Reviews

D’AMBROSIO Suite; String Quartet; En Badinant; Valse intermède; Pavane; Rêve Archos Quartet, Friedrich Thiele (cello) Mio Tamayama (double bass)

TACTUS TC870401

Telling performances show a Neapolitan virtuoso in a new light

The violinist Alfredo d’Ambrosio (1871–1914) was celebrated in his time as a composer–virtuoso who could conjure up profitable salon charmers alongside a showpiece concerto for the Berlin Philharmonic. This album of his chamber music illuminates another, more rigorous side to him, though the modest designation of Suite for the fourmovement string quintet of 1900 reveals that d’Ambrosio was not aspiring to Brahmsian heights of formal integrity. Couched in a style between Mendelssohn and Mediterranean Elgar, the Suite satisfies very well on its own terms. Melodies seem to come easily to d’Ambrosio, the best of them being the gentle and fleeting Berceuse, before a finale that feels slightly out of place in its vein of earnest striving (more Elgar).

From eight years later, the String Quartet admits more unstable harmony and even embraces Expressionism at times. Any adventurous quartet would enhance its repertoire with this piece, though it would be hard pressed to match the rhythmic vitality, transparency and warmth of the Archos Quartet.

The miniatures for quintet depend on a relaxed pulse and well-pointed accents to keep excess sentimentality at bay; and the players have the full measure of them in a naturally engineered studio setting.

The album’s only shortcoming is the abysmal ‘translation’ of the Italian booklet essay.

PETER QUANTRILL

★ BACH Violin Sonata in A minor BWV1003 (Andante only); Partita in D minor BWV1004 GRIEG Violin Sonata no. 2 (Lento doloroso – Allegro vivace only) MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E minor; works by Arensky, Chopin, Drigo, Dvořák, Halvorsen, Kreisler, Massenet, Mendelssohn, Paganini, Schubert, Svendsen, Tchaikovsky etc Kathleen Parlow (violin) Charles Adams Prince, Ernest MacMillan (pianos) CBC Symphony Orchestra/Geoffrey Waddington

BIDDULPH 85036-2 (2 CDS)

A treasurable reminder of a great Auer-trained violinist

As it happens, I have not listened to any of Kathleen Parlow’s records recently, so I was all agog to hear them when this marvellous set arrived. I had only to play the famous fast, accurate account of Paganini’s Moto perpetuo, one of her four 1909 HMV 78rpm sides, to know that I was in for a treat.

Fabulous artistry from Kathleen Parlow

This review will be shorter if I name those of the 25 genre pieces (plus five remakes) that impress me less. Of the HMVs, Bach’s Air strikes me as rather lugubrious. From 1912 Parlow recorded for Columbia and of these sides, Beethoven’s Minuet in G is strangely slow, Rubinstein’s Melody in F is almost military-sounding and Bach’s Gavotte is a bit peremptory. I am not sure that Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana Intermezzo works on solo violin.

My favourite of the acoustic records is a transcription of Thomas Moore’s The Last Rose of Summer, slowly and lovingly played in 1912 – the 1916 remake is very similar, almost as magical. Two Halvorsen pieces which share a 1909 HMV side are beautifully done.

In 1941, after years of wanderings, Parlow returned to her native Canada and broke a quarter of a century of silence – as far as posterity is concerned – with a radio recording of Mendelssohn’s E minor Concerto. At 50 her famed Auer technique is still in great shape and this is a beautiful, satisfying performance in excellent sound.

The first movement of Grieg’s Sonata no.2 from the same year, with Ernest MacMillan at the piano, is slightly compromised sonically but not enough to efface the superb music making of these two great artists.

Finally, from 1957 when Parlow was 66, we have solo Bach, a probing Andante from the A minor Sonata and the entire D minor Partita. It is a shame that the Chaconne has some of the worst sound, but nothing can dim the impact of Parlow’s artistry.

TULLY POTTER

MARIAN LENHARD

BACH Cello Suites BWV1007–12 Filipe Quaresma (cello)

ARTWAY NEXT 52023 (2 CDS)

A newcomer makes his mark in a much-recorded repertoire

Portuguese cellist Filipe Quaresma offers a highly personal, historically informed approach to these works, performing throughout on a much treasured, four-stringed instrument – the c.1720 ‘ex-Suggia’ Montagnana, reconverted to a Baroque set-up. He employs appropriate period techniques and produces an unforced, lucid sound, playing with incisive articulation and a clean, accurate left-hand technique, save for some brief passages in no.6’s challenging Prelude and Gavottes. He especially demonstrates his Baroque sensibility and care for detail in realising the relative importance of notes within phrases. Although he occasionally over-phrases – which can endanger forward momentum, as, for example, in no.1’s Allemande – there’s an overall rhetorical freedom that sounds refreshingly improvisatory and allows the music to breathe, particularly in the Preludes. His execution of the chords in no.6’s Sarabande has striking expressive effect, and those in the ensuing Gavotte I provide a pleasing rhythmic momentum.

His tempos, generally thoughtfully determined, are largely faithful to most movements’ dance roots. Gigues are suitably lively, especially the exuberant one in no.4, but the Courantes of Suites nos. 1, 4 and 6 seem scrambled in places. His accounts of the Sarabandes are profound and reflective without being weighty – sample his moving readings of those of nos.3 and 5 – and his Allemandes are graceful and poised. Extempore ornamentation is added tastefully, but sparingly.

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A hugely characterful partnership from Frank Peter Zimmermann and Jakub Hrůša

The close recording, captured in an accommodating monastery acoustic, is pleasingly reverberant, but Quaresma’s audible intakes of breath and the percussive clatter of his finger-stopping often intrude upon the listening experience. The sparse booklet information incorporates some awkward English translation.

ROBIN STOWELL

★ BARTÓK Rhapsodies nos.1 and 2 MARTINŮ Suite concertante; Meditation STRAVINSKY Violin Concerto Frank Peter Zimmermann (violin) Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/

Jakub Hrůša

BIS BIS-2657 (SACD)

Potent characterisation sets this album apart from the competition

The rarity here is the Suite concertante of Martinů, in its second, radically revised version of 1944, opening with the same Toccata–Aria sequence as Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto and likewise written with Samuel Dushkin in mind, but coloured by an anxious lyricism entirely the composer’s own. Zimmermann’s performance valuably underlines points of both difference and correspondence between the two works, as well as the more intrinsically violinistic nature of Martinů’s writing. The bonus is the more romantically styled Meditation from the suite’s original version, hinting at the upheaval experienced by the composer in the intervening years.

Zimmermann’s account of the Stravinsky is tauter than most (Ehnes included), though never rhythmically straitjacketed. Inflections of vibrato and bolder touches of portamento round off the corners as if with Mozart rather than Bach in mind. What lifts it above most of the competition is the pungently characterised accompaniment of the Bamberg SO, and a recording perspective that keeps Zimmermann front and centre but allows him to duet with orchestral winds in the manner of a mature Mozart concerto. The twanging cimbalom takes on a continuo-like importance in Bartók’s Rhapsodies, where Zimmermann ‘speaks’ Hungarian in the phrasing no less expertly than his Czech for Martinů. It’s an outstanding album, successful in every regard.

CHRIS GLOAG

PETER QUANTRILL

LE TEMPS RETROUVÉ BONIS Violin Sonata BOULANGER Nocturne FAURÉ Violin Sonata no.2 HAHN Violin Sonata Elena Urioste (violin) Tom Poster (piano)

CHANDOS CHAN20275

Another voyage of discovery from this dynamic musical couple

A year on from their first Chandos release, From Brighton to Brooklyn, musical couple Elena Urioste and Tom Poster have followed up with Le Temps retrouvé, swapping a transatlantic musical survey of the 20th century (albeit slipping in an Amy Beach piece from 1898) with a French slice spanning the 15-year period from 1911.

Fauré’s Violin Sonata no.2, the gateway to his adventurous final sequence of chamber works, is the best-known item. This isn’t the only piece here to show off Urioste’s secure but sweet sound in the upper registers, nor the only one to convey (in the second movement) an atmospheric vision of heaven.

The sonata by Mel Bonis (1858– 1937), whose fellow students at the Paris Conservatoire included Debussy and Pierné, is perhaps the most revelatory piece – richly Romantic, with occasional undertones of the composer’s teacher Franck. Urioste makes the most of the first movement’s arching chromatic lines, presenting an effortlessly suave sound; she and Poster also compelling capture its languid mood. The second movement is alert and capricious, the third – a Greek popular song – is spun out from the heart. Hahn’s sonata, the latest piece here, is equally well played, a highlight being the blushingly intimate second movement.

Heartfelt playing from Elena Urioste

The engineering is first-rate. All else that’s required is a dimly lit room, a sumptuously upholstered armchair and a kir royale.

EDWARD BHESANIA

BRAHMS String Quartets nos.1–3; Romanze op.118 no.5 (arr. Agate Quartet) Agate Quartet

APPASSIONATO APP003 (2 CDS)

Conviction aplenty from this rising young French quartet

There is clean, crisp playing at the opening of Brahms’s First Quartet in C minor, and the staccato semiquavers that follow are neat, almost delicate. The legato passages are sinuous and, as at the end of the exposition, rhythmically free, after which there is sterner stuff to come in the development. Following the warmth and gentle charm of the Romanze, the third-movement Allegretto is steady and mysterious: the players do exactly what Brahms marks, and do it very well, semplice, piano, with little accents and hairpins and a constant throbbing pulse. The fierce opening octaves of the finale herald more turbulent emotions than we have had so far, leavened by poco tranquillo and meno mosso passages which are significantly slower.

The first movement of the A minor Quartet (no.2) is contemplative and steady, with a delightfully limpid second subject, its beguiling 3rds a mere step away from the coffee house. Later there is an arresting rhetorical gesture, dramatically slower and pre-empting the ritard poco a poco by five bars. The outbreak of F sharp minor in the second movement, disrupting its easy flow, is stark and steady. The Minuetto is bleak, cousin to Schubert’s organ grinder, and the Allegro finale mixes nervy anxiety and grace.

The Agate’s penchant for steady pacing is also apparent in the first movement of the B flat major Quartet, not quite as Vivace as Brahms presumably had in mind, but with earthy energy. Leader Adrien Jurkovic shapes the opening of the Andante beautifully, and violist Raphaël Pagnon produces robust playing in the following Agitato, before the stately Poco allegretto finale. The recording is clear and warm.

TIM HOMFRAY

DVOŘÁK Violin Concerto; Romance op.11; Mazurek op.49 Mikhail Pochekin (violin) Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra/Daniel Raiskin

HÄNSSLER CLASSIC HC23067

Empathetic readings of Dvořák’s complete works for violin and orchestra

Dvořák’s Violin Concerto opens with heroic flourishes from both orchestra and violinist: Mikhail Pochekin nails his top notes with aplomb. He is silky in Dvořák’s melodies and fluid in the passagework, and there are moments of high drama. Where the composer calls for grandioso, Pochekin is happy to oblige, helped by muscular orchestral tuttis and expressive wind playing. There is deep feeling and great tonal beauty in the second movement, and the più mosso outbursts have real power. As the movement progresses there is increasing Slavic majesty, and some silver-toned playing high on the E string. The Allegro giocoso finale is a good bouncing dance, with some spirited spiccato playing. Throughout, Pochekin handles Dvořák’s technical demands with flair; he neatly dispatches the three-part counterpoint and hops up and down the G string with agility before the joyous final bars.

In the F minor Romance Pochekin produces singing lyricism and great tonal beauty, with vivid, ardent urgency at the centre. In the E minor Mazurek there is a swing to the melody in 3rds, and an attractive naivety to the Meno mosso section. The violin is to the fore in the recording, with orchestral solos well served.

TIM HOMFRAY

MÉLODIES INFINIES ENESCU Piano Quartet no.1 FAURÉ Piano Quartet no.1 Suyeon Kang (violin) Karolina Errera (viola) Andrei Ioniță (cello) Cătălin Șerban (piano)

NAXOS 8.551477

Teacher and student meet in a persuasive pairing

As a student at the Paris Conservatoire in the 1890s, Enescu was recognised by his teacher Fauré as being ‘very gifted, very hard-working’ and also ‘very entrenched in classical forms’. This pairing of the first piano quartets by both composers intriguingly reveals the French influence on the younger Romanian – not least in the richly melodic, harmonically modal slow movement of his 1909 Piano Quartet. This is projected with a suspended air of mystery in contrast to its flanking movements; the aspiration to the sublime here is marred only by the occasional audible exhalation. Enescu’s first movement certainly bears out Fauré’s observation of structural entrenchment but in this performance it is fully able to shoulder a monumental sense of scale. The finale is brilliantly executed.

Fauré’s Piano Quartet no.1 (1879, with the finale later revised) offers more flair. The first movement could take a touch more sweetness in places; and a little more transparency would lift the middle section of the dancelike Scherzo, especially when the piano takes over the tune to accompanying strings. But these minor quibbles are outweighed by an Adagio that deftly blends the tragic with the serene and a finale that unerringly shows off the players’ individual talents.

EDWARD BHESANIA

GEMINIANI Six Sonatas for cello and basso continuo op.5 WEISS Three Preludes for lute Kristin von der Goltz (cello) Andreas Küppers (harpsichord) Hille Perl (viola da gamba) Christoph Dangel (cello) Thomas Boysen (lute/theorbo)

CPO 555402-2

An unerring flair brings these demanding sonatas to life

Kristin von der Goltz shows striking mastery of the ‘fantastical’ technical challenges of Geminiani’s Allegro movements and offers lyrical, intuitively musical accounts overall, fully acknowledging the fusion of Italianate and French styles in these works. He consistently demonstrates that their soul lies beyond the printed page, shaping phrases thoughtfully and conveying the evolving dramas convincingly, as in no.5’s opening Adagio and the sharply contrasting first two movements of no.4. His aim to differentiate between each sonata’s inherent ‘emotional state’ is admirably fulfilled, whether by adding extravagant ornamentation to the sometimes tortuous and unpredictable melodic lines (as in no.2), in ad libitum/fantasia passages (in the middle movements of no.4), or even simply by keeping the melodic line ‘plain’. Similar variety is applied in the continuo’s instrumental combinations and timbres, no.1’s third movement involving only gamba and no.3’s first Allegro only cello ‘accompaniment’.

Continuo cellist Christoph Dangel plays an especially important role in the dialogue, his contribution often crossing the solo line with strikingly sonorous effects, as in the middle section of no.6’s finale. The Three Preludes by Sylvius Weiss, flexibly realised by lutenist Thomas Boysen, anticipate the tonalities of sonatas nos.2, 3 and 5 but their inclusion seems somewhat random. The recording is luminous and sensitively balanced.

ROBIN STOWELL

HAYDN Baryton Trios vol.2: nos.6, 35, 67, 71, 93 and 113 Valencia Baryton Project

NAXOS 8574504

Colourful playing brings a Haydn byway alive

Notwithstanding the intrinsic antiquity of music written for a long-obsolete instrument, the Valencia Baryton Project sounds more stylishly 18th-century than its rivals on record in this, its second sampling of Haydn’s surviving output of 67 trios. It’s partly a matter of gentler pacing that (perhaps paradoxically) allows for more animated phrasing, and even a measure of harmonic tension – as far as is possible in such temperamentally placid music. Haydn evidently accommodated not only the insatiable enthusiasm of his patron for the baryton, but also his modest performing ability, and perhaps also the nature of an instrument that resists rapid and complex harmonic change, with its array of gently thrumming sympathetic strings.

Given their origins, the Valencian musicians are accordingly sensitive to Haydn’s Boccherini-like touches of colour such as the strumming pizzicatos in the opening Adagio moderato of no.6. They effectively hint at a pathos akin to the Seven Last Words in the corresponding movement of no.113. Bringing an authentically rustic bounce to the quicker opening of no.71, they go on to phrase the counterpoint of the finale like an Italian motet. Close and repeated listening, as ever with Haydn, only serves to deepen admiration for his endless versatility at turning commonplace gestures into gold.

PETER QUANTRILL

SONGS OF FATE JANČEVSKIS Lignum KUPREVIČIUS Chamber Symphony ‘The Star of David’: David’s Lamentation, Postlude: The Luminous Lament; Kaddish-Prelude; Penultimate Kaddish ŠERKŠNYTÉ This too shall pass WEINBERG Nocturne; Aria op.9; Jewish Songs op.13: nos.2, 4 and 5; Kujawiak Vida Miknevičiutė (soprano) Nagdalena Ceple (cello) Andrei Pushkarev (vibraphone) Kremerata Baltica/Gidon Kremer (violin)

ECM 4859850

A highly personal programme offers a typically searing experience

A haunting new album from Gidon Kremer and friends

Gidon Kremer has compiled an eloquent evocation and celebration of his Jewish heritage in an eclectic programme of music written since 1942. His choices offer stylistic variety and timbral diversity, but naturally much of the sentiment is melancholic and searching. Kremer ensures every violin note is vivid; his musical voice whispers and shouts, depicts fury and repose, weeping and sighing. He imbues a wide range of emotion with compelling character. Alongside his artistry, the soprano Vida Miknevičiutė is mesmerising, and Kremerata Baltica is beautifully honed, imbuing everything with great atmosphere.

The opening and closing tracks are hauntingly otherworldly – Šerkšnyté’s This too shall pass being exquisitely ethereal, while Jančevskis’s Lignum is contemplative, using microtones with a sort of blended tonality. Kuprevičius’s Kaddishes are captivating, their musical invention burnished with sadness. A dialogue between violin and percussion in the Kaddish-Prelude is particularly intimate and searching. In the Postlude from the Chamber Symphony the soprano and violin lines intertwine with a controlled yet piquant anguish.

ANGIE KREMER/ECM RECORDS

It is largely thanks to Kremer’s staunch espousal that Weinberg has now come into his own as a composer. Here the early Nocturne and Kujawiak are utterly beguiling, conveying perhaps an understated expressiveness and a recessed sadness. Kremer has sourced some poignant and beautiful works to frame his personal journey and, in this warmly engineered recording, portrays them with insight and nuance.

JOANNE TALBOT

MENDELSSOHN Cello Sonatas: no.1, no.2; Assai tranquillo; Song without Words; Variations concertantes COLL Dialog ohne Worte HOLLIGER Lieder ohne Worte RIHM Lied ohne Worte; Verschwundene Worte WIDMANN Lied ohne Worte Sol Gabetta (cello) Bertrand Chamayou (piano)

SONY CLASSICAL 19439934002 (2 CDS)

Plenty to entice here, as Mendelssohn meets modern masters

You can rely on Sol Gabetta to present central repertoire with seemingly effortless aplomb and bags of personality. And while time spent with Mendelssohn’s two major masterpieces for cello and piano – the Second Sonata and the Variations concertantes – is never time wasted, it’s good to hear the First Sonata played with the same level of passion and involvement.

Gabetta and Bertrand Chamayou have been playing the Second Sonata together for several years and their rapport is evident from these propulsive, responsive performances. She plays the ‘Bonamy Dubrée-Suggia’ Stradivari of 1717 – formerly in the possession not only of the cello goddess Guilhermina Suggia but also of Pablo Casals – strung with steel-wound gut-core strings. This has a less outgoing overall tone than the 1730 Gofriller (conventionally strung) she uses elsewhere in the set, richer at the extremes of the range than in the middle. Chamayou, meanwhile, chooses an 1859 Blüthner, with its telling tonal variance from almost blunt bass to drily clangorous upper treble. The pairing of the two instruments in the hands of these foremost players is an added attraction in the Mendelssohn.

Further attraction is provided by a short second disc presenting works commissioned by Gabetta to muse upon Mendelssohn’s Song without Words. Jörg Widmann’s Lied ohne Worte adopts aspects of Mendelssohn’s language and refracts them through its composer’s own aural lens; Heinz Holliger’s three Lieder ohne Worte employ a panoply of extended techniques and expressive devices for a more alienating sound world. Francisco Coll’s Dialog ohne Worte is sustained and lyrical; and while Wolfgang Rihm’s Lied ohne Worte is more halting, his Verschwundene Worte (‘Vanished Words’) returns to a more diatonically based landscape. It’s a fascinating pendant to the main event, so come for the Mendelssohn but stay for the new works.

DAVID THREASHER

STRAVINSKY Violin Concerto; Apollon musagète; Suites nos.1 and 2; Circus Polka James Ehnes (violin) BBC Philharmonic/Andrew Davis

CHANDOS CHSA5340

Overly urbane accounts of Stravinsky, though Ehnes impresses

Performing styles in Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto have come a long way since the rhythmically unyielding mask of 1960s modernity donned by the likes of Stern and Schneiderhan, and James Ehnes has given careful thought to the Italian Baroque models for each movement. The flux between song and recitative of the first Aria evokes a Monteverdian ballo – Ariadne abandoned on Naxos, perhaps – before Ehnes unfurls a spacious legato to paint a contrasting portrait of solitude in the raptly inward mood of the second Aria. The warmth of Ehnes’s G-string tone in the closing Capriccio nicely distinguishes it from the clockwork momentum of the opening Toccata.

If there persists a suspicion that Stravinsky is turning the lathe too smoothly in his practised groove of arch Neoclassicism, that may not be entirely the soloist’s fault. Davis elicits neatly sprung but not especially characterful accompaniment from the BBC Philharmonic. His account of the ballet Apollo (in its 1947 revision) would likewise be good for dancing, but falls short of memorable individuality in a crowded field.

The transparency of the engineering by Chandos only serves to underline marginal imprecisions of ensemble; the miniature character sketches of the two suites come off more vividly, but there’s a keener, more satirical edge to both recording and playing in Chailly’s Decca recording with the London Sinfonietta.

PETER QUANTRILL

VIVALDI Concerti per una vita; works by Legrenzi, Mouret and Westhoff Le Consort/Théotime Langlois de Swarte (violin)

HARMONIA MUNDI HMM90237374 (2 CDS)

Panache aplenty from a young master of the Baroque

This survey of Vivaldi’s life focuses on his violin concertos, in whole or in part, but also embraces other works relevant to its biographical intentions. Théotime Langlois de Swarte executes his soloist’s duties with technical brilliance, precision, tonal purity, imagination and period style. He revels in the virtuoso feats and special effects in RV278, 370, 583 and 267a and makes the Allegros as fleet as possible to arouse maximum excitement. He even whips up the pace further towards the end of RV813’s finale and RV315’s opening movement; and he negotiates RV315’s finale and the Allegros of RV37a and RV250 in overdrive, often with a resultant loss of bass definition. He plays the slow movements with modest vibrato, finely etched phrasing, tasteful ornamentation and a flowing sense of line, particularly the poetic Largos of RV171 and RV250 and the lilting quasi-sicilianos of RV569 and RV256.

His 1665 Stainer violin sounds sweet and lucid, especially in the high registers tapped by RV349 and the opening movements of RV256, 171 and 252. Vivid theatricality abounds, notably in ‘L’estate’ RV315 and in excerpts from Vivaldi’s operas RV709 and 714, and RV237’s reference to the bariolages of Westhoff’s Imitazione delle Campane is also highlighted.

Le Consort provides sterling support in combinations that vary from intimate – for the Sonata RV37a – to extrovert, for the Allegros of RV569, the first introduced with a horn fanfare by Mouret. The continuo group is liberally stocked, incorporating some rare instrumental timbres. The well-balanced recording has a pleasing mix of clarity and bloom.

ROBIN STOWELL