Thoughful orchestral music from a true original

 

Charles Koechlin: Symphony no. 1

Charles Koechlin's First Symphony began in 1916 as a String Quartet - his Second - and was reconfigured for full orchestra by the composer in 1927. He adds orchestral colour in such a tasteful way; nothing garish, but subtle touches here and there, especially from the brass, opening things up from chamber music to a full romantic symphony orchestra experience. This is a modernist sound that also hearkens back to French music before Debussy and Ravel: one of his teachers at the Paris Conservatoire was Jules Massenet, and his fellow students included George Enescu and Florent Schmitt. Later he studied with Gabriel Fauré, along with Maurice Ravel, and it's Fauré who had the greatest influence on him. There isn't a lot of drama or incident in the symphony, but rather a thoughtful development of attractive themes. As with so much French music of the period, one can also hear the echoes of Richard Wagner, but strained through a French, and specifically Parisian, sensibility. This is music that deserves more attention, and it has a wonderful advocate in conductor Ariane Matiakh and the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen.

In the eight years between 1935 and 1943, Koechlin produced his 4-volume Traité de l'Orchestration (available to download at IMSLP here). Surely he made good use of his experience in adapting his String Quartet for full orchestra in the creation of this major project. Besides this work and his own compositions, Koechlin is known for his biography of Fauré (the first), and his significant work as a teacher. Among his pupils were Germaine Tailleferre, Roger Désormière, Francis Poulenc and Cole Porter.

There are two additional works on this album: the Symphonic Poem Au Loin, op. 20, from 1900; and 3 Mélodies, op. 17, written in the period 1895-1900. The latter are orchestrated by Robert Orledge, and sung beautifully here by soprano Patricia Petibon. Au Loin, as its name suggests, has a far away feeling, a high Romantic piece sounding more of the 19th century than the 20th. Both this and the songs owe a lot to Fauré, and I'm sure the teacher was proud of his student's work.

Charles Koechlin is such an appealing character: a fine composer embedded in the French conservatory tradition who charted his own course in his compositions. He was a passionate cinemaniac, writing his Second Symphony, "The Seven Stars" (also recorded by Ariane Matiakh) as an homage to the great Hollywood idols of the time. I love this portrait of the composer from 1948, two years before his death at 83. A wonderful playoff beard! A highly recommended recording.

Koechlin by Boris Lipnitzki, 1948

A worthwhile Shostakovich grab-bag

Shostakovich: Chamber Symphony, String Quartets, Piano Music

This new 4-CD set coming on June 6, 2025 consists of recordings made by Capriccio and BR Klassik in the period 2004-06. There's a lot of music here - about four hours altogether - and it's definitely a worthwhile purchase, at a bargain price.

Here are the complete contents of the set:

The first CD includes some works from this 2004 CD from Capriccio, namely Rudolph Barshai's version of the 8th String Quartet for String Orchestra, the Prelude and Scherzo, op. 11, and Alfred Schnittke's Prelude in Memory of Dimitri Shostakovich. These are all marvellous works, and good performances. The Schnittke piece is especially moving, and a valuable addendum to such a large compendium of Shostakovich's music.

As well, the first disc includes Lena Auerbach's arrangement of the Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva, op. 143, from a 2006 CD. These are poignant poems sung by soprano Zoryana Kushpler, with comments from a string quartet, here the Petersen String Quartet of Berlin, sometimes pithy, sometimes full of compassion.

Here's the original Capriccio BR Klassik album cover for the Piano Quintet and two String Quartets on CD 2, from 2005:

There's a lot of music to review here, and I've only listened all the way through once. But I like what I've heard so far. Of course, with the String Quartets, the bar is set very high, by groups like the Borodin Quartet, the Fitzwilliam Quartet, the Brodsky Quartet, and my favourite, the Pacifica Quartet. The Petersen Quartet don't give us the total experience that these intense readings provide, but these are more than passable interpretations. Their relaxed approach is perhaps better matched to Shostakovich's fraught 4th Quartet than to the spring-like First, which flags at times rather than flowing freely.

The Piano Quintet is most probably the greatest work in this set, with the most daunting recording competition. There are 70 recordings on Apple Classical; my favourites are Sviatoslav Richter with the Borodin Quartet, Marc-André Hamelin with the Takács Quartet, and Martha Argerich with Maisky, Margulis, Capuçon & Chen. Ewa Kupiec and the Petersen Quartet provide a fine performance here, though perhaps not in the same league as these.

CDs 3 and 4 are filled with music for one and two pianos, played by Margarete Babinsky and Holger Busch, originally released on this 2-CD set from 2006:

I love Shostakovich's music for solo piano, most especially his great set of Preludes and Fugues, op. 87, from 1950/51. His 24 Preludes, op. 34, recorded here by Margarete Babinsky, are from 1932, and are as indebted to Chopin as his Preludes & Fugues are to Bach. The composer's shifting moods and his use of mock heroism, sarcasm and parody give the performer lots of room for interpretation, and I generally like Babinsky's choices here. Of course she doesn't bring the same authenticity to Shostakovich's piano music that Tatiana Nikolayeva does, but there is no single right way to play this music. And Babinsky has considerable technique, though her 36-second version of the Fifth Prelude doesn't go quite as hard or as fast as some I've heard. Andrey Gugnin's 2019 recording on Hyperion probably wins that particular competition, though I don't condone drag races on piano keyboards. (19 seconds, but who's counting?)

I was likewise impressed with both of Babinsky's versions of the two Piano Sonatas, the 1st from 1926-27, and the 2nd from 1943.  The First provides a portrayal of the October Revolution of 1917 unfiltered by the Soviet Realism of Shostakovich's October Symphony, his no. 2. It's powerful music, capably communicated by Babinsky. The Second is also impressive, especially the remarkable theme and variations of the third movement, which the pianist builds with Hitchcockian suspense.

Shostakovich wrote his Concertino for Two Pianos for his teenage son Maxim to play with a fellow student, and there's a very pleasant family feeling to the piece. Margarete Babinsky and Holger Busch don't make too big a meal of this work; there's lots of drama here, but I don't think the stakes are especially high. A fun piece!

So this has been a pretty rapid tour of a big chunk of the much, much bigger chunk of music Shostakovich wrote in almost every genre, over a working life of five decades. Though none of these performances is in the top rank, they're all better than average, and some considerably better. Thanks to Capriccio and BR Klassik for this compilation!

Germanic symphonies from a Norwegian composer

Christian Sinding - The Symphonies

Christian Sinding's four symphonies were written during the early (1 & 2), middle (3) and late (4) periods of the Norwegian composer's career. They're well constructed and tuneful works, if not especially profound, and they receive excellent performances from the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra under Karl-Heinz Steffens.

Orchestral music from the first half of the 20th century is full of works representing the folkloric heritage of many great composers: Villa-Lobos, Bartok, Martinu, Janacek, and, among the Norwegians, Geirr Tveitt and Harald Sæverud. However, Sinding is not especially interested in Norwegian themes, and indeed he spent much of his time living in Germany. His music is strongly influenced by the German tradition, and as a determined musical conservative his music is full of echoes of Wagner, Strauss, Pfitzner and even Brahms and Schumann.

Sinding's Symphony no. 1, from 1894, is by no means a juvenile work; the composer was in his 38th year when he completed it, though he had been working on it for a decade. It shows an assurance in marshalling the resources of a large orchestra, and a light touch in developing some often interesting musical material. It's as if Sinding was being especially careful to stay away from self-seriousness. The Second Symphony is much weaker. It's a rather plodding work that unfortunately lacks the lighter touch of the previous work. Luckily, it's shorter than no. 1, with only three movements.

The gem of this album, though, is Sinding's Third Symphony. There's a very positive energy throughout, but especially in the fine first movement. The fourth movement finale is a kind of celebratory remix of Wagner's Die Meistersinger; I really enjoyed this! Symphony no. 4, from 1936, is subtitled "Frost and Spring - Rhapsody for Orchestra". It's another appealing piece of music, a tableau of generally optimistic themes, though without any strong sense of structure. 

Sinding is going his own way in his symphonies, more or less heedless of prevailing modernist musical trends, whether neo-classical or more avant garde. His way, to be sure, is on a fairly narrow path set out 50 years earlier by the 19th century German masters, but Sinding always retains his own musical voice.

The main rivals to this new Capriccio disc are two CPO albums from Hannover: Thomas Dausgaard's first two symphonies from 2007, and David Porcelijn's third & fourth symphonies from 2004. Though I prefer these earlier, warmer, interpretations by the slightest of margins, the rather drier and cooler Norwegian versions often suit Sinding's music. With clear and lifelike sound from Capriccio, this album is warmly recommended, for three of four symphonies at least.

This album will be released on February 7, 2025.

From intimate to cinematic, in the composer's authentic voice

C. P. E. Bach: Sacred Choral Music

Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach was not an actual time traveler, though you might think so when you hear music from this 5-CD set that provides music sounding as if it came from different times in the 18th century. Capriccio has put together recordings going back to the mid-1980s from Hermann Max's Rheinische Kantorei and Das Kleine Konzert, filled in with a 2002 recording of the Magnificat by Michael Schneider's Dresdner Kammerchor and La Stagione Frankfurt. Here are the works included:

When I began listening to this music I admit to wondering how much of a slog it might be. Instead it was a case of one felicitous movement after another; not every bit, to be sure, but CPE was hitting at a pretty high rate! Not all this music has the energy and forward movement of the famous Gloria from the Magnificat, but the composer is often nearly as much a master of the intimate aria and the erudite fugue as his father. The Magnificat itself was written in 1749, early enough for Johann Sebastian to hear it before he died the next year. There are striking similarities with the work J.S. Bach wrote 25 years earlier, but sections sounding more like Mozart and Haydn as well. This isn't surprising considering that CPE tinkered with this work until the 1786, just before his death.

The best work here, I think, is Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Jesu (The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus), written in 1777/78. Though there are echoes of both JS Bach, Telemann and Handel, not to mention much that was reminiscent of Haydn, after three discs of his sacred music I was beginning to get a feel for CPE's authentic voice. There's an intimate feeling to so much of his sacred vocal music, but here he's added much more drama. Jeremy Grimshaw talks about CPE Bach's "almost cinematic shifts of mood", though perhaps this is in the more measured style of Paul Thomas Anderson rather than the more obvious Steven Spielberg.

Though no longer at the cutting edge of Historically Informed Performance, these recordings have the more relaxed sound of musicians at ease with their period instruments and singing practice. This is stylishly played and sung, well captured by the WDR engineers, and the entire package is very much recommended. I'll end with praise for the cover design, which features this marvellous photograph of nuns in Rome, by alfonstr (Fotalia).

This disc will be released on April 6, 2018.

A welcome new Martinu Symphonies set

Bohuslav Martinu: Symphonies 1-6

Back in 2011 Rob Barnett ended a review of the complete Martinu symphonies from Jiri Belohlávek and the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the following plea:

The comparative avalanche of Martinů recordings unleashed two years ago around the fiftieth anniversary of the composer’s death has injected fresh life into this part of the catalogue. Too often however these birth/death splurges simply go to underscore longer term neglect – a huge exposure followed by a vertiginous fall back even deeper into obscurity. We must hope that Martinů’s star has a sustainable higher profile. This set shows that his music has all the necessary stamina and allure. 

It took a while, but the appearance of this complete set of six symphonies on three CDs, recorded live in Vienna from 2011 to 2017, serves to reinforce the essential importance of Martinu as a 20th century orchestral composer. It's a very fine recording as well, though it doesn't supplant the splended Onyx set of Belohlávek. It has a fine, clear, lifelike sound, with most of the advantages of live recording, a sense of occasion and excitement and a more organic and natural arc to the performance, without too many of the disadvantages. The audience is mainly well-behaved and the applause is edited out. The young German conductor Cornelius Meister impresses most in the more meditative music - I love his brooding ways in the Largo of the 3rd Symphony, and even more in the almost mystical 4th Symphony Largo. But the more rambunctious music - the 1st Symphony Scherzo is a good example - has nowhere near the rocket-ship propulsion of Belohlávek, nor the exuberance of the London musicians. Meister's Scherzo sounds more French than Czech, and it's hard to tell if that's because it's deliberately played in a more ironic, International Style way, or if the more rigorous and authentic Belohlávek brings out the raucous Bohemians in his BBC musicians. Perhaps it's a bit of both. What's clear is that this is serious, substantial music that replays multiple hearings with maximum concentration. I got a lot of pleasure from this set, and plan on keeping it in my regular rotation.

Dramatic, high spirited symphonies

Francois-Joseph Gossec, Symphonies

It's really excellent to have these symphonies back, on this new Capriccio Encore release. Recorded in 2003 by Concerto Köln under Werner Eberhardt, this music sounds fresh and stylish today. And what music it is: those who don't know Gossec's symphonic music are in for a treat. That's especially true of the Symphonie à 17 parties the Belgian composer wrote in 1809, which sounds very much like Haydn's later symphonies but with some splendid theatrical touches. I've always loved this work, since I first heard it on an early 1970s recording with Jacques Houtmann conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique du Liege. Though these stirring works have Revolutionary components with a capital R, they're a bit of a cul de sac musically, as Beethoven's own revolution single-handedly moved the centre of symphonic music from Paris to Vienna. That shouldn't diminish your enjoyment for this dramatic, high-spirited music, played with great flair.

Remembrance restores possibility to the past

Viktor Ullmann: Piano Concerto, Piano Sonata no. 7, Variations

Viktor Ullmann finished his Piano Concerto in Prague in December 1939, nine months after the Nazis had entered Czechoslovakia. By 1942 he was a prisoner in the concentration camp at Theresienstadt, where he was still able to compose, and where in 1994 he wrote his 7th Piano Sonata. But on October 16, 1944, he was moved to Auschwitz-Birkenau and two days later he was murdered. The loss to music was grave; Ullmann was only 46 when he died, and he might have been counted among the great composers of the century given a normal life and lifespan. There is no special pleading needed, since Ullmann's remaining works are of the highest quality, but neither should we forget the horrors from which this music was born. "Remembrance restores possibility to the past," said the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, "making what happened incomplete and completing what never was. Remembrance is neither what happened nor what did not happen but, rather, their potentialization, their becoming possible once again."

The team of pianist Moritz Ernst, the Dortmunder Philharmoniker and conductor Gabriel Feltz provide a vivid, atmospheric reading of the piano concerto, and Ernst's performance of the 7th Piano Sonata is passionate and mournful. The disc is filled out with a piece from happier days: the Variations and Double Fugue on a Theme by Arnold Schönberg, an intricate gem of intellectual, formal beauty.

Here is the second movement Andante tranquillo from the Piano Concerto: partial solace from the looming menace.

A classic presentation of the riches of Bach's sons

This reissue of the Bach Sons album originally released in 1989 is welcome; it's been a favourite of mine over the years. Concerto Köln had only been in existence a few years at that point, and both the repertoire and the style in which it was played was not as mainstream as it has since become. The album represented considerable work in the area of music historical scholarship. Scores came from obscure sources around the world, including, in the case of the D minor Sinfonia of J.C.F. Bach, in the Moravian Church archives in Bethlehem PA. What impresses one the most about this collection is the amazing range of styles included, from the light, galante Sinfonia of "the English Bach", Johann Christian, to the more erudite works of CPE and Wilhelm Friedemann, to the full-on Sturm und Drang power of my favourite Bach son, Johann Christoph Friedrich or JCF. This Andante Amoroso middle movement of his D minor Symphony has an almost Mozartian sound:

The Beethoven concertos with a chamber music flavour

This new 4-CD set from Capriccio consists of a big chunk of Beethoven's greatest music, most of it from his virile middle period. They've gathered a group of talented musicians who are also in their prime: violinist Isabelle Van Keulen, cellist Julian Steckel, and pianist and conductor Stefan Vladar. It was recorded at Vienna's Synchron Stage in December 2015 and February 2016 over a period of only nine days. This schedule provides the music with a feeling of occasion and excitement that usually comes from a live recording, rather than the more controlled vibe of a normal studio recording.


In this excellent Capriccio video Vladar talks about his tendency to focus on the extreme aspects of Beethoven, in recognition of the composer's revolutionary tendencies. But the hallmark of this project, is, I think, a tasteful, collegial, civilized feeling that comes from the relatively small orchestra and the fact that Vladar is playing and conducting at the same time. Vladar talks about the significance of this:

It’s a lot of fun to view the pieces as expanded chamber music rather than as a solo concerto with orchestra. …the orchestral musicians themselves are challenged to display their chamber musical qualities, since they have to organize a lot of things themselves.

The fine playing in the concertos is a sign of the rapport Vladar has built with the Wiener KammerOrchester since he became their music director in 2008. The entire project demonstrates the power of a relaxed and convivial environment - having fun playing music with friends - to elevate good music into something special.

Music from Ginastera's Neo-Expressionist period

The Funkhaus Nalepastraße, or alten Funkhaus, is a former plywood factory that in 1951 was turned into the centre for broadcasting for East Germany. It's a natural place to record music from Alberto Ginastera's third "Neo-Expressionist" phase which began in 1958, influenced as it was by post-war European avant-garde music, with its use of atonality and serial techniques.

The new album from Capriccio, with Arturo Tamayo conducting the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, includes four works from the 1960s and 70s, and includes more advanced music of Ginastera's than you're likely to hear anywhere else, even in his Centennial year. It's true that 2016 brought some welcome new discs, but orchestral music on disc and in concert in 2016 focusses, as one would expect, on the his Nationalist works written before 1958. This is for the most part uncompromising music, but beautifully crafted and played with precision and passion by this fine orchestra. 

It's interesting to compare the arc of Ginastera's career with that of Villa-Lobos. Villa's modernist phase came relatively early, following his exposure to the music of Stravinsky and Debussy. His most avant-garde works, especially the Choros series of the 1920s, were followed in the 30s and 40s by a more popular Nationalist phase, which resulted in the Bachianas Brasileiras. Ginastera, on the contrary, moved nearly entirely from folkloric inspiration towards abstraction and systematic explorations in the post-war international style.

That's the theory, in any case. Occasionally the rhythms of Argentina come through in this late music, as in, for example, the finale of the very fine Concerto for Strings, written for Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1965.  Going a bit against the grain, again, is the Glosses on Themes of Pablo Casals for String Orchestra and String Quintet, Op. 46, which was written, oddly enough, for the 1976 American Bicentennial. This is a moving celebration of Casals and his Catalan homeland (which was shared with Ginastera's forebears), and there are folkloric connections galore here, along with quotations from Bach (how Villa-Lobosian!), though with plenty of more modern interpolations as well. The other works aren't always austere and doctrinaire, either. Iubilum, written as a Louisville commission in 1979, is brooding but not always that adventurous in terms of tonality or structure. I expect, though, that it's hard to write a 12-tone Fanfare. The new recording easily outclasses the original Louisville one, conducted by Akira Endo.

The most evolved music on the disc is in the Estudios sinfonicos from 1967, which seems to be a recording premiere. I've only seen one reference to any other recording: a limited edition tape made for the Recording Guarantee Project, American International Music Fund, of the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. This was a broadcast of the Boston Symphony under Julius Redel, from Symphony Hall on Apr. 12-13, 1968, the American premiere. Here is a portion of the score (from the Boosey & Hawkes site), which indicates the relative complexity of this music.  It will take me a few more listens before I know exactly what I think of this piece, but I suspect it may be a masterpiece. In any case, this is a valuable issue, and it will be a reference recording for this music, I expect, for a long time to come.

While we're talking about Ginastera's orchestral music, we have less than a month to listen to yesterday's Prom 24 from the Royal Albert Hall. Juanjo Mena conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Ollantay, from 1947. This is fabulous music, and a bit easier on the ears!

Popular and modernist songs from Brazil

I somehow missed this superb CD of Brazilian songs by Cristiane Roncaglio when it was released a couple of years ago. It includes outstanding interpretations of some of Tom Jobim's best songs, and a fine version of Ary Barrosso's sui generis Aquarela do Brasil. On the Villa-Lobos side, it's nice to hear three songs from Villa's late work Floresta do Amazonas. Veleiro, Cair de Tarde and especially Cancao do Amor are so popular in Brazil, but aren't heard here as often as they should be. But it's three songs from around 1920 that really stand out for me. Solidão (Solitude) and Novelozinho de linha, from the song collection Historietas, and Epigramma, from the collection Epigrammas Ironicas E Sentimentais, are completely in the modernist style of Satie, Debussy and Ravel, though they were all written before Villa's first trip to Paris later that decade. Villa-Lobos felt strongly enough about Solidão to include it in the program for 1922's famous Semana de Arte Moderna in Sao Paulo, the showcase for avant garde Brazilian art that focussed, on the music side, almost exclusively on Villa-Lobos. The shocked response from the audience, so similar to the near riots modernist composers were encountering in Europe, must have demonstrated to Villa-Lobos that he was on the right track!

Songs by Waldemar Henrique, Baden Powell, Miranda, Santoro and Belchior round out a fabulous collection with plenty of variety in style, rhythm and texture (with excellent guitar and piano accompaniment by Andre Bayer and Cristian Peix). Cristiane Roncaglio's very strong voice fits both the popular and more erudite music perfectly; there's no "slumming" here, or awkwardness, as there sometime is when the operatic voice leaves the formal stage in favour of the smoke-filled nightclub. To be fair, it's easier to do this in Brazilian music, where the lines between the two styles are so blurred. In this album Cristiane Roncaglio and her colleagues hit the mark perfectly everytime.