Tosca - Again

I wrote two days ago about my admiration for the 1953 Tosca recording (Callas, et al). What I did not mention then was my disappointment in the sound of the EMI CDs. Originally I had this recording on LPs, buying the CD transfers some time later. But the sound on the EMI CDs is often harsh, and often congested. However, I like this recording of Tosca so much that I upped and invested €18 in a download of an alternative transfer, from Pristine Audio. Best €18 I've spent for a long, long time. Even considering its 1953 mono origin, the Pristine transfer can be listened to without qualms and without wincing, with none of the stridency and congestion that featured on the EMI version. Many thanks again, Pristine.

EMI has now been taken over by Warner, and that company has re-released all the Callas recordings in “new transfers, 200-bit, 12-times re-sampling”, or whatever. Given the number of CDs involved (69) and the company, one suspects nothing will have improved. Restoring the sound of old recordings is a complex art that takes time and expertise. Most of the large companies simply adopt a batch-processing, mass production approach to transferring to CD, with the often lamentable results one witnessed from companies such as EMI, RCA, BMG, RussianDisc, Arlecchino, etc. Companies such as Naxos, Dutton, Pristine and others came along and, even without access to the original tapes or 78 masters, were able to work on the sound and produce results far in advance of those of the big companies. No excuse, big companies: you have the master tapes, you no longer have the burden of royalty or fee payments to the likes of Puccini, Callas, de Sabata, et al, you have 60 years of sales revenue; why not invest a little time, effort and money to secure a further 60 years of sales revenue? Alas: the little money that is spent by the big companies goes on re-packaging, PR, sales promotion, advertising, not on meticulous transfer projects. EMI, in its last independent months, did release a number of “SACD” transfers of classics from the 1950s and 60s; I bought the Klemperer/Mozart discs, and the Schuricht/Bruckner, and the results were excellent; so it can be done, with a little effort and technical investment.

Tosca

Lots of silly people make lists of “best” and “biggest”, etc. I remember some young music journalist solemnly opining that the “greatest composer of the 20th century” was ... Igor Stravinsky! Bizarre. But no one's list starts with Giacomo Puccini, and that is a shame since the composer of La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot left an indelible and probably permanent impression on the music of the 20th century.

This evening I listened to Tosca, with Maria Callas, Tito Gobbi, Giuseppe di Stefano; Victor de Sabata conducted the 1953 classic recording (made in mono). Not too many recordings can be classified as definitive but this, I have always felt, is one. Not a weak spot anywhere. I only saw Tosca once in the theatre (oddly enough, in the Kremlin Theatre in Moscow in the 1970s). But it's an opera for eternity that is always a deeply emotional experience.

Maria Pires in Beethoven

I am not an uncritical admirer of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven. On occasions, his “rustic rudeness” seems to me to be somewhat false, and to be imposed from the outside rather than coming from inside the music. That being said, there is much music of Beethoven's that I love dearly, including many of the piano sonatas, sonatas for violin and piano, string quartets ... and the fourth piano concerto. I grew up with the fourth concerto in the 1950s played by Claudio Arrau. Although it is a work I know intimately, I was considerably impressed with a new recording where Maria Pires is partnered by Daniel Harding and the Stockholm Radio Symphony Orchestra.

It is something of a shock to discover that Pires is now 70 years old. She is a pianist whose stature seems to have grown and grown, and I recently enthused over her Schubert sonatas. To listen to, Pires reminds me of the late Clara Haskil; the same (deceptive) simplicity, the same avoidance of personal Lang Lang -type hyping. When Pires is playing, we listen to Beethoven's music; end of story.

I liked this CD a lot, not least because Daniel Harding and the Stockholm players make a real contribution to the performance. Too often with symphony orchestras playing concertos, the orchestra is stuffed with stand-in or substitute players, and some worthy and trustworthy conductor is put in charge of keeping pace with the soloist. In these two Beethoven piano concertos (the CD also contains the third concerto, a work I like less) pianist and orchestra really play in partnership; this comes to the fore especially in the imaginative slow movement of the fourth concerto where Pires's playing tames the savage orchestral beast in a way that would probably have greatly moved Beethoven himself. The Onyx recording is good and well-balanced so this now becomes my definitive version of Beethoven's fourth piano concerto. Anyone want my other 13 versions of this wonderful work? I'll hang on to Clara Haskil, however.

Jennifer Pike Impresses

In 2002 at the age of 12, Jennifer Pike won the BBC Young Musician of the Year contest. She later became a BBC New Generation Artist. Her new recording comes from Chandos, a British company. All this is enough to make me wary; the “home town boy” (or girl) phenomenon is well known, but top prowess in playing the violin, the piano, the cello, etc. is a highly competitive international arena. Who has ever heard of “New Zealand's greatest violinist”?

But swayed by the repertoire on Miss Pike's CD (the four Suk pieces, the four Dvorak Romantic Pieces, the Janacek sonata, plus a few bits and pieces); and a couple of highly favourable critical reviews; and the fact I could get the CD very cheaply from an Amazon re-seller in Seattle (!): I bought the CD. And I am very glad I did. It turns out Miss Pike is not just a British star but that she stands up internationally to the best of the new breed of violinists in their 20s. Her playing reminds me a bit of Nathan Milstein: impeccable technique, first-class musicianship, lovely sound (but not excessively so). Her 1708 Matteo Goffriller violin sounds just right for her, and her duo partner, Tom Poster, impresses. Finally, the Chandos sound and balance are both first-rate. A CD I'll keep out and near my player, and I look forward to more from Jennifer Pike (providing it's not Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Sibelius, Ravel sonata, Franck sonata and all such works that everyone and his dog has recorded).

Max Bruch. Jack Liebeck

Poor old Max Bruch. He sold the rights to his hugely popular first violin concerto to a music publisher, so never received any royalties even when the work took off and was played by pretty well everyone. He spent the rest of his life trying for another “hit” but never succeeded. The second violin concerto is in no way as good as the first, and the third concerto is a pretty routine affair. About the only other work by Bruch that still receives a regular airing is his highly likeable and echt romantic Scottish Fantasy for violin (and harp) and orchestra.

The Scottish Fantasy was a favourite work of Jascha Heifetz; written for Sarasate, the work suited Heifetz's suave and sophisticated playing like a glove. In performance Heifetz usually got through the work in around 25 minutes, helped by flowing tempi and a few cuts in the score. In a new recording, the greatly talented Jack Liebeck takes 31 minutes, with broader tempi, and no cuts. Liebeck's recording certainly does not supplant Heifetz, but it does enhance the work of Max Bruch since the orchestra makes a real contribution and Liebeck plays well and makes a nice sound; well recorded. Unfortunately, Hyperion completes Liebeck's CD with the dud third concerto; why did the company not substitute Karl Goldmark's far more interesting but rarely played violin concerto to make a really desirable disc?

Jonas Kaufmann and Die Winterreise

As a frequently lovelorn teenager, I lapped up Schubert's Die Winterreise song cycle. I had the cycle on two LPs (fourth side blank) sung by Hans Hotter, with Gerald Moore and I still have the school exercise book in which I copied the texts of all 24 songs so I could learn the words of Wilhelm Müller's poems. The Hotter version was complemented later with Fischer-Dieskau (of course) and, for a time, with Brigitte Fassbaender. Swayed by some ecstatic reviews, I recently bought a new version of the cycle, with Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch, slightly sceptical that an operatic tenor could supplant Hotter or Fischer-Dieskau in my affections.

But the bass and the baritone are supplanted: Kaufmann is superb in this cycle bringing an ardour and a freshness to the music. Hotter had always seemed to me a bit gruff in parts of this music, and Fischer-Dieskau “too smooth by half”, to use an expression of my mother. And Helmut Deutsch's piano is greatly superior, in my view, to Gerald Moore's somewhat subservient contribution. From now on, for Winterreise it will be Kaufmann. I also have the version by Matthias Goerne, somewhere or other, but I find that Kaufmann's tenor voice more immediately conveys the anguish of disappointed young love.

The 40 years encompassing the final years of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert saw an astonishing flood of really great music from the three composers in their final years in Vienna. Die Winterreise is one of music's truly great experiences and the variety of moods, tonality and emotions contained within the 24 songs lasting around 70 minutes is quite extraordinary and unprecedented. Had Schubert lived …. But what could he have done to follow Die Winterreise, the last quartets and the final piano sonatas?

Kristof Barati and Klara Würtz in Brahms

Pretty well every violinist has played the three violin and piano sonatas of Johannes Brahms; and seemingly hundreds have also recorded them (since the three fit nicely on to one CD). Success (for me) means: good, classic tempi for all ten movements; a good-sounding violin (there are many lyrical and romantic passages); a true duo partnership with an equal-status pianist; a well-balanced recording; a sense of style. All of these attributes are met, for me, in a new recording by the duo of Kristof Barati and Klara Würtz. I would characterise the approach as “classic Central European” in the tradition of violinists such as Adolf Busch, Josef Suk and Wolfgang Schneiderhan. Some way away from the post-1950s tradition of David Oistrakh, Isaac Stern or Pinchas Zukerman.

I will not be throwing away my pile of alternative versions (of which I have far too many, including the excellent recent Leonidas Kavakos with Yuja Wang). But the Barati-Würtz duo continues its superb track record that began with the complete violin and piano sonatas of Beethoven. Three stars for 64 minutes of happy and agreeable listening (Brilliant Classics).

Ariodante, and Handel Opera

Following eye surgery, I have been having a break from reading books or looking at screens, and have indulged myself in listening to long stretches of music. Over the past couple of days it has been Handel operas and, mainly at random, I picked Ariodante off the shelf. Three hours of truly first class music. Not only was Handel a superb melodist, he also – unlike most of his rivals – wrote “accompaniments” to the arias that show just what can be done with a few strings, an oboe, a couple of horns and bassoons. Listening without a libretto, I discovered what I have always suspected: pace the critics, one can enjoy 18th century opera perfectly well just listening to the music and with no idea whatsoever of a “plot” (that is usually perfectly ridiculous). Listening to Ariodante, entranced by the music, I had no idea of the story line and it was only when Ariodante sang “io, tradito” that I realised Ariodante was a man, despite being sung here by a mezzo soprano. The king could do his nut, and someone else could be weeping some loss or another; but I just listened on regardless. With me, it is a case of prima la musica, e poi … not much else. Either Handel, or Nicholas McGegan in the performance I listened to, had cut out much of the recitative. Critics fulminate against cuts in recitative in 18th century opera “because it renders much of the story unclear”. I welcome a few recitatives as a means of breaking up the procession of arias and ariosos, and that is all. After nearly 300 years, people are not still listening with pleasure to operas by the likes of Scarlatti, Vivaldi or Handel because of the libretti.

The recording I listened to was made at the time of the 1993 Göttingen Handel Festival and was conducted by Nicolas McGegan. Orchestra was the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and soloists – good, in the main – included Lorraine Hunt and Lisa Saffer. Lorraine Hunt's singing of “Scherza infida” moved me greatly thanks to her singing, the melody, and Handel's miraculous accompaniment; this is one of Handel's -- and thus the music world's -- really great arias. A most satisfactory three hours.

Joyce DiDonato, and vocal music post 1900

Joyce DiDonato's new CD (“Stella di Napoli”) reminds us just how much music is still pretty well unknown. We hear attractive arias from the likes of Giovanni Pacini, Michele Carafa, Saverio Mercadante and Carlo Valentini along with music from the more familiar Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini. To entrance us, a good aria needs a fine librettist (to write the words), a talented composer (to compose music for the words) and a superb singer (to sing the words and the music). Joyce DiDonato is a singer who really enters into what she is singing, and is able to convey the feelings behind the words being sung even if you don't follow the language. A very fine CD indeed; entrancing music, expertly sung.

Listening to the 10 arias on the CD, one cannot help but wonder what has happened to operatic music post-1900. From Italy from the very beginning of the eighteenth century onwards, vocal music poured out from a multitude of talented composer, from Vivaldi, Scarlatti and Porpora onwards until Verdi and Puccini and then: nothing of note. It was a similar tale in Germany, where vocal music poured forth from the end of the seventeenth century onwards and then: Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler and afterwards very little, with the honourable exception of Richard Strauss.

In 50 years time, will one of DiDonato's grandchildren give us a CD of moving vocal music by Dallapicolla, Nono, Schönberg and Stockhausen? I somewhat doubt it. Twentieth century composers whose music looks like surviving long term include Sibelius, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Britten (maybe). Not many Italians or Germans. However, a new Great Age might dawn, one day.

Christian Tetzlaff in Shostakovich

David Oistrakh remarked that Shostakovich's two violin concertos are completely and utterly different from each other. The first – that has become extremely popular – has heavy doses of pessimism and raw emotion. The second, a very late work, has a mainly meditative quality that only gets through to listeners after many hearings. I have loved the first concerto for many decades and currently have no less than 44 different recordings of it. I have nine recordings of the less often recorded second concerto. There are few unsatisfactory recordings amongst my 44 of the first concerto (maybe only Michael Erxleben because of some wildly slow tempi) but Lisa Batiashvili, Vadim Repin, James Ehnes, Leila Josefowicz, Alexei Michlin and Maxim Vengerov all stand out and received three stars from me.

As an admirer of Christian Tetzlaff I snapped up his new Ondine CD of the two Shostakovich violin concertos. It is a magnificent CD and I am very happy. I like Tetzlaff's playing; slightly less emotional than some, and more akin to James Ehnes in the first concerto. I like the sound of Tetzlaff's marvellous violin (Peter Greiner, a modern German maker) with its even temperament over all four strings with equal strength of sound from lowest G to highest E; the sound of this violin matches Tetzlaff's playing ideally, and it is difficult to imagine him with a different fiddle under his chin. The orchestra (Helsinki Philharmonic) makes a major contribution, and confirms my feeling that many less well-known orchestras play better in concerto recordings than do their more famous colleagues (often packed with substitutes for concerto accompaniments). The Ondine recording is superbly balanced and recorded, with an ideal relationship between violin and orchestra. Tetzlaff's playing in the scherzo of the first concerto is less demonic than some, but he and the orchestra handle the great passacaglia third movement very movingly, and Tetzlaff's silences during the cadenza of the first concerto are extremely effective. I think that Tetzlaff judges the tempo of the long first movement (Notturno) of the first concerto ideally; taken too slowly, it can drag. Throughout both works, his pianissimi are a pleasure to hear (and well captured by the recording, at least when listening through good headphones).

This performances of the first concerto joins others at the top of my list, with the second concerto going right to the top in a less competitive line-up. Bravo Tetzlaff, Helsinki Philharmonic, John Storgards (the conductor) and the Ondine recording team.

The Humble Pig

In the 1940s and 50s when I was young, my mother would sometimes acquire a pig's head (leaving the rest of the animal to roam free in organic meadows, no doubt), scoop out the interior of the head and stew it up with a few herbs (parsley, etc) as well as a couple of pig's trotters (for the jelly). The resulting meat would be left to cool into a jelly, then we would all eat: brawn! On a visit to Canada to see one of her daughters long ago, my mother went with the family to the local farmer where “a whole pig” had been ordered. My mother was scandalised that the head was not included, and demanded the head. A head was found, and my mother brought it home in triumph. My brother-in-law suggested putting it on a pole in the garden, but my mother ordered him into the kitchen with it and demanded that he open up the head by cutting it in half. An hour later, my frustrated brother-in-law resorted to a chain saw, with disastrous results on the surrounding walls, floor and ceiling. But brawn was made.

Brawn is more or less extinct in a world of hamburgers, pizzas and chicken McNuggets but is still around in Germany (Sülze) and France (frommage de tête). After decades of pining for brawn, I discovered (via an Internet search) that it was sold at just one of my local supermarkets (Morrison's). I bought some yesterday. It was cheap, and very high quality (an extremely rare combination of adjectives). We owe a lot to the humble pig: brawn, pigs' trotters, boiled ham, cured ham, smoked ham, bacon, pork sausage, roast pork, pork hock, pork chops, andouillette, pork pie, roast belly of pork, boiled gammon, pork pâté ... Every morning I give thanks that I am not a Moslem, Jew or vegetarian. They don't know what they are missing. A plate of nut cutlets is simply no substitute for a good chunk of brawn with bread, red wine and cornichons. Now I have re-started my brawn eating and have found a local source, there will be no stopping me.

Igor Levit plays Bach

A good-hearted friend sent me a new recording of Igor Levit playing the six Bach keyboard partitas. It makes a lovely present. In Bach's partitas for keyboard, you often get the impression of Johann Sebastian sitting writing music and simply communicating with his muse. In the fourth partita, for example, a simple Allemande dance wanders for around 11 minutes, and the final Gigue indulges in complex fugato and counterpoint. Many of the movements in the partitas are (relatively) simple dances, but many are extensive workings of complex pieces of music. The fourth and sixth partitas, in particular, have some pretty long movements (for a dance suite).

When Igor Levit is playing the partitas, one gets the impression of a pianist sitting alone, communing with Bach. No thought of historical reconstruction of how the music may have sounded in 1726; no thoughts of a jury at a piano competition judging the playing; no thoughts of impressing the listeners with breathtaking pianism. Just Igor and Johann Sebastian, talking together.

It is difficult to explain why I, like pretty well everyone else for the past 200 years, consider Bach to be “the greatest”. How to explain it? Handel, Mozart and Schubert can usually boast more memorable tunes than can Bach; not many errand boys whistle Bach while they go to work. Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert can communicate a far wider range of emotions than can Bach. So if Bach's music is not especially rich in melody or in emotions; why is it thought great? I cannot explain it except to say that, listening to these six keyboard partitas, I am conscious of my emotions and my head being equally engaged. Like Igor Levit, Bach rarely strives for effect, or to wow his audience. Bach draws us into his complex web of music. And Levit draws us into Bach.

Igor Levit is a major figure in modern pianism. After his extraordinary Beethoven and Bach, I sincerely hope he goes on to give us his view on the later Schubert piano works. And all praise to Sony Classical. Not many record labels would give an unknown pianist in his 20s a début recording of two hours of late Beethoven, followed by a second recording of two hours of relatively personal Bach works. Igor Levit comes from Russia (don't they all) but moved to Germany when he was eight and currently lives in Hanover. At the moment, based on listening to him in two hours of late Beethoven, and two hours of Bach, I would put him in the same pianistic category as Sviatoslav Richter, Edwin Fischer, and Alfred Cortot. Very high praise.

In Praise of Oscar Shumsky

As I have often remarked in this blog, playing the music of Fritz Kreisler is no easy matter, and very few of those who tackle the pieces come anywhere near Kreisler himself. Two violinists who did come somewhere near Kreisler were Joseph Gingold and Oscar Shumsky, both of whom were friends and admirers of the great man. Gingold, like other masters of the violin such as David Nadien, recorded very little. In the America of much of that period, if you did not have a contract with CBS or RCA you did not make records (unless, like Aaron Rosand, Menuhin, Milstein and others, you had contacts with record companies in Europe). Oscar Shumsky was born in Chicago in 1917 to Russian parents, and his teachers included Leopold Auer and Efrem Zimbalist. We are fortunate that, in his sixties and with his technique unimpaired, Shumsky decided to return to the concert platform and to make recordings. There followed a glorious golden autumn of the complete Mozart violin & piano sonatas, the complete Bach works for unaccompanied violin, the complete Brahms-Joachim Hungarian Dances, the six sonatas for solo violin by Eugène Ysaÿe, all 24 of the caprices of Pierre Rode, and much more, including four CDs of the music and arrangements of Kreisler. No record company of the time was going to invest in an unknown 60 year old violinist, so Shumsky's recordings were mainly from little-known companies and, where appropriate, with very junior conductors and orchestras. I saw Shumsky once, playing the Beethoven violin concerto in London with Simon Rattle conducting, around 1987 when Shumsky would have been 70 years old. I remember an impeccable technique, a wonderful sound, playing that focussed on the music rather than on the performer, and a calm, unruffled platform manner that made Jascha Heifetz seem like an extrovert. Shumsky went on to record the concerto with the Philharmonia in 1988.

Listening to Shumsky playing Kreisler yesterday evening (a 1983 recording) was a rare treat. I had not heard the CDs for many years and I lapped up the exquisite playing, the intimate rapport with the music, the wonderful sound of Shumsky's Stradivari violin, the dedicated intelligence of the playing, the miraculous technical adroitness and variety of dynamics and bowing. Here was a real master violinist at work, and Leopold Auer would have been proud of him. It is a real shame that so little was recorded by Shumsky during most of his lifetime, but a true bonus that – unlike Joseph Gingold or David Nadien – he did get to record much of his favourite repertoire later in his life. Most of his recordings from the 1980s have been reissued by Nimbus, thank goodness. So Shumsky's playing lives on. He died in 2000 at the age of 83.

Arabella Steinbacher plays Mozart

Technically, the violin concertos of Mozart are not difficult to play. Interpretatively, however, they pose problems and many violinists fail to satisfy. The music demands what I would term “sophisticated simplicity” and that is hard to find. Two superb exponents of the music in the past were Jascha Heifetz and Arthur Grumiaux, both masters of sophisticated simplicity. I was sceptical when I saw Arabella Steinbacher had recorded the third, fourth and fifth concertos (Pentatone) and held off buying. Miss Steinbacher has often perturbed me with her “oh-so-beautiful” style of violin playing, as well as with her somewhat languid tempos (at the most extreme in the lovely slow movement of the Korngold violin concerto, where she almost came to a standstill). I relented in the end and bought the CD, swayed by several very complimentary reviews, the fact that Pentatone recordings are usually excellent, and the chance to buy the CD at a very modest price from an Amazon re-seller.

I am glad I relented; this is an excellent CD. Miss Steinbacher plays very stylishly and I had no problem with her tempos for any of the nine movements of the three concertos. The Pentatone recording is excellent, as expected, with exemplary balance between soloist and orchestra. The orchestra, the Festival Strings Lucerne led by its leader, Daniel Dodds, does all one could hope for. Arabella Steinbacher seems to have recorded almost everything ever written for the violin, but nothing so far she has recorded has impressed me as much as the current CD.

Critics

I first came across music critics around 1953-4 when I began to read every issue of the Gramophone magazine. Over the decades I have often been well informed by music critics, and quite often led astray by someone's misplaced enthusiasm. The first time this happened was in the 1950s when a friend asked me to recommend a set of the Brahms symphonies; having just read a rapturous review in the Gramophone, I recommended a new Pye-Nixa set from Adrian Boult … little realising that the reviewer, Trevor Harvey, was an acolyte of Sir Adrian and thought the sun shone out of Boult and everything he did. My friend was disconcerted listening to the LPs he purchased on my recommendation (the recorded sound was pretty awful). And I marvelled at a recent review of a recording of Ysaÿe's six sonatas for solo violin where the critic (International Record Review?) began his critique by saying he had never heard of the works before receiving that CD for review and had no knowledge of any other version. So how much was his opinion worth?

Critics inevitably reflect all kinds of biases. One of the most common biases is to review for a publication dependent on major advertisers. Advertisers get preference (one reason I like reviews in the American Record Guide, a publication that does not accept advertising). Another common bias is to give priority to a known local artist where the critic may have been cajoled into good reviews by invitations to concerts and receptions over the years; don't bite the hand that feeds you. And yet another common bias is the wish to favour one's local tribe – fellow American, fellow Jew, fellow German, fellow Russian, etc.

One of my bêtes-noires with many critics is laziness. Given that any major classical work can probably boast around 100 recordings, of which a dozen may be excellent, the lazy critic always dives back to good-old standbys: “Oistrakh in 1965 remains the main choice …. in this work you have to have Karajan, 1969 … no need to look further than Grumiaux in 1971”, etc. Really good performances are reviewed every year, then forgotten by the time the next review of the same work comes around. Josef Spacek's account of Prokofiev's first violin & piano sonata was (deservedly) reviewed with enthusiasm by pretty well all critics but, by the time Alina Ibragimova's recording came out around a year later, Spacek was no longer mentioned by British critics, even though Ibragimova's recording is badly balanced and Spacek's performance is easily as good, and better recorded. But Ibragimova lives in England, and her recording company here (Hyperion) is British, whereas Spacek is a Czech, recording for a Czech company.

And, finally, we have fashion. The current fashion in the world of music criticism is to extol “original instrument” recordings and performances and to sniff at “old style” playing of music before 1900 or whatever. In the 1950s, critics sniffed at Furtwängler and praised Toscanini's frantic and dry recordings to the skies. Anything Yehudi Menuhin did was praised by British, French and German critics, even though the violin playing was often pretty bad.

After around 60 years of listening to music, I tend to know what I like. I do value the opinion of others, especially if I know their tastes and their track records. Commercial critics tend to get short shrift from me these days, unless many of them share the same enthusiasm for a particular performance or recording, in which case my interest perks up. Anyway, my blog certainly is not prejudiced. ???

Maud Powell

Listening to old, acoustic recordings can be a labour of love, undertaken rarely for the sake of the music, and never for the sake of audio gratification. A friend ordered the four Naxos CDs of the complete recordings of Maud Powell twice, so he sent one set to me -- nearly five hours of recordings of nearly 70 tracks of music, none of the tracks lasting for more than 4 minutes and 50 seconds. The recordings date from 1904 to 1917 and were all made at the RCA Victor studios in America.

As was the case for Kreisler and Elman, both of whom were active in the same studios during these years, much of the music is pretty ephemeral: “Adoration” by Felix Borowski, “Silver Threads Among the Gold” by Hart Pease Danks, “Caprice on Dixie” by Dan Emmett, etc. Otherwise the same many short pieces popular during the period, with the strange exception of nothing at all by Fritz Kreisler. Unusually, de Bériot's 7th violin concerto is recorded “complete”, but with piano and many cuts to bring it down to 12 minutes and 55 seconds, or three 12 inch 78 rpm sides.

In the end, the only conceivable reason for listening to these five hours of music is to hear Maud Powell's violin playing. Born in 1867 in Illinois and a pupil of teachers who included Dancla in Paris and Joachim in Berlin, the recordings suggest a violinist of very considerable powers, including superb intonation, trills like they can never do nowadays, and a marvellously agile right arm. As was the fashion for most of her life, vibrato was used sparingly but effectively. Again, as was the fashion, portamenti are very common and do jar modern ears (one wonders why fanatics who insist on everyone playing “in the old style” don't insist on portamenti as well. But give them time ...). What comes over, above all, is the freshness, enthusiasm and vigour Maud Powell brought to her playing; none of the smooth, careful routine that we hear too often nowadays from many of the post-1950s violinists. What we cannot know, alas, is how her tempi relate to typical tempi nowadays. The tyranny of the 10 inch shellac side (three and a half minutes) or the 12 inch (four and a half) meant that until after the later 1940s, nearly everything had to be either speeded up, or cut back. Even played impossibly fast, Bazzini's Ronde des Lutins could never be done in 4 1/2 minutes, so it was always cut until after the later 1940s. Ms Powell plays many pieces here at a good lick, and Saint-Saën's Swan paddles past at top speed to get home in 2 minutes and 37 seconds and thus leave room for another piece on the same shellac side. Violinists, and lovers of violin playing, can learn a lot from these four Naxos CDs.

Anton Bruckner's Ninth Symphony

A number of great musical works were left unfinished for one reason or another, starting perhaps with Bach's Art of the Fugue (death) then Mozart's Requiem (death). Schubert's Unfinished symphony (plus many other of his works), Bruckner's Ninth symphony, Puccini's Turandot … and so on. Musicologists and others often attempt to complete such works or to flesh out skeletons such as Elgar's “Third” symphony, or Mahler's “Tenth”. Recently someone completed the finale to Bruckner's Ninth symphony (and Simon Rattle, for one, has recorded it). Bruckner wrestled for two years with this finale, before his death, and I can sort-of understand why: Bruckner's Ninth symphony does not need a finale (and Bruckner's finales were rarely high spots, anyway). The long adagio, so pregnant with feeling, makes a superb end to the symphony, and to Bruckner's opus.

Even after shedding many recordings, I am still left with a good number. In date order of recording: Furtwängler (1944), Horenstein (1952), van Beinum (1952), Knappertsbusch (1958), Schuricht (1961), Klemperer (1970), Horenstein (1970), Jochum (1978), Wand (1998), Haitink (2013) and, the latest acquisition, Claudio Abbado with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra (2013). The recording I grew up with was the faithful old Vox LP of Jascha Horenstein in 1952. For me, still the greatest of all recordings of this work is Furtwängler in 1944 (remastered by Pristine Audio).

I loved Haitink's mellow 2013 performance, with its tranquil tempi; now I also love Abbado's mellow 2013 performance, also with tranquil tempi. Looking at the long first movement, Abbado takes 26'47”. Klemperer 26'43”. Haitink 27'31”. At the other end of the spectrum, Furtwängler takes 23'37”. Horenstein 24'51”. Jochum a fleet 23'06”. Far too slow for me is Giulini weighing in at 28 minutes; I could not take this, so I gave the CD away even though, of course, timings only tell part of the story. But Giulini manages to make the Adagio last 29'30” while pretty well everyone else does around 25'30”, like Furtwängler and Abbado.

For me, Bruckner's Ninth is one of the world's great symphonies and I would never be without it. It is not music for young conductors. My last three forays into purchase have been Jochum, Haitink and Abbado and I would not be without any of them, perhaps especially the new Abbado with its superb recording and terrific orchestral playing from the 2013 Lucerne Festival Orchestra. But the emotionally-charged Furtwängler public performance from 1944 remains hors concours.

Brahms with Leonidas Kavakos and Yuja Wang

After around 60 years of listening, I am pretty over-familiar with the three violin and piano sonatas of Johannes Brahms. Superb music it may be; but I know it back to front and inside out so I am rarely in the market for any new recorded version. I made an exception for the new CD by Leonidas Kavakos and Yuja Wang; I have liked and admired Kavakos for over two decades, and I was curious to hear what Miss Wang made of the piano side of the duo sonatas. No regrets; this is a first class performance of the three works.

Kavakos plays as if meeting an old friend, with a great deal of affection. Yuja Wang plays as if she is enthusiastically exploring a new friend, and revelling in her role as duo partner. The violin seizes the listener's attention; the lucid piano playing seizes attention. Both players sound as if they are enjoying playing together. Very high level stuff.

The recording is interesting. The Hamburg studio has put the violin firmly and pretty exclusively in the left-hand channel, and Miss Wang pretty exclusively in the right-hand. The result is that one hears every note of the piano part, and every note of the violin part. Very well done, and I marvelled at the excellent balance. Leonidas Kavakos is a known quantity in the violin classics, but Yuja Wang is more often heard in Rachmaninov, Chopin, etc. Miss Wang seems to love her new duo sonata role, and I hope she explores more of it. I wrote recently about Tianwa Yang and Xiayin Wang, the highly talented young Chinese of the new generation. Should have been Wang, Yang and Wang because Xiayin, Tianwa and Yuja are really top international class musicians.