airs; Pilpúl Sonata; Viola Quintet; Méditation ARC Ensemble

CHANDOS CHAN 20243

A striking journey into a Sephardic world

Born on the western coast of Turkey into a Sephardic Jewish family, Alberto Hemsi (1898–1975) led an unsettled life, having on several occasions to leave everything behind and rebuild his life anew. He studied at the Milan Conservatory (his parents hailed from Livorno) and spent a large part of his professional life in Egypt before emigrating to Paris, where he died in 1975. Starting around 1920, Hemsi devoted himself to collecting Sephardic folk music. He published a set of some 60 coplas sefardíes, and consistently drew on the riches of this and other folk traditions for his own music. The present collection, beautifully recorded in Toronto by the Royal Conservatory’s ensemble-inresidence, gives a most interesting overview of Hemsi’s chamber music for strings.

Sephardic strings from the ARC Ensemble

In Méditation the cello rhapsodises ‘in the Armenian style’ against the piano’s harmonic buttress. The Greek Nuptial Dances, idiomatically set for the same instrumental combination, remind us that Hemsi grew up on the Aegean coast. Both pieces are forcefully performed by Tom Wiebe and Kevin Ahfat. The Pilpúl Sonata for violin and piano and Three Ancient Songs for string quartet are inspired by Sephardic music, the former incorporating more modern, jazzy elements (convincingly welded together by Emily Kruspe), while the latter are sophisticated settings of traditional songs collected by Hemsi. The Viola Quintet, dedicated to the Hungarian–Israeli violist Ödön Partos, is rather a mini-concerto for viola accompanied by a string quartet. Steven Dann finds the right balance as primus inter pares in a charming reading that makes much of the music’s playful rhythms.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

RUSSIAN BALLADS Works by Kissin, Prokofiev and Shostakovich Gabriel Schwabe (cello) Roland Pöntinen (piano)

NAXOS 8.574377

Emotionalism allied to full tone compel in this Russian odyssey

Gabriel Schwabe has been an exclusive Naxos artist since 2015 and can boast fine recordings of the Schumann (conducted by the late Lars Vogt), Elgar and both Saint-Saëns cello concertos. The emotional directness of the Russian repertoire here is especially well-suited to Schwabe’s lithe, open sound, which projects through piano textures without any sense of strain. No less characteristic is his use of the bowing arm to articulate subtle changes in tonal colour and intensity.

He captures the Russian melancholy that lies at the heart of the Shostakovich sonata, as well as its soulful cantabile. Even the driving string-crossings of the secondmovement scherzo emerge in full-toned phrases, rather than the more usual high-pressure assault.

Schwabe responds to Prokofiev’s very different sound world with an athletically buoyant sound akin to a tenor violin, matched by Roland Pöntinen’s highly articulate negotiation of the tricky piano part. The sonata flows engagingly, with musical events appearing to merge naturally rather than being set on a collision course; even the early op.15 Ballade emerges as a cohesive structure.

Schwabe and Pöntinen’s unvarnished intensity also proves a perfect fit for the dark imaginings and yearning introspection of Evgeny Kissin’s single-movement sonata.

Grether and Lively in a varied mix of Ravel

CHAUVIN PHOTO FRANCK JUERY. GRETHER PHOTO COURTESY APARTÉ

JULIAN HAYLOCK

RAVEL Complete works for violin and piano Elsa Grether (violin) David Lively (piano)

APARTÉ AP295

A complete cycle is spiced by some world-premiere arrangements

Apart from demonstrating Ravel’s wide-ranging stylistic influences – the Gypsy exoticism of Tzigane, the Blues movement of the Violin Sonata in G major, the popular foxtrot from L’enfant et les sortilèges and traditional Hebrew songs in the Deux mélodies hébraïques – this disc disproves Ravel’s claim that violin and piano are ‘essentially incompatible’. Furthermore, Grether and Lively are always stylistically, emotionally and tonally in sync.

The contrapuntal strands of the G major Violin Sonata’s first movement are distinctive yet also delicate and luminous; whereas the climax is suitably bold and alarming (the tremolo violin arpeggios here recalling those in the Piano Concerto’s Adagio, making that movement’s inclusion here, suitably arranged, more revealing). The ‘Blues’ movement has, in the hands of these two musicians, the perfect cocktail of American groove and French nonchalance.

The Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré reflects the prayerful simplicity of the preceding (first) Violin Sonata’s opening, and contrasts starkly with the scintillating vaudeville of the ‘Five o’clock Foxtrot’ from L’enfant.

The disc closes with Tzigane. Grether conjures a sense of mystery during the slow introduction but also negotiates with ease the high harmonics and the shower of alternating right- and left-hand pizzicato elsewhere. Combining speed and precision, there’s a dizzying dash to the end. The recording quality matches the detail of the playing, making this album a persuasive enquiry into Ravel’s kaleidoscopic art.

EDWARD BHESANIA

VIVALDI CONCERTI PER VIOLINO X ‘INTORNO A PISENDEL’ VIVALDI

Violin concertos: in D major RV225, in D major RV226, in D minor RV237, in G major RV314, in A major RV340, in B flat major RV369 Le Concert de la Loge/ Julien Chauvin (violin)

NAÏVE OP 7546

Brilliance and beauty combine in the latest volume of a Vivaldian epic

This disc’s title alludes to Vivaldi’s influence on his pupil and friend, Johann Pisendel, and Pisendel’s significance in later disseminating that influence from his Dresden base. The concertos RV237, 314 and 340 were composed expressly for Pisendel, who also copied many of the maestro’s other scores for his own use.

Playing a period instrument (by Giuseppe Guadagnini, 1780) with some modern fittings, Julien Chauvin is an extrovert soloist, secure in every respect, with an enviable technical facility, finedrawn tone, lyrical poise, incisive articulation and wide dynamic range. He drives his troops hard in the fast outer movements, setting spry tempos that are exhilarating to behold, and he throws off all the pyrotechnics with aplomb, most notably in the high registers demanded in the finales of RV225 and 369 and the accompanied cadenzas in the first movement of RV225 and finale of RV314.

The members of Le Concert respond with stylish, energetic, crisply articulated accompaniments and demonstrate their versatility in the central slow movements, supporting Chauvin’s expressive, shapely lines with a variety of textures, including soloists from the ensemble’s ranks in RV369, pizzicato strings and continuo in RV226 and 314 and continuo alone in RV225. The well-balanced recording is audibly close but firmly focused and agreeably reverberant.

ROBIN STOWELL

Extrovert Vivaldi interpreter Julien Chauvin

DIGITAL MIST Works by George Tsontakis, Sebastian Currier, Nathan Currier and Chen Yi Patrick Yim (violin) Kiu Tung Poon (piano) Sebastian Currier (sound samples)

NAXOS 8.559903

Atmosphere aplenty in this wide-ranging recital

It’s a pretty personal selection of US violin music from the past four decades that Honolulu-born Patrick Yim has chosen for this eclectic but rewarding disc. And though, taken from end to end, it adds up to a bit of a disconcerting listen, the wideranging repertoire nonetheless serves to show up many sides of Yim’s deeply expressive, finely nuanced playing. He’s faithful to the quicksilver mood swings of George Tsontakis’s aphoristic, expressionistic Three Sighs, Three Variations, for example, and tackles the scattergun musical allusions and quotations (from Schubert via Rachmaninoff to Messiaen and beyond) within Nathan Currier’s Hush Cries the Lamb in a way that almost makes sense of the composer’s restlessly shifting music.

The disc’s highlight is the piece that gives it its title, by Nathan’s brother Sebastian: his accompanying sound samples act like an enormous piano sustaining pedal, amplifying, transforming and even sometimes prefiguring the sounds produced by Yim and pianist Kiu Tung Poon, who’s an effective presence throughout. The result is a haunted, atmospheric work, one that slips in and out of tonality, and which allows Yim a real opportunity to display his immaculate technique, with expressive, ever-changing vibrato and minutely considered tonal variations matching the music’s fluctuating emotions. Three short pieces by Chen Yi round off the disc, offering contrasting evocations of traditional Chinese music, nimbly played by Yim. One note of warning: the extremely close recording captures every detail of bowing, vibrato and phrasing, shining a fierce spotlight on Yim’s impressive technique, but in a somewhat cold, analytical manner that doesn’t offer much warmth or resonance.

DAVID KETTLE

Barokksolistene: hand-in-glove ensemble playing

THERESA PEWAL

THE PLAYHOUSE SESSIONS Barokksolistene/Bjarte Eike (violin)

RUBICON RCD1096

Rip-roaring music making effortlessly melds ancient and modern

Imagine a 17th-century jam session in a London pub with some implausibly musical Norwegian sailors on shore leave, plus cameos from a barmaid, and you begin to get the idea of this congenially off-thewall concept album: a sequel to the wildfire success of The Alehouse Sessions from 2017, and trading off the same fusion of Baroque, folk and jazz styles.

Thankfully for replay value, no one involved sounds too far under the influence. Indeed, the suave arches of Bjarte Eike’s violin on an Adagio from Purcell’s Come ye sons of art would grace any recording of the anthem proper – until, that is, a jazz bass steals in and bends the music towards the rapturous ‘Glitt’ring Queen’ aria from the Yorkshire Feast Song.

Voices and solo strings intertwine throughout, as do 16th- and 21stcentury sensibilities. Eike’s own arrangements impart a melancholy swing to numbers from Playford’s The Dancing Master such as ‘Beggar Boy’ and ‘All in a garden green’. At the core of the album’s appeal is not only the shrewdly researched repertoire and uninhibited fantasy of the arrangements but some hand-inglove ensemble playing conditioned by a thorough grasp of English Baroque aesthetic and gesture.

Take the softly drooping phrases of Niel Gow’s Lament for his wife, the passing metres in Purcell’s setting of the ‘Willow Song’ from Othello, or the deliciously held, consort-like suspensions that stretch out another set of instrumental dances titled after The Irish Washer-Woman. Warm and cosy studio sound ushers you to a fireside seat in the Dog and Duck circa 1690, minus the rats.

PETER QUANTRILL