Dmitri Shostakovich and the String Quartets

Much of Dmitri Shostakovich's life was lived in thoroughly harrowing times: the chaos, upheaval and famine of the 1920s; the Terror and great purges of the 1930s in Russia; the horrors of the second world war in which over 20 million Russians died; the grim post-war Stalin régime of repression and suspicion, only partly alleviated in 1953 with the tyrant's death. And not the least attraction of Shostakovich's music is how it reflects much of his life, with wild rejoicing mixed with black nightmares, all sometimes overladen with a Russian gloom à la Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov.

Despite its adhesion to traditional tonality (thank heavens) Shostakovich's music is completely of the 20^th century; there is no confusion about post-romantic, or whatever, and to me he was the greatest composer of the 20^th century – not that the competitor list for great composers of that century is that long. I came to Shostakovich's music late in life, and am now struggling to catch up with, and digest, 15 symphonies, 15 string quartets, 24 preludes and fugues, two piano trios, the string quintet, the sonatas for violin, for cello and for viola, two violin concertos, two cello concertos … For some reason I do not understand, I seem to have an innate empathy for Shostakovich's music and its kaleidoscopic mood changes, so my catching-up task is a pleasant one.

I have two complete collections of the string quartets where I feel that Shostakovich, like Beethoven or Schubert before him, poured much of his greatest and most personal music. But a collection of 15 string quartets turns out to be a difficult digestive task – I am still not sure to have digested the 16 string quartets and 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven, even after 60+ years of music listening. With digestive problems in mind, I invested in a CD by the young Anglo-Irish Carducci String Quartet on which the quartet embarks on Shostakovich's fourth, eighth and eleventh quartets. Three at-a-time are easier to get to know well rather than 15 in a big box. As far as I can tell, the Carducci players do well, though it is never easy to pronounce on the performance of music one does not know inside-out. Anyway, the Carducci players play in tune and with spirit and are well recorded, so this will do for some multiple listening before I go back to the Beethoven Quartet in the complete set.

And, as an aside, is not the string quartet with its two violins, viola and cello possibly the greatest medium that has ever evolved for the performance of great, personal music? Arising from the Phoenix of the consort of viols, the string quartet medium is probably the most expressive and personal musical medium of them all.

James Ehnes in César Franck

I was a little concerned listening to my newly arrived CD of James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong playing César Franck's sonata for violin and piano; my interest kept wavering throughout all four movements. Was it my head, preoccupied with other matters? Or was it the playing? Surely it wasn't fatigue with Franck's sonata?

So I embarked on listening to the sonata four times in 24 hours. First: the Ehnes-Armstrong. Second, the classic Thibaud and Cortot from 1929 (excellent restoration by Mark Obert-Thorn for Pristine Audio). Third, from the new recording by Renaud Capuçon and Khatia Buniatishvili about which I enthused recently. Then, finally, back to Ehnes and Armstrong.

Tempi in all four movements by all three duos are pretty similar. I really enjoyed listening to Thibaud and Cortot again, and was equally enthusiastic with Capuçon and Buniatishvili; a real favourite, and perhaps the recording of the 55 (!) I have of this work that currently I most enjoy. Then, for my fourth listening, back to Ehnes and Armstrong. Ehnes is extremely good, as one might expect. The flaw is the pianist: Armstrong is just not in the same class as Cortot or Buniatishvili. He plays well, reminding me of Brooks Smith, Heifetz's long-term accompanist. But listen to Cortot, or listen to Buniatishvili, and the competitive bar is set very high indeed. Ehnes seems not to favour big-name partners in violin and piano sonatas; this matters less in the (excellent) account of the Strauss sonata also on the CD. But for the Franck, he would have been better advised to play with Yevgeny Sudbin, Hélène Grimaud, Xiayin Wang, Marc-André Hamelin, Lise de la Salle or a host of the other first class pianists of whom there is no lack at the present time. The recorded balance favours the piano; not a good thing in these two sonatas, where Ehnes often sounds like a voice off stage whilst the piano plonks away in front of our noses.

My Top Dozen Current Musicians

My current dozen favourite musicians (who are still active):

Alina Ibragimova (violin), James Ehnes (violin), Lisa Batiashvili (violin), Igor Levit (piano), Marc-André Hamelin (piano), Sandrine Piau (soprano), Maria Pires (piano), Akiko Suwanai (violin), Valery Gergiev (conductor), Vasily Petrenko (conductor), Tianwa Yang (violin), Xiayin Wang (piano).

These are all almost always auto-buys. There are many more, but I wanted to keep the list to one dozen. And as runners-up: Lise de la Salle (piano), Julia Lezhneva (soprano), Khatia Buniatishvili (piano), Leonidas Kavakos (violin).

Mravinsky on Praga Digitals

I have noticed recently that the Czech company, Supraphon, now has excellent recording quality. I have also noticed that Praga Digitals, another Czech company, does some very high quality transfer and restoration work. The latest evidence of this is Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic in 1961 (live recording) of Shostakovich's 8^th Symphony. Only the somewhat recessed major climaxes reveal the age and limitations of the recording. Magnificent!

And is it my imagination, or have the orchestral strings of the Berlin Philharmonic under Furtwängler and the Leningrad Philharmonic under Mravinsky not been equalled since? I certainly basked in the Leningraders in this performance.

Busch Chamber Players: Bach Brandenburg Concertos

I do not consider my tastes in musical performance to be old-fashioned; but I certainly recognise they are currently unfashionable, especially among opinion-makers and media gurus. Down from the shelves – after a long rest – came Adolf Busch and friends playing the Bach Brandenburg concertos (mid- 1930s recordings). By Jove, I enjoyed these performances! There is a palpable sense of musicians enjoying themselves, much as they may have done at Cöthen some 300 years ago, and the line-up of the star musicians of the mid-1930s makes a welcome change from the often somewhat stereotyped “authentic” performers on other sets. So the horns, trumpet, harpsichord (!) etc. are not exactly what Bach would have expected to hear. But I think that he, essentially a highly practical musician who cared more for texture than exact timbre, would have muttered something like: “Whatever sounds best, this evening”. A man who could re-cast a Prelude for solo violin (E major partita) for solo organ in the opening Sinfonia of the cantata BWV 29 was not one to worry about vibrato, which kind of keyboard instrument, which wood the oboe was made from, etc. There are creative artists, writers and thinkers who are anchored firmly in their epoques: for example, John Le Carré, Karl Marx, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. There are others who espouse eternal values: for example, Johann Sebastian Bach, or William Shakespeare (amongst many, many others).

With Adolf Busch at the helm you get balance, dedication, enjoyment, “correct” tempos (whatever that might mean). The EMI transfers from circa 1990 are not the best, with digital glare in the treble, and the sense you are at least two stages removed from the original recorded sound. During that period, transfers to CD were production-line stuff, with little individual care. However, the sound on the CDs is not that bad and, again, the balance is a model of how things should be done with the sonically difficult Brandenburgs (with their miscellaneous mixtures of solo instruments). Compared with some of today's Formula One tempi, Busch and friends can often sound leisurely; I would prefer to call them relaxed.

Hopefully in some attic or other there exists a mint condition set of the original 78s that will find themselves to the workbenches of transfer artists such as Praga Digital or Pristine Audio. In the meantime, the EMI CD set will have to suffice; it gives me a lot of pleasure just sitting back and listening to it.

Kavakos and Gergiev in Shostakovich

Vadim Repin is quoted as saying that Shostakovich's first violin concerto is “the perfect musical score” and the words came back to me listening to my latest acquisition of this work, played by Leonidas Kavakos with the Mariiinsky Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev. I really appreciated Shostakovich's scoring as fully revealed in this recording; the orchestral violins have little prominence, and the orchestral part concentrates on double basses, cellos, brass and the deeper wind instruments, thus allowing the violin to be heard in contrast without having to make superhuman efforts to overcome the orchestral background.

Gergiev and the orchestra play superbly (with Gergiev singing in tune from time to time in this live performance). Like the violin concertos of Beethoven, Brahms and Elgar, the first Shostakovich violin concerto really needs a good orchestra and conductor and cannot rely on just a good soloist. With all that, Kavakos is superb in this performance, and with his entry in the Passacaglia, and his fire in the finale, he tops them all, so I have to record yet another top version of this very lucky concerto on disc. Tempi are fine for me – movement without being frantic or exaggerated, particularly important in the long first movement.

And Russian recording (Mariiinsky) has come on a long way since the 1950s and 60s, with an excellent balance for the SACD disc (which I can only play as a CD on my equipment, alas). I now have 45 different recordings of this concerto, many of them with three stars. A lucky concerto, indeed, and a very fine one, to boot; it fully deserves its dramatic latter-day success in the concert hall and on record.

Elias String Quartet: Beethoven's Op 130

I bought a new recording of Beethoven's Op 130 string quartet in B flat major mainly because the recording re-instates the Grosse Fuge as the quartet's finale, rather than the routine finale Beethoven was persuaded to substitute by publisher and players. After the profound opening adagio-allegro, Beethoven follows with three intermediate movements, then the sublime cavatina (adagio molto espressivo) and then: we need the Grosse Fuge!

I had never heard of the Elias String Quartet prior to buying this CD. The performance of Op 130 strikes me as exemplary, and I'll return to it often. Is the danza tedesca taken too quickly? But it's marked allegro assai, so maybe not, even though no one could dance at the speed taken here. Anyway, for me a good performance of Op 130 integrating the unjustly abandoned Grosse Fuge is highly welcome. The recording (Wigmore Hall Live) is excellent and well balanced.

Paganini's Violin Concerto No.1

Paganini's Violin Concerto No.1 in D major is a superb exhibition of pretty well everything of which the violin is capable, from lyrical, tender passages to fiery brilliance; from grave G string to silvery high E string. It's a mistake to try to play it as great music; it shines best when played by a violinist who enjoys showing off, which is one reason why the work has often thrived at the hands of young violinists: the young Menuhin, the young Leonid Kogan, the young Michael Rabin, the young Viktoria Mullova.

I've just added the 18 year old Akiko Suwanai to this list, playing the concerto at the 1990 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow – which she won. For once, I was happy that the ecstatic roar of applause from the Russian audience was left in at the end of the concerto; this is a truly magnificent version of the old war-horse, and the extended cadenza by Emile Sauret receives playing that is quite stunning. Akiko plays the concerto for all it's worth and bowls us all over in the process. I have no less than 45 different recorded performances of Paganini's Opus 6, but this is the one I'll reach for in future when I want to be truly amazed.

Ion Voicu

The Australian Eloquence label is doing good work re-issuing Decca recordings from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In that way, major artists who had almost vanished from view can return to the sonic stage. The latest Eloquence pair of CDs to join my collection is highly welcome, since it brings back Ion Voicu in excellent sound in recordings from the 1960s and early 1970s. Superb playing and a good selection of music, with the concertos of Mendelssohn and Bruch (G minor) plus duo works by Ravel, Enescu, Debussy and Milhaud.

Born in Romania in 1923, Voicu was another major musician born at the wrong time and in the wrong place as regards being able to have a major career. He was a marvellous violinist; dead accurate intonation, impeccable bowing, excellent musicianship and with that soft almost crooning violin sound typical of many who grew up in Hungary or Romania during the first half of the last century. I particularly enjoyed his rendition of the Mendelssohn concerto, played “straight” with no indulgence in the over-inflation that plagues so many performances of this agreeable work. In particular, it's good to hear the andante played as an andante, and not at the speed of a 96 year old walking up a steep slope. Voicu, like others such as Heifetz and Tianwa Yang, keeps “walking” in this second movement and the music is all the better for it. There are a few more Voicu recordings hiding away in the shadows; let us hope that someone gets hold of them and re-issues them in good sound.

Vasily Petrenko in Elgar

Like so many post-Wagnerian composers at the end of the nineteenth century and the very beginning of the twentieth, Edward Elgar often wrote music that was a bit too long. I have always loved (most of) Elgar's music, but have often wished it would get a move on in a performance.

Not the least admirable aspect of the new recording of Elgar's first symphony by the extraordinarily talented Vasily Petrenko is that the music really does get a move on in all four movements, to great benefit of the work as a whole. Elgar's music does not take to wallowing, and I really enjoyed this recording. Apart from Petrenko, the Liverpool Philharmonic also covers itself in glory, and the recording team (Onyx) does credit to the whole. When I next want to listen to Elgar's first symphony, this is the recording, of the six I possess, that I'll reach for. I'm just hoping Petrenko goes on to record the second symphony, and to accompany a top soloist in the violin concerto.

The Russians may be a bit fallible when it comes to politics and economics, but when it comes to music they are formidable, as witnessed by the number of Russian pianists, violinists and conductors who keep coming forth. Two of my favourite modern conductors (a small band) are Valery Gergiev and Vasily Petrenko, both from well within the Russian orbit. This is the first time I have heard Petrenko in non-Russian repertoire, apart from an off-air recording of him accompanying Alina Ibragimova (another Russian) in a Mozart concerto. Count me as a fan.

Akiko Suwanai

The commercial world has usually been unkind to top-class musicians. In the old days, there were only a handful of recording companies, so if you were not one of the chosen few, you languished in all-but obscurity with your violin, piano, or whatever. Fast-forward to the twenty-first century, and there are many, many more recording companies around, plus media such as YouTube but most are small and usually national in their base. Most unfortunate were those who sprang to fame in the 1970s, 80s and 90s with contracts with the big recording companies; the big companies suddenly vanished, hoovered up into big international conglomerates like Warner Music or Universal Music. Some artists with a well-known brand live on, so we can still find Brand Furtwängler, Brand Menuhin, Brand Rubinstein, etc. But many other artists just disappeared from view, their recordings no longer available, the copyright in them still to run for 30 years or so, which means that specialist re-issue companies cannot prolong the artists' lives.

One such seems to be Akiko Suwanai, a superb violinist whose recordings I have always enjoyed and treasured. I only heard her once in person (playing the Bartok violin concerto in Washington in 2001) but my eight or nine CDs of her are never far away for long. She is notable for a superb technique and a welcome absence of showmanship, as well as for a thoroughly musical attitude to what she is playing. Alas, Brand Akiko recorded for Philips – it probably seemed a great idea at the time – which was swallowed by Universal which is owned, I think, by a French water company. Hopefully the water company will re-discover her one day and her top-notch recordings will begin to be available again. A pity Akiko did not begin her recording life with companies such as Naxos or Hyperion, who appear to work on long time scales and to take long-term views of artists and repertoire.

Jascha Horenstein in Brahms

I have written before in this blog about Jascha Horenstein, a great conductor who never had a permanent conducting post, never had a prestigious recording contract, but who – in his chosen repertoire, was fully the equal of his luckier contemporaries such as Furtwängler, Klemperer, Szell, Reiner or von Karajan. I was extremely pleased to meet him again in good recorded sound with a good orchestra. The new Pristine Audio transfer of his 1962 recording of the LSO has to be one of the best Brahms first symphonies ever recorded. All Horenstein's familiar attributes are there: an impeccable sense of dynamics, an intelligent knowledge of structure, a sure instinct for phrasing, and a sense of orchestral balance that sees the symphony sitting on a solid foundation from the bass line – a bit in the Furtwängler mode, and no doubt (!) helped by the fact that, in 1962, my father was a double bass player with the LSO. I saw Horenstein in person only once, at the Albert Hall in London in 1959 when he conducted the LSO and hundreds of others in Mahler's grotesque eighth symphony, but this image of a small, elderly man controlling vast forces calmly but imperiously has never left me. This is a Brahms first symphony to set alongside classics such as Furtwängler and Klemperer.

Also on the Pristine transfer is an excellent sounding 1962 recording of Horenstein and the LSO accompanying David Oistrakh in Bruch's splendid Scottish Fantasy. Alas, this has to be the dreariest recordings of this lovely work ever recorded. All concerned – soloist, conductor, orchestra – sound as though they are just going through the motions, at rehearsal speed in all four movements. I have never been a big fan of David Oistrakh; he was technically a truly remarkable violinist, but here his sound is so bland and uninvolved it could almost be Itzakh Perlman playing. We are a long way from the passion of a Heifetz, a Rabin or a Kogan. Thoroughly boring, and incredibly slow !

Bruckner's 9th. Pristine Audio

As I have remarked before, the 7^th October 1944 performance of Bruckner's 9^th Symphony conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler and played by the Berlin Philharmonic is one of the great performances of all time. And the (live) recording is little short of miraculous given the date and the circumstances. The playing of the Berlin Philharmonic is something that one no longer hears, remarkable given that the Philharmonie had just been bombed and that the T34 tanks of the Red Army were rolling inexorably towards Berlin where they would arrive just seven months later; it was a bit like the band still playing when the Titanic went down.

I was therefore horror-stricken when, playing my CDR of the Pristine Audio transfer of the work yesterday, the sound suddenly featured the ominous click-click-click and tap-tap-tap of a damaged CD; and the third movement would not play at all! Very odd in a CDR I had played OK before and where they were no signs of marks or scratches. A frantic email to Andrew Rose of Pristine Audio found him on holiday, half way up a mountain. But within an hour I had a link to a new download and I now have the work on a brand new CDR playing happily. There is a lot to be said for buying from responsive small companies, and thank you Andrew.

Vilde Frang in Mozart Concertos

I am a great admirer of Vilde Frang's violin playing, so I was particularly disappointed with her new CD of Mozart concertos (the 1^st and 5^th for violin, plus the Sinfonia Concertante). She has been cajoled into playing with little of her normal vibrato and this coupled with the fact she is recorded somewhat distantly, makes her playing sound oddly cool and thin. No such problem with Maxim Rysanov who joins her in the Sinfonia, however, where his warm vibrato sound is most welcome.

The “orchestra” (Arcangelo) sounding here more like a large chamber group isn't much help, playing with a conspicuous lack of legato, and being forced into some odd, choppy phrasing by the evidently interventionist conductor, Jonathan Cohen. One suspects an orchestra would have been better left to its own devices and instincts. And some of the allegros are just too allegro for my taste; they often sound rushed. When it comes to Mozart violin concertos, I'll continue to get down Arthur Grumiaux, or the recent Arabella Steinbacher. This modern passion for attempting to imitate the presumed sound of an 18^th century performance does Mozart no favours; I am sure he, a lover of beautiful music, would have welcomed Steinbacher or Grumiaux with open arms, whilst being lukewarm over poor Vilde Frang as recorded here. No stars for this one.

Rachmaninov's First Piano Sonata

One comes to the works of Sergei Rachmaninov slowly, and usually after repeated hearings. Up until a few months ago, I had never heard the first piano sonata of Rachmaninov, a sprawling work extending over some 35 minutes for its three movements. I came across it first played by the immensely talented Xiayin Wang, then again played by the immensely talented Zlata Chochieva on her début recording CD. Both young women play it superbly and fearlessly and I have now listened to the work some six times and have come to love it – in the end, once Rachmaninov's fragile themes had embedded themselves in my consciousness.

Written in 1907, Rachmaninov himself seems to have subsequently neglected the work. Of the two young women, I prefer the Chinese in this work; Xiayin Wang is a superb Rachmaninov pianist who seems to have a real empathy for the composer. She has better dynamic shading here than the young Russian – viz the very opening of the work – and is better at differentiating the various harmonic and thematic strands. The Russian is slightly faster in all three movements, but the Chinese has a kind of relaxed virtuosity that seems to me to fit this music that must be extremely difficult to play. This is now a work that has firmly entered my (listening) repertoire.

Zlata Chochieva

On a whim, I bought a new CD of Zlata Chochieva playing all the Chopin études. A whim, since I'd never heard of Ms Chochieva, a Russian, and I am not really a Chopin fan. When I want to listen to the études, I normally reach for Alfred Cortot, recorded some 80 years ago, but still going strong.

I started listening to Zlata, then ended up listening to all 64 minutes non-stop. I decided to compare Zlata with my Naxos copy of the Cortot … and ended up listening to the whole of Op 10 played by him, rather than just a sample. Then back to Zlata Chochieva and, yes, this is the real thing: a great new recording of the Chopin études. Cortot is still Cortot, of course, with exquisite rubato and supreme grace and elegance but, after 80 years, his recording (as transferred here, and via my speakers) is bass heavy, which makes it sound as if he has a giant left hand and a flimsy right hand. Zlata has no such recording problems, and the balance of bass and treble — very important in many of the études — is a joy to hear. Some of the playing here is as light as a soufflé; the “study” aspect of the études is never downplayed, and the studies are deliciously musical in Ms Chochieva's hands.

The excellent CD (Piano Classics) comes plastered with posed photos of Zlata, as if we are buying flesh rather than a pianist playing Chopin's music. And nary a picture of Chopin, of course.

French Mélodies

I am a fan of the French equivalent of the German Lieder (mélodies) so I bought the recital given by Stéphanie D'Oustrac. You win some, and you lose some. This is not an "Invitation au Voyage" (CD title) that I will play often.

21 mélodies, and all but a handful of them slow, or very slow. Eyelids droop. Fatally, Ms D'Oustrac has a lovely mezzo soprano voice, but poor diction (unlike, say, Véronique Gens). The CD mixes up tracks 2 and 3, and it is some time before one realises the singer is singing the wrong song. Even a native born French speaker will need to be glued to the libretto in order to understand what Ms D'Oustrac is singing about; and an appreciation of what is being sung is as important here as it is with German Lieder. Singers must learn to articulate clearly; singing is not just about making lovely sounds – advice that is as valid for instrumental players as it is for singers.

In Praise of Philippe Jaroussky

As a staunch non-religion person, I am not naturally drawn to church music. With important exceptions, such as most of Bach including his church cantatas (minus libretto), his Mass in B minor and the St Matthew Passion. And I have frequently shown my extreme hesitation when faced with the countertenor / male alto or castrato voice. Every rule has exceptions, however, and Philippe Jaroussky is one. His countertenor voice is lovely and sounds so natural, and he has an acute musical intellect that makes everything he sings sound moving. Even church music, and I have just been revelling in Jaroussky singing Vivaldi's sacred works, including a stunning Stabat Mater. The music is exceptionally beautiful. The singing marvellous to hear. The accompanying band (Ensemble Artaserse) first class, and the recording (Erato) all that could be desired. This is not a CD to be shelved in some distant corner, since I'll be listening to it frequently, church music, countertenor, and all.