Thomas Christian plays Ernst

The music of Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst is best known – when it is known at all – for his Erlkönig and Last Rose of Summer fantasies. Both these works have always appeared to me to be unwise in that they go slightly beyond the technical limits of what is advisable on a violin. On a whim, I bought a two-CD set of Ernst's music played by Thomas Christian, an Austrian violinist now in his mid-60s. Not an Earl-King or a Last Rose in sight; this is well over two and half hours of pleasant salon music played around half the time with a pianist, half the time with a small chamber group. The first CD also features a string quartet by Ernst – played a little unrelentingly, I feel; more contrast in dynamics would have helped. And in music like this, the violin is of primary interest and the sound needs to be 60/40 in favour of the violin. Here, it's more like 60/40 in favour of the piano, so that we hear every note the pianist plays, but cannot always easily hear the violin. Probably not the fault of the pianist (Evgeny Sinayskiy) but more likely of the CPO recording team. Or of my loudspeakers.

Christian plays with a honeyed,Viennese tone, with lots of charm. Wisely, perhaps given his age, the pieces selected here mainly avoid hyper-virtuoso passages, so we get well over two hours of music that fit beautifully into a summer evening's listening and can be safely offered to anyone's elderly mother-in-law. Sad that Ernst's music is not better known and is seldom played. Instead of yet another Ravel or Debussy sonata recording, we could do with more of Ernst's thoroughly enjoyable and tuneful salon music; the only piece on these two CDs that is played from time to time is the Fantaisie Brillante on a theme from Rossini's Otello.  It all sounds nice and, despite the CDs' title of “The Virtuoso Violin”, there is not much purely technical virtuosity needed in most of the pieces on these CDs.

Purcell's "When I am laid to Earth"

Henry Purcell's aria “when I am laid to earth” from Dido and Aeneas is, quite rightly, considered one of the greatest arias in all music. Almost everyone sings it (and I once transcribed it for violin and viola so I could play it myself). This evening I listened to it sung by Patricia Petibon, on a recital CD. It was intensely moving, since Petibon has a superb voice and is very much a singer-actor who communicates words and feelings from the heart. Terrific!

A minute criticism is that someone should teach the French how to pronounce “earth” (as in “When I am laid to earth”). It is not pronounced how it looks, and 98% of French get it wrong … somewhat understandably: who would think that “earth” should be pronounced “urth”?

Nightingales and Sopranos

Like Richard Strauss, I have an on-going love affair with the soprano voice (which perhaps fits with my love of the violin). Recently I put on a CD of songs sung by … a tenor! … and had to exit the disc after a few of the songs. For song and aria recitals, I favour Véronique Gens, Sandrine Piau, Carolyn Sampson, Julia Lezhneva, Diana Damrau, Simone Kermes, Joyce DiDonato, Patricia Petibon … and a few others. A good friend has just given me a CD of Carolyn Sampson singing a multilingual collection of songs (with piano) and it really is a major treat. I like Ms Sampson's voice, I like the fact I can hear the words she is singing, I like the fact that her French (especially) and German dictions are extremely acceptable, and I like her intelligence applied to what she is singing.

The other nightingale I acquired recently was the Russian Julia Lezhneva, with her first CD that featured Rossini operatic arias. Some have commented that, at 21 years old when this CD was recorded, she was just too young for some of this music, and I suspect that is true (I am no Rossini expert). Others have commented that her intonation goes astray on occasions; I am blessed with imperfect pitch, and a dozen false notes in an hour of singing or playing never particularly bother me; I find it acceptable to wince on a few occasions. What does matter to me is that I like Ms Lezhneva's voice, and the music she sings and can sit back and enjoy the programme. Just as I like Carolyn Sampson's voice. But, no, I am not a fan of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf; I don't just love every soprano who comes along.

Wieniawski, Vieuxtemps, Conus

Two CDs I keep close to hand both feature lesser known violinists in lesser known works. On one, the Korean violinist Soo-Hyun Park plays the first Wieniawski violin concerto, the Conus concerto, and Vieuxtemps' Fantasia Appassionata. On the second, Canadian violinist Corey Cerovsek plays Vieuxtemps' fifth concerto, Wieniawski's second, and Wieniawski's Faust Fantasia.

Hardly exotic and unknown repertoire – I have 23 versions of the Wieniawski Fantasia, and 17 of Vieuxtemps' fifth concerto, for example – but rare to have them assembled on two convenient CDs (Claves and Onyx), well played and well recorded. Mainline companies and mainstream violinists stick either to endless recordings of the twelve evergreen classics, or to scrapings of “new music” concertos, once played, forever forgotten. My two CDs of Wieniawski et al are well worn, and kept where I can pick them out easily whenever I feel like it – which is surprisingly often.

Georg Kulenkampff

A friend sent me five CDRs of the violin playing of Georg Kulenkampff and I listened with pleasure to the first two, with over two hours of Kulenkampff in the late 1920s and the 1930s playing short encore pieces with a variety of accompaniments and a variety of recorded sound. This is highly civilised classical violin playing, with lots of colouring and lots of articulation using the bow in the right hand. Two hours passed happily, no mean feat with a violinist playing short pieces.

Most of the pieces recorded in the 1930s with Franz Rupp as accompanist go well. Some of the “arrangements” of popular pieces show that the Germans of the time were willing to venture into the world of schmaltz and kitsch with the best of them, and some of the pieces – such as “Silent Night” – would make even Andre Rieu blush. In the main, however, the playing is refreshing and interesting, the music good, the recordings quite passable, and the transfers as good as can be. Tough for an international reputation being a German violinist in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, but it is excellent news that Kulenkampff's reputation lives on into the twenty-first century.

Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley in Beethoven

On an impulse, I reached up to one of my CD shelves and recovered the set of the ten violin and piano sonatas by Beethoven, as recorded by Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley. Well over three and a half hours of enjoyment; thank you Beethoven, Renaud and Frank.

I wrote about this set a couple of years ago, so I will try not to repeat myself. The two artists are well matched; their performances are highly elegant (except where Beethoven calls for a bit of beef). The recording is well balanced – essential in duo music such as this. No nonsense about period violins or fortepianos; nothing but the best modern sound for Ludwig van Beethoven. Sensible tempi throughout the ten sonatas. Many duos have recorded this set over the decades, some of them playing very well indeed. But when I want to listen to the set again, Capuçon and Braley will be an obvious choice.

Liza Ferschtman

For a small country with a population of just under 17 million people, the Netherlands produces an astonishing number of first class violinists including Simone Lamsma, Isabelle van Keulen, Janine Jansen and Liza Ferschtman; just the ones whose playing I have often heard. The latest Dutch girl on my CD player is Liza Ferschtman, who plays Biber's Passagalia, Bartok's solo sonata, a piece by Berio, and Bach's D minor partita for solo violin.

Nice to hear Biber and Bach played by a “proper” violinist on a proper violin. The piece by Luciano Berio is perfectly horrible, and so typical of the iconoclasts in 1976; what on earth happened to Italian instrumental music after the death of Paganini, seemingly its last exponent? In the 18^th century, Italian instrumental music was first class. Ferschtman is not a “beautiful” player and is not afraid of the occasional harsh or ugly sound, where called for. This probably suits the Berio piece (I did not get beyond the first 60 seconds) and also suits the Bartok solo sonata, a work I've known for nearly 60 years, but can't say I actually love (or Bartok's music in general, come to that). A CD to treasure for the Bach and Biber, played by a first class Dutch violinist (of Russian parentage). I was particularly taken with Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber's “Guardian Angel” Passagalia, a major discovery for me. Hopefully, a few more “proper” violinists will give us more Biber sonatas.

Beethoven's Violin Concerto

Looking at the 81 (!) recordings of Beethoven's violin concerto on my shelves, it would appear that it is a difficult concerto to get right. The first movement is long (typically around 24 minutes). The second movement is a divine rhapsody of 9-10 minutes. The third movement is a traditional 18^th century rondo – usually a bit of a cop-out, in my opinion, a bit like a movement of variations which rarely impress as great music. Looking at my 81 recordings, it is the old ones that come off best, and all are by German (or Austro-German) violinists, perhaps for the same reason that performances of a composer such as Rachmaninov are usually best when performed by echt-Russians.

The five “best” violinists in the Beethoven concerto, for me, are Fritz Kreisler (1926 and 1936), Georg Kulenkampff (1936), Erich Röhn (1944), Adolf Busch (1942 and 1949) and Wolfgang Schneiderhan (1952, 1953, 1954 and 1964). Kreisler was in his prime at 51 years old for his first recording, but the Berlin Opera Orchestra under Leo Blech in 1926 were not great partners. I have a great affection for Georg Kulenkampff in this work, with the Berlin Philharmonic during its prime years and good transfers by both Michael Dutton and Pristine Audio. Kulenkampff plays with an endearing simplicity, letting the violin and the music do the talking without over-visible intervention from the “interpreter”. Kulenkampff like most of the older players with the exception of Schneiderhan, plays conventional cadenzas rather than the wanna-be-different ones concocted by too many modern violinists.

Mischa Elman and Maxim Vengerov both win wooden spoons for their performances (with Vengerov extending the first movement to nearly half and hour). A difficult concerto to bring off, but I am happy with my five violinists recorded between 1926 and 1964.

Ox Tongue and Nikon

A slight diversion. Today I began to cut my current ox tongue, cooked by me yesterday. So good, I had it for lunch and for dinner. At just under two kilos before cooking, it will last me a while. I hope. In England, for some bizarre reason, ox tongues can usually only be acquired around Christmas time. This current one was bought by me in December and promptly frozen until cooking time came around last weekend.

But the diversion: last week I went to the municipal “tip” and threw away my old Yashica camera, plus four or five lenses. The Yashica I bought in New York around 35 years ago. It was a wrench to toss it into the trash container, but who really can cope with film cameras, and film, and developing, and printing, and enlarging, in 2015? My cameras started around the age of 14 – some 60 years ago – and subsequently embraced numerous film and then digital cameras. My latest, bought around a month or so ago, is another Nikon: a P610. I have no shares in Nikon, nor incentive to praise Mr Nikon's products. But, after 60 years, I have found a camera that fully and completely satisfies my modest photographic talents (and bank account limitations). The 60x zoom is, of course, revolutionary. But it is the camera's capacity to understand complex lighting scenes (shadow, light, bright light) and to make sense of them that enthrals me. And there is the capacity to take 180 degree panoramic shots (a facility I have yet to test) that is a first for me. Alas, in the modern world there are not too many things that get better and better (outside computers). But cameras are the exception. My Nikon P610 is far and away the best I have ever possessed, and its little on-board microprocessor works divine miracles.

Handel, Whisky, and Sandrine Piau

Ah, happiness is sitting back with a good whisky – such as a Laphroaig or J&B – and listening to Sandrine Piau singing arias from Handel oratorios (in English). Handel knew just how to tug the heart strings, and also knew that his upper-class English audience had a limited attention span, so that no one aria should last longer than around five minutes. Start with Handel's music, and throw in Sandrine Piau's clear soprano voice with a dash of honey; and life is good.

There is a YouTube interview with Ms Piau about this CD (the CD being titled “Between Heaven and Earth”). The French pretty-woman interviewer, full of herself, translates this as “Between 'eaven and ''arth” (entre le ciel et le coeur). The pretty TV woman then carries on to expound her concept of the meaning of “between 'eaven and 'eart”. Ms Piau knows her place, and knows who is the star of this TV interview, so does not dare contradict; you can almost see her holding her tongue. This is a CD I play often, and it never fails to put me in a good mood. With or without Laphroaig or J&B or, as this evening, sunshine in England.

Colin Davis in Sibelius, Pires in Beethoven

Music of youth this morning; my youth, that is. I grew up in my teens with Sibelius's 7^th Symphony and with Beethoven's 4^th piano concerto and listened to both again with much pleasure this morning. In my youth, it was von Karajan in the Sibelius, Claudio Arrau in the Beethoven (I still have both). This morning, however, it was Colin Davis and the LSO in Sibelius, Maria Pires and Daniel Harding in the Beethoven.

Sibelius's planet seems to be waning at the moment (apart from the violin concerto) and I can't really imagine why. Like Handel, Haydn or Bruckner, most of Sibelius's music does not have much emotional baggage with it, and it comes over like a clear, refreshing, cleansing mountain stream. His music was championed internationally in the past by conductors such as von Karajan, Beecham and Davis. I like the Colin Davis recording since the sound is good (important in Sibelius) and the conductor brings a lifetime of love and experience to the music. And the LSO knows the music well.

To complete my morning, Pires and Harding are first class in the Beethoven concerto. This kind of music does not need a show-off pianist, drawing attention to his or her incredible playing. There is music where the soloist is of prime importance (for example, in the music of Paganini or Liszt). But there is music, like Beethoven's 4^th piano concerto, where simple but expert pianism is most of what is required. Pires is superb in her sublime simplicity, letting Beethoven's music unfold before us. If it was back to the 1950s for me, it was a very pleasant retrospective journey.

Alina Ibragimova, Tianwa Yang, Eugène Ysaÿe

I am uneasily aware that each new recording of Eugène Ysaÿe's six sonatas for solo violin that I come across, sees me reaching for superlatives. So I reach up yet again for more superlatives for the new recording by Alina Ibragimova (Hyperion). Incredible virtuosity, of course, but an attractive almost whimsical approach to these highly varied sonatas. The only time I heard Ibragimova live in a recital hall, I marvelled at the dynamic range she obtained from her violin, ranging from extreme pianissimos to ear-splitting fortissimos. And she can make her violin coo like a dove, or roar like a lion. A phenomenal violinist and musician, and at just under 68 minutes for the sonatas on this CD, she kept me enthralled throughout.

Her CD goes head-to-head with another phenomenal young woman, Tianwa Yang, whose recent CD of the six same works had me again reaching for superlatives a few months ago. One difference becomes immediately apparent: although both young women take pretty much the same time over the third sonata, the Russian's CD plays for just under 68 minutes, the Chinese for 74 and a half minutes; quite a difference. Where Ibragimova is whimsical and mercurial, Yang is steady; her style of precise and deliberate articulation was already established when she recorded the 24 Paganini caprices at the age of 13.

There is nothing to choose between recording quality with Hyperion, and Naxos. A small criticism of either Ibragimova or Hyperion is that the Russian's dynamic range is so extensive that her extreme pianissimos are sometimes almost inaudible, even listening over headphones as I had to, in the end; her ending of the first movement of the first sonata is hard to hear at any normal listening volume. Yang, or Naxos's engineers, judge things better. For once, I have no accompanist to moan about, and a choice between Ibragimova and Yang is pretty clear: the two are so different that you have to have both! As a bonus, you can probably throw away most of the older recordings of these six works.

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.