I know it was you, Michael. You broke my heart.

Michael Haydn: Violin and Flute Concertos

I've never warmed to Michael Haydn, who I always connect in my mind with Fredo Corleone from The Godfather 2. In the shadow of his older brother Franz Joseph, he always seems to underperform what one might hope for, considering his bloodline and the obvious advantages he must have had. So, seeing this new disc from a group which I really admire, the Capella Savaria from Hungary, under Zsolt Kalló, who also plays the solo violin (the flutist is Andrea Bertalan), I set aside my prejudices, and tried to give Michael Haydn a chance.

In his wonderful liner notes to a disc of music by Luigi Boccherini that I recently reviewed, Emilio Moreno says,

"His musical language is possessed of a 'recognisably unidentifiable' quality, that Ciceronian 'nescio quid' to which his Enlightenment era contemporaries would always describe by employing the hackneyed 'no sé qué', when owning up to their inability to define the experience, within the limits of the expressible, of the beauty, loftiness, ease, sprezzatura, lightness, spirit and inventiveness which all seem to come together in the semantic range of the 'je ne sais quoi' and 'non so che' of philosophers and aesthetes when they wanted to explain the music of the brilliant and distinctive, often misunderstood, outsider who was 'Don Luis Boquerini'." 

It's this 'no sé qué' that I've almost always found missing in Michael Haydn's music. And the mid-18th Century was a particularly dangerous time to do without a special sauce, since the galant schemas of the time were so strong and universal across European music. Without it there are only a series of hackneyed devices strung together in hackneyed ways.

I'm pleased to report that I did discover that 'no sé qué' in this album, though not where I expected it. The mature Violin Concerto in A major, probably written in 1776, is a decent piece of music, sounding more like Mozart than brother Franz Joseph. But even though there are some fine melodies the piece never takes off. Neither do the two Flute Concertos, both from around the same time. I hasten to say that this is not the fault of the excellent soloists, the orchestral players, the conductor, or indeed of the Hungaroton producer or engineers. I can't imagine more vital performances of this music, but the fact remains that these three concertos are all rather pedestrian.

It's the earliest work on the disc that impressed me the most: the Violin Concerto in G major, probably from 1764. This music is so strong that it was once mistaken for Joseph Haydn - a common enough situation at the time, to be sure, since Franz Joseph's musical brand was the most important in Europe. I believe that the big brother would have been proud if he had heard this music, especially played as well as it is here. Beauty: check, loftiness: check, ease: check, sprezzatura: check, lightness: check, spirit: check and inventiveness: check. Mozart would probably add a final quality: taste. I think we can check that one off as well.

Good work, Fredo!

Here is the first movement of the G major Violin Concerto:

Music from a year of crisis

1923: music by Bartok, Krenek, Toch & Weill

The year 1923 was a year of crisis in Germany; inflation was heating up and far right-wing parties were jockeying for power. In October, the first broadcast of public radio in Germany took place from the "Berliner Funkstunde" station on Potsdamer Platz. This provocative new disc from the Choir and Symphony of Bavarian Radio includes four works written a hundred years ago by a group of innovative composers who all made use of the new, disruptive technology of radio.

Kurt Weill's Frauentanz is a suite of seven medieval songs, scored for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon. Weill helped to create the familiar soundtrack for Weimar Berlin, and this performance by Anna-Maria Palii and the fine instrumentalists of the Bayerischen Rundfunks orchestra provides the authentic feel of a society that was becoming increasingly decadent and hysterical in 1923 and beyond.

Ernst Toch's Dance Suite is another clever and imaginative piece with interesting orchestration: flute, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass and percussion. The Berlin sound is also evident here, something a bit harsh and raw, in contrast with the softer-focussed, more lyrical and pastoral modernism of Paris.

The Ernst Krenek work is a bit of a surprise: his 3 Choruses for a cappella choir . The 'antique' sound of these pieces remind me of two of my favourite works: Vaughan Williams' G minor Mass, from 1921, and Heitor Villa-Lobos's Missa São Sebastião, from 1937. All three provide old wine in new bottles: ancient cadences with a modernist twist.

The final work on the disc is probably the best known: Bela Bartok's Dance Suite for Orchestra. This is an orchestral showpiece, a kind of try-out for his Concerto for Orchestra written more than two decades later. Both pieces treat orchestral instruments in a solistic, virtuosic way. The source material might be folkloric, but this is definitely written in a modernist idiom.

Inflation, far right-wing agitation, disruptive technology: yes, we're talking about 1923, not 2023. And the music on this disc is as fresh and forward-looking as some of the best music written today.

 

Disruptive music by Boccherini

Luigi Boccherini: Six Symphonies à Quatro, op. 35

Earlier today, I was listening to a symphony by Muzio Clementi that impressed me by its complete blandness, and I thought how wonderful it is that at one point in the late 18th Century there were three absolute geniuses writing music at the same time: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The gap between these composers and Clementi seems too large to bridge. But luckily, there's a second tier of composers in between, including Bach's sons, the Bohemians Franz Benda, Carl Stamitz & Christoph Willibald Gluck, and an Italian who spent most of his life in Spain: Luigi Boccherini.

These Six Symphonies are billed as being in four parts, but they're actually in five: two violins, viola, cello and bass. They could be played one to a part, but here, with the wonderful Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, we have a small chamber orchestra: five first and four second violins, three violas and cellos, and a double bass and harpsichord. Boccherini was of course a master of chamber music, but this music sounds exactly right in this orchestral guise.

The two discs begin with the Fourth Symphony in F major, which in its first movement takes off immediately in an exciting gallop. Clearly, unlike Clementi Boccherini has something positive to say, and an exhilarating and original way of saying it. In his fine liner notes, Emilio Moreno compares Boccherini's op. 35 Symphonies with Mozart's Haffner Symphony, K. 385 and Haydn's Symphonies 76-78, all of which were written in 1782. (Beethoven, meanwhile, was only 12 years old; his first orchestral music was well in the future). Moreno doesn't hear much Haydn or Mozart in this music:

"Boccherini conceives of a discourse very close to that of the divertimento in which the unconventionally emotional goes beyond the structural and the Dionysian goes beyond the Apollonian, without its formal and harmonic ease of construction corresponding to predetermined models and schemes."

Boccherini disrupts the galant schemas, whereas Haydn, and especially Mozart, work their special magic largely within the structures that have come to be called classical. Boccherini worked, at least in 1782, in what Friedrich Schlegel called the 'poetry of the frenzied', as opposed to the 'poetry of the sober.'

The slow movement of the Sixth Symphony is quite wonderful, and it's played here with grace and style, with passion occasionally bubbling up from beneath the surface. This movement brings to mind the wonderful music Geoffrey Burgon wrote for the 1981 TV version of Brideshead Revisited; I don't know if Burgon knew Boccherini, but I hear in both a nostalgic sadness: Charles Ryder's for Sebastian and the Brideshead of the past; Luigi Boccherini's, perhaps, for his Italian homeland to which he would never return.

Vaughan Williams the Conductor

My favourite Vaughan Williams Symphony is no. 5, so I was pleased to see this new historic release from Somm Recordings with two complete versions conducted by the composer: the world premiere performance on June 24, 1943, and a Proms performance on September 3, 1952. What a great way to end the VW150 year!

The 1943 performance, recorded off-air from the BBC radio broadcast, sounds surprisingly good. Somm's audio restoration and remastering is always great; we have Lani Spahr to thank for finding fine music-making within low-fidelity source material. As to the performance itself, it's perhaps a bit hesitant, which is to be expected considering the uncertainties of the period. Still, Vaughan Williams' uplifting music must have been a great consolation for those listening in the performance hall and on the air; perhaps better times were indeed on their way. More problematic are the periodic missing bits that come about due to swapping out of acetate recording discs. But the historic nature of this performance trumps this technical issue; Nick Barnard, in a fine review, comes up with a good way to describe these lacunae:

"The best analogy I can come up with is when viewing an ancient fresco or mosaic which has been damaged over the centuries; you can see where parts of the original artwork are missing but the sense of the total magnificence of the original remains."

I have no reservations at all concerning the performance of Symphony 5 at the 1952 Proms. This is indeed one of the great Vaughan Williams recordings. That's partly due to better technology; this was recorded direct to long-playing acetate discs, so there are no side-breaks to cut up the music.

There are two other recordings here: a scintillating Dona Nobis Pacem from 1936; and a fine 2nd Symphony, from 1946. Again, there's an important bonus for authenticity and historic importance, but both performances are wonderful in their own right.

This is another fine release from Somm, with detailed liner notes that illuminate both the music and the recording and restoration processes. Perhaps most importantly, there's the great cover photo, by Dudley Styles from 1948, of the composer with his cat Foxy.

Here's the 1952 performance of the 5th Symphony:

 

Stylish and characterful Bach concertos from Japan

 J. S. Bach: Harpsichord Concertos 3, 4, 6 & 7

This is the second release from BIS of Bach Harpsichord Concertos by Masato Suzuki and Bach Collegium Japan - the first was released in 2020. I've long been a lover of the recordings of this orchestra, especially the landmark series of Bach Cantatas under Masato's father, and the group's founder, Mazaaki Suzuki. Though this is a very small subset of musicians - only two violins and a single viola, cello and bass - there is the same nuance and character here as in the Cantatas and Passions. There's also the same warm sound envelope provided by the BIS engineers, producers and editors, and the marvellous, innovative BIS design and marketing, developed over years of collaboration between Japan and Sweden.

Like his father, Masato Suzuki is a very fine harpsichordist, and is fast becoming known around the world as a conductor. He's made the move from the continuo section - Baroque's Special Teams unit - to the podium with style; he's now the Principal Conductor of Bach Collegium Japan. I look forward to more recordings, of Bach, other Baroque composers and beyond, from this excellent musician.

An intense ending to a wonderful series

 Allan Pettersson: Symphony 15; Viola Concerto

This is the final release in the BIS series of Allan Pettersson's Symphonies, with Christian Lindberg conducting the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. It's been such a fascinating and revealing journey, shining a light on one of the most remarkable series of works by any 20th century artist. This is now the undisputed champion of Pettersson Symphony cycles on disc, though the recordings by Sergiu Comissiona and Alun Francis have their positive qualities as well. 

The 15th Symphony, from 1978, is a late work; only one more remained before the composer died in 1980 (there were fragments of the 17th Symphony as well, which is included in this series). Symphony 15 exhibits Pettersson's usual dense textures, intense emotions and carefully contrived segments put together into an impressive architecture. This is by now second nature to Lindberg and his fine musicians, though there is no hint of routine; this is a fresh sounding performance that is well served by the always accomplished BIS engineers.

Pettersson's Viola Concerto came at the very end of his life, and wasn't performed until 1988. Like the 2nd Violin Concerto and the 16th Symphony, written in the same period, this work has very much of an orchestral rather than a concerto texture, with little attention paid to the usual solo pyrotechnics. Pettersson referred to the Violin Concerto as a Symphony, and the Symphony as a Saxophone Concerto, while his widow Gudrun called this work a "Viola Symphony". As with the 2nd Violin Concerto, it's tempting to think of the solo instrument here as a representation of the composer himself, commenting as an individual estranged from but deeply connected to the world of the orchestra. The viola was Pettersson's instrument, so I don't think it's too far-fetched. If that's the case, it's perhaps ironic that the composer should represent his own alienation from the world, a result of both his temperament and his severe, chronic rheumatoid arthritis, by integrating the solo part so closely with the whole orchestra.

Violist Ellen Nisbeth gets a beautiful sound from her Nicolò Amati instrument, from 1714. This is a great way to cap off a wonderful series.

Orchestral music of a major Brazilian composer

César Guerra-Peixe: Symphonic Suites no. 1 & 3; Roda de Amigos

César Guerra-Peixe was born and died about 30 years after Heitor Villa-Lobos, and though he initially took a completely different tack, in the end he came to much the same musical place: a mix of folkloric and erudite strains, of indigenous Brazilian, African and European traditions. Like Villa, his mix of European avant garde and popular music sounds especially Brazilian. This character is brilliantly illustrated by the wonderful painting on the album cover: J. Borges's Forró Sertanejo, which shows a colourful, multi-ethnic mix of traditions of dance and instrumental music.

In the 1920s Villa-Lobos brought Brazilian music into the modernist world, but he later rejected serialism, which came to Brazil with Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, a student of Paul Hindemith and a refugee from Naziism. Guerra-Peixe studied with Koellreutter, and was a member of the "Musica Viva" group that promoted atonality. As with Villa-Lobos, the folkloric strain in Guerra-Peixe's music runs deep. But the progressive European strain - modernism for Villa, serialism for Guerra-Peixe - is never completely submerged. Both composers continue to blend both in their later music.

The two Symphonic Suites recorded here in this new release in the essential "Music of Brazil" series are both from 1955. The Symphonic Suite No. 1 ‘Paulista’ begins with an insistent phrase reminiscent of the beginning of Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras No. 1, from 1930. The work is full of dance rhythms gathered from folk tunes of São Paulo and the surrounding countryside. Guerra-Peixe has put together an appealing mix of mainly tonal dance tunes with the odd atonal passage for spice. The 2nd movement, Jongo, is an Afro-Brazilian dance that often reminds one of the music from the following decade written by Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Philip Glass. The remarkable fourth movement, Tambu, is a moving liturgical procession that contrasts the brass and drums with intersessions from the strings. I was reminded of the Vorspeil: Concert of Angels from Mathis der Maler, written in 1932 by Guerra-Peixe's teacher's teacher Paul Hindemith.

By the way, in 1954, the year before Guerra-Peixe's first Symphonic Suite, Villa-Lobos had written his own symphonic tribute to São Paulo: his massive 10th Symphony, "Amerindia", for the 400th anniversary of the city's founding. However, I'm thinking that any similarities between the two works are more likely to come from a common source: Villa's own Bachianas Brasileiras suites from the 1930s and 40s. These are the source for so much of Brazil's music - both classical and popular - from then until today.

Guerra-Peixe's 2nd Symphonic Suite, "Pernambucana", uses the music of his second home, Recife and the surrounding area of Pernambuco. The music encapsulates the Carnaval de Pernambuco, with the dances of the North-East colourfully presented by a large orchestra with a large percussion component. The folkloric content has a sophisticated envelope: besides the large-scale Choros of Villa-Lobos, especially no. 6, completed in 1942, I hear echoes of Gershwin and Aaron Copland, as well as a host of Hollywood film composers. Guerra-Peixe was himself an active film-scorer; he has 19 composer credits at IMDb. Guerra-Peixe was much more open to jazz influences than Villa-Lobos ever was; the 2nd Symphonic Suite often has the sound of the American big band, and this music anticipates the Henry Mancini's music of the 60s.

The third work on the program is Roda de amigos, from 1979. The Roda is a group of musicians playing together in a circle; the amigos in this case are Guerra-Peixe's own friends. The composer creates pictures of each friend playing a woodwind instrument featured in the four movements: grumpy bassoon, stubborn clarinet, melancholy oboe and mischievous flute. So the work is a clever combination of Peter and the Wolf and the Enigma Variations.

These are all works designed for a large orchestra of virtuoso soloists and a conductor who can keep many plates spinning, mastering complex rhythms along the way. Neil Thomson manages everything with aplomb, and the Goias Philharmonic Orchestra is very much up to the task here. This is the tenth release in the Naxos Music of Brazil series, and it's providing yet another example of the many fine composers who have been in the Villa-Lobos shadow for too long.

 

Haydn Symphonies "Les Jeux et Les Plaisirs"

Joseph Haydn Symphonies 61, 66, 69

Michael Haydn Toy Symphony

Under the direction of Giovanni Antonini, the Kammerorchester Basel performs three middle-period Haydn Symphonies - numbers 61, 66 and 69 - with a special bonus for the youngsters out there. This is the 12th release in the wonderful Haydn 2032 series from Alpha; only 10 more years of these records until the project is complete and we can break out the cake with 300 candles for Papa Haydn!

This is a fun disc from start to finish. To be sure, in these symphonies Joseph Haydn makes use of the common tropes of the international galant style, but he always puts his own stamp on his symphonies. At this point in his career Haydn does not stray far from the galant schemata, but he conceals within them a complex and cunningly wrought art that seems effortless.

Giovanni Antonini is taking the long view of this immense series of symphonies; he has planned each album's program with care, taking into account the long arc of a great musical career as well as each hour and twenty minute segment. He's plucked three joyful works from 1775-76 to contrast with the more dramatic and erudite group in the 11th disc (which I reviewed here). The sense of fun is palpable in these performances; Antonini and his band are obviously enjoying playing this music, & that's immediately communicated to the listener.

Joseph Haydn's younger brother Michael has written a small kitsch masterpiece in his Toy Symphony, and it receives a spirited performance here. There are parts written for various toy instruments, from trumpet, drum and triangle to ratchet, quail, organ hens and cuckoo. The result is a splendid noise:

I was curious about the bird sounds, so I ran the symphony through the Merlin Bird ID app from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I was pleased to see that there was no fooling the Merlin algorithm; it heard no actual birds. As Susan Sontag says in her "Notes on Camp", 

"All camp objects, and persons, contain a large element of artifice. Nothing in nature can be campy."

As with every disc in the Haydn 2032 series, this release is matched with a Magnum photographer; in this case it's the fabulous Spanish photographer Cristina García Rodero. I was thrilled to see these photos, since I only knew her black and white pictures (which are stunning). A number included here are from García Rodero's 2020 exhibition "Holi, the celebration of love".  Holi is an Indian festival of colour, where young people throw colored powders to desire love, fortune and vitality, while they dance and sing in the streets and temples. What a follow-up to a lifetime of amazing black and white photography!

Great Haydn Symphonies "Au Goût Parisien"

Haydn: Symphonies 2, 24, 82, 87

Alpha's Haydn 2032 project continues with this album, the 11th release in the series. In about half the recordings Giovanni Antonini conducts his ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, but here he returns to the Kammerorchester Basel for four Haydn Symphonies with a Parisian connection: 2, 24, 82 and 87. 

Though the Basel orchestra is considerably larger than Il Giardino Armonico - the string complement is ten Violin I, seven Violin II, five Viola, three Double Bass - this is a nimble group that Antonioni takes through the twists and turns of Haydn's music as if he were driving a Ferrari. I've always loved the six Paris Symphonies commissioned by the Chevalier de Saint-Georges in 1788; two are included here. Number 82 is subtitled "L'Ours", for the comical, slightly grumpy features of its finale, complete with the drone of a folk instrument, perhaps a kind of bagpipe. Though it doesn't come with a cute title, Symphony 87 is a perfect mature Haydn symphony, an on-ramp for the Beethoven Symphony Freeway to come. The 24th Symphony is from 1764, a period when Haydn brought a bit of mystery and drama to the gallant symphonies of the time. It's bracketed by two stone-cold masterpieces - number 22, "The Philospher", and number 26, "Lamentatione" - but number 24 has its own positive qualities. I find it at once unsettling and exciting. There's something a little bit dangerous in this performance!

The Paris connection for Symphony 24 is that it was performed there - to great acclaim - in 1773. The 2nd Symphony, written in the late 1750s, was actually published in Paris in 1764. At under 10 minutes, it's the shortest of his symphonies, but there's plenty of incident packed in here. It's slight in stature, but not in style; the Little Symphony That Could.

Antonini brings great energy to all four symphonies here - great and small. Though this series doesn't replace my all-time choice for the complete Haydn symphonies, Adam Fischer's version on 37 CDs with the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra, I'm beginning to see that we now have a very close challenger, not quite a third of the way to 2032. 

Each of the Haydn 2032 releases features a Magnum photographer in the album liner booklet, and this time it's the turn of the great Elliot Erwitt, a great choice considering the theme: "Au Goût Parisien". He took so many great photos of the City of Light; I'll post one here that he took in 1989; for some reason it isn't included in the booklet.

Charming music from a great eccentric

Lord Berners: Ballet Music, Les Sirènes, Cupid and Psyche
 

Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners, aka Lord Berners is one of the great English eccentrics. He wrote his own epitaph, for example, which appears on his gravestone:

Here lies Lord Berners
One of the learners
His great love of learning
May earn him a burning
But, Praise the Lord!
He seldom was bored.

Though he hung out with such forward-looking artists as Igor Stravinsky, Salvador Dali and Gertrude Stein, his music (except for some early works) isn't especially avant garde or modernist. Rather, it is accessible, tuneful and light.

Lord Berners by Bill Brandt, 1945

"I wonder if by any chance you are free to dine tomorrow night? 

It is only a tiny party for Winston [Churchill] and GBS [George Bernard Shaw].

There will be no one else except for Toscanini and myself."

Indeed, the music often sounds much like superior English Light Music, in the style of Eric Coates or Percy Grainger. The charming 30-second Fanfare, though, hearkens back to Façade, by William Walton & Edith Sitwell, while the Habanero from Les Sirènes is awfully similar to Darius Milhaud's Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit. So progressive to a degree, though his models were 20 to 30 years in the past.

The key word here is "charm". It doesn't require any deep thought, but as ballet music (with choreography in both ballets by Frederick Ashton) it shouldn't. More than an hour of uninterrupted charm is a true gift.

The wonderful cover painting is Edward Burne-Jones's "Cupid Delivering Psyche", from 1867.

This album will be released on March 11, 2022.

Miraculous recordings from a great master

 Wilhelm Kempff: Bach, Mozart, Schubert & Schumann

This welcome historic release from APR Recordings includes Wilhelm Kempff's complete recordings for Polydor of music by Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Schumann, made in the period 1927 to 1936. We have here nearly 75 minutes of music, which together make for an appealing recital.

Indeed, though I know Kempff primarily through his recordings of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, I would find almost anything the great pianist plays to be appealing. But there's something special about these recordings, something quite miraculous. In spite of the relatively primitive technology involved in these early electrical recordings, I had no trouble at all forgetting sonic imperfections, and zeroing in on a great master channeling great composers. The French Suite no. 5 of Bach, recorded in 1935, is the highlight of the disc; it's a masterful interpretation. I was in awe of this from the first time I heard it, since I had the strong feeling that Kempff was communicating his own awe, as he so often does with Beethoven, before a great masterwork.

I was quite surprised by Kempff's interpretation of Mozart's Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331, recorded in 1935. It seems much more modern than I would have expected, with crisp, carefully delineated lines, and no hint of the romanticizing prettiness that plagued Mozart music of the period. While not completely Historically Informed, this performance once again demonstrates a real, personal connection between pianist and composer.

There are a number of Kempff transcriptions here, including some Bach pieces that have entered the repertoire of many pianists, and a very clever reworking of Liszt's version of Schubert's "Hark, Hark, the Lark!". The disc ends with a beautiful dream: Schumann's Träumerie, recorded in 1936.

I've characterized the piano playing of Wilhelm Kempff as a miracle, but there's another, albeit smaller, miracle involved in this release. It's quite amazing that one can listen to all of this music with little acoustic worries. That's a testament to the state-of-the-art German engineering behind the recordings themselves, but also, of course to work since then by the Producer and Audio Restoration Engineer for this project, Mark Obert-Thorn. The many years between recording and listening seem simply to vanish.

Stephen Siek's liner essay is first-rate, mixing in technical details, but making sure that storytelling prevails. Learning about Kempff's 1934 trip to Buenos Aires on the Graf Zeppelin adds a great deal to the charm of the entire project.

This disc will be released March 4, 2022.

Skeletal charm

 

Puccini, Strauss & Tchaikovsky: Opera Suites for Nonet, Act II

This is the second disc of Stefan Potzmann's clever arrangements of opera excerpts for a chamber ensemble of strings and winds. Puccini, Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss are the perfect composers for this type of project, since they're all brilliant melodists, and the operas chosen - La Bohème, Elektra and Eugene Onegin - all have enough diverse elements to build dramatic suites of instrumental music. Of course there's much lost when the voices are tossed, but the musical bones that remain have their own skeletal charm. The committed performances of the nine members of Ensemble Minui makes this release a real treat - perhaps even better than the first in the series.

This album isn't yet available on Spotify, so I'll add a link to Ensemble Minui's Act I, released in 2020. Music by Puccini, Richard Strauss and Dvorak.

The long sobs of violins of autumn

 Harrison Birtwistle: Chamber Works

In the score for his 2011 Trio for Piano, Violin & Cello, Harrison Birtwistle adds the first section of Paul Verlaine's poem "Chanson d'automne":

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
   De l’automne

The long sobs
Of violins
   Of autumn

These lines were sent by the Allies' Special Operations Executive to the French Resistance in 1944, providing information about the upcoming Invasion of Normandy. I have no idea whether there's any extra-musical schema behind Birtwistle's marvellous piece; I couldn't find any reference to this on the web. However, the headings in the score - "choked and pale," "chiming of the hours", "an ill wind" - evoke at the very least emotions or states of mind. So it might not be completely fanciful to see a D-Day background in this anxious, foreboding music. The work is played with assurance and elan by violinist Benjamin Nabarro, cellist Adrian Brendel and pianist Tim Horton. Adrian Brendel, who is the son of the great pianist Alfred Brendel, also played on the 2014 recording of the Birtwistle Trio on a superb ECM recording.

Birtwistle's music seems to be connected in a more or less straight line to the modernist tradition of Stravinsky and Messiaen. The other works on this album - the Duet for 8 Strings from 2018, Pulse Sampler for Oboe and Percussion in a version also from 2018, and the Oboe Quartet from 2009-10 - demonstrate that the modernism of the early and mid 20th century is still viable in the 21st. The members of the Nash Ensemble provide stylish and lively performances of this important composer's music.

The cover of the album features a fine portrait of the composer by Philip Gatward.

Wonderful Leclair Concerti from Basel

Jean-Marie Leclair: Concerti per Violino, op. 7 & 10, no. 4 & 5

Jean-Marie Leclair wrote two sets of six violin concertos: his op. 7 from 1739 and op. 10 from 1743. This is the third and final release from Glossa of these twelve works with the very fine violinist Leila Schayegh and La Cetra Barockorchester Basel. The works are cleverly arranged on disc, with two from each set per disc; this time we have numbers 4 & 5 from each. 

These are scrupulously Historically Informed Performance recordings. Schayegh plays a marvellous Andrea Guarneri: Santa Teresia, from Cremona, 1675. The band is a compact group with four violins (plus a second solo violin), two violas, two cellos, one violone and harpsichord, played at A = 408 Hz.

Leclair's violin concertos show the influence of the Italian masters: Corelli, Vivaldi, and especially Pietro Locatelli. It was Locatelli's presence in Amsterdam in 1743 that caused Leclair to travel to Holland. The two are almost exact contemporaries; the Italian composer was a year and a half older. I'm sure that there was a give and take in Amsterdam between these two virtuoso violinists and wonderful composers. By the way, both composers died in the same year: Locatelli in March of 1764, and Leclair in October. Unfortunately, the circumstances of the French composer's death are grim; he was murdered by an unknown assailant. 

Locatelli has long been one of my favourite Baroque composers. I only knew Leclair from his chamber music with violin, and didn't realize how appealing his violin concertos are. I don't think I could have been introduced to this music by a better violinist and orchestra. This is superb playing: stylish and sophisticated. I plan on listening to the first two releases in this series, and I'm definitely up for anything these fine musicians release in the future!

The wonderful album cover design for all three releases is by Rosa Tendero.

  

Leclair Concerto Per Violino vol. 2

Leclair Concerto Per Violino vol. 1

 

Spirited and tender Beethoven Concerti

Beethoven: Triple Concerto, Piano Concerto no. 0

In 1964, the writer George Plimpton wrote Paper Lion, about his time in the training camp of the Detroit Lions. His jersey bore the number "0". In his first time playing before a crowd, he quarterbacked the 1st-string Lions Offence against the 1st-string Defence. After three plays he was back on his own one yard-line, "just a yard away from the complete humiliation of having moved a team backward from the 20-yard line to a safety."

George Plimpton, #0, with Joe Schmidt, by Walter Iooss, Jr.

"I did not take my helmet off when I reached the bench. It was painful to do—wrenching it past my ears—and there was security in having it on. I was conscious of the big zero on my back facing the crowd when I sat down."

I was certainly conscious of the big zero in the title of the Beethoven Piano Concerto no. 0, WoO 4. The composer was only 14 when he wrote it, in 1784. But this is by no means an amateur piece; rather, it's a creditable effort in the galante style of the time. It's not badly constructed, though the themes are mainly pedestrian, it's flashily rather than organically virtuosic, & it runs a bit long. What it does have in common with George Plimpton's experience is the same against-all-appearances optimism and good humour. This isn't the grumpy composer of later years, but a youthful, exuberant Beethoven. Pianist Ekaterina Litvintseva is careful not to make too big a meal of this music, letting the odd flash of fast-forward felicity speak for itself rather than underlining it. Meanwhile, Vahan Mardirossian conducts with a properly light touch. The musicians make as good a case as possible for this work, giving us a glimpse of a great artist in his early days.

The Triple Concerto, for Violin, Viola and Cello, Op. 56, is from Beethoven's middle period; he wrote it in 1803. It's the least successful of Beethoven's mature concertos, partly because of balance issues and a too-long opening movement, but there are many nice touches. These include more than a few stirring passages for the three solo instruments, and Lusiné Harutyunyan on violin, Benedict Kloeckner on cello and Ekaterina Litvintseva on piano are each impressive as they take their turns to shine. The role of the orchestra was developed to a new extent by Beethoven in this work, much like his Third Piano Concerto which he had just completed, and the musicians of the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen work together as a virtuosic group, in music that's by turns spirited, tender, passionate and ironic.

A touchdown, with a two-point conversion.

Here's the first movement of the Piano Concerto no. 0: