Keep CPE Weird

CPE Bach: Piano Concertos

This has been an exceptionally interesting early NFL season when it comes to quarterbacks. With the rise of the gifted young Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes, we're hearing a lot about the rare quarterback who can work within a "system" drawn up by the coaching staff, but also have great results improvising when things break down. Which brings me to CPE Bach, the Aaron Rodgers of 18th century composers. A dutiful son to Johann Sebastian when his father was still alive, Carl Philip Emmanuel tended more often than not to go off in interesting directions when writing his own works. His knowledge of music from before and during his father's time was profound, so he could play well from inside the pocket, as it were. But as one of art's gifted eccentrics, like Gesualdo, Caravaggio, James Joyce and Werner Herzog, CPE Bach often went his own way, pulling the music of his time along with him.

More than half of these keyboard concertos are in minor keys, and all exhibit to a some degree Empfindsamkeit, which is more or less "Sensibility," used Jane Austen-style. In many ways this "sensitive" and "sentimental" style prefigures Romanticism, starting a line which goes through Haydn and Mozart's minor key symphonies, sonatas, concertos and opera arias, to Schumann and Chopin. Every year or two since 2010 Hännsler Classics has released the individual discs in pianist Michael Rische's cycle, but it's so nice to have this four CD set of the collected works. These are highly characterized performances, played on a modern instrument that highlights the composer's forward-looking style. My admiration for this particular Bach Son has never been higher!

This disc will be released on November 8, 2019

Unstylish Big Band Handel

Handel: Concerti Grossi, op. 3

"The fetish of the 'original instrument' has had its day," says conductor Reinhard Goebel, "but not the profoundly trained professional who guides an orchestra into the deeper dimensions of the composition." I certainly don't buy the premise of the first part of his quote, and can only agree to the rest with the proviso that style is as important as musicianship when bridging the gap between the 18th century and the 21st. Unfortunately, Goebel's Handel is often less than stylish, his tempi sometimes sluggish and his point of view more Romantic than Baroque. I'm certainly on-board with Goebel's augmentation of the orchestra, which is well-documented; having recently read Jane Glover's Handel in London, it's clear that the composer was completely focussed on the most impressive display his music could create in the moment, regardless of his original conceptions. But I miss the verve and bite of the best original instruments performances: I recommend Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre, or Richard Egarr and the Academy of Ancient Music, but not, unfortunately, this new disc.

Grief and consolation and branding

Lichtwechsel: Mendelssohn String Quartet no. 6; Purcell Fantasias 6, 8, 10, 11

Part of the pleasure of listening to string quartet music is the feeling that you're eavesdropping on a  private conversation, observing group dynamics at work, and becoming part of a process that reaches far into the past but, conceivably, also well into the future. For their debut recording, the young musicians of the Alinde Quartett chose Mendelssohn's final quartet, a dark portrait of raw grief over the death of his sister Fanny's death. To change things up, they looked for "a light-hearted contrast", and came up with some lovely, clear and bright Fantasies that Purcell wrote originally for a consort of viols. Hence the title: "Lichtwechsel" = "Change of Light". This is by no means light as in cheerful or happy-go-lucky, but more the civilized Enlightenment that is best expressed in music from Purcell to Haydn through the reasoned conversations of chamber music. I think it might be a kind for search for answers - or at any rate some kind of humanistic consolation - after the emotional voyage the group took on delving into the Mendelssohn. The Alinde musicians, by the way, are careful in their musicology; they consulted with Professor of Baroque Violin Richard Gwilt about playing music for viols with a modern string quartet.

The process becomes clearer in this fine video from B-art films, as well as the excellent liner notes (and fine photos by Kuber Shah). We have here four sensitive, fine musicians, who are following - and developing - a narrative that will become their first CD. At the same time, they're beginning to build the musical & interpersonal skills that turns two violinists, a violist and cellist into a quartet - and a brand. I think there's a very good chance that they're building something really special.





I mentioned Kuber Shah's CD cover photograph; here, from the Alinde Quartett's website, is the original, very fine photograph from which it was cropped.

Measured and precise Brahms

Johannes Brahms: String Quartets, Quintets, Sextets

Hanssler has re-packaged the Verdi Quartett's Brahms chamber music, released on four individual CDs in the first decade of the 2000s, into a set that represents excellent value. The performances are for the most part at a very high level, with admirable intonation and coherence. If I had a quibble, it would be that the more controlled, classical approach of the group occasionally results in a loss of emotional content. The lower temperature actually worked out well in the current case, though, since I don't think I could have listened to five hours of Brahms played by musicians wearing their hearts on their sleeves. And turning things up to 11 in this music presents the very real danger of moving into sentimentality and kitsch. That's not the case here; everything is measured and sometimes the tiniest bit careful.

The guests are as excellent as the group itself: in the String Quintets we have violist Hermann Voss, with cellist Peter Buck added for the Sextets. Finally, there's Francois Benda playing beautifully in the Clarinet Quintet. The recording is bright and clear, which only emphasizes the precision of the playing.

This album will be released on April 20, 2018.

An excellent recording, but short measure

From October 12, 2013:

Constanze Muller tells the fascinating story of Krzystof Penderecki's Piano Concerto in the CD liner of this new Hanssler CD from Polish Radio. It's something of a soap opera, and as happens so often in that genre, a similar story has played out many times before.

The reaction to the premiere of the work that Penderecki wrote in response to the events of September 11, 2001 began a critical and polemic firestorm that took years to subside. Once the darling of the avant-garde, the composer was criticized in the strongest terms for bringing back Social Realism to the music of Eastern Europe. True believers so often see as a sell-out the artist with a career longer than a couple of years and any kind of growth and development. Villa-Lobos was skewered by modernists in Brazil for moving to a more accessible and populist style. Many of Bob Dylan's fans were scandalized by his use of electric guitars. Some of this is perhaps just hipsterism: "I liked Penderecki better when he was remembering the Hiroshima victims in his 1960 Threnody. Much more authentic!"

There is a whiff of banality in the Piano Concerto, if one takes it all at face value. But surely Shostakovich has shown that every large-scale work with a political subtext can not be judged only by the obvious outer layer. That the work has a number of layers is clear after a couple of listens.

This recording, with pianist Florian Uhlig and Lukasz Borowicz conducting the Polish RSO, came out only months after the early 2013 release of a very well-received Naxos CD that features pianist Barry Douglas, who premiered the 2007 version of the Piano Concerto. That CD included a second work, the Flute Concerto. At less than 38 minutes, the Hanssler disc gives short measure. As well-played and well-recorded as the new disc is, I would opt for the Naxos disc, and save some money in the bargain.