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.

Bach's Concerto for Two Violins BWV 1043

Bach's concerto for two violins BWV 1043 is a popular work, especially for violinists. The earliest of the 19 recordings I possess dates from 1915 (Kreisler and Zimbalist). A friend recommended a YouTube performance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leTVfMb2uME) given by Arabella Miho Steinbacher and Akiko Suwanai, filmed at a concert in the Louvre in Paris in 2010. A truly delightful rendition, with the two young women plainly enjoying their dialogue and choosing, to my mind, exactly the right tempi in all three movements. Their “period instruments” (“Booth” Strad of 1716, and “Dolphin” Strad of 1714) sound superb played, thank goodness, in a thoroughly modern manner. The slow movement almost merits the over-used epithet “heavenly”. And not forgetting the accompanying band of Sergey Khachatryan, Manrico Padovani, Yuki Manuela Janke, Kazuhide Isomura, Danjuro Ishizaka, Maggie Cole. This goes to the very top of my 19 recordings of the work, despite the limitation of compressed YouTube sound. This is how Bach's double concerto ought to sound. Coincidentally, the work was composed within a few years of the date the two Strad violins played here were made in Cremona.

Kristof Barati, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Erich Wolfgang Korngold was one of the most gifted of young teenage composers, in the company of Mendelssohn, Mozart, Schubert and a few others. His life became a mess, through no fault of his own. Born in 1897 in the Austro-Hungarian empire, the end of his teenage years saw the collapse and disappearance of the old Austria after the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles. Then, in the 1920s and 1930s, the iconoclasts such as Schönberg, Webern, Berg, Bartok and Stravinsky heralded the end of fashionable tonality and strong links with the music of the nineteenth century. The 1930s and the rise of Nazism saw Korngold (a Jew) having to flee Europe and settle in California where he made a (good) living writing “people's music” for the Hollywood studios; coincidentally during the same period in the USSR, composers there were also faced with the choice of writing “people's music”, or having their voices never heard.

Korngold died in 1957 at the early age of 60, disillusioned with life, with the frittering away of his prodigious talent, with his aborted attempt to re-establish himself in post-1945 Vienna. I've always loved his violin concerto, which has become quite mainstream in the past decade or so. His sonata for violin and piano was written when he was only sixteen years old. It lasts some 38 minutes – far too long and sprawling – but after just a few seconds, one can hear unmistakably that it was written by Korngold, with his characteristic bitter-sweet late Viennese harmonies. It received its premiere in 1913 with Carl Flesch and Artur Schnabel, no less, and I've had a recording of the sonata for many years, played by the Americans Glenn Dicterow and Israela Margalit. I have now received a second recording, played by the Hungarians, Kristof Barati and Gabor Farkas.

It does not join the violin concerto or the Much Ado About Nothing music in my Korngold pantheon, but it is well played and the recording is well balanced. Also on the CD is a live performance (2014) of Korngold's violin concerto, with the Philharmonie Zuiderniederland. For a live recording, the sound is excellent, although I would have preferred Barati's sound to have been a little more forward, particularly in the last movement. Barati is not a violinist who indulges in slow tempi, and this is a big plus in Korngold's concerto where the slow movement, in particular, is often brought to a near stand-still by other violinists. This is a lucky concerto, with many fine recordings over the past decade or so. Barati's live performance is pretty well as good as any, and better than most, and the rarely played or heard sonata is good coupling for the Brilliant Classics CD. The orchestra makes a real contribution (and Korngold knew all about orchestration).

The Nemtanu Sisters play Bach

Around 60 years ago, I began to play the Bach violin concertos on my violin (with piano accompaniment). The A major, the E major and the D minor double concerto (where, for some reason, I always played the violin 1 part). Up until a few decades ago, I could still play the violin parts of the three concertos by heart. Recordings were always a problem; I don't like dry, scrawny imitation “baroque” playing in violin concertos, nor giant symphony orchestra renditions. Best stand-by up until now has been Nathan Milstein in the 1960s, with Erica Morini in the double concerto.

Wanting a good modern recording, I chanced upon the two sisters Deborah and Sarah Nemtanu, with the Paris Chamber Orchestra. Deborah plays the A minor, Sarah the E major, and both play the D minor. A couple of Bach Two-part Inventions are included, with Deborah playing the viola and Sarah the violin.

Pleasant versions of these over-familiar works. Neither violinist is “baroque”, thank heavens, although many tempi are slightly faster than I would have liked. Since Johann Sebastian Bach gave no timings -- he probably did not even own a stopwatch -- I am not sure from whence comes the idea that Bach's music must jog along at a rapid pace. Certainly his music needs to flow; but it also needs to breathe.

The CD also contains a concerto grosso for two violins, harpsichord and string orchestra by Alfred Schnittke. Not altogether a good idea, I feel. Schnittke's work is pleasant enough, but is totally out-classed by Bach; a bit like putting me in a boxing ring with Muhammed Ali in his prime.

Mauro Tortorelli plays Saint-Saëns

In a world completely awash with first-class concert violinists, one rarely hears of Italian violinists, except in the context of “baroque” players scrubbing away on their old instruments. I have been very happy to make the acquaintance of Mauro Tortorelli, first when I heard him in the first of Sandro Fuga's violin and piano sonatas, and now on a CD of the violin & piano music of Camille Saint-Saëns, including the two sonatas for violin and piano. I would characterise Tortorelli's sound as “sunny and relaxed”, perhaps an appropriate reflection of Italy.

I am, of course, a member of the Saint-Saëns fan club (there are not many of us), but an additional source of pleasure with the current CD was provided by Giovanni Caruso, the “sound engineer & producer” on this Brilliant Classics disc. A lot of Saint-Saëns's music calls for the violin to play pianissimo, and it is not too often nowadays that sound engineers understand that we need to be able to hear both piano and violin, even when the violinist is playing very softly. We can hear every note that Signor Tortorelli plays – thanks also to the light-fingered pianist, Angela Meluso. A CD I bought on a whim, but one that is giving me much pleasure for the music, the playing and the recording.

Pavel Sporcl

Lovers of violin playing owe a big debt to Naxos, Hungaroton and Supraphon. Naxos is, of course, universal in its artist list, whilst putting special emphasis on the hordes of new violinists coming from Asia. Hungaroton specialises in Hungarians, Supraphon in Czechs. The small part of Europe occupied by assorted Hungarians / Czechs / Romanians / Bulgars / Slovaks / Moldovans has always been rich in violinists and violin playing. Glancing at my personal collection of recordings (and going mainly by name in order to pinpoint probable national origin) I can identify the following concert violinists as coming from that small region:

Josef Suk, Kristof Barati, Peter Csaba, Vaclav Hudecek, Bohuslav Matousek, Vasa Prihoda, Vaclav Snitil, Pavel Sporcl, Ivan Zenaty. Barnabas Kelemen, Vilmos Szabadi, Zoltan Szekely, Josef Szigeti, Mihaly Szücs, Jenö Hubay, Ferenc Szecsödi, László Szentgyörgyi, Johanna Martzy, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Vasco Abadjiev, Stefan Milenkovich, Nemanja Radulovic, Ion Voicu, George Enescu, Hana Kotkovà, Adelina Oprean, Antal Szalai, Irina Muresanu, Mincho Minchev, Stoika Milanova, Vanya Milanova, Ivan Kawaciuk, Silvie Hessova, Josef Spacek, Svetlin Roussev. Not to mention the Lakatos tribe in Hungary that specialises in folk music, and gypsy music, from that region. Pretty impressive, especially considering this is a region of Europe that has always been rich in talent, but relatively poor in ready cash and investment funds.

Which brings me to Pavel Sporcl, a Czech from whom I have four Supraphon CDs, one devoted to Paganini, one to “gypsy” music (folk music of that region) and two to Czech music. All four CDs are excellent, and Sporcl demonstrates the strengths of violin playing in that region of Europe: spot-on intonation, highly focused sound (as opposed to the rich organ-type notes favoured by some other styles of playing), judicious vibrato use, a volatile right hand in wielding the bow. His “Gypsy Way” (with the band Romano Stilo) is great fun; his Paganini suitably virtuosic; his Czech collection of short pieces by Kocian, Laub, Drdla, Ondricek and others very enjoyable listening; and his traversal of more substantial pieces by Smetana, Dvorak, Janacek, Sevcik and Martinu a classic rendition of some Czech masterpieces. As an artist, he seems to have chosen to go the way of first-class violinists such as Nigel Kennedy and Gilles Apap and emulate the popular music scene; never, in my judgement, a wise long-term career move. Whatever; I hang on to my four Pavel Sporcl CDs and hope there will be more.

Sandro Fuga

I've always had a soft spot for music of the post-romantic, early Impressionist era, with composers such as Elgar, Chausson, Fauré, Ysaÿe, Lekeu, Debussy, Janacek, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Strauss, Enescu, Magnard, et al. Music that dates from the years before the iconoclasts took charge of fashionable critical opinion. Thus it is somewhat unusual to find me listening to three sonatas for violin and piano composed, respectively, in 1938, 1972 and 1989. However, the three sonatas by the unknown Sandro Fuga are well worth playing, and well worth repeated listening. The sound is of around 1910; but what is wrong with that? In his day, Johann Sebastian Bach was frequently criticised for his old-fashioned music, looking back to the days of polyphony in the 17^th century, rather than forward to the melody-based music of the 18^th. such as that by Handel, Vivaldi, Porpora, et al. Fuga's three sonatas are enjoyable. The playing by Mauro Tortorelli, Alessandro Milani and Sergio Lamberto (violins) with Giacomo Fuga (presumably a relative of the composer) at the piano sounds fine, and the Naxos recording and price pleases, as usual. A CD for all lovers of post-romantic, Impressionist music, and not to be listened to once and then filed away. Will any brave violinist dare to record one or more of the sonatas (the second, for example) or to play them in public and risk the wrath of the critical avant-garde?

Lunch today was my famous Thai soup, with squid and crevettes. This evening will be Thai soup with mussels. A good day musically, and gastronomically. And excellent wine (2008 from a Bachelet vineyard around 10 kilometres from Beaune, that I have often visited, and from which I have bought many bottles, over the years).

My "Keep to Hand". Start of 2015

My “keep to hand” CD rack has only fifteen spaces, and these are occupied by recordings I am reluctant to shelve away more permanently, for the time being. The rack contents change over the course of the year and in no way reflect “best” or “favourite”; simply recordings I know I will want to come back to shortly. Some are there mainly because of the music; some because of the performances. Some have been there quite a long time. Some, a shorter time. At the start of 2015, the 15 slots in the rack are filled by (in random order):

• Wieniawski, Conus, Vieuxtemps violin concertos. Soo-Hyun Park. 69 minutes. Onyx. Lovely music. Well played by all concerned, and well recorded.
• Schubert – Quartet D810 and Quintet D956 – Pavel Haas Quartet. Supraphon. Probably a new classic recording of two classic chamber works.
• Schubert – Piano sonatas D850 / 958 / 959 / 960 – Leif Ove Andsnes. EMI
• Shostakovich – Violin Concertos 1 and 2. Christian Tetzlaff. Ondine
• Pergolesi – Stabat Mater. Julia Lezhneva / Philippe Jaroussky. Erato
• Khachaturian and Shostakovich violin concertos. James Ehnes. Onyx
• Sarasate – Fantaisies. Volker Reinhold. DGM. So good to have a collection of Sarasate opera fantasies, well played and in one place.
• Ravel / Shostakovich. Piano Trios. Smetana Trio. Supraphon.
• Janacek/ Smetana / Prokofiev. Josef Spacek. Supraphon
• Rachmaninov 3 / Prokofiev 2. Yuja Wang. DGG
• Igor Levit – Bach Partitas. Sony.
• Igor Levit – Beethoven late sonatas. Sony
• Marc-André Hamelin: Schumann / Janacek. Hyperion
•  Kreisler / Zimbalist / Ysaÿe – Fine Arts Quartet. Naxos. Rarely heard music, good to listen to, well played and recorded.
• Schubert – Sonatas D845 and 960. Maria Pires. DGG. Another instant classic recording.

Interesting how well the smaller European labels do (Supraphon, Onyx, Ondine, Sony-Germany). And how relatively young all the performers are (apart from Maria Pires). As all the voting forums say: this list is not necessarily representative !

Wishes for 2015

My three modest musical wishes for 2015:

• Igor Levit – Bach: Goldberg Variations. Beethoven: Diabelli Variations. Schubert: late piano sonatas.
• Tianwa Yang – Paganini, 24 capricci (she recorded them when she was 13 but, after her triumph in the Ysaÿe, sonatas, she should re-do a definitive version).
• Pavel Haas Quartet – more late Schubert string quartets. Start on the late Beethoven string quartets with Op 130 with the Große Fuge as finale.

Handel's Messiah: Emmanuelle Haïm

During the immediate post-war period when he was a freelance musician, my father frequently declared that Handel wrote his Messiah so that orchestral musicians would never starve during the month of December. I thought of him this Christmas week when, quite by chance, a new recording of the Messiah arrived, a release conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, a conductor I have frequently admired in the past.

As a very young teenager, I was given six or so 78 rpm records of the Messiah featuring, as I recall it, excerpts from the first part. Haïm's Messiah is somewhat different from these old recordings from the 1940s, but I liked it very much. The orchestra is French, and well recorded. The chorus is British, some twenty singers in number, and gives a welcome clarity to Handel's choruses with sufficient weight and gravitas, in a recording, to do justice to Handel's great choral numbers. The vocal quartet is also British, with Lucy Crowe as the jewel in the crown; she really is one of my favourite baroque sopranos. Unfortunately Haïm opts for a dreaded counter-tenor rather than for a female alto or contralto; maybe she had little choice after pressure from the castratos' union but, I, for one, prefer the natural voices of soprano, tenor, alto and bass rather than this strange counter-tenor breed. An excellent recording and balance by a French team for Erato makes this a very strong version of Messiah. I never thought I'd be listening to the oratorio during Christmas week. Haïm is forceful and exuberant, as ever, but without going to the extreme lengths of some conductors of baroque music (though I could have done with a slightly more reticent drummer, on occasions; he does tend to thwack a bit). Anyway: three stars.

Schubert's String Quintet - Pavel Haas Quartet

There is a handful of timeless classical masterpieces (or perhaps, more accurately, a basketful). In the hand – or basket – is Schubert's C major string quintet, D 956, one of the very last works Schubert lived to write. With this work alone Schubert earns his place at the top table with Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. It's a work I have loved since the 1950s; it's evergreen and one can never, ever become tired of listening to it.

I have eight recordings of the work, including with such luminaries as Casals, Heifetz, and the Amadeus Quartet (the version with which I grew up in the 1950s on an old LP). All older versions and rivals are, however, completely swept aside for me by the Pavel Haas Quartet (four Czechs, with a German-Japanese second cellist). The quartet plays the music with a passion a long way from Alt Wien, Gemütlichkeit and all that Viennese stuff. This is great music in the raw, a little like Beethoven's Große Fuge, with no holds barred and no prisoners taken. Recorded in Prague only last year, it is already one of the Great Recordings of the Century, in my book.

Furtwängler conducts Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

I have always liked the Große Fuge as a dramatic finale to Beethoven's Op 130 string quartet in B flat, and regret that pressure from “experts” persuaded him to substitute a lightweight “get you home” finale in its place. When I listen to the Op 130 quartet, I usually try to find a version that allows me to go back to Beethoven's original intention and end with the Fuge.

Would that those same “experts” had prevailed upon Beethoven to re-think the finale of his ninth symphony. After a superb and dramatic first movement, and a truly sublime slow movement, we plunge into an awkward mixture of banality and sublimity, with a chorus belting out Freude, schöner Götterfunken, a quartet of four solo voices occasionally contributing little, orchestral interludes that are often superb, and the occasional chorus that is really moving, such as Seid umschlungen, Millionen! For me, a bit of a let-down after the variations of the slow movement.

I rarely listen to the ninth, but heard it again yesterday, mostly with pleasure. The conductor was Wilhelm Furtwängler in a well re-mastered CD from Audite of the Swiss broadcast tapes of the 22^nd August 1954 performance at the Lucerne Festival – Furtwängler's final performance of the ninth, after conducting it over 100 times. There are a number of recordings around of Furtwängler conducting this work, notably the truly demonic performance on 22^nd March 1942 in Berlin, and the Bayreuth Festival 1951 recording (with the wobbly horn in the adagio). In some ways, Furtwängler was “Mr Ninth Symphony” with classic versions of the Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner 9s to his credit. This new re-mastering is good, given the mono 1954 origin of the broadcast tapes; like most such historical recordings, it is best listened to via very good loudspeakers, rather than through headphones. In 1954 the Philharmonia orchestra (that played in the Lucerne performance) was near the top of its form. A good version of Beethoven's ninth to have.