Whisky, Haydn, Mozart, Handel's Cantatas

I listened to nine string quartets by Haydn, played by the Takacs Quartet, and the Goldmund Quartet. Very fine indeed. I then listened to the six string quartets that Mozart dedicated to Haydn (played by the Hagen Quartett). It was like going from Grant's blended whisky (my favourite blend) to a 12-year old Caol Ila malt (my favourite single malt). Mozart's music is on a different plane from Haydn's. Nothing wrong with Josef Haydn; it's just that Mozart's music is so much more sophisticated, complex, and subtle and juxtaposing the two composers with their better quartets just points up the difference.

No such whisky contrast going from J.S. Bach to Georg Handel. I have just embarked on listening to the cantatas and duets that Handel wrote in Italy when he was in his very early twenties. Bach is Caol Ila; Handel a 15-year old Laphroaigh (to continue the whisky metaphors). They are very different in taste, but equal in quality. Handel had a gift all his life of being able to surround himself with highly gifted instrumentalists and singers: violinists, bassoonists, cellists, oboists, or whatever. He himself was a master on any keyboard (like Bach). Fabio Bonizzoni and his group La Risonanza, often together with the superb soprano Roberta Invernezzi, produced seven CDs of Handel's Italian cantatas, plus an eighth CD with the Italian duets. It's a magnificent collection for Handel lovers. (Glossa).

The works often need highly talented solo instrumentalists, plus first-rate singers, which makes most of them unsuitable for amateur performances. Be it the highly virtuoso violin solos in Il Delirio Amoroso (Cardinal Pamphili), written probably for a band headed by Arcangelo Corelli, or the virtuoso soprano needed for Tra le Fiamme (Pamphili, again) the 22 year old Handel displays amazing compositional powers. For Handel lovers, it is always interesting to meet familiar tunes or themes that he was to re-use throughout his life, albeit in new garbs to match changing players or singer circumstances. Either Handel travelled with huge trunks containing manuscripts, or he had a quill pen with many terabytes of extended memory.

I often bemoan the fact that pretty well all the CDs in my collection are listened to only once, or rarely thereafter. This does not hold true for the cantatas of Bach, or Handel; they are often spinning on my CD player.

"New Music"

Had I been alive and listening to music over two or three centuries ago, I would have been demanding: “New music! Not re-plays of the old stuff that I know already.” So Messrs. Monteverdi, Purcell, Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert et al scribbled away writing new music every week, or month, or quarter. Just to satisfy the listening public's demand for “new music”. Fast-forward to the twenty-first century: Listeners and players regard “new music” on a programme as a child regards a spoonful of honey after a horrid medicine. Graduates of music academies (including many well-known music critics) extol the virtues of “new music”. Just as, to prove their modern credentials, they extol the virtues of great women composers (on shaky evidence). And, at the extreme critical wing; black women composers of new music.

Being not a composer, nor black, nor a woman, I can speak without prejudice. I like good music be it played or composed by French, German, Jewish, Russian, British, Scandinavian, Chinese, Japanese, Czech, Polish, Romanian, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox .. the list goes on. Great music does not know sex, race, or nationality. Or time period. In the archives, there are kilos of music composed over the past three or four centuries, most of it rarely if ever played, and rarely if ever listened to. Do we really need “new music”? In my local supermarket, there is a complete aisle devoted to breakfast cereals. And almost another aisle devoted to different yoghurts. Do we really need yet another new yogurt, or breakfast cereal? Surely: enough is enough. Show me a piece of new music that is still being played and enjoyed after many decades, and I'll be mildly interested. Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, Khachaturian and Benjamin Britten — plus maybe just a few others — make the cut, but not many do. And after a lifetime of listening to music, there are still reams and reams that I have never heard. Josef Haydn wrote 68 string quartets; I've only heard a dozen or so, and know only a few well. Not to mention Domenico Scarlatti's 555 keyboard sonatas. Or Donizetti's alleged 70+ operas. I sense we “need” new music like we “need” a new breakfast cereal.

In Praise of Handel

Currently, I am alternating reading a book by Jane Glover on “Handel in London” with listening to Handel's London operas (at the moment, it is Giulio Cesare with Marc Minkowski directing and Magdalena Kozena and Anne Sofie von Otter in the cast). Current fashion places Bach, Mozart and Beethoven on the triumvirate pedestal. Mozart and Beethoven (and probably Bach, also) had an extremely high regard for Handel, with good reason; Handel was an instinctive genius composer. His first London opera, Rinaldo (highest quality) was composed from scratch in two weeks, a few days after his arrival in England. It is next on my listening list. Top-class music poured out of Handel, as it poured out of Mozart and Schubert.

Unfortunately for us (and perhaps for his ultimate popularity) Handel wrote mainly just large vocal and choral works — around 42 operas, 120 cantatas, and 29 oratorios. Unlike Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, he wrote comparatively little in the way of significant instrumental or chamber music and he has no equivalent of Mozart's “Haydn” string quartets, or Bach's Goldberg Variations to ensure his continuing exposure in recital and concert halls. No great matter; in his chosen repertoire, he was king, and I shall never, ever grow tired of listening to Handel's music.

Sueye Park's recital

Fritz Kreisler was born in 1875 and for almost all of his long life he was a much-loved major violinist. His sound was highly individual, and when he played short pieces (or “encore pieces”) he played with simplicity, and from the heart. This endeared him to his listeners (and still does when one listens to his recordings from the earliest times until the early 1930s). No one played short pieces as entrancingly as Kreisler; not even Heifetz or Milstein. When Kreisler played something like his tambourin chinois, his heart took over and the head took a rest.

I recently greatly admired the young Korean violinist, Sueye Park when she played Paganini's 24 capricci, so I bought her new CD on which she plays 13 well-known and well-worn encore pieces. 12 of the 13 are pretty well standard fare, with just Edwin Grasse's Wellenspiel being less well-known. A pity Ms Park did not intersperse her selection with a few less heard items by the likes of Hubay, Vieuxtemps, Ysaÿe, Fibich, Drdla, Ries, et al. One can have just too many renditions of de Falla's Danse Espagnole.

Ms Park does include a work I really dislike: Heinrich Ernst's variations on the Last Rose of Summer (as I also dislike his Erlkönig arrangement). Virtuoso violin playing is one thing, but it should also remain musical. Playing a tune in double-stopped harmonics whilst plucking the accompaniment with the left earlobe might (for all I know) be possible; the result would be technically outstanding, but the musical value absolutely zero. Both Paganini and Ernst revelled in writing passages that involve long stretches of double-stopped harmonics, but the result, for the musical listener, is mere tedium, and “Bravo, the chimpanzee!” if the soloist succeeds in jumping the hurdle.

Ms Park is technically superb, and also a highly intelligent musician. She does, however, tend to play from the head rather than the heart, so the overall effect is very different from that left by Kreisler, for example. She also occasionally has a habit of emphasising the first beat in the bar, which distracts, for example, in her playing of Rachmaninov's Vocalise; where is simplicity in this lyrical piece? Viz also Dvorak / Kreisler's Songs my Mother Taught me. Ms Park is superb in virtuoso pieces, but a little less in her element where simple melodic playing is called for. Her rendition of Rachmaninov's Vocalise has nowhere near the singing simplicity of Heifetz, Milstein or Lisa Batiashvili.

All of which is a bit Beckmesser, since Ms Park does play superbly, and BIS does its usual exemplary job with recording and balance. I'll continue to look out for new recitals or recordings from Sueye Park. Maybe in 20 years time if she plays these pieces again, she can give her head a rest and throw away the music stand, and just play from the heart.

Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio with Gilels, Kogan, and Rostropovich

In my humble opinion, there were just two really great piano trio combinations in the twentieth century: Cortot, Thibaud, and Casals. And Gilels, Kogan, and Rostropovich. All six musicians were absolutely superb. Both trios broke up mainly because of disputing cellists, Casals objecting to his colleagues because of second world war politics, Rostropovich rowing with Kogan and then, later, becoming an émigré to the West in search of money. While they lasted, however, the two quite disparate trios were world-beaters.

I have long loved the 1952 recording made by Gilels, Kogan, and Rostropovich of Tchaikovsky's A minor piano trio, opus 50. The trio with one of Tchaikovsky's haunting melodies. I have the recording in various transfers, but have just acquired one more; highly satisfactory. The three friends (as they then were) play like three Russian angels. All three, I recollect, lived in the same prestige apartment building in Moscow; Kogan married Gilel's sister Elizabeta, herself an eminent violinist. For a Russian recording of 1952, the result is excellent. Perhaps the piano sounds a little tinny, but the strings make angelic sounds and the balance is absolutely fine – no mean feat in a piano trio where, all too often, the powerful piano and the gruff cello overpower the more slender violin. Not so here.

This newly-acquired transfer comes from Diapason (“les indispensables”) and includes Tchaikovsky's third string quartet, recorded by the Borodin Quartet, also in 1952. It is the best transfer so far, in my collection of Tchaikovsky's Trio. To complete my great joy at re-possessing this all-time classic, the CD cost me just €1.46 ordered from Amazon (France) and delivered from Germany at low-cost postage. There never were such times for music lovers.

Otto Klemperer in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony

When it comes to Beethoven symphonies, I am choosy. I like the 3^rd, 6^th, and 7^th. Also the first three movements of the 9^th, but I turn off at the bombastic finale. Otherwise for me, Ludwig van Beethoven is the string quartets, the sonatas for piano and violin, and many of the 32 piano sonatas.

By chance, I listened today to the 6^th symphony, in a recording from 1951 (Vox XPV 1068, in origin) sent to me long ago by a very good Dutch friend. The orchestra was the Vienna Philharmonic (labelled as the "Vienna Symphony Orchestra", possibly for contractual reasons). The conductor was Otto Klemperer. For the sound of that vintage, I feared the worst, but I was pleasantly surprised. The warm, silky sound of the Vienna Philharmonic came over loud and clear.

Otto Klemperer (born in Breslau, Germany, in 1885. Died in Zürich, Switzerland in 1973) was, arguably, the last of the great conductors of the central German repertoire (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler). He, with Wilhem Furtwängler – with whom Klemperer refused to speak after 1945 – were probably the last two great conductors of that music, at that era. Now, we have Robin Ticcati, Gustavo Dudamel, or Daniel Barenboim. As a German Jew, Klemperer had an increasingly miserable life in Germany after 1930. As a staunch left-winger, he had an increasingly miserable life in America after 1940, culminating in the Americans refusing to re-issue his passport to enable him to travel internationally; he was saved (ironically) by the Germans who re-issued his German passport, freeing Klemperer – I don't recall him ever going back to America thereafter.

Whatever the racial affiliations and the politics. My two favourite recordings of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony are Furtwängler with the Vienna Philharmonic (1952) and Klemperer with the Vienna Philharmonic (1951). There is something about the Vienna Philharmonic in the early 1950s, with a very special and distinctive warm, seductive sound. And with Wilhelm Furtwängler, and Otto Klemperer. We can note in passing that Klemperer in 1951 was noticeably faster in the Pastoral than in later recordings, particularly in the Landleute third movement. We can also note that Klemperer's preference for having his woodwind to the fore pays excellent dividends in the Pastoral. This is a recording I had overlooked for many years (like so many on my shelves, alas). I shall overlook it no more.

Jan Dismas Zelenka

In Europe, the turn of the century from the 17^th to the 18^th saw hordes of highly talented composers of music scribbling away frantically, mainly to satisfy church and court employers. Amongst the scribblers were Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Antonio Vivaldi and, for a brief time, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. These four produced music of astonishing quality that still lives on today. Contemporaneously, in the depths of deepest Bohemia, Jan Zelenka was scribbling away, mainly at church music, with no less than twenty surviving masses. A generous friend sent me a recording that includes his 40 minute Missa Sancti Josephi.

The music is by an expert, with a surprising amount of frolicking and jollity (for a Mass). This is not “great” music on the scale of Bach's Mass in B minor, but it is immensely attractive and well written. I enjoyed it immensely, my enjoyment greatly increased by an excellent well-balanced recording (Carus-Verlag), four excellent soloists that include my much-admired Julia Lezhneva, she of the angelic soprano voice. Orchestra and Choir are from Stuttgart, and the efficient conductor is Frieder Bernius.

Zelenka grew up in a period when composers knew to keep musical numbers short and varied, otherwise the audience or congregation went to sleep, talked among themselves, or started a game of cards. So Zelenka's 39 minute Mass contains 13 different tracks, with the music well differentiated. He juggles his four soloists, one choir and one (large) orchestra like a real expert. I can't say I'm in the market for the other 19 Masses of Zelenka; but I'll certainly continue to enjoy this excellent recording and performance. Balancing the soloists, choir and orchestra cannot have been easy, but the Germans, in particular, appear to be highly skilled in that department.

Ginger Pork à la Bamboo Tree

This blog purports to deal with "Musicke & Food" but there is rarely any mention of food. So, nearing Christmas, here are details of my Number One dish for this week (with a nod towards the Bamboo Tree restaurant in Luang Prabang, who influenced my concept).

• pork fillet, cut into small pieces

• field or shitake mushrooms (cut small)

• root ginger (plentiful)

• Thai chillies, red and green

• green bell pepper

• salt, pepper

• olive oil suffused with chilli
  
• red Burgundy wine (to drink with the dish)
  
  Absolutely delicious! Melts in the mouth, tantalises the taste buds, and delights the intestines. Substitute lamb, beef, duck or chicken for the pork, if necessary, but stick with rich Burgundy wine.
  
  

Nemanja Radulovic and Khachaturian's Violin Concerto

Aram Khachaturian wrote his violin concerto in 1940 (a really bad time to launch a new work). It was quickly taken up by violinists, and sneered at by most Western critics because it was in D minor and had lots of catchy tunes, just when composers were supposed to be writing atonal serial music without a key signature or tune, or audience, in sight, and because Khachaturian was in the USSR, and thus a “Commie”. Music critics pre-date Mr Trump for bigotry. Violinists, however, loved it and still do, after nearly 80 years. And I have loved the concerto, for many, many decades.

I have 26 different recordings of the work, the earliest being Louis Kaufman in 1945, followed by David Oistrakh in 1946/47/65. Then Gerhard Taschner in 1947 and 1955. Then Leonid Kogan in 1951 and 1958. Then Julian Sitkovetsky in 1954 and 1956. Then Ruggiero Ricci in 1956. Then Mischa Elman — no less — in 1959, and Henryk Szeryng in 1964. The most recent recordings I have are by Julia Fischer (2004) and James Ehnes (2013). And Nemanja Radulovic (2018). If the critics sniff, violinists do not; with good reason.

Top of the list for me when I want to listen to Khachaturian's concerto are Julian Sitkovetsky in Romania with Niyazi conducting (1954) and Leonid Kogan in Boston with Pierre Monteux conducting (1958). Formidable competition for Mr Radulovic; how does he measure up?

Nemanja Radulovic is an immensely gifted violinist, hailing from Serbia. He looks a bit like Rasputin and records for the 21^st century version of Deutsche Grammophon, thus the liner booklet and publicity full of photos of Mr Radulovic, with poor old Khachaturian getting just a brief mention. Deutsche Grammophon is now just a “brand”, as the jargon would have it and bears little resemblance to the previous highly-respected German company.

Sitkovetsky, Kogan, and Oistrakh plunge headlong into Khachaturian's exotic music. Radulovic plunges headlong into highly-sophisticated virtuoso violin playing. The Borusan orchestra of Istanbul (ex- Constantinople) accompanies dutifully, but one wonders how Khachaturian, an Armenian, would have reacted to the idea of Turks playing his music. The massacre of around 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks is hardly ancient history. Whatever; the Turks don't play with too much feeling or enthusiasm compared, for example, with the Romanian radio orchestra under Niyazi for Sitkovetsky where, in the second movement, the Romanians swoon into the music. Listening to Radulovic is a bit like listening to Vladimir Horowitz; one admires the playing, whilst the music takes second place. Radulovic's playing in the finale is equal to any of his competitors; he is, after all, a super-virtuoso, and the finale is his best movement of the work.

I am conscious of being a bit sniffy concerning Radulovic; not that he and his many fans will worry. My favourite musicians are those like Adolf Busch, Artur Grumiaux, Maria Pires, Clara Haskil, Wolfgang Scheiderhan, Igor Levit, who get inside the music and then play it from the heart. I am uneasy with “star” performers where the spotlight is focused on “me, me, me”. I'd probably have sniffed at Paganini had he been around in my lifetime. 'Sorry, Niccolò, but it just isn't my kind of thing'.

In Praise of Johann Sebastian Bach

Bach has been dead for 268 years, yet his music still lives on and, for most of that time, connoisseurs of fine music have always put Bach as Number One on the pedestal of great composers; there is no reason to suppose that this will change for the next 268 years. I first came across Bach and his music when I was around 10 years old (I grew up in a music-loving family). As I have related before in this blog, the very first concert I ever attended at the age of about thirteen was of Bach's Mass in B minor. Interrogating my catalogue of recorded music I possess, I find I have recordings of 1016 pieces of music by Bach, and I find that more and more of my listening — especially in the evening — is of Bach's music. Bach's output over the 65 years of his life was prodigious; the man scribbled away for almost all his life and all his time. There are few real peaks in his output; the Mass in B minor, the St John and St Matthew Passions certainly qualify as “peaks” but pretty well all the rest is just solid, great music be it for voices, solo instruments, or baroque bands.

I frequently ask myself what makes Bach so special, and the answer is usually somewhat complex. Here are a few ingredients for Bach's greatness:

There is always something going on, in Bach's music. “Too much counterpoint, and Protestant counterpoint, at that” Thomas Beecham is reputed to have growled. Bach loved counterpoint, he loved multi-layered music; in many instances, the “accompaniment” is even more interesting than the solo line, viz. many of the sections in the 200 or so cantatas. This makes listening to Bach interesting. His contemporaries, such as Handel and Vivaldi, did not go in much for counterpoint, which had gone out of fashion with much of polyphony. (This does not make Handel's and Vivaldi's music less interesting; it just points up one of Bach's Unique Selling Points).

Bach knew about the attention spans of his audience. Folk musicians, and American popular song writers, also know about attention spans, which is why individual songs or instrumental pieces usually last only around five minutes. Similarly, Bach — like other 18^th century composers — makes sure usually that no individual piece or section lasts longer than five or six minutes. The longer works, like the Passions and the Mass, are broken up into varying sections. It is true that variations such as the Goldberg Variations last much longer, but 30 or so variations within a 60 minute work contain a lot of variety. The Chaconne of the D minor partita for solo violin lasts around 13 minutes, but, again, a chaconne is a series of variations on a ground. Plenty of variety. As the centuries rolled on, music in the 19^th and 20^th centuries became more and more bloated – think of Mahler's 8^th Symphony, or Wagner's Tristan & Isolde. Folk and popular music escaped the bloat movement, luckily for their popular appeal.

Bach's music is never glib, showy or flashy. Pretty well everything is at a very high level, and even Bach under pressure and indulging in music-processing manages to be interesting.

Along with his fascinating counterpoint, Bach can often indulge in some pretty weird harmonies, as in the bass aria Ächzen und erbärmlich Weinen in the church cantata Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen. Listening to Bach's modulations and harmonic structures is a fascinating exercise in its own right. And, as John Eliot Gardiner has pointed out, so much of Bach's music — even the church music — incorporates dance rhythms of the early 18th century: gavottes, bourées, sarabandes, gigues, passpieds, sicilianos, etc. This gives Bach's music a constant air of rhythmic vitality and interest.

So: Interesting music. Fascinating music. Absorbing music. Music with a constantly varied rhythmic, sonic and harmonic structure. In my view, Johann Sebastian Bach fully deserves his gold medal in the musical Olympics. I am immensely happy to have been able to visit his grave, and the city where he was born, and the church where he was baptised. Bach!

An Evening of Debussy, Berlioz, and Ravel

I have been having a mini- French music festival, starting with Bernard Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw orchestra in Debussy: l'Après-midi d'un faune, La Mer, and the first two Nocturnes (I never took to the third, Sirènes). La Mer, the Nocturnes and I go back a long, long way to the 1950s when I listened often to both, conducted in those days on LP by Guido Cantelli. Haitink was recorded in the late 1970s and, as so often, he and the superb Concertgebouw orchestra have exactly what it takes to project Debussy's music. I have never been a great Debussy fan, but there are some works of his that I like very much – such as La Mer.

And on to Berlioz, and his six songs with orchestra that make up Les Nuits d'été, a work I came to first only a few years ago. I have the classic recording with Régine Crespin, but I prefer to listen to it sung by one of my favourite French sopranos, Véronique Gens. Beautiful singing in lovely music.

And ending with Ravel and his Shéhérazade, also sung by Véronique Gens. Music I have known for a long time (I first met it sung superbly by Frederica von Stade). I now have 13 different versions of this work, but I usually gravitate to Mme. Gens since, apart from anything else, I admire her clear French diction. I do like singers who can articulate clearly. Well: Debussy, Berlioz, and Ravel. An admirable French trio that made an excellent evening's listening.

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, with Paul Kletzki

As a change from the baroque music that has occupied me of late, I listened this evening to Rimsky-Korsakov's evergreen Scheherazade. The recording came from a period of excellence around 1958-9 when the Philharmonia orchestra was on top form, as were the EMI recording engineers. Conductor during this period of excellence was the Polish conductor Paul Kletzki, a maestro who saw his job to guide an orchestra to give of its best and to project the music. Kletzki was not one of those who indulged in the cult of personality; he conducted effectively and efficiently. Since the 1950s I have always treasured his recording of Mahler's fourth symphony (the only Mahler symphony to which I now wish to listen). I wallowed happily in his Scheherazade, with Hugh Bean as the violin narrator, and with the original excellent sound enhanced by a friend who sent me an admirable transfer. Familiar music, lovingly rendered by orchestra, conductor, and engineers.

Bach does Pergolesi

I settled back in my armchair to listen to a new recording for my collection: Masaaki Suzuki, with singers Carolyn Sampson and Robin Blaze, singing Bach's cantata Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden. Only it turned out not to be Bach's music; it was Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, with new words from Psalm 51, with music arranged and edited by … Johann Sebastian Bach, catalogued as BWV 1083.

A pretty remarkable story, given that Giovanni Battista Pergolesi died in 1726 at the age of 26 and that Bach obviously knew and admired his Stabat Mater, all the 1500 kilometres or so from Naples to Leipzig. The Catholic veneration of Mary would obviously not have gone down well with Bach's Lutheran Protestants, so new words were found. Bach's editing is serious and light, and not nearly as drastic as, say, Mozart's re-write of Handel's Messiah. I have to say, I was highly impressed with “Bach's” work, as with the performance here. Sampson and Blaze sing well together. Bach's version keeps the essence of Pergolesi's wonderful music; no wonder Bach must have been impressed enough to devote time and energy to re-working the work. Very enjoyable, and highly recommended.

Bach's Secular Cantatas, and Masaaki Suzuki

As the proud owner of around 250 recordings of Bach cantatas, I really, really do not need yet more. However, I bought a CD of two more Bach cantatas — secular cantatas, this time — and so enjoyed the two works … that I have now ordered six more secular cantatas. All feature the incomparable Masaaki Suzuki with his Bach Collegium Japan. The first CD of this batch that I bought has Carolyn Sampson as the soprano soloist, and I greatly welcome more recordings with Ms Sampson. She sings Ich bin in mir Vergnügt BWV 204 beautifully.

The words / libretti for almost all vocal music before Mozart are usually banal. I can never take to the words of Bach's church cantatas: “I long to die, so I can see Jesus again” and similar religious hocus-pocus. So the secular Bach cantatas make a very welcome change for me. Well done Johann Sebastian, and Masaaki Suzuki, and the BIS record company that year after year has supported Suzuki and his fine Japanese musicians.

Life, according to Igor Levit

The much-admired (by me) pianist Igor Levit has just released a double CD album with the title “Life”. As one would expect from Levit, the pianism is extraordinary, the musicianship exemplary with a formidable grasp of form, structure, and dynamics. So far: straight “A”s all the way. The nine pieces of music on the two CDs are a mixed bag. We start with Ferrucio Busoni's Fantasia after J.S. Bach, which rambles on agreeably for over 14 minutes. Bach would have done better, in a lot less time. We continue with Brahms' arrangement for the left hand of the Chaconne from Bach's second partita for solo violin, a very pleasant surprise. Confining the arrangement to just one pianistic hand means that the original violin music comes over without excessive additions and ornamentation and this, coupled with Levit's grasp of form, makes this a formidable recording of Bach's music. It also confirms my often-stated view that “authentic” Bach is a pretty meaningless term, given Johann Sebastian's casual ability to arrange or transcribe his music from instrument to instrument, and voice to voice. CD I continues with the “Ghost” variations by Robert Schumann, very nearly posthumous, and ends with a ten minute piece by Frederic Rzewski with the title A Mensch (a person, or human being). For me, once heard, forever pigeon-holed since Rzewski's piece does ramble on.

The second CD begins with Franz Liszt's transcription of the solemn march from Wagner's Parsifal; Liszt's transcriptions and arrangements of other men's music have usually appealed to me, as here. The real Liszt comes next, with 33 minutes of his Fantasia and Fugue on “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam” by Meyerbeer, a piece that goes on and on and suffers from the too-often prevalent gigantism of much music in the second half of the 19^th century; the adagio section, alone, takes up nearly 14 minutes. I've always regarded Franz Liszt as a flashy 19^th century pianist who is much over-rated as a composer, and this does little to change my long-held prejudice. Predictably, the Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, as arranged by Liszt, comes over wonderfully; Liszt seems to have been at his best when faced with real music by the likes of Schubert or Wagner. In his playing of the Liebestod (as in his playing of Brahms's arrangement of Bach's Chaconne), Levit gives evidence of a sense of form and dynamics rivalling that of Otto Klemperer, or Sergei Rachmaninov.

Ferrucio Busoni's Berceuse is a pleasant piece of music, as is the concluding piece by someone called Bill Evans: Peace Piece – attractive, minimalist music that does, however, question the compilation's title: Life. Almost all the music on these two CDs is sombre and either piano, or pianissimo. Not music to listen to if you are deeply depressed, or contemplating suicide. I suspect that, in twenty or so years time when I near 100 years old, I'll strip out the Bach and Wagner pieces to a separate CD for lifetime listening. Liszt and Busoni are for lovers of pianism; I am a lover of the violin. And not of organs, or counter-tenors. Or harpsichords. I do, however, greatly admire Igor Levit as a formidable musician, chosen repertoire sometimes notwithstanding.

Semyon Snitkovsky

I have often remarked that fame is something dependent on great talent, plus great backers, great PR, and great managers. Plus a bit of luck. Unfortunately, great talent, by itself, will rarely buy world recognition, and fame. Take Semyon Snitkovsky, whose playing I have just been admiring on transfers from Melodya recordings. Born in the USSR in 1933, he died in the USSR in 1981 at the age of 47. Later in his career, he was a violin professor in Moscow and Budapest. Few people have heard of him (no backers, no PR company); similar to the case of Julian Sitkovetsky, another great violinist from the Russian lands during those turbulent years. Yet listening to Snitkovetsky playing the evergreen Glazunov violin concerto, plus a couple of Paganini caprices — alas, with piano; why? — and a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody arranged by Hubay, here was a truly major talent of the violin. The Glazunov is thoroughly Russian in its nostalgia and fully equal to the more famous Heifetz and Milstein. He also plays the Vieuxtemps 4th concerto, a much neglected work by modern violinists. It's a superb performance, fully the equal of that by Jascha Heifetz many years before. Unfortunately, the same cuts are made in the orchestral parts, as if the orchestra were purely secondary and ornamental. Modern concert promoters and record producers seem rarely to schedule the Glazunov and Vieuxtemps 4th concertos, more's the pity.

The moral of the story? Just because you have never heard of them before, or because they never made the world stage, it does not mean they are not truly top-notch violinists, pianists, or singers.

Orpheus Britannicus

When it comes to the finest, most sophisticated wine, France takes the gold medal. When it comes to fine, sophisticated cuisine, the gold medal is probably shared between the Chinese, the French, and the Italians. When it comes to great music, the gold medal goes to Europe. No other area of the world has produced music that, 327 years after it first sounded, still enthrals listeners. I speak as one who this evening listened to Henry Purcell's ode Hail, Bright Cecilia, composed in 1691 and played this evening on a Franco-British CD by Marc Minkowski. Music for all time.

Marc Minkowski and his Franco-British team (or, more exactly, French team with British appendages) go on to play Handel's A Song for Saint Cecilia's Day (1739), to words by John Dryden. Who wins the gold medal: Orpheus Britannicus, or the Caro Sassone? In the end, there are three gold medals: Handel's music is the great crowd pleaser; Purcell's the more sophisticated, appealing to connoisseurs. The third gold medal goes to Marc Minkowski and his Franco-Britannic forces.

A lobby of musical extremists suggests that “all music is equally valid”. Which is plain nonsense. A young man beating a bongo drum is not going to be listened to in 327 years time. Great Music is music that transcends centuries and appeals to connoisseurs of generation after generation. Vide Purcell's Hail, Bright Cecilia, and Handel's A Song for Saint Cecilia's Day.

The Czech Violin Tradition. And Vaclav Snitil

For the inhabitants of a small country, the Czechs — including, musically, the Slovaks and Bohemians — have had a disproportionate influence on the musical world, especially that of violin playing. Composers include Dvorak, Janacek, Smetana, Fibich and Suk. Violinists are too many to list. The Czech recording company, Supraphon, has kept the Czech flag flying for countless decades. This evening I am listening to Vaclav Snitil (one of the horde of excellent Czech violinists of the past century) with Josef Hala at the piano. Snitil's sound is typically Czech: highly focused intonation, with sparing use of vibrato, judicious rubato, and excellent rhythmic sense. This evening for me he played music by Smetana, Dvorak, Fibich, and Josef Suk. An all-Czech evening and highly enjoyable. If every country in Europe made as rich a contribution to musical life, we would be swamped with outstanding music and musicians. And this is not even broaching the area of Czech orchestras and, especially, string quartets. The total population of the present day Czech Republic is only a little over ten million people. Add in just over five million for Slovakia. A remarkable musical race. For me, the soulful, melancholy nature of so much of Czech music is encapsulated in Vaclav Snitil and Josef Hala playing Dvorak's well-known Four Romantic Pieces Op 75. Sheer bliss.