James Ehnes and Khachaturian

Since 1996, I have been a fan of the playing of the Canadian violinist, James Ehnes. A rock solid technique, an avoidance of distracting mannerisms, good taste, high intelligence; any performance by James Ehnes almost always ticks the right boxes. His repertoire is wide, and I have especially enjoyed him in Bruch, Britten and Kreisler.

The only box Ehnes has rarely ticked in the past has been evidence of real emotional involvement. I bought his new recording (Khachaturian violin concerto) more on the strength of the other items on the CD (Shostakovich's 7th and 8th string quartets) than on expecting a dazzling performance of Khachaturian's vibrant, colourful and warm-hearted violin concerto. But I was pleasantly surprised; again, Ehnes ticks all the right boxes, but this time he lets himself go and gives us a performance of the concerto to rival my two all-time classics: Julian Sitkovetzky with Niyazi and the Romanian Radio Orchestra (1954), and Leonid Kogan with Monteux in Boston (1958). Melbourne is a long way from Armenia, but the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra players seem to be enjoying themselves. When musicians are having a good time, it shows, and Khachaturian must have made a welcome change for them from non-stop Brahms and Beethoven. England is nearer to Armenia than are Australia or Canada, but the conductor, Mark Wigglesworth enters into the spirit of things. And, to cap it all, Onyx has produced a well-recorded and well-balanced recording. To the groans of “expert” critics, Khachaturian's concerto has found a stable place in the repertoire of 20th century music -- I have 22 different recordings of the piece, and still new ones appear regularly and are usually snapped up by me. Ehnes breaks with tradition and plays Khachaturian's original first movement cadenza, not the Oistrakh one that is usually substituted. But anything is better than Mikhail Simonyan's cadenza that I criticised recently.

Chloë Hanslip plays Medtner

Chloë Hanslip has never featured among my favourite violinists, but I bought her new CD (Hyperion) of Medtner's first and third sonatas because I like the “Epica” sonata very much, and was happy to get to know the first sonata that is also on this disc. Ms Hanslip's playing here was a very pleasant surprise: committed, interesting, varied and subtle.

The violin is balanced too forward for my liking and, as recorded and played on my equipment, on occasions sounds somewhat strident and harsh. This becomes wearing in a long sonata such as the “Epica”. More annoyingly, the pianist -- Igor Tchetuev -- sounds a bit like a Russian Gerald Moore; agreeable, modest, faithful. But turn to Boris Berezovsky (with Vadim Repin, 1996) and the difference is immediately obvious. With Boris at the piano, the third sonata becomes a true duo sonata.

If Chloë Hanslip re-records the Medtner sonatas one day with a better balance and recording engineer and more suitable duo partner. I'll be the first to buy the new edition. The “Epica”, in particular, is a very fine sonata and well deserves to become better known and more often programmed.

Discreet Interpreters

Back from my travels – Luang Prabang in Laos was particularly fine – I quickly plugged back into music listening, something that had been missing for two weeks. First off the storage rack was Matthieu Arama playing (very well) a selection of pieces by Wieniawski, Brahms, Paganini, Sarasate, etc. He is a fine violinist, though I had never heard of him before buying this CD.

For that kind of music, one needs a performer of talent and individuality. Turning afterwards to late Beethoven piano sonatas, I again marvelled at the playing of Igor Levit; when Levit plays, you forget about Levit and his piano and immerse yourself in the late sonatas of Beethoven. Just as when Kempff, Pires or Andsnes play late Schubert, or Adolf Busch and friends play Bach, Schubert or Beethoven, or Philippe Herrewhege conducts Bach … it's the music that occupies centre stage, and the performers involved become almost transparent media.

Hélène Grimaud plays Brahms

Today, Friday, turned out to be Brahms day, with two hearings of his first piano concerto, and one of his second. Pianist in both was Hélène Grimaud and I greatly enjoyed her playing. The orchestral background was suitably rich and Brahmsian (Bavarian Radio orchestra, and Vienna Philharmonic in respectively the first and second concertos). Against this rich background, Ms Grimaud's clarity and transparency of textures was very welcome. It is many years since I have heard the first concerto -- to my surprise, I discovered that until today I no longer had any recording of it; again to my surprise, I found I enjoyed the first concerto even more than the second. Tastes change, with age and experience. I had not expected to enjoy Ms Grimaud's playing in Brahms as much as I did, but these are performances I shall return to often, with pleasure. Good recording and balance. Usual tacky DG notes, with no less than eight photographs of the attractive Ms Grimaud, most of them with staring eyes that remind me of a deer caught in the headlights.

Probably a couple of weeks pause in this blog while I take off for Northern Thailand and Laos. Lots of sun and good food, I hope, but probably little music until I return.

On Bach and Berlioz

At a concert of solo violin music by Bach a year or so ago in a small concert hall, I was amazed at the range of dynamics produced by the solo violin of Alina Ibragimova, whose sound went from a barely audible pianissimo to a very loud fortissimo. If you are going to listen to a solo violin for 90 minutes, such a range of colour is pretty well obligatory. I thought of this yesterday when listening to Gregory Fulkerson playing unaccompanied Bach. Stylistically and technically the performances were impeccable, and highly enjoyable. But, finally, the works began to pall a little since Fulkerson, as recorded here in a somewhat reverberant acoustic, came over as playing with a fairly limited dynamic range.

I switched to Simone Kermes singing coloratura arias from (mainly) little-known composers of the early 18th century. Thoroughly enjoyable for the music, and for the singing. They knew how to write good tunes in those days and to keep you listening for a whole hour!

Earlier, I had once again abandoned poor old Berlioz's Harold in Italy, a work I have tried hard to enjoy for around half a century now, but still with little success. Not due to the executants, I think, since I have Menuhin or Tabea Zimmermann both conducted by Colin Davis, or William Primrose conducted by Beecham. As a proud owner of two excellent violas on which I scrape away from time to time, I am heavily predisposed to like the viola. But there is something about Berlioz's Harold that gets in my teeth and I very rarely manage to get through listening to all the movements. Perhaps it is just that the plaintive idée fixe theme comes around too often for me, or that I am uncomfortable trying to grasp a work that is neither a symphony, nor a concerto.

Gilels, Kogan and Rostropovich

It is difficult to form a great piano trio (as opposed to a very good one). First of all, one needs three players of top-notch international stature. Then one needs those three players to play together regularly over a period of years. The three players need to be collegiate -- that is, from approximately the same musical backgrounds. Finally, the three players need to be friends, not competitors each seeking advantage or the limelight; friends share things fairly and naturally.

Recently I enthused over the piano trio formed by Cortot, Thibaud and Casals -- a true model of a great piano trio. Yesterday I spent no less than five hours re-listening to a Doremi set of piano trios played by Gilels, Kogan and Rostropovich; to my mind, another great piano trio that met all my conditions above. The three Russians play Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, Saint-Saëns, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and a few other pieces. They seem to be enjoying themselves, and we can enjoy the music with them. It's good, listening to Gilel's piano playing. It's good listening to Kogan's violin playing. And it's good listening to Rostropovich's cello playing. Considering the source of the originals (1950s, mainly early Russian) the Doremi transfers are excellent.

The middle of the 20th century also saw another all-star piano trio: that of Rubinstein, Heifetz and Feuerman (later Piatigorsky). According to Rubinstein, Heifetz tried to insist that his name always came first, which is a clue as to why I would not classify this trio as “great”; they were not friends, they had different backgrounds, and they did not play together too often. Gilels, Kogan and Rostropovich played together for ten years (from 1949 until 1959). In the end, the stress between the passionate dissident Rostropovich and the patriotic communist Kogan became too much and Rostropovich left the trio. Our loss, but at least we have five hours of recordings as souvenirs.

George Emmanuel Lazaridis

A big advantage of the new age of recording technology that has spawned a vast array of companies and labels is that major artists who previously would have gone unnoticed can now have their performances listened to. I have just been enjoying the playing of George Emmanuel Lazaridis (who?), an excellent pianist who hails from Greece. His Schubert CD with the Wanderer Fantasy and the last B flat sonata reminds me of the recent Schubert recordings of Maria Pires; the same calm, straight playing without added histrionics or heightened pathos. Much of Schubert's music is best left to play itself, and it really does not need sophisticated interpretative intervention by the player. All praise to the hitherto unknown (to me) Mr Lazaridis. It's a change to meet an impressive new name who is not a young Chinese or Russian. And praise to the little Somm label for letting us hear George Emmanuel in Schubert.

Handel Arias

A good Sunday: a) it did not rain, for a change and b) two hours of Sandrine Piau singing Handel arias. In my current and on-going great purge of CDs I no longer want, these CDs of well-sung Handel arias will never go. The music is just so magnificent and varied.

And this evening my favourite dish: Vietnamese basa fish and smoked haddock with ginger, garlic, Thai fish sauce, olive oil, rice and chili. Delicious.

Julia Fischer plays Sarasate

As a paid-up member of the Sarasate fan club, I immediately bought Julia Fischer's new CD of Sarasate vignettes for violin and piano. A superb CD with an attractive selection of pieces and highly virtuostic violin playing. Strongly recommended. Sarasate's music has delighted violinists and audiences for around 150 years now and looks a safe bet for the next 150 since it is attractively tuneful and beautifully written for the violin.

Inevitably I compared Ms Fischer in Sarasate to Tianwa Yang, who recently recorded eight CDs of all Sarasate's music for violin and piano, and violin and orchestra. Both the Chinese and the German are technically completely on top of the music. Comparing them is a bit like having to compare a good coq au vin with a good boeuf Bourguignon; Tianwa Yang comes over as the more sophisticated player, drawing attention a little more to the music and a little less to virtuoso violin technique. Julia Fischer is more of a bravura player here, and one notices first and foremost her exquisite violin playing and slightly self-conscious virtuosity. I compared Zigeunerweisen back-to-back and liked both, though Fischer takes fully one minute less over this eight minutes-or-so piece compared with Tianwa. Have to have both.

Yuja Wang in Rachmaninov

The live performance of Rachmaninov's third piano concerto by Yuja Wang with the Venezuelan orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel is a real triumph. No doubt some grumpy critics will opine that Herr Blankensof, or whoever, finds greater depth in the work, or whatever. But when the music demands lyricism, Wang is lyrical. When it demands tenderness, Wang is tender. When it demands molto bravura; Wang positively flies. At times I almost found myself shouting “Go, Yuja, Go!”

Until now, my favourite performance of this work has been by Martha Argerich. The Chinese now beats the Argentinian by a short head – helped maybe by Wang's being a live (very live) performance and by the Venezuelan orchestra sounding really on its toes; too many orchestras, when playing virtuoso concertos, fall back on autopilot. Not here. The CD also contains a live performance of Prokofiev's second piano concerto, but I have been so enthralled by Yuja Wang in the Rachmaninov that Prokofiev is having to wait.

The only sour note, is DG's liner note packaging. Tacky in the extreme, with multiple photos of Miss Wang and Dudamel, but just one small one each of Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. Instead of taking up a full page with a somewhat vulgar photo of the rear view of Miss Yang, DG could have given us more on the two composers who did, after all, make a significant contribution to the CD. In the old days, DG was famous for its tasteful LP sleeves. The current team, however, seems to think it is marketing young flesh and celebrity, rather than great performances of great music. Yuja deserves better.

The Music of Edward Elgar

I first met Elgar's quintet for piano and string quartet during a concert many years ago at Boxgrove Priory in Sussex (flanked by three of my four sisters). For me, it was love at first hearing and I have always found the quintet to be special ever since that evening long ago. The work, written in 1918 after the devastating Great War, positively aches with nostalgia for a vanished age – a vanished age both musically and socially. The recording by the Goldner String Quartet with Piers Lane strikes me as well-nigh ideal, with excellent tempos, good recording quality and an admirable balance with the piano centred within the quartet. Maybe Elgar's finale is not quite up to the standard of the first two movements but, then, finales rarely are.

As an Englishman living only an hour or so from Elgar Country in Worcester and Malvern, I always have the impression Elgar's music speaks to me directly, though I am not an uncritical admirer of his output. I love the violin concerto and the cello concerto. In the right mood, I love both the symphonies. The Introduction & Allegro is superb, as are the Enigma Variations and many of the short pieces Elgar wrote, especially those for violin – his instrument – and piano. The music of the Dream of Gerontius is often terrific, but I really cannot stomach the words (poem by Cardinal Newman). All those Holy Marys and Holy Spirits get on my nerves; I'd probably enjoy the work sung in Finnish or Hebrew where the text would pass me by.

Lisa Batiashvili

For me, although there are many, many first class violin concertos, there are only three great ones: those of Beethoven, Brahms and the first concerto of Shostakovich. I have multiple recorded versions of all of them, of course, including 43 of the Shostakovich concerto. This evening I listened to a performance of the Shostakovich by Lisa Batiashvili; she achieves the remarkable feat of being my preferred violinist for modern recordings of all three great concertos: Beethoven, Brahms and Shostakovich.

Batiashvili is, of course, a superb violinist. She makes a lovely sound. She is intensely musical, and everything she does is dictated by the work she is playing, not by a desire to grand-stand or to impress. Her playing is marked by a very high degree of intellectual concentration. In a crowded field of exceptional modern violinists, she has always been my favourite, and this evening I was glued to every note of Shostakovich's familiar A minor concerto.

It's a shame that, even though of Georgian origin, she seems never to have played or recorded the almost unknown F minor violin concerto by Otar Taktakishvili -- a concerto seemingly only ever recorded by Liana Isakadze. If Batiashvili will not play it; who will? I love it.

Paganini, Kreisler, and Laurent Korcia

Niccolò Paganini revolutionised the technique of violin playing, and he also wrote a lot of agreeable music for the violin. Not as agreeable, however, as that of later great violinists such as Heinrich Ernst, Wieniawski, Vieuxtemps, Sarasate and Kreisler. Fritz Kreisler re-wrote the first movement of Paganini's first violin concerto, and the resulting interesting pastiche is sometimes played and recorded (including a 1936 recording by Kreisler himself). I have just been listening to it played with molta bravura by Laurent Korcia, the somewhat abrasive French violinist who is, nevertheless, always interesting to listen to. Paganini-Kreisler in the D major concerto should be played more often; one does not have to be too fastidious about historical reconstruction, or letter of the score, when tackling Paganini's music. Korcia's new CD bears the title “Mr Paganini”; from the works on the welcome little disc, it could also have been called “.. and Mr Kreisler”.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Too many composers died young: Purcell, Mozart, Bellini and Schubert in their mid-30s, Guillaume Lekeu when only 24, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi when only 26. I have just been listening to a new recording of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater; what a masterpiece, completed just before his death from tuberculosis. A new recording features Julia Lezhneva (my current favourite baroque soprano) and Philippe Jaroussky (one of the very few counter-tenors I find entirely acceptable). With I Barocchisti in the background (Pergolesi's orchestral band does not have a major part as it would have done with Bach or Handel) this recording should end up as a modern classic. And the music is sublime.

The Busch String Quartet in Brahms

When the Busch String Quartet was finally formed in 1919 in Berlin after the end of the war, Brahms had been dead only some 20 years -- Adolf Busch was six years old when Brahms died. Listening to the Busch Quartet playing Brahms string quartets, one does have a sense of authentic performance (as the modern passion mandates). Almost certainly, this would have been how Brahms' quartets would have sounded when the composer was alive. Pristine Audio has issued the Busch playing the three string quartets, plus the first piano quartet. Though not a convinced lover of Brahms' chamber music, I listened with both interest and enjoyment to all these works and, as always, marvelled at the sheer musicality of the Busch Quartet.

As Andrew Rose notes on the Pristine website, these performances are also striking for what they tell us about advances in recording technology. 1925 was, of course, the first major technological breakthrough, with the advent of the microphone and electrical recording. The four works on the current CDs were recorded in 1932, 1947 and 1949 and the sound improves with each step (by 1949, HMV was recording using tape rather than the old shellac masters). Transfers, as we have come to expect from Pristine, are excellent. Busch and Serkin, the Busch String Quartet, and the Busch Chamber Players recorded extensively during the 1930s -- Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms. I sincerely hope that, before long, all Busch recordings will be available in good, modern transfers. Meanwhile: thanks, Andrew Rose!

Tianwa Yang and the Final Sarasate Volume

The eighth and final CD of Naxos's traversal of all Sarasate's music for violin has now appeared and completes this excellent series in a fine fashion. Apart from one work (Sarasate's Souvenir de Faust de Gounod) all the pieces on this CD are arrangements by Sarasate. Though there is some evidence of barrel scraping – Sarasate's arrangements of Bach's Air on the G string, or Handel's “Largo” are hardly essential listening – well over an hour of the over 79 minutes of music here are well worth hearing, in particular Sarasate's Chopin arrangements (waltzes and nocturnes). Bravo Naxos, and bravo Pablo de Sarasate.

And a big bravo to Tianwa Yang, the violinist on all eight CDs. Sarasate's music, and his playing, were characterised by elegance and sophistication; Pablo was no barnstormer, as we can hear (distantly) from his playing on a few pieces of his own music captured in 1903. His playing was supremely elegant and, commentators affirmed, devastatingly accurate. As a player of mainly salon music during the later decades of nineteenth century France, he became extremely rich. Tianwa Yang is able to enter the sound world of Sarasate and to emulate his elegance. It makes one hope she will go on to explore the violin music of Vieuxtemps and Saint-Saëns. The extremely talented Julia Fischer has a Sarasate CD coming out shortly, and I have it on order since I can't resist Sarasate's music. I'll be surprised if Julia Fischer is able to equal the playing and interpretation of this remarkable young Chinese woman.

Igor Stravinsky

Some people, particularly younger people, love lists of “the best” or “the greatest”. This can become ridiculous; whilst it is not too difficult to suggest the three greatest composers, it is much more controversial to pinpoint the five greatest. Or the greatest French composer (there are many truly excellent French composers, but “the greatest”?) And so with “the greatest composer of the 20th century”. I happen to think there was not a greatest, just very many extremely good composers.

One (young) musical journalist once nominated Igor Stravinsky for this title; a puzzling choice. Since my teens I have enjoyed the Firebird, Petrouchka, Rite of Spring, Symphony of Psalms, Soldier's Tale, Agon, Threni and a few other pieces of the carefully controversial but carefully commercial Russian professional emigré with a constant desire to make money in France, Switzerland or America. His violin concerto -- like his piano concerto -- has never really made the big time. I have thoroughly enjoyed his violin concerto recently played by Patricia Kopatchinskaja (henceforward: PK. The girl's name simply has too many finger-twisting syllables). PK recorded it with Vladimir Jurowski, and also played it on-air conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy, and PK is probably the ideal soloist for this semi-baroque, semi-modern, semi-important violin concerto. She is technically brilliant (of course) but also brings a spirit of adventure and freshness to the music. PK is firmly in my pantheon of superb modern women of the violin (which includes Alina Ibragimova, Vilde Frang, Tianwa Yang and Lisa Batiasvili). But even PK at her finest cannot convince me that old Igor was a “great” composer -- let alone the 20th century's greatest.

Two Great Piano Trio Recordings

Four major string players playing together do not make for a great performance of a string quartet. However, piano trios often bloom when three major players get together. I have just been listening with enormous pleasure to the famous 1926 recording of Schubert's B flat piano trio played by Cortot, Thibaud and Casals, a legendary recording of the past very well restored by Ward Marston (for Naxos). These three played together regularly, and all three lived in Paris and had similar musical strengths. A recording to enjoy until the end of time, with a sound that still holds up well some 88 (!) years later. The primary adjective for this kind of playing is: elegant (also in the G major Haydn trio on the same Naxos CD).

A similar great historical success was the Tchaikovsky A minor piano trio recorded in 1952 by Gilels, Kogan and Rostropovich. The three musicians all lived in Moscow and played together regularly (until, like the Parisian three, politics broke them up). The Tchaikovsky still awaits satisfactory audio restoration -- Russian recording techniques were not great in the 1950s -- though the DoReMi transfers are not too bad. Perhaps Pristine Audio will come forward one day. But Gilels, Kogan and Rostropovich playing Tchaikovsky is really very, very special.