Musical Vignettes

I seem to go through listening phases. Some months ago, it was mainly big orchestral works by the likes of Shostakovich, Sibelius, Bruckner and Elgar. My current phase is for recitals of short works; maybe a result of the metabolism of my attention span. So I have delighted again in hearing the phenomenal Zlata Chochieva playing Chopin études – I, who have never been a keen Chopin fan. I am delighted again in making my way through Tianwa Yang's eight CDs of Sarasate works. And I recovered from my archives David Frühwirth's recital of 17 mainly unhackneyed vignettes for violin and piano.

It's sad there are not many Chochieva recordings around yet. I am completely captivated by her Chopin études and love her pianism. Just as astonishing is Tianwa Yang in Sarasate; I love Sarasate's music and marvel at how idiomatic Yang sounds in this Spanish music. Her sense of style, rhythm and rubato are really extraordinary; she could even have been Sarasate's favourite pupil, listening to her. And I do revel in Sarasate's music. I recall a puffed-up British critic a few years back screeching with outrage because a professional orchestral musician had told him that Sarasate's music was worth 20 or so of Boulez, or Nono, or Stockhausen (I forget which). Well, the professional musician was quite right, and Sarasate's music is eternal.

Finally, I sat back and listened to David Frühwirth playing pieces by Zimbalist, Kurt Weill, Hans Sitt, Hubay and many others. Frühwirth has an engaging warm, relaxed Austrian tone which at times reminds me of his fellow Austrian of long ago, Fritz Kreisler. And he has a gift for selecting enjoyable music that is not readily featured in compilations by others. My short pieces phase is still very much with me; fortunately I have many CDs of short pieces to fall back on – doubly fortunately, since they do not often turn up in concerts or recitals nowadays except as four minute encores.

Lisa Batiashvili

Three major violin concertos – by Beethoven, Brahms and Shostakovich's first – have no shortage of excellent contenders for three star status, in my hierarchy. Probably the only violinist to achieve three stars in all three concertos, is Lisa Batiashvili and I had a mini- Lisa festival yesterday, listening to the three concertos played by her.

Her strengths are well known: Nobility of tone and utterance; a sense of the long line, and an exceptional feeling for phrasing (viz Rachmaninov's Vocalise). She seems to have an uncanny ability to find the right tempo, for her and for the music. She has an excellent range of dynamics. She concentrates on the music, not on highlighting her playing. She has a complete mastery of her instrument (a Strad). And she is an intensely serious player; no Lang-Lang type antics. Finally, she has her pick of good collaborators: Hélène Grimaud, Alice Sara Ott, Khatia Buniatishvili, Stephen Osborne, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Christian Thielemann, Charles Dutoit, Sakari Oramo, Osmo Vänskä ...

Her first Shostakovich violin concerto is truly superb, getting right to the bones of this complex work. Her Beethoven (no conductor on her Sony release) is surprisingly good, despite the absence of a conductor, and the recording is excellent. She has speeded up in this work after a re-think, compared with past off-air recordings. In the Beethoven, she uses the Kreisler cadenza; in the Brahms concerto (with Christian Thielemann) she uses the Busoni cadenza, and her long line creates a superb effect in the adagio. The Brahms concerto is not quite as well recorded as are the Beethoven and Shostakovich concertos; the violin is a little too integrated within the orchestral sound.

To my taste, she is not so good in Bach, and I have the impression that her long line and nobility of tone are perhaps not really ideal for Bach's music. There seem to be a lot of things she does not play, and I cannot find any reference to her playing Kreisler, Wieniawski or Sarasate. It's a shame that she appears not to play the Elgar violin concerto, a work that would suit her well, I sense. Anyway, pretty well everything she does play, she plays superbly and I hope for many more recordings from her whilst she is in her prime.

Albert Hermann Dietrich, and Joseph Joachim

It is sometimes dispiriting to discover that, after over 60 years of listening to music, there is so much more to discover. The 17^th, 18^th, 19^th and first half of the 20^th centuries saw composers of all nationalities scribbling away at top speed, and most of the resulting music is unknown and unperformed; personally I have little interest in the kilos of music written after the deaths of Shostakovich or Britten (just as contemporary composers appear to have little interest in pleasing me).

Today, I was listening to the violin concerto of Albert Hermann Dietrich (who?), a close friend of Brahms, Schumann and Joseph Joachim. I then went on to listen to Joachim's Notturno for Violin & Orchestra, ending up with the more familiar Variations in E minor "In Ungarischer Weise" by Joachim. The excellent violinist in all three works was Hans Maile (who?) and the very good recording made in Berlin in 1983. OK; none of the three works bore the stamp of genius that one would have found in Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, etc. But all three works were expertly crafted and made highly enjoyable listening and a pleasant change from many over-familiar works. I have a lot of listening to catch up on.

Mozart, and the Germans

Finding a really good recording of any given Mozart violin concerto is surprisingly difficult. Technically, the concertos pose no problems to modern violinists (even I used to play them, long ago). But the violinist needs to capture the youth and elegance of Mozart's writing; the orchestra needs to participate with the soloist and exchange musical thoughts; the recording needs to balance soloist and orchestra satisfactorily; and both orchestra and soloist need to capture the spirit and elegance of the 18^th century (though preferably not try to emulate what might have been the exact sound world of the music of nearly 250 years ago).

Arthur Grumiaux has been the Mozart concerto best stand-by for nearly 50 years now and, of more recent recordings, I have enjoyed Arabella Steinbacher and Katrin Scholz. Latest arrival on my player is Frank Peter Zimmerman, with the chamber orchestra of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Radoslaw Szulc. And very good it is, too, providing really all I want for modern performances of these concertos (Zimmerman plays the 1^st, 3^rd and 4^th on the new CD, with the rest scheduled to follow). Stylish violin playing. Excellent orchestral partnership. Good recording (Hänssler Classic) with expert balance. My kind of Mozart (and not an “original instrument” within sound or sight, thank heavens).

Somewhat coincidentally, I have recently had a minor deluge of fine violin and piano recordings, with Thomas Christian in Ernst, and Kirill Troussov and Alexandra Troussova in a recital of Russian short pieces (Dabringhaus und Grimm). Good music and playing and, commendably, excellent recorded sound with expert balance between piano and violin. All the recordings (including the new Zimmermann) come from Germany, and I sense that the German investment in Tonmeister training has really paid off. Scandinavia and the Czech lands also produce excellent modern recordings, but I sense that in too many other countries roving bands of all-purpose recording technicians are often tackling things too unrelated to their normal sound worlds of rock, pop and beat music. Classical music recording is different from recording electronically-amplified “stars” with “backing groups”. Well done the Germans. And maybe not entirely coincidental that my modern trio of fine Mozart concerto players – Zimmermann, Steinbacher and Scholz – are all Germans, resident in Germany.

Eugen Jochum in Bruckner

At the present time, there are four main pillars in my musical world: Bach, Handel, Schubert and Bruckner. This evening it was Bruckner's turn; the seventh symphony recorded in 1976 by Eugen Jochum conducting the Staatskapelle in Dresden. It is always dangerous to generalise as to who plays what, best. If you want Elgar, you have to have English players (what about Vasily Petrenko?) If you want Debussy, it needs to be French players. For Gershwin, you need Americans. For Rachmaninov, you have to have Russians. Etc. Generalisations are dangerous, and inaccurate more often than not. But I do wonder about Anton Bruckner. The great Bruckner interpreters all seem to be Germanic (starting with Furtwängler, the greatest Brucknerian of them all, in my opinion). And then, listening to the Dresden Staatskapelle, or the Berlin Philharmonic, or the Vienna Philharmonic, or the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra in Bruckner; can you really imagine any other of that interpretive standard, speaking with their native language, as it were?

Bruckner seems to need a conductor steeped in the Germanic tradition. Furtwängler. Schuricht. Knappertsbusch. Jochum. Wand. Klemperer. Böhm, Kabasta, plus a few outsiders such as Haitink or Horenstein. He needs an orchestra steeped in the old German sound world. He needs a good, rich recording (which, alas, mitigates against many great Bruckner recordings of the past, including those by Furtwängler). I am happy usually to fall back on my Eugen Jochum recordings with the Dresden orchestra, despite many, many alternatives on my shelves. Headphones on, volume up.

BIS, and Franz Liszt Again

Three stars to the Swedish record company, BIS, for my newest CD, an assortment of violin and piano music by Franz Liszt whose non-piano music seems to have been a recent discovery. With this BIS CD, we get an exemplary recording and, miraculously, a completely ideal balance between violin and piano; a rare event. As a surprising bonus, we are also offered some interesting liner notes by the violinist, Ulf Wallin and a booklet with a big picture of Liszt, a half page photo of the violinist and pianist Roland Pöntinen; companies such as DGG and Warner take note. We really do not need multiple pages of semi-clad artists.

Liszt's works for violin and piano are fascinating; the Lugubre Gondola that plays for over nine minutes really grips the attention. Both violinist and pianist give admirable performances. Bravo BIS – and let us not forget that BIS stayed with Masaaki Suzuki throughout his long and admirable decades-long odyssey of Bach's cantatas; a company that takes the long view, and care over repertoire, liner notes and recording.

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.