Favourite Music

“Good evening, Saint Peter. Nice to see the Pearly Gates at last. My favourite music? That's a tough question. On your questionnaire: my favourite string quartet must be ... oh hek ... let's say Beethoven C sharp minor Opus 131. My favourite piano concerto? Oh, hek, again ... let's say either Mozart K 488, or Rachmaninov's second. My favourite violin concerto? Shostakovich A minor Opus 77. My favourite symphony? Mozart G minor K550, or Shostakovich No.10 in E minor. My favourite whisky? Caol Ila”. Dmitri Dmitriyevich scores high in my Pearly Gate entry list.

Some composers speak directly to a listener; some are just listened to, and it has nothing to do with “greatness”. Schubert speaks to me; Schumann does not. Rachmaninov speaks to me; Scriabin does not. Shostakovich speaks to me; Szymanowski does not. Like so much to do with music, the ultimate abstract art form, it is almost impossible to describe in words.

Véronique Gens: Nuits

I have for a long time loved the voice of the French soprano Véronique Gens. Her voice lacks that screechiness that afflicts many sopranos, and she has superb diction, a quality somewhat rare in many of her sister sopranos where, all too often, it can take you five minutes just to recognise in what language they are singing — French, German, Italian, or Serbo-Croat — let alone what are the words. Even my other favourite sopranos such as Sandrine Piau and Carolyn Sampson do not have Ms. Gens' power of clear diction.

Her latest CD is superb: 14 tracks (11 of them sung) from French mélodie repertoire. Now in her 50s, she sings beautifully. Taking a cue from Chausson's Chanson Perpétuelle that was scored for voice plus piano and string quartet, pretty well all the mélodies on this CD have the same piano quintet accompaniment (from I Giardini, and transcribed by Alexandre Dratwicki). This works very well indeed. A simple piano accompaniment for over an hour can lack colour and variety; an orchestral accompaniment can detract from the vocal line. A piano quintet provides exactly the right amount of support, variety and colour, to my mind. Most of the composers here are well-known, with a few exceptions such as Guy Ropartz and André Messager, and the inclusion of Marcel Louiguy's La Vie en Rose (famous from Edith Piaf) is a nice touch. I fear that, although it is still only April, another strong candidate for my Record of the Year has emerged. I am still on auto-buy for anything sung by Véronique Gens.

Naxos and Fritz Kreisler

Lovers of violin playing owe a big debt of thanks to the Naxos company that, decade after decade has chronicled violinists past and present. The company has been especially generous with retrospective issues of Fritz Kreisler – I now have seventeen Naxos CDs of Kreisler recordings. The latest is Volume 9 of the complete recordings, and covers the years 1927-8 and features 24 tracks, mostly of Kreisler with a pianist (usually Carl Lamson), plus four tracks with his brother Hugo, and Michael Raucheisen in Berlin (1927).

These are recordings that used the new electric recording techniques, an enormous advance on the old acoustic recordings. Excellent transfers and sound renovation by Ward Marston. The playing of the 52 year old Kreisler remains as genial and fascinating as ever, with his inimitable rubato, vibrato and varied bowing technique, not to mention his singing double stops. Of the 24 tracks on this CD, there is not even one I would rather hear played by another violinist. No one before or since has played Dvorak's well-known Humoresque better than Kreisler in this 1927 recording. There are two versions of Massenet's Méditation from Thaïs on this CD, both from 2^nd February 1928. I prefer the second take, since the phrasing is a little less stilted, to my ears. Kreisler and Heifetz completely dominated their epoque and still represent the gold standard by which all violinists are judged.

Bach and Phantasm. Beethoven and the Tetzlaff Quartett

The Consort of Viols died out after the middle of the 17^th century, and it is highly doubtful whether Johann Sebastian Bach ever heard one. I was fascinated and impressed listening to a new CD from the Consort called Phantasm where it plays arrangements of twenty preludes and fugues by Bach, plus occasional ricercars and other pieces. These arrangements underline several aspects of Bach's music: his extreme harmonic daring at times (a bit like Henry Purcell), the complexity of his musical textures, the fact that Bach translates and transcribes happily for pretty well any instrumental combination – including some he would never have imagined, like a consort of viols – and how Bach's music was often rooted in the world of the 17^th century rather than in the new 18^th century world heavily influenced by the Italians. I am not a fan of “olde worlde string playing”, but Phantasm's viols have a rich and highly mellow sound, quite unlike the rasp and squeal of “baroque” string players. These performances increase my already enormous admiration for Bach's music. Highly recommended for a new musical experience and for a real revelation of Bach's preludes and fugues.

Bach's music can adapt to pretty well any instrumental combination. Not so Beethoven's string quartets that are firmly embedded in two violins, one viola, and one cello. Eminent conductors as diverse as Furtwängler and Klemperer conducted the Grosse Fuga with string orchestras, and Toscanini conducted the sixteenth quartet with a string orchestra. But these attempts at “orchestrating” Beethoven's chamber music really did not work and are now merely historical curiosities (although I still have much admiration for Klemperer and the Philharmonia in the Grosse Fuga, a recording I have known since the mid- 1950s).

“What do I care about your miserable fiddle when the spirit speaks to me?” Beethoven is alleged to have asked Ignaz Schuppanzigh when the quartet leader expressed qualms about playing the Grosse Fuga. Benjamin Britten remarked, with prescience, that “that was where the rot set in” (composers thumbing their noses at performers and audiences). My initial great enthusiasm for Beethoven's music has somewhat waned over the decades; but my allegiance to the late string quartets has never wavered. This is truly great music. I seized with alacrity a new CD from the Tetzlaff Quartett that couples the A minor quartet opus 132 with the B flat quartet opus 130. The Tetzlaff players still favour somewhat extreme dynamics, but this is wonderful music with superb playing and recording (Ondine). Quite rightly, the Tetzlaffs omit Beethoven's get-you-home finale for opus 130 and end the work with the great fugue that so intimidated Schuppanzigh. The fugue is a perfect finale after the sublime Cavatina. With the Pavel Haas Quartet and the Tetzlaff Quartett, I am spoilt for choice when it comes to favourite contemporary string quartets.

Georg Friedrich Händel

Music for the time of the plague. On what music is there to fall back on? Luigi Dallopicalla? Karl-Heinz Stockhausen? Pierre Boulez? Arnold Schönberg? For me, it is above all a return to my traditional loves: Johann Sebastian Bach, and Georg Friedrich Händel. Contemporaries by birth and geography, but oh so different in their music. I have re-embarked on the cantatas of Bach, and on an 8-CD Glossa set of the music Handel wrote during his Italian stay in around 1707 when he was just 22 years old. What extraordinary powers of invention the young Handel had! Melody after melody, all with interesting and varied accompaniments; in those days, you either wrote music that your audience enjoyed, or you starved. There is also some brilliant writing for solo violin in many of the arias, presumably to show off the prowess of Arcangelo Corelli who often led the various bands at the time, notably in the cantata Il Delirio Amoroso.  Le Cantata per il Cardinal Pamphili features the highly esteemed voice of Roberta Invernizzi, with La Risonanza directed by Fabio Bonizzoni, an all-Italian caste as with all eight Glossa CDs of Handel's cantatas and duetti. The absence of angst and trauma in this music is a welcome antidote to the current world. Over 300 years since it was first written to entertain the various Italian cardinals and potentates, this music still has the power to enthral and raise spirits. Long live Georg Friedrich!

Good Friday and Anton Bruckner

Good Friday circa 1955-56 I headed out from the Rue Vavin in Paris where I was staying, crossed the Jardin de Luxembourg, and headed down the Boulevard Saint-Michel until I reached the Théâtre du Châtelet where the Colonne orchestra conducted by Carl Schuricht was playing Wagner's Good Friday music, and Bruckner's 7^th symphony. This was my first introduction to the music of Anton Bruckner, and he and I have remained firm friends ever since (as has my love of Wagner's music).