Reviews

Your monthly critical round-up of performances, recordings and publications

New York

ALENA BAEVA (VIOLIN) NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC/PAAVO JÄRVI DAVID GEFFEN HALL 17 NOVEMBER 2023

The New York Philharmonic’s concert began in dramatic style with Estonian composer Veljo Tormis’s Overture no.2, with furious playing in the strings and energised percussion before the frenzy dissolved into a touching cello solo played by Patrick Jee.

Britten’s Violin Concerto followed, marking the New York Philharmonic debut of Alena Baeva, a violinist who fled Kyrgyzstan as a child and grew up in Kazakhstan. Immediately her sweetness of tone captured the ear and she proved herself to be an artist possessing both elegance and power. She addressed Britten’s virtuosic runs, double-stops, up-bow spiccato and all manner of technical challenges with precision and flair. The second- movement Vivace began with confidence and, even in its most technically daunting moments, Baeva was completely in control of sound production, tone colour and phrasing, skilfully navigating Britten’s challenges with playing full of purpose and character. The way she pulled sound out of the violin was utterly captivating – whether in high position on the G string or the E string – and throughout the work, her poise and precision carried through. I was happy to see a standing ovation from many, and as an encore she played the first movement of Ysaÿe’s Solo Violin Sonata no.5, again displaying power and elegance in tandem.

Prokofiev’s Symphony no.6 followed the interval, with poignant viola solos played by Rebecca Young and an interpretation that captured the pain of the cultural moment in which the symphony was written – mirroring the pain in our world now.

LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH

SYBARITE 5

THE CRYPT AT THE CHURCH OF THE INTERCESSION 30 NOVEMBER 2023

Rhythmic energy was a driving force throughout Sybarite 5’s programme, presented by Death of Classical in the Crypt at the Church of the Intercession. I was immediately taken by the electricity of the interplay between second violin and viola in Chris Thile’s Movement and Location, the opening work. Yann’s Flight by Shawn Conley painted a sound picture of aerial movement, highlighted by unisons played with impressive clarity and precise intonation. Perhaps the ricochet of the violins and the arpeggiation of the viola detracted a bit from the melodic line in Radiohead’s Weird Fishes, but Laura Kaminsky’s Overflow (receiving its world premiere) suggested that beauty of sound – reflecting the world’s physical beauty – can exist within a harsh cultural moment, as expressed in aggressive chords and semiquavers.

Three of Komitas’s Armenian folksongs (arranged by Sybarite 5) followed, with the first especially soulful. Latin bassist and composer Pedro Giraudo’s Con un nudo en la garganta was also quite beautiful, marrying well rhythmic energy and melodic intent. Next came an arrangement of Mahler’s Adagietto from his Symphony no.5 and the grit in the ensemble sound made for a raw and very human approach to this profoundly moving work.

Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov’s My Desert, My Rose concluded the programme and Sybarite 5’s rhythmic drive and passionate melodic lines brought this robust work to an intense climax and the unforgettable evening to a close. Presenter Andrew Ousley did it again:bringing extraordinary artists to an innovative setting and a highly appreciative audience.

LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH

Philadelphia

SHEKU KANNEH-MASON (CELLO)

PERELMAN THEATER 7 NOVEMBER 2023

Given the extraordinary cellists who have played Bach’s Cello Suite no.2 over the past few centuries since its rediscovery, something unusual is happening when it opens an evening – and the audience responds with a 30-second ovation. That happened at Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s concert, his first appearance at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society in four years.

There are, of course, numerous ways of engaging with the suite. Kanneh-Mason proceeded to make it his own, creating an ever-probing narrative, with acutely judged dynamic contrasts ranging from the verge of inaudibility all the way to roaring lunges: I’ve never thought of this suite as a thrilling adventure until now. Britten’s First Cello Suite closed the opening half, with similar thoughtfulness and profundity, as Kanneh-Mason often seemed lost in delight at the composer’s constantly evolving landscape.

As the soft-spoken cellist introduced three works commissioned for him, a microphone might have been welcome. But when his 1700 Matteo Gofriller instrument sprang to life, its tone did the talking, blooming luxuriantly in the hall. All made strong impressions, starting with Prayer for the Senses (2022) by Welsh pianist/composer Gwilym Simcock, who nods to Bach with appealing contrapuntalism. Leo Brouwer’s Cello Sonata no.2 (2020), has roots in the Cuban composer’s guitar expertise, and this was followed by Five Preludes (2022) by Edmund Finnis, with the striking harmonics in no.4 being particularly memorable. The evening closed with Gaspar Cassadó’s Suite for Solo Cello (1926), a non-stop flood of virtuosity that again brought the capacity audience to its feet.

As an arrestingly non-traditional encore, the cellist put down his bow for a gentle, all-pizzicato version of ‘She Used to Call Me Dada’ by reggae legend Bob Marley.

BRUCE HODGES

MARIA IOUDENITCH, CLAIRE BOURG (VIOLINS) HAYANG PARK, BETH GUTERMAN CHU (VIOLAS) CHRISTOPH RICHTER (CELLO)

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 14 NOVEMBER 2023

Launched in the 1950s, Music from Marlboro has become one of the world’s pre-eminent festivals, in which both players and audiences go to be immersed in the joys of chamber music. In his opening remarks for this concert, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society artistic director Miles Cohen commented both on the festival’s history and the time spent rehearsing for this concert (which clearly paid off).

The evening began with Haydn’s Quartet in G major op.77 no.1, and it would be hard to imagine a foursome – Maria Ioudenitch, Claire Bourg, Hayang Park and Christoph Richter – having more fun. In their hands, the sprightly opening movement, with bow strokes creating happy, cricket-like chirping, was matched by the gleeful precision in the final two movements, with the Adagio offering a serene respite.

In his notes for Viola, Viola (1997) George Benjamin wrote that he wanted ‘to conjure an almost orchestral depth and variety of sound’. Beth Guterman Chu joined Park to realise his intentions, as if forging a Mahler symphony in a mere nine minutes. For fun, I was imagining a similar work called Violin, Violin or Cello, Cello, but neither could emulate the throaty resonance that the composer – and this duo – mined so successfully.

After the interval came a gorgeously textured excerpt from Walker’s Lyric for Strings, arranged for quartet. Given all that came before, anticipation was high for the final piece: Mendelssohn’s Quartet op.44 no.3. I’m happy to report that its exuberance did not disappoint.

BRUCE HODGES

BROOKLYN RIDER

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY 21 NOVEMBER 2023

In his lively notes for this evening with Brooklyn Rider, titled ‘Sandbox of Invention’, violist Nicholas Cords described Haydn’s C major Quartet op.20 no.2, nicknamed ‘Sun’, as a ‘veritable playground of flattened hierarchy, mirroring the contemporaneous philosophical and political shifts under way during the Age of Enlightenment’. Given the reading with his colleagues – Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen (violins) and Michael Nicolas (cello) – the operative word was ‘playground’, with all four players relishing moments of sunny delight.

Gandelsman introduced three works from the group’s latest Brooklyn Rider Almanac and encouraged the audience to imagine a film synced to Clarice Assad’s Cinematheque, which turned out to be packed with unbridled energy, and worthy of Martin Scorsese or David Lynch. Then came Tyshawn Sorey’s (untitled), which bore a cinematic presence as well – less nervous and more contemplative, with spare, glassy, slowly shifting textures. The final part of the trio, American Studies by Gabriel Kahane, had a wiry, hymn-like aura sparked with folk fiddling. Aside from the instrumental expertise, what was evident during this concert was a love not only for Americana, but also for exploring the outer realms of contemporary composition.

The second half began with Gubaidulina’s Reflections on the Theme B-A-C-H (2002), with its shimmering array of tremolos, glissandos and pitches at the upper end of the spectrum. And then with surprising insight, the foursome continued attacca into Schumann’s Quartet in A minor op.41 no.1, which somehow made the perfect ending to a tautly absorbing evening.

BRUCE HODGES

London

CHLOË HANSLIP (VIOLIN) DANNY DRIVER (PIANO)

WIGMORE HALL 29 OCTOBER 2023

In this Wigmore Hall Sunday Morning Concert, Chloë Hanslip and Danny Driver delivered a pre-lunch concert equivalent of a roast with all the trimmings. To start with, the partnership is strong: the two seamlessly trading phrases in the first movement of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata op.12 no.1 and matching each other in brilliance and, in the movement’s development, in richer tonal shading. The precision of Hanslip’s left hand in fast passages was striking and she infused accompanying figures with as much care as ‘solo’ material. If there was just a shade of relaxed lyricism missing, that wasn’t the case in Amy Beach’s Romance, Hanslip sinking gratifyingly into its bygone-era salonesque idiom and offering generous bottom-string richness.

Strauss’s sonata was the showstopper, though. Hanslip’s expression was effusive in the first movement, which both players kept charged with driving momentum. Blazing climaxes took on a thrilling, almost Expressionistic edge. After a reflective, lyrical second movement, the finale brought more fireworks; Danny Driver’s contribution – offering dynamic, precise and intelligent playing of the fiendish, orchestrally conceived piano part – was remarkable. It was a performance to set the blood racing: just the thing to work up an appetite.

EDWARD BHESANIA

JAMES EHNES (VIOLIN) PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA/PAAVO JÄRVI

ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL 26 NOVEMBER 2023

James Ehnes appeared at this afternoon concert as a replacement for pianist Daniil Trifonov, and the less-than-capacity audience heard instead a remarkable performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. With Ehnes, remarkable always seems to come as standard, but he still gave a masterclass in what can be done with a violin. After the brisk opening he produced some gossamer playing, fluent and free, and built steadily through melodies and technical fireworks alike. The second subject was sumptuous, growing organically from quiet simplicity to soaring rapture and onward to the great orchestral tutti. The staccato semiquaver variant of the opening theme, capricious and charming, was immaculate in all its varieties of bowing, and the cadenza was finely shaped, both brilliant and musically captivating.

The second-movement Canzonetta was eloquent, expressive and moving, aided by some beautiful contributions from clarinet and flute. As marked, Ehnes played with a mute throughout (which is not to be taken for granted – why do some fiddle players think they know better than the composer?). The finale combined dynamism, drama and precision. Afterwards Ehnes played Ysaÿe’s Third Solo Sonata in the best virtuoso encore style, compelling and viscerally exciting.

The Philharmonia with Paavo Järvi, who had been fine partners to Ehnes, went on to give an impressive account of Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony in E flat minor (surely a key only a pianist could love).

TIM HOMFRAY

GIL SHAHAM (VIOLIN) PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA/SANTTU-MATIAS ROUVALI

ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL 3 DECEMBER 2023

This Philharmonia concert had a good Christmas Sunday afternoon family programme, with Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty at the end and Dvořák to begin. The orchestra gave dashing accounts of the first three of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances op.46, before Gil Shaham came on to perform the A minor Violin Concerto. This is essentially an upbeat piece, but should anyone have been in any doubt, Shaham had a beaming smile on his face, which remained there pretty much throughout the concerto. He got the bit between his teeth straight away, with playing of boundless vitality, robust and brilliant, seemingly relishing his own virtuosity. After the long fluent opening statement of the second movement, he was firm-toned in the central section, in the company of some fine horn playing, and produced exquisite pianissimos and some shapely passagework after the trumpet fanfares.

Shaham revelled in the dance rhythms of the finale, leaning into the rhythmic heart of every phrase and all but singing along with the orchestra when he wasn’t playing. It was all done with an ease and panache which belied its technical demands. He ended with a terrific virtuoso flourish and another broad grin. The orchestra under Santtu-Matias Rouvali was an excellent, sensitive partner.

TIM HOMFRAY

BEETHOVEN Complete Piano Trios: op.1 nos.1–3, op.70 nos.1 ‘Ghost’ and 2, op.97 ‘Archduke’; Variations op.44, op.121a Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio

BRIDGE BRIDGE9505AC (3 CDS)

A fine Beethoven cycle enters a much-recorded arena

The Weiss Kaplan Stumpf Trio is not a regular recording ensemble: it has appeared on albums dedicated to the music of Lerdahl and Lansky, and some years ago released a disc of trios by Brahms and Smetana. The three musicians have, however, been performing together for over 20 years, specialising in Beethoven.

Now the group offers a recording coupling the six ‘standard’ piano trios and a pair of variation sets. The designation ‘complete’ isn’t quite true: missing are the early WoO38, a couple of single-movement Allegrettos and op.11, in which the violin often substitutes for the specified clarinet – all works that are included on complete sets by the likes of the Florestan and Wanderer trios. This new set, however, mixes up the trios to form satisfying programmes.

It’s an attractive prospect, and in the main the performances satisfy on their own terms. Violinist Mark Kaplan plays a Stradivari from 1685, cellist Peter Stumpf a 1642 Amati, with pianist Yael Weiss on a standard concert Steinway. The microphones come in fairly close (the recordings were made in 2019 at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York) and catch occasional breath and finger sounds but reveal these musicians’ consistent sincerity of utterance and observance of Beethoven’s detailed markings. The ‘Ghost’ Trio opens proceedings and illustrates the group’s strengths: unanimity of ensemble and clarity of line, Weiss’s piano providing the propulsive power in faster music but all borne along upon the refined support of Stumpf ’s cello. Kaplan’s violin tone is slender rather than refulgent; an occasional rasp and one or two untucked corners might have been smoothed over with an additional take or two but contribute to the vividness of the music making. The players seem happiest in livelier writing: the slow movement that gives the ‘Ghost’ its name lacks the gothic chill found by other groups. It’s no surprise that the op.1 Trios, with their essentially 18th-century aesthetic, are among the highlights here, the C minor (no.3) especially gripping in its Sturm und Drang intensity. Lighter moments in the later works, such as the Scherzo of the ‘Archduke’, also come off well, and the two sets of variations are finely characterised. Turn, though, to the Vienna Piano Trio (Nimbus) in the First Trio’s Adagio the better to hear the awed depths the young composer was capable of plumbing in more tender music.

Weiss, Kaplan and Stumpf save the best till last – the Trio op.70 no.2 – which so often seems to struggle to transcend the shadow of its more popular named neighbours. It sounds as if this is the piece these musicians have most enjoyed, their enthusiasm coming over in spades, bringing their sincere, spirited survey of this repertoire to a genial conclusion.

DAVID THREASHER

BERG String Quartet op.3

LIGETI String Quartet no.1 ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet no.7

Minetti Quartet

HÄNSSLER CLASSIC HC23060

Performances that combine immaculate technique with passion and insight

While the US-based Verona Quartet (reviewed on page 90) offers an all-Ligeti release, Vienna’s Minetti Quartet opts for a more varied programme that culminates in the composer’s very Bartókian First Quartet. In many ways, the two groups’ approaches to the work are similarly clean, crisp and precise, though the Minetti probably has the edge in terms of extremity of emotion and piercing clarity. It’s a performance of quite staggering insight and power, unfolding as a succession of tense build-ups and partial releases, never denying the composer’s delightful, at times magical humour, yet adding a gurning grotesqueness in forceful projections of his more extreme sonic demands. It’s as if the Minetti players step back from imposing an interpretation, focusing instead on delivering the detail of Ligeti’s wild musical imaginings, and end up with an even more bristling, crackling account as a result.

The disc’s earlier pieces are no less persuasive: there’s a certain hardedged drive to the Berg quartet, which serves to pick apart the piece’s complex atonal counterpoint brilliantly, but it’s combined with an expert sense of flux and flow in the work’s hot-headed emotionalism. The Minetti is far cooler in Shostakovich’s Seventh Quartet from 1960, at least in its clipped opening movement and ghostly second, though the players let rip in a furious finale that slumps resignedly into a movingly hushed conclusion. The musicians are captured in clear, warm sound.

JULIA WESELY

CATALAN CELLO WORKS CASABLANCAS Cant per Frederic Mompou ‘Remembrança’ CASALS Romanza; Full d’album; Rêverie CASSADÓ Requiebros; Sonata nello stile antico spagnuolo GRANADOS Madrigal; Quejas o la maja y el ruiseñor (arr.Marshall); Intermezzo (arr.Cassadó); Danza gallega MOMPOU La Filla del carmesí (arr.Cassadó)

Dmitry Yablonsky (cello)

Laia Martín (piano)

NAXOS 8.579097

A Catalan tradition is brought to life by engaging performances

A festival of both dramatic and reflective Catalan melodies sung out with elegance by Dmitry Yablonsky and Laia Martín characterises this warmly recorded release. Audiences traditionally love this music, not least the fiery Requiebros by cellist– composer Cassadó to which Yablonsky brings the right sort of bravura, mixed with nuanced expression in the more lyrical passages. You could certainly argue that both he and Casals forged a strong feeling for Catalan music through their performances, and, in particular, in the almost improvisatorysounding cadenzas of Cassadó’s powerfully folk-inflected works. This includes the rarely heard but finely crafted Sonata nello stile antico spagnuolo whose striking variationform finale is given a compelling interpretation from this duo.

A more hard-edged style is explored in the gritty short piece Remembrança by Benet Casablancas, the sole contemporary figure here. This more acerbic language is rapidly dispelled though by the Frenchinfluenced attractive short pieces by Casals which are idiomatically written for the cello in a style that is reminiscent of Fauré. But the finest music in this programme undoubtedly comes from Granados, whose intensity of expression and quality of invention are simply more memorable, with soaring melodies in Madrigal, and a sense of theatre in the Intermezzo from Goyescas. Both artists, in this warm recording, depict and characterise this music with an instinctive understanding of its idiom.

BRAHMS Piano Trio no.2 COLL Piano Trio KORNGOLD Piano Trio op.1

Trio Isimsiz

RUBICON RCD107

An adventurous programme draws fine playing from this rising trio

Trio Isimsiz’s name comes from the Turkish for ‘without name’ or ‘anonymous’, which, on the strength of this third release on Rubicon, underlines that it’s all about the music.

The programming is satisfying in itself, with Korngold – aged just twelve when writing his op.1 Trio – emerging out of the tradition of Brahms. In between, Spanish composer Francisco Coll’s earbeguiling, starkly inventive Piano Trio bursts in – just as Takemitsu complemented Brahms and Beethoven in Trio Isimisiz’s preceding release.

There are robust strands of youthful joy and Viennese extravagance in the Korngold,the players shifting as one between scampering playfulness and warm lyricism in the middle two movements, always deeply committed but without exaggeration.

In the Brahms, too, the playing is never self-conscious or effortful, but surges freely in the weighty first movement, while the theme of the second-movement variations is one of many instances of the unanimity between violin and cello.

Coll’s Piano Trio takes us to another world, teeming with rhythmic detail that the players duly translate into suppleness, and with seismic dynamic shifts that are absorbed as natural expression. It’s a vivid testament to the group’s considerable individual skills and collective power. The recording gloriously reflects these gifts, placing the players seamlessly in the Britten Studio acoustic, which itself becomes a fourth silent partner.

EDWARD BHESANIA

LIGETI String Quartets: no.1 ‘Métamorphoses nocturnes’, no.2; Andante and Allegro Verona Quartet

DYNAMIC CDS8010

A complete survey of a Hungarian master proves patchy

What should be a revelatory cycle of the complete string quartet output of György Ligeti ends up being a strangely frustrating listen. Which is a shame, because this offering from the US-based Verona Quartet, currently ensemble-in-residence at Oberlin College, Ohio, starts off so well. The Verona players clearly know the Bartók-influenced First Quartet inside out, and their account is steely, passionate and projected with conviction and authority, from the brooding expectation of its tense opening to the grotesque ‘Tempo di valse’ and the hard-edged Presto and Prestissimo sections. It’s a thrilling ride, quite clinically clean at times (like that of the Viennese Minetti Quartet, see page 88), but alert to Ligeti’s unconventional demands, and showing off all four players’ blisteringly impressive techniques.

In the far more avant-garde Second Quartet, however, the Verona sounds far less convincing. Dense, micropolyphonic textures come across as generic washes of sound, despite Ligeti’s minutely detailed internal markings, and there are moments of questionable ensemble when the players emerge from fast and violent playing into soft stasis (there is one particularly noticeable example about halfway through the first movement). With uneven tremolos and wavering sustained notes, it’s as if the blazing authority the Verona players displayed so confidently in the First Quartet has left them. The brief closing pieces – a tuneful, folksy 1950 Andante and Allegretto from Ligeti’s years under socialist realism – are illuminating additions, given velvet-smooth performances, but show little of the irrepressible imagination of the composer’s later music. Recorded sound is somewhat problematic too, with a background hum/hiss that comes and goes, and some distracting vocalisations picked up by the mics.

DAVID KETTLE

MOZART Violin Sonata no.32 K454;

PAGANINI Caprice no.24 (arr. Elman); works by Arensky, Beethoven, Braga, Cui, Drigo, Drdla, Elman, Gossec, Massenet, Offenbach and Riego

Mischa Elman (violin) Jan Peerce (tenor) Risë Stevens (mezzo-soprano) Wolfgang Rosé and Brooks Smith (piano)

BIDDULPH 85037-2

A complete Mozart sonata and some characterful miniatures are highlights

In December 1948 Mischa Elman celebrated the 40th anniversary of his American debut and in April 1949 (Biddulph erroneously alleges 1951), RCA Victor made six of the recordings reissued here, with Wolfgang Rosé – nephew of Arnold – at the piano. Gossec’s Gavotte is quite fun (Busch in 1921 is even better) but Beethoven’s Minuet is dreary and droopy – the melancholy is more suited to Cui’s Orientale; the Serenades by Arensky and Drigo and Drdla’s Souvenir are delightful.

From December 1950 come two sentimental but lovable songs with Jan Peerce, and the rest is from 1951, including Elman’s only complete Mozart Sonata K454. Rosé’s piano is well in the picture and Elman cannot resist expanding a little in the Largo; the Allegro is quite perky, as is the Allegretto finale. In between, Elman’s phrasing flowers in the Andante. The E-string tone is a bit fierce but I enjoyed this performance.

Elman’s arrangement of Paganini’s Caprice no.24 is fairly forgettable. The piano, which has a brief introduction, gets in the way and Elman struggles in Variations 2 and 4; nos.3, 6 and the slashing 8 are good. In place of Variation 11 Elman writes four of his own, the second way out of style (Paganiniakov?) and a coda.

Duets in French with Risë Stevens – Offenbach’s Barcarolle and Massenet’s Élégie – are nice, as is Elman’s second of three recordings of his own Tango. There is enough vintage Elman here to warrant a recommendation.

TULLY POTTER

NAPOLI!

Works by Alborea, Barbella, Bonno, Corselli, Durante, Falconieri, Fiorenza, Lanzetti, Leo, Matteis I, Ortiz, Pergolesi, Porpora, Sarro and Scarlatti Ophélie Gaillard (cello, violoncello piccolo) Pulcinella Orchestra, Sandrine Piau (soprano) Marina Viotti (mezzosoprano) Luan Góes (countertenor)

APARTÉ AP326 (2 CDS)

A southern Italian city provides ample inspiration for an eclectic programme

Following her explorations of music from Madrid, Berlin, Venice and London, Ophélie Gaillard presents a selection of excerpts and complete works by composers resident in Naples from the mid-16th to the late-18th centuries. Assisted in her research by Olivier Fourés, she often utilises a violoncello piccolo, most notably for the bel canto writing in Alessandro Scarlatti’s Sonata no.1 and in the arranged Largo of Pergolesi’s Violin Concerto in B flat major. She delivers the florid passagework and dexterous cross-string figuration of the fast movements of cello concertos by Fiorenza and Leo and Alborea’s Sonata in D major with breathtaking virtuosity, produces a sonorous, expressive cantabile in the slow ‘Amoroso’ movements and shapes phrases with the utmost musicality throughout. Her deft representations of musical characterisations of commedia dell’arte figures by Matteis I (Scaramuccia) and Barbella (Sonata intitolata Arlecchino…) likewise stand out. The album also features operatic excerpts, as well as both secular and religious items; some showcase Gaillard in prominent obbligato roles, commendably fulfilled.

Gaillard’s determination to give her programming the utmost variety results in a somewhat fragmented collection overall, but her Naplescentric theme maintains a focus. Members of the Pulcinella Orchestra provide alert support, contribute solo roles as required and offer colourful continuo instrumentarium, extending even to percussion in some items (most surprisingly, the finale of Leo’s concerto).

Captured in a church acoustic, the recording has ample bloom; however, a smoother transition between the two recorded movements of Durante’s Second Concerto would have been desirable.

ROBIN STOWELL

NOSKOWSKI Violin Sonata in A minor

ŽELEŃSKI Violin Sonata in F major op.30

Laurence Kayaleh (violin)

Bernadene Blaha (piano)

NAXOS 8.574220

Stirring readings of violin sonatas by two Polish nationalist composers

These two Polish sonatas from the latter part of the 19th century are attractive, conservative in style, and well worth hearing. Zygmunt Noskowski’s A minor Sonata of the mid-1870s is brimming with melody and hints of Brahms. It opens with a somewhat severe dialogue before opening out into free-flowing lyricism, opulent and alluring, played by Laurence Kayaleh with full-toned warmth and fluency, with the pianist Bernadene Blaha often in busy attendance. The melodies continue to flow as the development becomes increasingly impassioned. Along the way Kayaleh produces some nicely turned moments of quiet questioning.

The second movement is a set of variations on a genial, occasionally pensive, theme; as the variations progress Kayaleh is by turns light and sinuous, or tender and shapely, with a gentle, autumnal beauty to round them off. The final Prestissimo is a staccato dash in the nature of a tarantella, with both players exhibiting plenty of rhythmic energy.

In the first movement of Władysław Želeński’s slightly later F major Sonata, Kayaleh deals elegantly with some nifty runs and double stops, with Blaha always excellent in the demanding piano writing. The central Allegretto has graceful playing of deceptive simplicity. The nearest the sonata gets to a slow movement is the Molto sostenuto opening of the finale, with Kayaleh sensitively outlining its twisting contours, before his ebullient playing of the Allegro. The recorded sound is resonant, with the piano sometimes sounding a little boxy.

TIM HOMFRAY

OSWALD Sonatas

Capella Jenensis

CPO 555478-2

Innovative sonatas from the byways of 17th-century Germany

In its endeavours to rediscover and promote the rich Thuringian musical heritage, Capella Jenensis gives persuasive performances of 12 of the 18 surviving sonatas for two to four soloists and continuo by Andreas Oswald (1634–65). These progressive works comprise various short sections, some of which verge on the bizarre; especially notable are the Sonata à violino solo in E minor, expressively dispatched by violinist Claudia Mende, and the Sonata à 2 in A minor, in which violinist Alfia Bakieva nurtures its chromatic harmonies and eloquently negotiates its contrasting tempos and affects.

There is virtuoso dialogue and fantasy a-plenty, not only from the string players but also from Carl-Philipp Kaptain (sackbut) and Claudius Kamp (dulcian), whose beguiling contributions include quasi-martial motifs, as in the Sonata à 3 in F major’s Allegro sections and near the end of the Sonata à 3 in C major. Folk elements also abound, notably in numerous dance-influenced sections and in the use of scordatura violin in the Sonata ò verò Aria à 2.

Continuo support, shared appropriately between organ, harpsichord, theorbo, Baroque guitar and violone, adds to the kaleidoscope of instrumental colours, Petra Burmann’s guitar especially providing rhythmic impetus in the Sonata à 3 in D. Despite the generous acoustic, Gertrude Ohse’s gamba is too often overwhelmed in the balance.

ROBIN STOWELL

TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Trio in A minor Kirill Troussov (violin) Benedict Kloeckner (cello) Alexandra Troussova (piano)

ORCHID CLASSICS ORC100259

A Russian masterpiece inspires a performance high on emotion

With no companion piece for Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio, this recording is less than generous in length, but it compensates with playing of sweeping grandeur. At its height the first movement has symphonic richness and tonal depth, which are balanced by gentle, touching pathos and moments of expressive, tragic reflection from the string players, with their fervent vibrato complemented by the close, reverberant recording. The ending is a sad, relentless trudge.

The theme of the second movement is given with a slight hiatus before each dotted minim, which gets a bit predictable, but as the musicians move through the variations they encompass a kaleidoscope of colour and character. Violinist Kirill Troussov produces nicely flibbertigibbet semiquavers over cellist Benedict Kloeckner’s melody in the second variation, and Slavic passion in the fourth, his bow biting into the string. Alexandra Troussova twinkles nicely in the fifth variation, sounding almost like a toy piano, before the players raise the musical temperature in the sixth-variation waltz, with Kloeckner urbane in the opening melody and both strings in light, capricious dialogue before their muscular reminiscence of the theme. There is robust playing in the fugal eighth variation, with crisp staccatos and heightened accents. The tenth variation mazurka dances as it should, and the eleventh dies away to nothing, before the grand final variation and coda, full of sound and fury.

TIM HOMFRAY

NIKOLAI TCHEREPNIN String Quartet in A minor op.11 ALEXANDER TCHEREPNIN String Quartet no.1 op.36, String Quartet no.2 op.40, Piano Quintet in G major op.44 IVAN TCHEREPNIN There was no wind Siobhan Stagg (soprano)

Giuseppe Mentuccia (piano)

Michelangelo Quartet

CAPRICCIO C5503 (2 CDS)

Keeping it in the family: an exploration of a Russian musical dynasty

The Tcherepnin dynasty covered an amazingly wide musical spectrum in the course of three generations. A student of Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai left a distinctive mark on Russian musical life in the years preceding the Bolshevik Revolution. His only String Quartet shows his teacher’s influence in its sophisticated formal scheme but also a melodic gift redolent of Borodin at his most sensuous.

Nikolai’s son Alexander came of age after the family had settled in Paris following some years spent in Tbilisi, an experience that provided him with ideas for unusual scales and harmonies based on Georgian modes.

These are most evident in his Second String Quartet. Its predecessor, subtitled ‘Love Offering to St Theresa of the Child Jesus’, employs archaic melodic cells to evoke the world of the Carmelite nun, who was canonised in the 1920s. The Piano Quintet combines the composer’s idiosyncratic idiom with dogged ostinato rhythms, the piano’s percussive qualities effectively set off against the strings.

We come full circle with the last composition of Alexander’s son Ivan, written as a homage to the publisher Belyayev, with whom his grandfather had collaborated a century earlier. It is based on Russian folk songs, which Ivan illustrates with beautifully descriptive colours and textures. While Nikolai’s over-the-top effusions might have benefited from more hedonistic abandon, the Michelangelo Quartet sounds as comfortable and idiomatic with Ivan’s Impressionistic shadings as with Alexander’s angular melodies and rhythmic idiosyncracies.

Faithfully recorded in a favourable acoustic, the group makes a forcefully convincing case for music that definitely deserves it.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

VENICE VIVALDI Cello Concertos: D minor RV405, G minor RV416; movements from RV408, 409, 419; works by Bach (after Marcello), Britten, Dowland, Eno, Fauré, Kobekin, Kurtág, Monteverdi, Rota, Sartorio, Shaw, Silvestrov and Strozzi Anastasia Kobekina (cello)

Azul Lima (theorbo) Basel Chamber Orchestra/Julia Schröder

SONY CLASSICAL 19658828072

Venice offers depths of inspiration in a memorable debut

Everyone has their own impressions of Venice. Those of the young Russian cellist Anastasia Kobekina, which inspired her Sony debut album, appear to centre more around dark lapping water and sinister shadows than colourful masked balls.

A glance at the featured composers demonstrates the diversity of Kobekina’s programming.

Bookended by Monteverdi’s Arianna’s Lament, in its original version and then as reimagined by her father Vladimir Kobekin, this is a sequence of music that cannot fail to haunt you, performed with infectious spontaneity and recorded with an intimate clarity.

Vivaldi, one of Venice’s most famous sons, has a major role: two complete cello concertos, plus single movements of others. This is wild (rather than sedate) Vivaldi – you almost imagine the orchestral players slapping their instruments and can practically see Kobekina’s fingers flying over the strings of her 1698 Stradivari cello. The mannered style with which she treats the solo part, milking the drama, may not be to everyone’s taste, but it certainly packs a punch.

Interesting textures abound – cello and theorbo for Brian Eno’s Emerald and Stone, beautiful in its restrained simplicity, cello and viola in Caroline Shaw’s magnetic and highly individual Limestone and Felt, solo cello in the brief but hugely atmospheric ‘Shadows’ from Kurtág’s Signs, Games and Messages and Britten’s Barcarola (from his Third Cello Suite), with its slightly sinister sul ponticello. This is altogether a striking disc.

JANET BANKS

WRANITZKY String Quartets: op.2 no.2, op.32 no.4, op.49 Almaviva Quartet

CPO 555466-2

Persuasive advocacy brings a neglected Viennese figure to life

An exact but longer-lived Viennese contemporary of Mozart, Paul Wranitzky followed Haydn into the service of the Esterházy family and produced music with comparable fluency: 11 operas, 24 symphonies and 54 string quartets await discovery.

That most of them remain unrecorded counts as a minor injustice on the strength of this trio of quartets. The three-movement form is archaic even for the time, and the otherwise first-rate booklet essay does not speculate why Wranitzky omitted a minuet. Even in the earliest of them, G major pleasantries are tempered by a pronounced minor-key tendency. The first violin’s dominance is checked by the Almaviva’s opentextured playing and a generously bass-weighted studio ambience.

By 1798, the date of the G major Quartet op.32 no.4, Wranitzky had embraced a more intricate style of quartet writing but still not the sonata-form design that underpins the works of his great contemporaries. The Almaviva brings a rambling first movement to life with pertinently rhetorical gestures before investing the central variation-form Adagio with near-Haydnesque pathos.

Even so, it is op.49, Wranitzky’s last quartet, that rewards real attention and repeated listening. The year is 1804 and it is cast in a turbulent D minor, and a world recognisable from Beethoven’s works on the cusp of his ‘middle’ period. It’s no ‘Rasumovsky’, but the Almaviva players give it every chance with a collectively sweet tone, grainy phrasing and strong rhythmic profile.

PETER QUANTRILL

PRIMAVERA IV: THE HEART Works by Arad, Braden, Chen, Current, Getty, Ho, Kernis, Llugdar, Moravec, Mazurek, Okoye, Sorey and Young Matt Haimovitz (cello)

PENTATONE PTC5187113

The fourth leg in this enterprising journey proves as scintillating as the previous three

It was back in the summer of 2021 that Israeli-born, US-based cellist Matt Haimovitz released the first volume in his projected six-part Primavera series, comprising no fewer than 81 new commissions for solo cello, inspired both by Botticelli’s eponymous 15th-century painting and German-born artist Charline von Heyl’s contemporary response in her Primavera 2020.

We reach volume 4 in this latest release, ‘the heart’, and the focus for its 13 new works narrows slightly to figures and themes in the paintings themselves, including three pieces inspired by the Graces. Haimovitz attacks Tyshawn Sorey’s Three Graces with aggressive vigour, grappling with the composer’s jagged lines and sudden shifts in direction, though it’s his darkly lyrical moments of reflection that are most memorable. He delivers a carefully nuanced reading of Aaron Jay Kernis’s sarabande-inspired Grace, and deftly combines arco and pizzicato in the dance turmoil of Justine F. Chen’s Graces-inspired Iridescent Gest. Elsewhere, Brian Current imagines vines growing from the nymphs’ bodies in the scurrying extended techniques of his alienating but seductive Chlorisflora, while Haimovitz responds to the beautiful baritone melody of Nkeiru Okoye’s lyrical Breaking Bread with engaging freedom, almost wallowing in the composer’s charm and elegance.

There’s a lot to take in, but what makes Haimovitz’s ongoing collection more than simply a compendium of contemporary music styles and techniques is his own compelling playing, shot through with conviction and idiomatic insight, however extreme the demands of a piece may be. Like previous offerings in the series, Primavera IV is a cleverly curated collection, charting a music journey full of contrasts and surprises, but one with a clear sense of direction and purpose.

DAVID KETTLE