New Music

Music throughout the ages has been based mainly on folk song, dance music, love songs. The Beatles' "Yesterday" would have been enjoyed by music lovers in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. As they would have enjoyed Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne", or Edith Piaf's "Je ne regrette rien". Folk song, dance music, and love songs are pretty well eternal. Not so much "classical" music after the beginning of the 20th century, that abandoned its roots and became increasingly the preserve of a few trendies, plus music academies. Apart from the music of Shostakovich, I can think of almost no music I listen to composed after 1960. The "music industry" attempts to thrust "new music" on us, but most of us resist with profound indifference. Give me the Beatles, Leonard Cohen or Edith Piaf any day when it comes to post- 1955.

My Record of the Year: Eternal Heaven (Handel)

"I can resist anything, except temptation," Oscar Wilde once quipped. Well, I can resist buying yet another CD; unless it's a collection of Handel arias. The latest to be added to my immense collection of Handel is a CD titled "Eternal Heaven" and features Lea Desandre (mezzo-soprano), Iestyn Davies (counter-tenor), and a small orchestra called Jupiter, directed by Thomas Dunford. 21 tracks, all sung in English, starting with the wonderful aria "Eternal source of light divine" from the birthday ode for Queen Anne (where the solo trumpet is transcribed for Lea Desandre; not a bad idea).

As so often with Handel, the music is wonderful. Handel was a truly great melodist, with a master's touch. I liked both singers -- even the counter-tenor -- and the small band plays much as Handel would have wanted. Many favourite arias from Semele, Theodora, Solomon, Susanna, Esther, and others. A CD strongly recommended for those who want 86 minutes of often achingly beautiful music (try "Hither let our hearts transpire" from Theodora, or "To thee thou glorious son of earth", from the same oratorio.). A CD to file in my "keep close to hand" rack. They don't write music like this any more. "Comfort music"? It may well be. If so: long live comfort music!

I first listened to this new CD on 31st December, so it's just in time to be my Record of the Year 2022. A big bravo to the two soloists, the Jupiter band, the recording company (Erato, recording in a Normandy chapel). And to Mr Händel for the music.

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell (1659-95) died at the age of 36 and was England's (only) great composer. To paraphrase a remark by Handel: "If he had lived longer, we would all be out of a job". His music is characterised by great harmonic daring, with strange harmonies that often make the late quartets of Beethoven sound conventional by comparison. Above all, his is pure music and makes us conscious of how music, after 1800, became less concerned with pure pleasure and began to gravitate towards emotions and personal statements. Purcell composed for his 17th century audience operas, masques, sonatas, trios, choral works, songs and, picking up a music form already antiquated at the time, Fantasias for the Viols (1680). Viol consorts were dated by 1680. As a change from violin music, I have been listening to the Fantasias as recorded by Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XX in 1994 with an all-star cast including Wieland Kuijken and Philippe Pierlot.

The music is never boring or routine; the tempi and harmonies are in constant flux with these early precursors of the classical string quartet. The CD ends with the In Nomine in 7 parts. Most of the Fantasias are in four parts, with a few in three parts. Think string trios, or string quartets. I first came across the Fantasias when I was around 15 years old and gave one of my sisters a 10" LP of the music, played by I forget whom. I have kept lovingly in touch with them ever since. The music is remarkable, and unforgettable; always highly contrapuntal, and often almost dodecaphonic years before its time. No wonder Handel was an admirer. Purcell is mainly known now for his opera Dido and Aeneas; but even given his short life, there is so much more of his music to admire and love. When I have finished with the Fantasias, I'll start back on his songs, of which there are many and of which he was a master.

 

Augustin Hadelich plays Tchaikovsky and Lalo

For some reason or another, it has been a long time since I last listened to Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. I listened to it today in a live recording by Augustin Hadelich, with the London Philharmonic conducted by Vasily Petrenko. Well recorded, and you would never know it was live, were it not for the (well deserved) thunderous applause at the end of the work.

Hadelich is well on the way to becoming my favourite modern violinist, in a highly competitive field. His intonation is impeccable, his technique beyond reproach. He always makes a lovely sound but, more importantly and more rare, he is a highly sensitive musician who appears to react instinctively to every bar he plays. His playing is always interesting; I would characterise his style as Central European as opposed to what I always think of as the Russian-Israeli-American more macho approach. I listened with pleasure to every bar of Tchaikovsky's concerto and was tempted to join in the final applause. Petrenko and the LPO contribute well, as one might expect; but Hadelich is the star here.

On to the second live recording on this CD, still with Hadelich and the LPO, but with Omer Meir Wellber conducting (never heard of him). A long way from Russia, we meet Eduard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole -- with all five movements, thank goodness, and not the abbreviated four movement version that was often played in the past on the dubious grounds that a symphonie should only have four movements. Again, it is Hadelich who is the star in this over-familiar work. He is a violinist to whom one listens. The unknown Mr Wellber ensures a first-class accompaniment from the orchestra. Bravo to all concerned: Hadelich, the LPO, the conductors, the recording engineers. This a first-class CD.

Véronique Gens and Sandrine Piau in 18th century French operatic arias

A good friend sent me a CD where two of my all-time favourite singers, Véronique Gens and Sandrine Piau, sing eleven arias from the 18^th century French operatic repertoire. Thus we hear the music of such well-known (?) composers as Louis-Luc Loiseau de Persuis, André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry, Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny, and Nicolas Dalayrac. The eleven arias are allocated alternately to the two French sopranos, with three of the arias being duos. Some of the arias are quite long (8-10 minutes) and all are sung in French. Though both Gens and Piau are sopranos, their voices are easily distinguishable, with Gens having more “gold” in her voice, and Piau more silver.

The music is uniformly lovely. I first listened to the CD in the evening after a good meal, and immediately fell in love with it. After the 18^th century, the idea that music had simply to be enjoyable became rarer in the “classical” music world. The music of Dalayrac, de Persuis et al is fully of the 18^th century and serves as a timely reminder that that century was not all German or Italian, and that the French musical scene thrived, particularly where opera was concerned. Difficult to imagine anything here being better done by other than Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau, and Le Concert de la Loge directed by Julien Chauvin. A big Bravo to all concerned, including the recording team for the Alpha label. Three stars. Sit back. Listen. Enjoy the music and the singing.

Simone Kermes in Vivaldi

I risk being unfaithful to Sandrine Piau, having now discovered Simone Kermes. In mottetti by Vivaldi, Kermes sings with incredible accuracy, perfect style, and with a soprano voice that is tinted with gold (whereas Ms Piau is tinted with silver). And I have now discovered Vivaldi's cantatas, duetti and mottetti, so there is no stopping me! I have already ordered Ms Kermes' second Vivaldi CD. The playing of the Venice Baroque Orchestra under Andrea Marcon is exemplary. If I become a Mormon or a Moslem, I could live with both Sandrine Piau and Simone Kermes. [Corrected. Originally published in 2008].

Excellent Playing from Augustin Hadelich

Benjamin Britten's only violin concerto was written in 1938-9 when he was 25 years old. Its opus number is only 15. I have long had a soft spot for the work and currently have 18 different recordings of it. The latest comes from Augustin Hadelich, one of the finest of today's finest violinists, and it is a truly excellent version. Played with immense feeling (and no lack of technique) and very ably partnered with the WDR Sinfoieorchester conducted by Christian Macelaru. Warner gives it an excellent recording, though listening to some of the pianissimo passages requires more imagination than ears; the recording has a wide dynamic range. One of my three-star recordings. (Unusually for me, Arabella Steinbacher, James Ehnes, Ida Haendel, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Simone Lamsma, and Vilde Frang also all earn my rare three stars in this work. It appears to be a concerto that you play well if you really love it).

Also on the CD is my one of my favourite encores: Recuerdos de la Alhambra by Francisco Tarrega. Arranged by Ruggiero Ricci, Hadelich plays it better than Ricci ever did, with bow control to leave you open-mouthed. Then on to Sarasate's Fantaisie de concert sur des motifs de l'opéra Carmen, a far superior fantasy than that of Franz Waxman, that was puffed up with Hollywood kitsch. Hadelich confirms himself as a very superior violinist, and leaves me wondering why I bother keeping a myriad of recordings by past violinists such as Szigeti, Milstein, Szeryng, Oistrakh, Francescatti, Perlman, Huberman, et al. Did they really have something that modern violinists such as Hadelich do not?

On to the final work: Prokofiev's second violin concerto. Prokofiev and Stravinsky are not my favourite 20^th century Russians, unlike Rachmaninov and Shostakovich. Of Prokofiev's two violin concertos, I much prefer the first, that is less “commercial” and crowd-pleasing in its concept. Hadelich and his orchestral partner play the second Prokofiev concerto entirely admirably. In fact, I think I prefer it to the classic Heifetz recording. I had a great deal of respect for Augustin Hadelich after his recent CDs of the Bach sonatas and partitas, a CD of Czech works, and Paganini's 24 Capricci. My respect increases; not only can he play the violin like an angel; he also shows a real empathy for the music he is playing. Roll on more Hadelich recordings!

Vieuxtemps, and Alexander Markov

What lovers of violin music would do without Naxos, I can't imagine. Vieuxtemps, de Bériot, Sarasate, Ysaÿe, Spohr, Sauret, Rode ..... and many other violin composers have poured forth from Naxos over the decades, and many excellent modern violinists have been able to make their voices heard on disc, often for the first time. A kind friend has sent me a new Naxos CD of music by Henri Vieuxtemps, recorded by Alexander Markov (the son of Albert) and the Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha-Eisenach. Everyone on the disc plays with great enthusiasm and expertise, and Naxos gives us its usual excellent recording quality.

The new CD is nice to have, but it has to be admitted that much of the music is of a somewhat slender quality, chosen mainly, I suspect, to provide a show-off vehicle for Alexander Markov. We can assume nowadays that every violinist and his or her dog can play any pyrotechnics to order; probably even double harmonics with simultaneous left-hand pizzicato and ricochet bowing. So what made ears tingle in the time of Paganini or Vieuxtemps occasions less tingling nowadays. I am not a fan of pages of violin pyrotechnics. Here, the Variations on Beethoven's Romance No.1, the Fantasie in E major, and the Variations on a theme from Norma, are not going to bear repeated listening, though good to have heard them at least once. The first movement of the 8^th violin concerto (orchestrated from the piano score by Chrisoph Baumgarten) makes one regret that Vieuxtemps died before he could finish the work. The concerto was dedicated to Vieuxtemps' star pupil, Eugène Ysaÿe and the first movement contains some excellent music.

The Scène de Ballet from the third act of Vieuxtemps' opera La Fiancée de Messine gives the orchestra a chance to show its paces under its conductor, Markus Huber. Attractive music with which to round off 69 minutes of music, some of which shows signs of barrel scraping.

Lisa Batiashvili

For a couple of decades now, the Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili has been one of my favourites. A kind friend sent me her latest CD on which she plays four works. The César Franck sonata is obviously one of her favourites; this is the third recording of her playing it that I have on my shelves, previously with Maris Gothoni in Scotland in 2001, and with Khatia Buniatishvili in Verbier in 2013. For this 2022 recording, she plays in Berlin with fellow-Georgian Giorgi Gigashvili. A superb performance, well recorded by the German team that balances piano and violin to perfection, and captures the sound of Batiashvili's Guarneri del Gesù violin. And also three stars for Gigashvili, who proves to be an excellent partner for his fellow-Georgian. Yet another superb recording of this much-played duo sonata.

Karol Szymanowski's first violin concerto is pretty ungrateful for the violinist; to my mind, it is more a concerto for orchestra, with obbligato solo violin part. In my distant youth I bought the sheet music and attempted the solo violin part, without too much success. In this recording, Lisa does her best, but is not helped by the American engineers who concentrate on the (superb) sound of the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The del Gesù violin sounds a bit tinny on top, as the engineers concentrate on the orchestra. A pity it was not recorded in Germany, like the Franck sonata; I always have the impression that German, and Czech, recording engineers have more experience of recording classical music, and a better feeling for balance and dynamics.

I have always had a soft spot for Ernest Chausson's Poème Op.25. It is given a lovely, affectionate performance here by Batiashvili and the Philadelphians. Again, I wished the balance engineer had turned the sound of the solo violin up a notch; Batiashvili has some lovely piano and pianissimo playing, but you often have to strain your ears to hear it here (though probably not in the concert hall). An odd minor criticism; it's usually the other way round with famous soloist recorded too up-front. Anyway, one notch too low is better than two notches too high where the soloist can blast you out of your chair.

As an encore, we are given Lisa and Nézet-Séguin playing Debussy's Beau Soir as arranged by Jascha Heifetz. An affectionate performance by both artists, and a piece that rounds off a highly satisfactory hour of violin music. Lisa Batiashvili may now be aged 43, but she still sounds in her prime. I nearly heard her in at a concert some years ago, but she cried off before I arrived there due, I seem to remember, to advanced pregnancy. It's good to hear her poised, intelligent, classical playing still going strong.

Aaron Rosand and Brahms' Hungarian Dances

I have always loved the gypsy music of the eastern lands of Europe. Virtuosity, dance rhythms, ever-changing moods; this is true “popular” music. It also fascinated Johannes Brahms (amongst others) and I have just enjoyed listening to his 21 Hungarian Dances, most of them written in collaboration with the Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim. Few of the dances last more than two and a half minutes, so the ear is charmed with the constant change of rhythm and mood.

The 21 dances were recorded in Philadelphia in 1991 by the American violinist Aaron Rosand, born in America in 1927 of Russian and Polish extraction. His warm, romantic playing on his Guarneri del Gesù violin suits the music down to the ground. In my current major purge of my over-large CD collection, I have spared this Biddulph CD. It's a worthy memento of Rosand's playing and the sound of his violin, as well as preserving 21 lovable pieces of music in superb performances.

Fritz Kreisler's String Quartet

I have been listening with great pleasure to Fritz Kreisler's String Quartet in A Minor, played on a recent Naxos transfer by the Kreisler String Quartet. The 1935 recording is expertly transferred by Ward Marston and is Volume 11 of Naxos's admirable survey of all Kreisler's recordings (the concerto recordings are in a separate series on Naxos). First violin is, of course, Fritz himself; the viola player is William Primrose.

The quartet in conventional four movements makes for highly attractive listening. The music is quintessential fin de siècle Viennese (Kreisler was born in 1875). Had the quartet been written by a Moslem or African woman, it would be heard regularly in the current “inclusive” climate. Inevitably, the violin has the lion's share of the action, but with Kreisler playing his own music, all to the good. I have only two other recordings of the work: one by Nigel Kennedy and friends in his pre- pop star guise, and the other by the Fine Arts Quartet in 2010. To my great shame, I can recall neither recording, but Kreisler playing Kreisler is inimitable. Highly recommended. Elsewhere on Volume 11 we can admire Kreisler in the usual short duo pieces. The sound, as usual, is inimitable. What always fascinates me with Kreisler's playing is the way he articulates the music with his right arm (the bow). Most modern violinists concentrate on developing a kind of son filé, a stream of beautiful sound a bit like an oboe. The art of using the bow appears to have been lost.

Favourite Soloists. And Clara Haskil

A violinist friend once asked me to name my favourite violinist. I replied: “playing what music?” He agreed this was a fair answer, because a violinist who plays to perfection in Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert may well not be the same as the one who plays to perfection in Brahms, Elgar, Prokoviev or Shostakovich. With favourite conductors it's the same problem. Furtwängler and Klemperer are the greatest for me, but I don't fancy either conducting Debussy's La Mer, or Berlioz's Symphone Fantastique.

20^th century violinists? Hordes of them, but particularly Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Arthur Grumiaux, and Ginette Neveu. Come the 21^st century things become even more complictated, but I have a soft spot for Renaud Capuçon, Tianwa Yang, Lisa Batiashvili, Arabella Steinbacher, and Alina Ibrabimova. Four women, and one man; I think that's called “inclusive” in current parlance, at least by women.

For pianists, I have less of a problem: be it for Bach, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert or Schuman there is only one favourite candidate. Clara Haskil. I have just been listening to her many CDs, recorded mainly in the 1950s. Mozart piano concertos Nos. 19, 20 and 27. Beethoven's Op 111 piano sonata. 11 Scarlatti keyboard sonatas. The Scarlatti and the Schubert D 960 come on an Archipel CD (recorded 1950 and 1951). A recital in Ludwigsburg in 1953 has Haskil playing Bach, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Schumann … and a bonus of Debussy and Ravel (Südwestrundfunk). A wonderful treat. I am currently having a serious weeding-out of my over-inflated collection of recordings. But never anything by Clara Haskil who just sat down and played the music, as it was written and as it should be played. One of a kind. I admired her in duo sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven with Arthur Grumiaux. I admire her as a soloist, or with an orchestra.

Grumiaux and Haskil brought to life in Beethoven

The ten sonatas for violin and piano by Beethoven were recorded by Arthur Grumiaux and Clara Haskil between September 1956 and January 1957. They were immediately recognised as really great performances, a status they have retained until the present time. They fully deserve the adage: “if you own only one recording of these sonatas …” The last reincarnation of these works that I own was by Decca, released in 2007 in an “analogue to digital remaster”.

I was sent a new transfer of the ten, and compared it with the Decca box. The difference in sound was immediately noticeable. I tested old versus new with Op 30 No.3, one of my favourite sonatas with its lovely slow movement and impressive finale. The Decca sounded boxy and old; the new transfers by Alexandre Bak for Classical Music Reference Recording freed the sound and could have been recorded yesterday. A revelation, and a big accolade to Alexandre Bak. From now on his is the only version I need on my shelves, and Grumiaux and Haskil live on happily and in good recorded sound.

Ray Wings - L'Aile de Raie

I have had a long-time love affair with ray wing (or skate wing). L'aile de raie in French. Recently in France on the Brittany coast (La Trinité-sur-Mer) I had a really remarkable aile de raie in a restaurant called Le Surcouf. Cooking the wing is not difficult (2 minutes in hot water, turn, then two more minutes). It's the sauce that is so difficult. The classic sauce has capers and vinegar, but the sauce at Le Surcouf was much more subtle and I have been trying to emulate it at home from memory ever since, with varying degrees of success. Best attempt to date was with salt, pepper, butter, lemon juice, mustard, and a dollop of crème fraiche. But I'm not there, yet. Give me a few more years, and a few more experimental sauces.

Pavel Haas Quartet and Johannes Brahms

I have always been a selective fan of the music of Johannes Brahms. Too often the textures are too muddy for my taste. A good friend sent me a CD of Brahms chamber music for my birthday, and I listened to it with pleasure. The record company is Supraphon; still a recording company and not just a label name like so many others in the business. Supraphon employs sound engineers who also know about classical music. The players are the Pavel Haas Quartet; one of the best around today. The pianist in the Op 34 piano quintet in F minor is Boris Giltburg, also one of the best around today. A CD that has everything going for it.

To my great surprise – I who thought I knew everything – the Op 111 string quintet in G major was new to me. My loss; it's a lovely work, but string quintets often are (viz Mozart and Schubert). Needless to say, I found the playing and recording excellent. Pavel Nikl provides the second viola for the quintet. The F minor piano quintet is familiar; I have several other recordings of the work. It receives a superb, well-balanced recording here, but it's a work I like less than the string quintet. The piano part often muddies the texture; I'm often ill at ease when a piano joins a string quartet. Strings together make a nice, homogenous sound.

Anyway, a good 70 minutes of fine, classical 19^th century music presented in the best possible light. And also bravo to Supraphon for a fine piece of sound engineering.

Haskil, Grumiaux, Mozart. And recorded balance

In the previous century, recording companies such as DGG, Philips, and EMI maintained expert teams of in-house recording technicians skilled in recording classical music performances. The teams included a good balance engineer. At the present time, one gets the impression that contract technicians are used and that on Monday they may be recording the pop group Lord Muck and the Five Virgins, and on Tuesday a baroque chamber group with a solo singer. The message is: give the star a big microphone, and keep the backing group in the background.

This thought came to me while listening to some expert refurbished transfers of Arthur Grumiaux and Clara Haskil playing six of Mozart's violin and piano sonatas (Philips recordings from around 60 years ago). The refurbished recordings are excellent in quality; modern technology can do wonderful things. The recorded balance of the two musicians struck me: the balance was just right. In these sonatas, the piano has the lion's part (probably Mozart himself showing off). The performances by Grumiaux and Haskil come from another, golden age. No “original instruments”, no fortepiano. Just the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Highly enjoyable, balance and all.

Fanny Clamagirand in the Beethoven Violin Concerto

Up until now, the French violinist Fanny Clamagirand has appeared on my shelves only in French music by Camille Saint-Saëns and Eugène Ysaÿe, so I was happy to receive a CD of her playing the Beethoven violin concerto, with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ken-David Masur (Mirare). This is a performance I greatly enjoyed, starting with the recording balance. Beethoven's concerto is not written for a super macho soloist; the concerto is intensely lyrical and soloist and orchestra play the music together. This is Beethoven in a relaxed mood (the concerto is Opus 61 and the Pastoral Symphony Opus 68). The violinist and orchestra are well integrated, with the violin not having a distracting spotlight as it weaves its arabesques around the orchestral part.

Ms Clamagirand makes a somewhat tentative start at her very first entry, but thereafter things go exactly as they should. The orchestra makes an excellent partner for the solo violin. A big plus: Ms Clamagirand plays Kreisler's cadenzas throughout. There are dozens of cadenzas for this concerto, many of them somewhat preposterous and written for a different kind of soloist. After Beethoven, composers became wiser about leaving cadenzas to soloists and either wrote them out themselves, or with a virtuoso adviser (David for Mendelssohn, and Joachim for Brahms). Well done all concerned here: Beethoven, Fanny Clamagirand, orchestra, and Mirare.

Toscha Seidel

Alerted by the forthcoming auction of the “ex-Seidel” Stradivarius violin, I dug out some of my recordings of Toscha Seidel (1899-1962). A pupil of Leopold Auer in St Petersburg, and twinned early on with Jascha Heifetz, Seidel had a less than stellar career, and no international career that I know of, apart from a brief recital tour in Scandinavia as a teenager with Auer and Heifetz. Emigrating to America, and after New York, to Hollywood, Seidel's musical career became bogged down in the Hollywood morass of fame, money, and popular shows. Much like Erich Korngold (1897-1957), with whom Seidel recorded Korngold's Much Ado About Nothing suite in 1941. Hollywood was a death knell for serious classical musicians (though Heifetz managed to survive most of the tinsel). Possibly both Korngold and Seidel died early of broken hearts and thwarted ambitions, with a sense of immense gifts unfulfilled. As the French say: une vie ratée. Few recordings of Seidel's playing remain, and most of them from the period 1926-45, and most of them of short vignette pieces (in which, like Mischa Elman, he excelled). Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz, Toscha Seidel, Fritz Kreisler: they were violinists like no others, and they do not make violinists like them any more. More is the pity.

Put on a piece played by Seidel, and you are greeted with soaring lyricism, passionate involvement in the music, and sensuous string playing. The sound is enough to make you rush out and put in a bid for the forthcoming auction of the ex-Seidel Strad. The best of Seidel? He recorded few long works, and no concertos that I know of. Be that as it may: one listens to Seidel for the violin playing, not for musical perspicacity. Probably no one regrets that Seidel did not record the Mozart or Beethoven violin concertos. But the Wagner Albumblatt, and Provost's Intermezzo with the violin's soaring lyricism. Or Brahms Hungarian Dance No.1. Or Korngold's Much Ado suite (with Korngold at the piano). Or Chausson's Poème in 1945 with Leopold Stokowski. I know of no Seidel recordings after 1945, which is a big black mark for the American recording industry, and a big source of regret for lovers of wonderful violin playing. It is said that his favourite work in his repertoire was the Brahms violin concerto but, alas any recordings of his playing the concerto have long been erased by the American commercial radio companies for whom he performed for, probably, substantial fees.

I treasure my small collection of 5-6 CD transfers of Toscha Seidel's meagre recorded legacy. I listen to the pieces when I wish to be reminded of just what a violin can do. And just how a great violinist can bring music to life, even short pieces of music. As I said: they don't make them like that any more.

Akiko Suwanai Magnificent in Bach

It never rains but it pours. I had just finished listening to and absorbing Leonidas Kavakos in the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin by Bach, when along came another set via a download from a very good friend. I had some irritants with Kavakos's Bach; not with his violin playing but with the way he messed around with phrasing and rhythm and added some completely superfluous ornamentation. The new set in my player comes from Akiko Suwanai and it is extremely good. Akiko, too, is a top class violinist, but she is also a serious and intelligent musician.

Akiko Suwanai sprang to fame when she came first in the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1990 at the age of 18. Her performance there of Paganini's D major concerto brought thunderous applause from the audience (and from me, listening to a CD of the concert). She has always been an extremely intelligent musician. I have only heard her once in concert and that was in Washington a couple of decades ago. Very impressive in the Bartok violin concerto, with her long hair flying in all directions as she played. I have been an Akiko fan for many, many years and have a good number of recordings of her playing; none of them duds. She keeps a pretty low profile and appears to be a very private person. Would there were more like her.

My Beckmesser slate is completely unmarked, even after 31 movements of the sei solo. Quite an achievement in these over-familiar works. The andante of the second sonata is played as sweetly and effortlessly as Heifetz in his recording, and Akiko's bowing dexterity in the final allegro is a joy to listen to. The ciaccona of the second partita is an object lesson in skill in bowing and dynamics. At 50 years old, Akiko has lost none of her technical flair. The largo of the third sonata – like all the slower movements in this set – is played with real skill and affection, and the following allegro assai really is assai; the girl must have a magic bow, and probably even Heifetz's jaw would have dropped.

The sound is excellent, and her del Gesù violin has a recorded warmth that I missed in the Kavakos set. Akiko was recorded in a Dutch church in July of 2021; considering that by the time I listened to the set the tracks had been compressed to FLAC, sent over the Net, decompressed by me and then written to CD, I have no niggles whatsoever. Modern technology can be impressive, at times (unlike modern politicians). Is this set the best of the bunch? Unlikely, given the varied competition. But asked to nominate just one set of the sei solo to take to my desert island, it would probably be this set from Akiko Suwanai. Bravo. Even after over 30 years since the Moscow competition, she is technically superb but, more importantly and rarer, an intelligent and sensitive musician.

Leonidas Kavakos Part II: Bach

Looking at my shelves for complete recordings of Bach's six sonatas and partitas for solo violin, I find: Kristof Barati, 2009. George Enescu, 1948. Isabelle Faust, 2011. Ning Feng, 2016. Gregory Fulkerson, 2007. Arthur Grumiaux, 1960. Augustin Hadelich, 2020. Jascha Heifetz, 1952. Alina Ibragimova, 2008. Leonidas Kavakos, 2020. Nathan Milstein, 1973. Leila Schayegh, 2020. Oscar Shumsky, 1978. Lara St. John, 2007. Josef Suk, 1970. Christian Tetzlaff, 1993. Antje Weithaas, 2012-17. And that is just those I have who have recorded all six; there are many others who have recorded individual sonatas or partitas. Competition is ferocious.

My latest addition to the line-up of the previous 16 is that of Leonidas Kavakos recorded in 2020. In his written introductory words to Bach's works, Kavakos writes: “The rise of the soul to its purification harmony's rhythm and rhythm's harmony are decisive assistants to each incarnation's personal journey towards achieving catharsis through the experience of life, and thus opening the gate to theosis, the divine aspect of existence.” Whatever that may mean. Fortunately, once Kavakos puts down his pen and picks up his violin bow, we can return to reality.

Kavakos's phasing and articulation sometimes tend towards the interventionist and can to appear to be over-fussy, particularly noticeable in the slower movements of these works; I'm not sure I always like it, but it certainly makes for a more interesting interpretations than much of the smooth, bland playing we often find with other violinists. His choppiness occasionally brings on fear of seasickness, as in the opening Allemanda of the first partita. There has to be an ideal line somewhere between choppiness and complete calm. Kavakos occasionally adds some twiddling ornamentation of his own, notably in the first partita; I don't mind most times, and I'm sure Bach would not either. But I've never noticed it before in the other recordings of the six works. The ciaccona of the second suite comes off really well, though I prefer the ending to be played quietly and peacefully which it is not here, and Kavakos adds some – to my mind – quite unnecessary ornamentation to the final bars. Like the Goldberg Variations, where the theme is restated quietly and simply at the end, so should it be with the ciaccona, I feel. Kavakos is excellent in the three fugues, voicing the parts clearly and expertly. In my days of playing these works, I always left the fugues strictly alone

The recorded sound is OK but would have benefited from a little more air around it; a violin – even a Strad as here -- playing forte up close can become a little strident at times. An excellent set of the sei solo, then, with some wonderful and interesting violin playing. With such ferocious competition, including luminaries such as Heifetz, Milstein and Grumiaux, there can be no “capo di tutti i capi”. Kavakos is well up there with the leaders, but I have minor quibbles to make me hesitate to nominate him as my top choice. His occasional unnecessary ornamentation and fussy phrasing often make me grimace, particularly during some of the slower of the 31 movements that make up the sei solo. Recently, Antje Weithaas pleased me greatly in the complete set (though she also is often an interventionist and a bit fussy). Coming from nowhere, the dark horse Leila Schayegh also gave me a lot of pleasure recently. Spoilt for choice. One day I'll have to record the works myself. Minus the fugues.

Leonidas Kavakos Part I

There are superb violinists who have rarely been labelled as “stars”. One thinks of Josef Szigeti, Josef Suk, Wolfgang Schneiderhan … and Leonidas Kavakos. I have been an admirer of Kavakos for over two decades now. Unlike some musicians, he keeps a relatively low profile and just gets on with superb violin playing. A CD from 2000 devoted to the music and arrangements by Fritz Kreisler reminds us that Kavakos studied for a time with Joseph Gingold; he obviously learned a lot about playing Kreisler from Gingold. Absence of vulgar bravura; excellent sense of rhythm; highly varied dynamics; highly varied bow strokes. Playing 18 short pieces one after another and holding a listener's attention, is a major challenge, but Kavakos brings it off with his Kreisler CD.

15 years later brings us another Kavakos CD, this time with 15 short pieces embracing a number of virtuoso challenges from Sarasate, Tarrega, Paganini and Wieniawski. The CD includes what appears from my off-air recordings of Kavakos concerts, to be one of his favourite encores: Tarrega's Recuerdos de la Albambra, transcribed by the maverick American violinist Ruggiero Ricci. Even after all these years, I cannot work out how one violin can possibly play the piece. The recital includes Benjamin Britten's curious Reveille, labelled as a concert study for violin and piano. The only other person I can find in my collection who has also recorded it is someone called Magdalena Filipczak; whoever she may be. Kavakos's renditions here of Tchaikovsky's Valse-Sentimanale and of Dvorak's over-familiar Humoresque (arranged by Kreisler) are among the very best to be had. As usual, I skipped Paganini's Variations on God Save the King, since I am not fond of Paganini in his circus mode. Kavakos reveals himself to be a top-class virtuoso throughout the 78 minutes of this CD devoted to virtuoso violin music. But he remains a violinist and musician who never crosses the line into being a showman or entertainer. Unlike some of his rivals.

Part II of this write-up on Leonidas Kavakos will follow once I have digested his new recording of the six solo sonatas and partitas by Bach that arrived today. Rare these days that I add to my over-large collection of CDs with a new one; but I made an exception for Kavakos. The 21^st century has featured many really top-class violinists, and Kavakos, along with Lisa Batisahvili and Alina Ibragimova, is at the top with a select few.

Ginette Neveu

Fritz Kreisler, Mischa Elman, Toscha Seidel, Nathan Milstein, Josef Szigeti, Jascha Heifetz, Arthur Grumiaux, Josef Suk, Leonid Kogan, David Oistrakh … and so on. No shortage of top violinists in the previous century. But for me, at the top of the pile, was Ginette Neveu. Her career was tragic: it started in 1938, then came the second world war in 1939. Her career re-started in 1946 after the end of the war, only to end in October 1949 with her death in a plane crash while on her way to an American tour.

Andrew Rose of Pristine Classical has (thankfully) diverted from transferring endless American radio recordings of the 1950s and 60s to apply his considerable talents to remastering Ginette Neveu in a selection of violin and piano recordings from 1939 to 1948. The sound is now at the best it has ever been and is perfectly acceptable (except for the Debussy sonata recorded in 1948 where the piano as recorded was far too dominant, and Neveu too distant). The sound in the Strauss sonata, recorded in Berlin in 1939 with Gustaf Beck, is excellent, even given the 83 year time gap.

There is a supreme passion and vibrancy in Neveu's playing. I grew up in the 1950s with her recordings of the Sibelius violin concerto (coupled on an American LP with Josef Suk's Four Pieces Op 17 recorded in London, August 1948 which are also reproduced on this new Pristine CD). Her sound has little in common with the sophisticated Franco-Belgian school of violin playing; in Scarlatescu's Bagatelle, and in Ravel's Tzigane, she sounds almost Romanian or Hungarian, perhaps reflecting the influence of her teacher, the Hungarian Carl Flesch. Her playing in the four pieces by Suk has been engraved on my memory for over 60 years now and no one plays Ravel's Tzigane to approach Neveu. To my ears, her playing of Richard Strauss's evergreen violin sonata (with Gustaf Beck in 1939) outclasses even Heifetz in its soaring lyricism.

In an age where violinists now play with computer-like precision and accuracy, but with little passion, it is well worth remembering of what a violin is capable, in the right hands. For that we need the legacy, meagre in quantity though it may be, of Ginette Neveu. A big thank you to Andrew Rose of Pristine for reminding us of Ginette. Her few recordings are ones from which I will never part for the rest of my life.

Vikingur Olafsson disappoints in Mozart & Contemporaries

I greatly enjoyed Vikingur Olafsson's traversals of Bach, and of Rameau and Debussy. So I was an easy customer for his CD of “Mozart and Contemporaries”. A bit disappointed, however. Not everything Mozart wrote was high art (though never perfunctory). On this new CD, I greatly enjoyed the opening track, an andante spiritoso from a sonata by Baldassare Guluppi (who?) Olafsson's arrangement for piano of the adagio from Mozart's string quintet in G minor K 516 just does not work; Mozart knew perfectly well how to write for two violins, two violas, and a cello. The lack of colour when the movement is played on a piano is like seeing a black and white photograph of a Michelangelo painting. And Franz Liszt's transcription of Mozart's Ave verum corpus K 618 is, quite frankly, boring. So, for me, this new CD from Olafsson comes nowhere near the interest of his previous two discs. A shame.

Handel's Lovelorn Sorceresses, with Sandrine Piau

There are worse ways of spending a Sunday morning in January than listening to a new CD from Sandrine Piau on which she sings Handel arias of what someone once called “Handel's lovelorn sorceresses”. Now an incredible 56 years old, Piau sings like a lovelorn angel, with no apparent vocal weaknesses. The sad or dramatic arias (depending on the mood of the sorceress) are mainly well known; after over 250 years of being sung over and over again, they enable the listener to bask in Handel's genius for melody and mood. Handel's music has always been a happy hunting ground for singers who revel in the baroque era, and many of the arias on this new CD have been included in similar compilations by singers such as Joyce DiDonato, and Simone Kermes. Piau, now in full maturity, enters fully into the spirit of each aria, and I enjoyed her singing very much indeed. The recital ends with a moving rendition of Lascia ch'io pianga from Rinaldo.

With the title “Enchantresses”, the CD from Alpha-Classics also features movements from two of Handel's concerti grossi, all played by Les Paladins under the direction of Jérôme Correas. I love Handel's music and was so keen to buy this latest CD from Sandrine Piau that I inadvertently ordered and received two copies. The recording is OK, but on my equipment suffers from the usual problem that if I adjust the sound so the band plays clearly, the singer – recorded too close – blows your socks off.