Renaud Capuçon's Encore CD - Capriccio

You probably need to be a dedicated fan of violin encores to listen to 21 of them, one after another, all in the space of 75 minutes. This evening I had meant just to sample Renaud Capuçon's 2006 CD Capriccio, but I ended up listening to every note, with considerable enjoyment. All of the 21 pieces on the CD are all-too familiar, with arrangements by Heifetz, Kreisler, Prihoda, and a few others. Composers range from Mendelssohn and Schubert, through to Strauss and Schumann, passing on the way Stravinsky, Debussy, and Korngold. Virgin Classics, and Capuçon, avoided the annoying habit of interweaving unknown contemporary pieces that no encore lover needs to bother with.

Of course, as well as having a dedicated fan listening, you need a really expert violinist playing to hold attention over 75 minutes of encore pieces. Renaud Capuçon's suave tone, expert technique and exemplary musicality show why he is one of my favourites of the modern violinists. He favours flowing tempi, no bad thing in music of this kind which can stagnate if the player wallows too much. Somewhat to my surprise, the CD appears still to be available — deservedly so, in my view. Lovers of violin playing should snap it up at once.

Handel's Alcina

As I recounted in this blog all the way back in 2009, I first came across Handel's opera Alcina – the love-lorn sorceress – back in September 2007 when I attended a performance at the Théâtre de Poissy. The theatre opened in 1937 with a performance of Gounod's Faust (I was not there), and its size and acoustics made it a natural venue for a concert performance of Handel's opera. The town itself seemed to contain a high proportion of people from south of Marseille, so it was difficult for a francophile North European like me to find somewhere to eat, either before or after the performance. But my car was still there after the end of the work, with all four wheels in place, so I was happy. The evening has stayed fixed in my mind, even nine years later. Immediately following that performance, conducted by the late lamented Alan Curtis, the work was recorded in Italy by pretty well the same forces I heard in Poissy. Joyce DiDonato was the sorceress, and the supporting cast included Karina Gauvin and Maïte Beaumont as Ruggiero.

DiDonato, as well as being a superb singer, can always act with her voice; her cries of “Traditore!” in the aria Ah! mio cor, schernito sei! rival Callas's cries of “Mori!” in Tosca. And you cannot get better than that. Three hours went quickly listening to Handel this Sunday. As is now my wont, I dispensed with the libretto with its tiresome “plot”, and just sat back and enjoyed the music, the playing, and the singing. I appear to have a rival recording of the work conducted by William Christie in 1999 with another all-star cast including Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, and Natalie Dessay. I really must take it off the shelf and give it an airing; a man cannot have too much Handel. My hang-up is the memory of the live performance I attended in Poissy with Alan Curtis conducting, plus Joyce DiDonato's characterisation of Alcina. A surfeit of sorceresses.

Addendum: since writing the above, I have listened to the William Christie recording, and I prefer it. Christie's direction is tauter, with a superior presence of rhythm; Alan Curtis comes across as a bit too laid back. And Christie has a superior cast: Curtis's Ruggiero, Maïte Beaumont, is outclassed by Christie's Susan Graham, and Curtis's Morgana, Karina Gauvin is no match for Christie's Natalie Dessay. The Alcinas are a bit more problematic; Curtis's Joyce DiDonato is superb, as is Christie's Renée Fleming. But Fleming, who was a pretty woman with a wonderful voice in 1999, suffers from the soprano diction syndrome where it's often hard to make out in what language she is singing — Italian, English, French, or Serbo-Croat. No such problem with the superior actress, DiDonato, who articulates clearly in excellent Italian. Alcina is very much an opera for the soprano voice, and the men are mainly cardboard cut-outs. Commendably, neither Christie nor Curtis resort to male altos, counter-tenors, or castrati (nor female baritones). 18th century audiences may have enjoyed freaky voices, but I do not. A pity Christie did not poach DiDonato for his recording, since then he really would have had an all-star cast and knocked the competition for six.

Gioachino Rossini's Cenerentola

It is not often you will find me sitting back enjoying an evening of 19^th century Italian opera. But here I was today listening with great enjoyment to Gioachino Rossini's La Cenerentola. Handel in the 18^th century, like Rossini in the 19^th, were the Andrew Lloyd Webbers of their time (though with infinitely more talent). They wrote music for money, and therefore music that their fans would like, and pay for. Over 200 years since it was written, one can still sit back and enjoy Cenerentola. For me, no need for a libretto (let alone a DVD). In a good performance, the music and the singing tell you who are the villains, who are the heroes and heroines, who is sad, who is happy, who is noble, who is down-at-heel. It's easy-listening, sing-along music, but written by a supreme artist. No depths are plumbed; no heights scaled; we just enjoy the experience, tapping our feet on occasion. No harm in that.

The performance I listened to this evening was recorded in 1971 by the LSO conducted by Claudio Abbado, with an exquisite Teresa Berganza as Cinderella. It takes all your cares away. Rossini made it big in Paris, and one can understand the enthusiasm of the fashionable connoisseurs. Great stuff. Tempts me to embark on another opera evening soon.

Mikhail Pletnev conducts Shostakovich

For many, many decades, I have loved the music of Dmitri Shostakovich. His music “speaks” to me in a way that his contemporaries such as Prokofiev, Stravinsky or Bartok never do. I love the kaleidoscopic changes of mood in his music. I love his gift for coming up with memorable tunes, themes and motifs. I love his mastery of the orchestra, in his orchestral works. I love his dyed-in-the-wool “Russian-ness”. I love his lineage going back to the music of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.

So I was more than delighted when a friend sent me a new CD where Mikhail Pletnev conducts the Russian National Orchestra on Pentatone. The works on the CD are Shostakovich's fourth and tenth symphonies. So far I have listened to just the magnificent tenth symphony, one of my favourites. The fourth symphony is somewhat daunting and needs mental preparation. Needless to say, this new recording of the tenth symphony is superb; very Russian in the orchestral sound and playing, superb in Pentatone's recording. Is it superior to my hitherto favourite, Vasily Petrenko conducting his Liverpudlians? Hard to say, from memory. Enough that Pletnev and his Russian forces earn my admiration from the beginning, to the end (as do Petrenko and his Liverpool orchestra).

Pierre Rode

Pierre Rode (1774-1830) was a violin virtuoso, a pupil of Viotti, and a contemporary of Beethoven, Paganini and Heinrich Ernst. He gave the premier of Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata. He wrote music almost exclusively for the violin, including 13 violin concertos, most of which have been recorded by the violinists' friend, Naxos, with Friedemann Eichhorn as soloist. His music is tuneful and well written for the violin, as one would expect. The virtuoso aspect of Rode's violin music is mainly centred upon the bow arm, with every variety of bow stroke being called upon. Unlike Paganini or Ernst, the left hand is not obliged to indulge in violinistic circus tricks, with double stopping being rare, and harmonics even rarer.

A generous friend gave me the latest Rode-Eichhorn instalment, a CD of the 11^th and 12^th violin concertos, with two sets of variations for violin and orchestra. This is carefree music to which one just sits back and enjoys life. Eichhorn has become something of a specialist in this music and he plays with aplomb and a scintillating right arm; Rode would have nodded in approval. The Naxos recording is excellent. One is left wondering why we do not hear these concertos more often, rather than the 8-9 “standard” works that are always trotted out year after year. And when were concertos by Rode, Viotti, Vieuxtemps, Hubay et al. last recorded by companies such as DG, Decca or Warner? Thank heavens for Naxos.

Playing Bach: Pau Casals, and Beatrice Rana

I listened again to the six suites for solo cello by Bach. The cellist was my all-time favourite in this music: Pau Casals, recorded in the mid- 1930s and re-released by Pristine Audio. Casals plays very much from the heart which, to my mind, is the secret of Bach playing, and I had the same reaction and degree of admiration listening to Beatrice Rana's recent recording of the Goldberg Variations. There are internal harmonies and rhythms in Bach's music that you sense when you play the works. I used to play the cello suites (albeit transcribed for viola) and arrogantly thought that I played them as well as anyone else …. except Casals, who was always hors concours in these works. For Bach playing one really needs to forget musicologists and erudite PhDs in ancient music. Bach's music is very much alive, if you play it with feeling and understanding. In evidence, M'Lud: Pau Casals and Beatrice Rana. Different generations, different instruments. Different works. Different countries of origin. But eternally valid, to my mind. Forget “recent scholarship has revealed that …" Bach's music is not an historical artifact. Bach's music demands a subjective, human reaction.

Acquaragia Drom - Zingari

Many, many years ago in France I picked up by chance a CD of the music of a bunch of (probably somewhat smelly) Adriatic gypsies playing their folk music. The five members of the band were photographed in front of their van. Instrumentarium was guitar, clarinet, accordion, and violin; all instruments you could carry off quickly to the forest whenever the next gypsy purge erupted. The band called itself Acquaragia Drom Zingari, and the CD dates from the early 1990s. I have spent decades enjoying the tracks on the CD.

Why? First of all, because this is genuine folk music, not too tainted by showbiz or commercial considerations. Secondly, because the sound world is genuinely North India meets Southern Europe, as befits its gypsy origins. Thirdly, because the two female vocalists have voices that will cause all males to salivate, and all female listeners to scowl. And fourthly because this kind of music — Central European folk, klezmer and gypsy — gave birth to so much of Western classical music (and instrument playing). This is roots stuff, and highly enjoyable. These Zingari were based in Italy, and may now — once more — be having a hard time of it. Off to the forest, again.

Camille Saint-Saëns

I seem to recall that someone once suggested that Camille Saint-Saëns was “the greatest composer who was not a genius”. Not an entirely unjust epitaph, one feels. Alas, nowadays he is usually only met via his Organ Symphony, the Carnival of the Animals, or the third violin concerto, and most of his prolific output is ignored. Unjustly ignored, I feel, since he crafted many agreeable works. Reminded by a comment from a friend, I took out an old recording of his two piano trios, opus 18 and opus 92. The performers on this 1993 Naxos CD are the Joachim Trio, with John Lenehan as the pianist. Not music to shake the world, but music that gives over an hour of enjoyable listening in entirely civilised company. At this stage of my life, I turn more and more to chamber and recital music — leaving organ symphonies and whatever to other ears. Monsieur Saint-Saëns wrote five piano concertos, three violin concertos, a cello concerto, numerous pieces for violin including the better known Havanaise, and Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso, an opera Samson & Dalila, string quartets, various sonatas and symphonies; none of it trite. A composer most of whose music is unjustly neglected in the modern musical world. Very little angst in Saint-Saëns' music, little grief, few violent emotions. Just very pleasant, tuneful, well-written music inhabiting the same musical world as most of Grieg or Mendelssohn. I love the two piano trios (composed in 1863, and 1892).

Boris Giltburg plays Rachmaninov's Third Concerto

For over 100 years now, the music of Sergei Rachmaninov has stood the test of time and remains highly popular with musicians and the public. For much of the previous century, the critics and “experts” were a bit sniffy about Rachmaninov's music; it was popular, and people loved it. Quelle Horreur ! But Sergei has seen off pretty well all contenders for music written in the 20^th century, including that of his erstwhile rival Igor Stravinsky whose popularity now seems to rest mainly on his earlier ballet music. Judging by the world's concert programmes, and by issued recordings, Rachmaninov goes from strength to strength.

I caught up with the melancholy Russian again in a new (Naxos) recording of his third piano concerto played by my current favourite pianist for the Romantic Russian repertoire: Boris Giltburg. The work is well recorded; the orchestra the Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto. Giltburg projects the music magnificently guided, one suspects, by the composer's own recording. This is all about Rachmaninov, not Giltburg. Boris is not in the line of self-projecting pianists such as Lang Lang, Horowitz, Martha Argerich (and many others). He plays the music magnificently, with an incredible technique in the big first movement cadenza.

Igor Levit and Boris Giltburg are currently my favourite Russian-born pianists, with Igor anchored firmly in Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and Boris in Rachmaninov and Shostakovitch. This is a good era for first-class piano playing. There are few things more agreeable in life than sitting back in a comfortable chair with a glass of good wine and letting the music of Sergei Rachmaninov wash over you.

Simone Lamsma in Britten's Violin Concerto

I was very pleased indeed to be able to plug into a performance by Simone Lamsma of Benjamin Britten's violin concerto (11^th June 2018 in the Concertgebouw, with the Netherlands Philharmonic under Edward Gardner). The performance is passionate and committed; the off-air sound exemplary; the hall audience extremely well-behaved. Lamsma has for a long time been identified with this concerto, and her commitment is contagious. Interestingly, Lamsma — like Theo Olof in his pioneering 1948 recording — plays the 1939 original version of the work. Perhaps it's a Dutch thing; pretty well everyone else, including Britten in his recording, plays the revised version. Off-hand, I can't tell the difference, from memory.

Britten's violin concerto has only recently come into its own. Writing an intensely melodic concerto in D minor was not something calculated to enthuse the young critics of the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s, geared up as they were to extol the latest fashion of the avant-garde (a bit like today's critics slobbering over “gut strings” and “original instruments”.) Ah, fashion. Nearly 80 years on, Britten's concerto is moving and impressive; well written for the violin and for the orchestra. When I was young, BBC commentators used to introduce the works of Shostakovich, Britten, Khachaturian, and others, slightly apologetically. “I know it's not really music of our times, but it has its place”. Well, Messrs Shostakovich, Britten and Khachaturian are having the last laugh. I have never been a fan of Benjamin Britten's music, but I do have a soft spot for his violin concerto as do, it appears, many modern violinists. The link to the Lamsma performance is available for some time at:   https://www.nporadio4.nl/concerten/7889-nederlands-philharmonisch-orkest-met-britten-en-rachmaninov

Grumiaux and Primrose in Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante

Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola K 364 is one of the great works in Mozart's output, and a favourite of string players. Often it is surprisingly difficult to bring off with violinist and violist well matched and balanced. I listened to it today in a 1955 off-air recording from West German Radio, with the Cologne orchestra conducted by Otto Ackermann, courtesy of a very good Dutch friend. Violinist was the superb Arthur Grumiaux, for me probably the greatest violinist of the previous century in terms of combined violin playing and musicianship. Viola player was the technically superb William Primrose, a controversial figure with me since he all too often sounds like a jumped-up violinist playing a violin tuned a fifth lower. Here, however, Cologne and Grumiaux appear to have had a benign influence on Primrose, who matches Grumiaux beautifully throughout. The sound is “big Mozart” of the 1950s. Sadly, they don't play like this no more.

Handel again, and Shostakovich

Many decades ago, back in the 1980s, I heard Handel's cantata Aci, Galatea e Polifemo for the first time. The venue was the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford (where Handel once gave a series of concerts). The singers at that time were Emma Kirkby and David Thomas (I cannot remember who the third one was). Ever since that far-off event, this cantata has remained one of my favourite works, and the sheer musical invention of this work composed in Naples in 1708 by the 23 year old Saxon continues to amaze. Sheer genius. I listened to it yesterday performed by a stellar line-up of Sandrine Piau, Sara Mingardo and Laurent Naouri, with Emmanuelle Haïm directing the Concert d'Astrée. Bliss.

The only conceivable connection between Handel's Cantata a tre and Shostakovich's G minor piano quintet is that both works are among my personal favourites. I have known the Shostakovich work for many years, ever since I heard a 1949 recording by Shostakovich at the piano with the Beethoven Quartet. The quintet was written in 1940 and shows that, even in the unstable musical environment of the 20^th century, great music with real feeling could still be written. The work followed my listening to Handel's cantata — what a contrast! — and was given by the Talich Quartet with Yakov Kasman as pianist. Very moving, as always.

Valery Gergiev in Rachmaninov

These days we are not blessed with many top conductors. The towering figures of the past recede year by year. Of the present crop, when it comes to 19^th and 20^th century orchestral music, we have to face the fact there are no conductors of Bruckner, Wagner or Beethoven who can compare with the likes of Furtwängler or Klemperer. We do, however, have three top Russians: Valery Gergiev, Vasily Petrenko, and Kirill Petrenko. All three are thoroughly worthy of note, especially in the Russian repertoire. I have long had a great deal of respect for Vasily for his recordings of Elgar and Shostakovich, in particular. Kirill is less easy to sum up, since he is rarely heard in any recordings, but I did hear him conducting Elgar's second symphony — a difficult work to bring off — and he did bring it off spectacularly well (as did Vasily).

I have just been listening to Valery Gergiev conducting the Kirov Orchestra in Rachmaninov's second symphony, a key work in my personal pantheon. The recording dates from 1993 and features a Russian orchestra playing its heart out in an important work in the Russian orchestral repertoire. I have seven different recordings of this work, but this Gergiev performance is by far the best. I have many recordings with Gergiev conducting, mainly in Russian or French repertoire. He almost never disappoints.

Igor Levit, Akiko Suwanai, play Beethoven concertos.

One of the advantages of living in the Internet age is the ability to tap into sites such as Orchestra on Demand and listen to orchestral performances from all over the world. (If only there were also a website doing the same for chamber and instrumental music). Recently I tapped into Igor Levit in Vienna (Radio Austria) and Akiko Suwanai (Hungarian website).

Igor Levit played Beethoven's E flat piano concerto with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Manfred Honeck. The Radio Austria recording (from May this year) was clear and well-balanced. The Viennese orchestra played Beethoven to the manor born. Levit in Beethoven (as in Bach and Mozart) is always a clear winner; he invariably mirrors the form and emotions of the music he is playing and the result here is a three star performance of the piano concerto following every twist and turn of Beethoven's music.

I was pleased to hear Akiko Suwanai again; a major presence in the violin world up until a few years ago, she has always been a violinist well worth hearing. Her playing in Beethoven's violin concerto (at a concert in 2016) is typical of her; excellent musicianship, impeccable technique, flowing tempos (the concerto comes in at a whisker over 40 minutes rather than the more usual 43-44 minutes). The Korean orchestra (KBS Symphony Orchestra) was recorded somewhat dimly, with up-front woodwind and soloist and everyone else relegated to the background. The audience in Seoul was supremely bronchial throughout. A performance for lovers of Akiko Suwanai's violin playing, rather than for lovers of Beethoven's violin concerto. Recording and balancing orchestras and soloists is a demanding art, and not everyone succeeds.

Goerne and Brendel in Die Winterreise

Frequently, there are advantages to live recordings: the added frisson of playing before a real audience can add that extra 10% over even a good studio recording, with its many re-takes. The main disadvantage of live recordings is audience noise: clapping, coughing, mobile phone sounds, whatever. I settled back to listen to Matthias Goerne and Alfred Brendel in Schubert's Die Winterreise song cycle. For some inexplicable reason, the work started with audience applause — not even on a separate track. So every time you wished to enter the world of Die Winterreise, you had to have a burst of audience applause to set the atmosphere. Even worse: the sound engineers had miscalculated the dynamics. In order to hear the recorded pianissimos, you had to turn the volume up. When the next song featured a fortissimo, you were blasted out of your socks. After the fourth or fifth song in the cycle, I gave up. The CD is on the pile destined for a charity shop.

Emmanuelle Haïm in Bach and Handel

In his interesting study of J.S. Bach and his music, Music in the Castle of Heaven, John Eliot Gardiner makes an interesting case for respecting the dance-like rhythms in Bach's music, even the church music such as the cantatas. He frowns at the tendency in much of northern Europe to imbue Bach's church music with a Protestant reverent piousness. Gardiner would approve of the recording of Bach's Magnificat directed by the ever-talented Emmanuelle Haïm with her Concert D'Astrée. Under Haïm's direction, the music is alive, just as Bach surely intended in this work where he appears to be showing off his prodigious talents. I seem to have nine different recordings of the Magnificat, about the only Bach work apart from the Mass in B minor that uses the Latin language. I love Haïm's recording, and even love the singing of Philippe Jaroussky, the counter-tenor for whom I always make an exception.

On the same CD is one of the few works by Handel in the Latin language, the Dixit Dominus dating from 1707 when Handel was just 22 years old and living in Rome. The work is a veritable tour de force, with the young Handel showing off his prodigious talents. On this CD, Bach and Handel go head-to-head; Bach's music takes just over 25 minutes, Handel's 30 minutes (both as directed by Haïm). Predictably, neither composer is the outright winner, since their music is always as different as chalk and cheese. So ironic that despite being born only six weeks apart in the same region of Germany, the two never met. Anyway, some 300 years later, the music of both composers is still going strong. Oddly enough, I have only one other recording of Dixit Dominus and that is also French, conducted by Marc Minkowski. But Ms Haïm is going to be a hard act to follow, since her performance is a tour de force of Handel's tour de force. And a recording of both works that features Natalie Dessay, Philippe Jaroussky and Laurent Naouri (amongst others) really assembles a lot of first-class talent. The recording was made in Paris in 2006 and is of excellent quality. Ms Haïm, of whom I almost always approve highly, is no follower of the north European pious approach to the church music of Bach, Handel or Vivaldi. I like her L'Orfeo (Monteverdi), Messiah (Handel), La Resurrezione (Handel) and Dido and Aeneas (Purcell) plus many of her other Handel recordings.

Handel Opera Duets

Handel's operas and oratorios are a goldmine of good tunes and memorable arias. Wandering through my collection of recordings this evening, happy chance saw me taking out a CD of operatic duets from Handel's operas, recorded 15 years ago by Patrizia Ciofi (soprano) and Joyce DiDonato (mezzo). The late Alan Curtis directs Il Complesso Barocco, and Virgin turns out a first-class recording. Which is really just what you need for Handel: first-class singers, a first-class band, expert direction, and a well-balanced recording. The music does the rest.

The two singers are superb, and a mezzo-soprano such as DiDonato spares us the embarrassment of a counter-tenor or a castrato. 73 minutes of pure gold. Handel never fails.

Christian Gerhaher sings Schubert's Die Winterreise

Back in the 1950s when I was a teenager, I assiduously copied out and learned the texts of the twenty-four songs that comprise Schubert's Die Winterreise; all of which stood me in good stead for the rest of my life, since I can now sit back and listen to the songs without having recourse to the texts or translations.

It is difficult to imagine what Schubert's small audience back in 1828 would have made of this cycle of songs, where pessimism rules, and where the harmonies of the songs often modulate every few bars (the modulations of Die Krähe always fascinated me). I knew this greatest of all song cycles from my early LPs of Hans Hotter (three LP sides, with the fourth side blank). I then, inevitably, went on to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau; since then, there have been many candidates for favourite version, the latest being Jonas Kaufman (tenor). This evening it was back to Christian Gerhaher (baritone) with Gerold Huber at the piano, recorded back in 2001. The pianist is excellent. Gerhaher sings with welcome emotion and really enters into the spirit of this evergreen work; Winterreise is an emotional work — with often quite violent emotions. Thanks to my teenage hard work, I can sit back and enjoy the songs and the words, greatly helped by Gerhaher's clear diction and enunciation. Gerhaher, Goerne, or Kaufman (I never took to Fischer-Dieskau)? Spoilt for choice, but I greatly enjoyed Gerhaher this evening and was completely gripped for 78 minutes.