In Praise of the Treble Clef (and other matters)

In my teen years in the 1950s I had only around 14 LP records; mainly Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. I played my collection over and over again and, to this day, I find it difficult to go back to many over-familiar works from that period: the Beethoven symphonies and concertos, the symphonies mainly with von Karajan and the Philharmonia, the Beethoven violin concerto with Bronislaw Gimpel mainly because it was on the cheaper Vox label and the LP also contained the F and G major romances for violin and orchestra. I used to play the romances on my violin (Gimpel played them even better than I did).

My father was a professional double bass player all his life. For some reason, I am a thoroughly treble clef person. A big part of my listening is to violinists and sopranos, and my principal reason for compiling this blog is to remind myself of the good things on my shelves to be listened to again. With such a large collection, one can simply forget things that have given great pleasure in the past. I didn't have such problems in my teen years with my collection of just a few LPs.

For sopranos and mezzos I love especially: Simone Kermes, Sabine Devieilhe, Carolyn Sampson, Joyce DiDonato, Véronique Gens, Maria Callas, Sandrine Piau, Diana Damrau. My violin loves are well documented throughout this blog.

And just for this blog: my favourite cuisines (in alphabetical order) are Chinese, French, Indian, Italian, Thai, and Vietnamese. My favourite FRESH foods are crab, Dover sole, lobster, scallops, oysters, whelks, squid, mussels, rump steak, veal chops, duck, spaghetti al ragù, spaghetti alle vongole. All very un-English, I'm afraid.

Bach's Musical Offering, from Bratislava

J.S. Bach's Musikalisches Opfer BWV 1079 is a bit of a strange beast. A collection of canons and fugues on a Ricerar theme, Bach left no order for the pieces, nor any indication of instrumentation. The whole lasts for just under one hour and makes for delightful listening. I listened to it by the Czech group Capella Istropolitana, a small breakaway group from the Czech Philharmonic directed from the cello by Christian Benda with a flute and violin also playing. A harpsichord is listed but, fortunately, rarely seems to be audible. The recording dates from distant 1993 and is still excellent listening. Company is Naxos, of course, and the recording was made in Bratislava. It was in Bratislava, long ago, that I ate in a restaurant offering wild boar in game sauce. Only the menu translated it as “savage pig in wild custard”. I ate the savage pig, none the less.

 

Ning Feng and the Paganini Caprices

I appear to have some eighteen different recordings of the 24 Capricci by Niccolò Paganini. I added a new one by the Chinese violinist, Ning Feng, since I greatly admire his playing. Feng is a top virtuoso on the violin and, of course, the Paganini caprices come out note-perfect. I admired Feng's virtuosity, but also his wide dynamic range and his ability to make the caprices interesting musically, as well as extreme virtuosic. There is a wide dynamic range in both playing and recording. The tricky sixth caprice is whispered as is the first theme of the twentieth. Solo violins can be tricky to record, but the Dutch engineers here have done well, with the violin at an intelligent distance from the recording microphones. So far, so excellent.

My only negative thought with Feng's superb playing is with his violin on this recording. There are some truly excellent modern violins around, but the violin by Samuel Zygmuntowicz (2017) is not one of them. It sounds scrawny at times, and lacks sonority throughout the range, sounding a bit new and unbroken-in, needing another decade or so of daily exercise. Feng might even have done better had he borrowed my violin.

Well, eighteen different recordings of the Capricci is probably quite enough, though if the rumour that Alina Ibragimova is also recording them is true, I might have to stop at nineteen. I recently admired the versions by two more young violinists, Augustin Hadelich, and Sueye Park. Enough is enough!

Bach's "48" with Edwin Fischer

I have just completed a journey of nearly four hours through Bach's 48 Preludes & Fugues. Music that is endlessly fascinating, endlessly varied, and endlessly satisfying. Bach knew what he was doing when he wrote the 48 so they fitted comfortably on four CDs; apart from anything else, this enables the listener to approach the music in four chunks of around one hour each. The 48 do not fit well into live concert performances, which is probably why pianists play just a small selection of the total. The works show Bach's love of fugues, polyphony, counterpoint, and sheer inventiveness. After I had finished listening to the 48^th Prelude and Fugue, my reaction was to cry “More! More!”

My guide throughout the four hours was Edwin Fischer, recorded in 1933-4. A rough calculation shows that in those days, the whole work would have required around 50 sides of 78 rpm disks. Fischer had a lovely touch on the keyboard, and brought a wide range of dynamics to the set. For me, it's an all-time classic for satisfying listening, and I do not contemplate finding a competitive performance.

Nearly 90 years on, the sound of Fischer's playing is still perfectly acceptable in the Naxos transfers I was listening to. Where would we music lovers be without Naxos? Bravo Johann Sebastian Bach, Edwin Fischer, and Naxos!

The Grumiaux Trio in Beethoven and Mozart

“Civilised” is the only appropriate adjective for the latest CD plucked from my archives, where the Grumiaux Trio is recorded at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1966 by the SWR radio station in Stuttgart. The music is eminently civilised: early Beethoven (the string trio opus 9 number 1 by early Beethoven, the duo for violin and viola K 423 by Mozart, and the divertimento K563 by Mozart). Each one of the high points of the 18^th classical tradition.

For me, Arthur Grumiaux was one of the three great violinists of the 20^th century (on the podium with Kreisler and Heifetz). A suave, meticulous violinist with an immaculate virtuoso technique that enabled him to play anything and everything, Grumiaux carried the flame of the Franco-Belgian school of violin playing. Never a constantly-touring virtuoso, Grumiaux travelled little outside Europe and appears to have rejoiced especially in playing chamber music with chosen colleagues.

This current CD comes from SWR Music, distributed by Hänssler Classic. As I have remarked before, Grumiaux live is often even better than Grumiaux in the studio. In the current world, it's a rare and necessary treat to be able to bask in 18^th musical civilisation for an hour or so. Musically, I appear to be stuck for the time being in the 18^th century. There are worse places to be.

Joyce DiDonato, Sandrine Piau, and Handel

I have hundreds of recordings of the music of Handel and Bach. During the current long Covid lockdown, they are a great comfort. They include an immense library of recordings of Handel's music – duets, cantatas, operas, and oratorios, as well as many recordings of excerpts, particularly of opera arias. Ditto a library of Bach recordings, plus many others of 18th-century music (including that of Purcell who died in 1695 at the age of 36). The 18^th century with Bach, Handel, Pergolesi, Vivaldi, the Scarlattis, Rameau, Haydn and Mozart has become, at the moment, my listening period of choice. A pity about all those 19^th and 20th-century composers for the moment, until my tastes change again and the wind swings round to the 19^th century.

Stars of my listening have been Sandrine Piau and Joyce DiDonato. Piau has an angelic voice (although her diction isn't great). DiDonato has a highly dramatic mezzo-soprano voice, with excellent diction. Together they make a fine pair of contrasted listening, even in much of the same music. Is there any more heartbreaking air in the whole of music than Purcell's “Dido's Lament”? Joyce DiDonato (with Il Pomo d'Oro) sings it most movingly, as she does Handel's “Lascia ch'io pianga” from Rinaldo. Sandrine Piau in arias from Handel's Opera Seria (Naïve, 2004 with Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset) gives us twelve Handel arias to complement her previous Handel CD “Between Heaven and Earth” that I wrote about enthusiastically a short while ago. DiDonato's CD of “In War and Peace”, an Erato CD from 2016, recorded in the South Tyrol, makes for over an hour of happy listening. Bach and Handel spent a lot of care over their accompanying orchestras, featuring different colours. Since singers can be a pretty unreliable lot, subject to colds and sniffles, it made sense to ensure that the band could always play up with interesting music to distract from vocal foibles. The band members would have been a pretty known quantity, whilst singers varied according to the season. It is important in a performance, then, that the band be given equal prominence with the singers. Too many recording producers, on the evidence of many I have been listening to, follow the pop music norm of lead singer with a big microphone up-front, whilst the “backing group” shares a small microphone towards the back. Not good, in Bach and Handel. Joyce DiDonato's recording of “In War and Peace” shows how it should be done. Airs and arias by Handel, Purcell and a few others are beautifully sung, beautifully accompanied, and beautifully balanced by the recording engineers.

To end this enthusiastic write-up on a scowling note: A burst of crass American commercialism by Erato (Warner). The makers of DiDonato's dress, jewellery, and make-up are all listed. On a CD liner note! No one tells us where Maxim Emelyanychev (the conductor) bought his shoes, nor to which barber he reported. Not a word about who made Handel's and Purcell's wigs. We need to know these things.