Antje Weithaas in Brahms with a poor conductor (Revised)

To Portsmouth on 9th December 2004 (!) to hear Elisabeth Batiashvili play the Brahms violin concerto. Only, it transpires, it wasn't Batiashvili (again) but a substitute young woman of exceptional talent, but with an inferior violin; she appeared to be playing on a violin that did not respond to pressure -- forte on the E and A strings came over as being harsh. But you could have heard a pin drop during the cadenza; she really made the audience concentrate on what was being played. Her name: Antje Weithaas. The orchestra plainly did not like the conductor, Rolf Gupta (Norway). Conducting without a baton, his arms became two flippers that twitched up and down, which plainly left the exposed, high, pianissimo violins at the start of the Prelude to Lohengrin, all at sea. From grim faces all round, it seemed as if hard words had been exchanged during the interval; the conductor came on late for the second half (Schumann second symphony) and the orchestra only managed a slight smile when he tripped and nearly fell at the end of the concert. I doubt we'll be seeing him again with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

Augustin Hadelich and Paganini's Capricci

“Paganini's capricci are often considered merely études used to improve technique. It is easy to forget that he uses these virtuosic acrobatics to serve the music; not vice versa. Each caprice is beautiful, witty and original with its own quirky personality; some are friends, but others are ferocious beasts to be tamed!” So writes Augustin Hadelich for his 2017 recording of the 24 Paganini capricci, and this typifies his approach to the works: highly musical (as well, of course, technically impeccable). With 16 different recordings of the complete Paganini capricci, I probably have enough to be going on with. I like many of my recordings, but I cannot claim to have an obvious favourite, though the recent Sueye Park and Hadelich stand out as worthy candidates. You need to play these works when you are young, full of enthusiasm, and with a reputation to establish.

In Europe, at least from the 1920s onwards, there were many specialist recording teams experienced in recording classical music – especially in England, Germany and the Netherlands. America has a more mixed reputation in classical recording; one thinks of the lousy recorded sound given to Arturo Toscanini in the 1950s, or the too close-up sound given to Michael Rabin for his recording of the Paganini capricci. I often have the impression that American recording studios are more geared to pop music and pop bands than to classical music, and that perhaps explains my occasional qualms over the recorded sound of Augustin Hadelich's recording of the capricci in Boston. At times the violin sounds somewhat aggressive, which is almost certainly not the fault of Hadelich's Guarneri del Gesù violin, nor of his playing. The sound needs more “air” around it, and the violin needs to be a couple of metres or so more distant from the microphones. A pity. An excellent comparison as to how a solo violin should sound when recorded could be three-star Antje Weithaas recorded in Cologne in 2015 in the complete solo violin works of Eugène Ysaÿe, and Johann Sebastian Bach. No aural aggression there! Just happy listening to a solo violin.

Bach's cantata BWV 21: Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis

Bach's cantata BWV 21: Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis is one of my very favourites. I have three recordings of the work: Herreweghe (1990), Suzuki (1997) and Kuijken (1988). Bach would appear to have greatly valued the work, since he relaunched it several times, on occasions replacing the soprano with a tenor, depending on which artists were available at the time (so much for playing the music exactly as the composer would have imagined it).

Even for Bach, the cantata BWV 21 is highly multi-layered and contrapuntal as Bach weaves together solo instrumentalists, solo voices, the choir, and the band, often with highly sophisticated harmonic changes. It is important that we hear all the voices, and this is where Herreweghe scores in his recording for Harmonia Mundi. I also like his team of soloists — Barbara Schlick, Howard Crook, and Peter Harvey who, to my ears, outshine Suzuki's team of Monika Frimmer, Gerd Türk, and Peter Kooij. Both Suzuki and Herreweghe have the inimitable Marcel Ponseele as oboe soloist. But Herreweghe's recording is my favourite, since I love hearing all the strands of the music

Vaughan Jones: History of the Salon

A new CD to appear introduces us to 23 “salon” pieces written between 1823 and 1913. Forgotten music, in the main, with just a few bits still around such as François Schubert's The Bee, Moritz Moszkowski's Guitarre, or Franz von Vecsey's Valse Triste. Looking through my files of alternative recordings of some of the pieces on the CD, competitive versions were recorded mainly at the beginning of the past century by the likes of the young Mischa Elman, Jan Kubelik, Maud Powell, Franz von Vecsey, and others. The 23 tracks on this CD really are grandad stuff, and all praise to Vaughan Jones for exhuming them. Some pieces, such as Joachim Raff's Cavatina, I used to play on my violin in my young days.

The pieces rarely demand extreme virtuosity, but they do demand a real sense of style. Vaughan Jones does not make you forget Kreisler, Heifetz or Grumiaux, and his violin can sound a little thin and fragile on occasions, particularly in the upper registers. But perhaps I still have the sound of Augustin Hadelich's violin in my ears. On occasions, the rhythmic articulation sounds a bit contrived, rather than flowing naturally from the music. But this is nit-picking; the CD is highly enjoyable and it is sad that so many of these pieces are rarely played nowadays, being replaced by eternal renditions of the Spring sonata, or Ravel's violin & piano sonata.

The CD, with 23 tracks, lasts a generous 83 minutes. The pieces are best enjoyed 3-4 at a time, so some form of shuffle-play facility is a big plus. Let us hope this starts a trend for exhuming the salon music for violin and piano of the past centuries. I have enjoyed listening to this CD, and will enjoy it many times again in the future. The music is mainly lyrical and sentimental in character, and listened to in short chunks, it whiles away a happy and relaxed half an hour at a time. All praise and thanks to Vaughan Jones and his pianist, Marcus Price. The CD is exceptionally well recorded, and the violin and piano well balanced.

Augustin Hadelich. Violinist in Czech Music

I had not come across the playing of the violinist Augustin Hadelich before, so I bought his new CD mainly out of curiosity, and also because I like almost all the pieces on the disc. Hadelich does not disappoint; he has an impeccable technique, an excellent musical sense, and his violin makes a very nice sound. I have always liked Janacek's sonata for violin and piano, and I love the way Hadelich plays it here. The fourth of Dvorak's Four Romantic Pieces can often seem to go on for too long, but not here, since it is played with sensitivity and a real feeling for the rise and fall of the music and the melody. I grew up in the 1950s with Ginette Neveu's recording of Josef Suk's highly attractive Four Pieces opus 17 (on an LP with the Sibelius violin concerto). Hadelich's performance here is excellent -- three stars -- and I much admire his varied vibrato, something of a lesson in vibrato usage. As throughout the violin and piano pieces on the CD, Charles Owen is an excellent pianist and partner, and the recording is fine and well balanced. Hadelich rounds off the CD with two evergreen pieces by Dvorak that I do like: Songs my Mother Taught me Op 55 No.4 and the Humoresque Op 101 No.7 (Kreisler). Both excellently played by both artists.

For some reason, the music of Antonin Dvorak has always ruffled my feathers, and has rarely been to my taste, except for a few short pieces. This has been a life-long experience and includes the concertos, the symphonies, and the string quartets. Whatever the reason, Dvorak and I have never got along together. At some point I'll summon enough enthusiasm to sit down and listen to Hadelich and 31 minutes of the Dvorak violin concerto, a work that has never inspired me.

As is the current fashion, Hadelich is marketed by Warner as a pop star, with no less than six photos of him in the slender booklet. The rationale is hard to understand; do the marketing people really think that on seeing his photo on the CD hordes of teenage girls are going to run out and invest in Dvorak, Suk and Janacek? Probably not even Hadelich's mother would claim he is particularly photogenic. Six photos of Hadelich, but nary an image of Dvorak, Suk or Janacek. As the Americans say: go figure

The Music of J.S. Bach, and Beatrice Rana, again

I can never explain to myself – or to anyone else – just why I find the music of J.S. Bach so satisfying. There is more drama in the music of Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich. A greater profusion of beautiful melodies in the music of Handel, Schubert or Bellini. A greater range of human emotions in the music of Mozart or Beethoven. I have just been re-listening to the 77 minutes of the 30 variations of Bach's Goldberg Variations: satisfying! My attention never wanders. The performance to which I listened today was once again the highly personal account by young Beatrice Rana, who plays the music exactly as I would hope to play it (if ever I had learned to play the piano). What is so eternally satisfying about these variations? I cannot possibly explain.