Ceol na Sidhe

Khatia Buniatishvili and friends : Schumann Piano Quartet Op 47

2012-03-11T05:34:00.000-07:00

With many thanks to Piero, who uploaded this into the comments on a previous posting, here is a wonderful piece of chamber music making.

The Schumann piano quartet has always languished in the shadow of the phenomenal piano quintet. The quintet just seems to play itself, and its pianistic difficulties (those horrifying rapid octaves, written to show off Clara's technique, for instance) are counterbalanced by the ease of the music itself. It never seems to outlast its welcome, or to lose its way.

The quartet, on the other hand, can easily seem repetitive, yammering in the piano part and curiously under-powered. Part of this has to do with the immense difference between the modern piano and the piano of Schumann's day. Many of the apparent doublings of the string parts by the piano are actually the reverse: the strings are doubling the piano to make sure that the piano line is audible! And the lighter, clearer sound of Schumann's piano (particularly in the bass) meant that those endless repeated chords bounced melodiously. On a modern piano, they have hardly time to establish the basic sound before they are cut off.

All of this makes the work really hard to bring off. And so, when Piero uploaded this performance, my hair stood on end. Just listen to the music making! The breathtaking clarity of Buniatishvili's playing is a key ingredient to the success. She creates feather-light textures that have a bell-like clarity without the faintest sense of the tone being muzzled. And this allows the energy and drive of her fellow-musicians to shine through. And what musicians! I couldn't get a shot of them all together, so I put a photo of each musician in each of the movements, and I have used a well-known shot of Robert and Clara for the posting.

This is chamber music of the highest order. If you ever had doubts about the Schumann quartet, abandon them here.

Incidentally, the Schumann's are pictured at a gate piano. The gate piano was so called because the whole action – keyboard, hammers, dampers, the lot – hinged outwards like a gate, allowing you to work on it very easily. When you close it, a long rod goes right down through it, holding it in place. I played on a piano like this one, beautifully restored, many years ago, at the home of Cathal Gannon, a wonderfully eccentric Irishman who built harpsichords and restored old pianos.

Schumann: Piano Quartet Op 47
Boris Brovtsyn (violin), Julian Rachlin [viola] Boris Andrianov [cello] Khatia Buniatishvili [piano]. Recorded 2009-12-28 in Vredenburg, Utrecht. 256 kbs.

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Alina Ibragimova in Bach, Biber and Vivalidi

2012-03-04T08:55:00.000-08:00

I really am going to get my leg pulled about this one by BOOM, who already refers to this blog as my 'shrine to the lovely Alina'. But I couldn't resist it. Ill as I was last night, I got up to listen to this concert, and enjoyed it so much I listened to the whole thing again, with a glass or two of wine for company.

It is causing me to have misgivings about the violin though. Is it possible that there's an ugly woman out there who plays the violin well? If so, why hasn't she got a recording contract?

In this concert, Ibragimova swaps her usual violin for a baroque Amati. The Biber pieces, in particular, are a revelation. The astonishing

Passacaglia starts from almost nothing and builds up in a hypnotic thread of utter concentration. I've known the Battalia for years, thanks to an ancient Archiv recording, and it still delights me in its inventiveness. In the course of it, the strings imitate the sounds of battle, drunken soldiers singing in different keys, and lamentation.

As a director, Ibragimova goes for dangerous speeds at times, but nothing the AAM can't handle. She's joined by Rodolfo Richter and Joseph Crouch in the Vivaldi Op 3 and by harpsichordist Alastair Ross in the sonata.

Biber - Passacaglia in G minor from the Mystery/Rosary Sonatas
Bach - Sonata for violin and harpsichord in E major, BWV 1016
Bach - Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041
Vivaldi - Violin Concerto in D major, RV 234 (L'inquietudine)
Vivaldi - Concerto for two violins and cello in D major, Op. 3 no. 11 (RV 565)
Biber - Battalia
Bach - Violin Concerto in E major, BWV 1042.

Alina Ibragimova (violin and direction), Academy of Ancient Music
Assembly Rooms in Ludlow, 3rd March 2012

Radio 3 HD Internet Stream, normalised, tracked and tagged

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Yulianna Avdeeva : Recital from the 66th International Chopin Festival

2012-02-28T13:30:00.000-08:00

Here she is again, in great sound and in great form! Not pretty, this playing, at least not in the conventional sense. The nocturnes take place in a sort of darkness that is low on moonbeams, and the opening sonorities of the hungarian rhapsody are arrestingly bleak. In fact, as a person who cannot stand the idiot antics of Liszt's piano writing, I have to confess to being fascinated by this selection of his darker works.

Having heard Ingolf Wunder (joint second with Lukas Geniusas) and the noteworthy Hélène Tysman who didn't make the prizes, I still think Avdeeva comes out on top. Wunder has superb tone and musicianship, but Avdeeva manages to come up with a personal chemistry that is fascinating because it doesn't seem to impose itself on the music but to come up with things you don't normally hear.

Enjoy.

Yulianna Avdeeva : Recital from the 66th International Chopin Festival, Duszniki
Zdrój, 2011.

Chopin:
2 Nocturnes for piano (Op.62)
Scherzo for piano no. 1 (Op.20) in B minor
4 Mazurkas for piano (Op.33)
Yulianna Adeeva (piano)
Polonaise-fantasy for piano (Op.61) in A flat major

Liszt:
La Lugubre gondola for piano (S.200)
Nuages gris for piano (S.199)
Bagatelle without tonality for piano (S.216a)
No.17 from 19 Hungarian rhapsodies for piano (S.244)

Wagner (Transc. Liszt)
Tannhauser - Overture

Encores
Tchaikovsky:
Meditation (Op. 72 no. 5)

Chopin:
Waltz for piano (Op.42) in A flat major
Mazurka (Op.67 no.4) in A minor

Excellent sound, and a very good piano.

BBC Radio 3 HD internet stream, tracked, tagged, normalised
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The Belcea Quartet play Beethoven Op 18/2, 59/2 and 131

2012-02-08T14:06:00.000-08:00

Here is is: the eagerly awaited next installment of the Belcea quartet's Beethoven series. This one includes the Mount Everest of the chamber music repertoire – the C sharp minor quartet Op 131. And this is live music making, so the quartet has already played the taxing second Rasumovsky quartet. Holding together a work like Op 131 calls on the ensemble to sustain an incredible musical concentration for what must seem like an eternity. And they do it. And you cannot replicate this in a studio. This is live, on air, no retakes possible, so the tension mustn't ever be lost, not even between movements.

And it isn't. This is a quartet on the top of their game, playing what I think is destined to become one of the great Beethoven quartet cycles.

Beethoven:
String Quartet in G Op. 18 No. 2
String Quartet in E minor Op. 59 No. 2 'Razumovsky'
String Quartet in C# minor Op. 131

Wigmore Hall, Broadcast Sunday 5th Feb 2012

Belcea Quartet
BBC3 HD Internet stream, tracked, normalised and tagged

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Alina Ibragimova and Alexei Ogrinchuk – Bach double concerto

2012-02-01T05:09:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Boom for this one. It's getting to the point where anyone who comes across a good recording of Ibragimova sends it to me. Boom refers to my 'growing audio shrine of lovely Alina's concert performances'.

Well, I cannot deny it. It's always a pleasure to hear her play. And this recording is exactly the music for this, the first day of Irish Spring. (Spring starts on the first of February in Ireland. Everyone else has to wait.)

It's a fresh, sparkling performance of the reconstructed Bach double concerto for violin and oboe BWV 1060R. Equal honour to the two soloists, Ibragimova and Ogrinchuk. Indeed, it's wonderful to hear two musicians so well matched in their vision of the music. They are backed by alert, responsive music-making from the Konzerthaus-Hammerorchester Berlin. The whole thing, then, is a delight.

So say Thank you, Boom and download!

Alina Ibragimova, violin
Alexei Ogrinchuk, oboe
Konzerthaus-Kammerorchester Berlin
George Techichinadze
January 21, 2012
Muziekgebouw Frit Philips
Eindhoven,Holland

256 kbs mp3 (no re-encoding)

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Herbert Murrill : Cello Concerto No 2

2012-01-29T04:18:00.000-08:00

I'm not claiming this as a neglected masterpiece, but I am putting it forward as a fine piece of cello music. Murrill is remembered, if at all nowadays, as the composer of an evensong setting that is still commonly sung in Anglican worship. Indeed, I got to know him through my many years of cathedral singing. I had instinctively imagined him as a wrinkly old organist, and this photo of an earnest young man made me realise that old organists were once young too.

Not just that, but I would not have imagined him at work during the war (people my age call World War II "the war") in Bletchley Park, the top-secret intelligence centre that cracked the German and Japanese ciphers and greatly shortened the odds against the allies. In September 1944 ‘Sergeant’ Murrill conducted the Bletchley Park Musical Society in four performances of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Having an eye (and ear) for authenticity, Murrill brought over especially a harpsichord from Cambridge. You can read more about him here.

The second cello concerto is subtitled "El cant dels ocells" in homage to Pau Casals, to whom it is dedicated. It was premièred by Murrill's second wife, Vera Canning, at the London Prom concerts in August 1951.

It's fair to say that it is a work that does not plumb the depths, but instead spreads a picnic tablecloth on the grass and enjoys the birdsong. Raphael Walllfisch does the work proud, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the idiomatic baton of Tod (Vernon) Handley.

mp3, 192kbs

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Jan Lisiecki at Verbier, 2011

2012-01-28T07:31:00.000-08:00

That (very) young man is Jan Lisiecki, a Canadian pianist and an outstanding one, if I may say so. He first caught my eye when I bought his Chopin piano concertos. My enjoyment was only slightly marred to find that the final movement of one of the concertos was missing on iTunes. I wrote to him to alert him, and, to my surprise, received a link to a temporary 'replacement' track, recorded live, which, in turn lead to a brief exchange of emails on the subject of signing up with DG and retaining some sort of artistic control. He was pretty adamant that he would.

I was delighted, then, to come across this recital at the Verbier festival. The recording is at least fourth hand, having been at least as far East as Bulgaria, and having ended up being tagged in cyrillic! Aside from re-tagging it in European script, I've had no role. It's a very decent recording at about 150kbs VBR.

And the playing? An antidote to the antics of many of the monkeys of the keyboard of the present day. He even makes Liszt sound bearable (it seems almost impossible to play Liszt without seeming utterly idiotic and vulgar – only Arrau managed it consistently). His Chopin studies are the music without the antics, and his thoughtful Beethoven Op 78 is an interesting approach to a sonata that baffles many pianists by its sheer simplicity. In fact, throughout the recital I found myself simply immersed in the music, almost forgetting to be grateful to Lisiecki for making it so.

Bach: Prelude and Fugue in F sharp minor BWV 883
Beethoven : Sonata in F sharp number 24 in C major. Cit. 78 Liszt
Concert Studies .S 144
Il Lamento
La Leggierezza
Un Sospiro
Mendelson-Bartholdy : Variations Serieuses Op 54
Bach : Prelude and Fugue in F minor BWV 857 Chopin : Etudes Op 25Valse Op 64/1
Nocturne Op Posth

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Suk : Mass in B flat major, 'Krecovicka'

2012-01-25T13:44:00.000-08:00

The teenage Josef Suk made his one and only foray into the realm of religious music with this short mass. You will not hear the composer of Asrael here, but you will hear a young, talented composer, brimming with ideas.

The work abounds in happy detail, notably a remarkable timpani part and occasional telling interventions from the organ loft.

The same forces subsequently recorded this work - see link in the comments - and if the remaining works on the CD are on a par with this committed and energetic performance, I'll be delighted I ordered it.

Marie Matejkova,
Ilona Satylova,
Jiri Vinklarek,
Michael Mergl,
Czech Radio Choir,
Pilzen Radio Orchestra,
Stanislaw Begunia

BBC Radio 3 internet HD stream, tracked and tagged

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Paul Baumgartner live at Lugano 1964

2012-01-14T04:45:00.000-08:00

A bit of a rarity here. The discography of the Swiss pianist Paul Baumgartner (21 July 1903 – 19 October 1976) is pretty sparse. And, indeed, so are biographical details (I know, I wrote most of the tiny Wikipedia entry). His pupils included Alfred Brendel, and the very-underrated Karl Engel, who recorded one of the finest Mozart concerto cycles I know.

As you might expect, the playing is insightful, and the selection of music is certainly not run-of-the mill. In 1964 you didn't hear Masques or Brahms Op 117 routinely programmed. The playing is also remarkable for its refusal to resort to grand gesture – listening to the Brahms, the little nuances of rubato seem to come from inside the music rather than outside, if that makes any sense. It is rubato that helps each note to find its rightful place in the flow of the music, rather than rubato that gives a customised colour to each phrase. The opening of the Andante Favori seems, well, matter of fact, but listen to the second statement of the theme – he was holding back something, wasn't he? And the Brahms Op 117/1 – less instant atmosphere than you or I might like, but by the time the last chords arrive you realise that the effect he has been working towards is the effect of the whole piece, not the notes.

But first and foremost, this upload is a tribute to all the touring pianists who played at the Royal Dublin Society in the fifties and sixties. My mother would take me along. Sure, I got to hear some household names – Arrau, Vasary – but many of the pianists were the traveling recitalists of yesteryear – Jacques Klein, for example, was a regular visitor. Who? — Exactly. A whole tradition pretty much gone. (Klein was a Brazilian, and although I cannot find any recordings, I think he was pretty good – at least my childhood self thought so.)

Beethoven : Piano Sonata Op 27/2, Andante Favori
Brahms : 3 Intermezzi Op 117
Debussy : Images Book I, Masques
Chopin : Ballade No 4
Schubert : Moment Musical Op 94/6
Chopin : Waltz Op 70/3
Recorded 17 Feb 1964

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Victoria : Requiem - The Tallis Scholars

2012-01-07T16:08:00.000-08:00

Last year was the 400th anniversary of the death of Tomás Luis de Victoria, and it brought with it some fascinating insights into the composer's vast output. I hadn't appreciated how the developments of the baroque influenced him – he tends to be portrayed as the last composer of the Spanish golden age, a Bach-like figure whose work was the final great expression of renaissance ideals. Far from it! The man was clearly in touch with all the latest developments. I've been savouring a 10-CD box of his work from the Ensemble Ne Plus Ultra. Highly recommended!

Meanwhile, here is the Victoria we have all come to know and love: the six-voice Requiem, in a live performance by the Tallis Scholars from the 2011 Prom concerts. The requiem was composed in 1603 for the funeral rites of the Dowager Empress Maria, sister of Philip II of Spain, in whose entourage Victoria had spent several decades as a composer. It is often portrayed as a valedictory work, a final monument to the ideals of the renaissance, but frankly I think that the clear textures and highly expressive harmonies owe at least as much to the baroque æsthetic as they do to the traditions of the older generation.

My own favorite movement is the Versa est in luctum - a movement that builds up, wave upon wave of grief – My harp is tuned for lamentation and my organ into the voice of those who weep – until it finally reaches a shattering climax on the words Spare me Lord, for my days are as nothing. It is impossible, as it is with Lassus' 5-voice requiem, not to believe that this is a profound personal statement of grief.

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Schumann : Symphonic Studies - Ingrid Fliter

2012-01-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

A pianist that is neither without admirers nor detractors – I've heard some rather scathing things said about her Chopin waltzes in particular. Here's a chance to put her to the test in a work that defies the pianist to string together its many gems into a coherent necklace. Local colour and inspiration are just not enough; a sense of the big picture is needed too.

I think she holds the work together well, but see what you think!

Radio 3 HD internet stream.

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Beethoven : Hammerklavier - Sokolov 1975

2011-12-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

A wonderful diatribe by Boom against the Austrian pianist Till Fellner sparked off this upload. Fellner said, in an interview "Life is too short to play Rachmaninoff or drink bad wine." to which Boom, in his typical understated fashion, replied "life is not too short for him, Till Fellner, to spend on playing meticulously planned, immaculately executed, and incomparably faceless all-Beethoven recitals season after season." You can read the full blog entry here.

Anyway, I find myself listening to the Mount Everest of pianism - the Hammerklavier. I have a recording by Richter in Prague that has me on the edge of my seat, and a live version by Brendel that I relish because he conducts you through the music as if it were a personal guided tour of his castle. In the past few days I've listened to Martina Filjak, a pianist full of ideas and the technique to bring them off, and to Valentina Lisitsa. What can I say about Lisitsa? A sort of musical Lang Lang - total technique, but also a grasp of the large scale that makes her readings fascinating, if not always easy listening. Her fugue, for example, takes less than eleven minutes, and has an almost nightmarish lucidity that can only be produced by a technique that you got from the devil in exchange for the souls of your children.

And here is another oddity: Sokolov. Love him or hate him, he's got his own ideas. It's the longest slow movement on record, as far as I know - nearly 24 minutes!! - but somehow he manages to maintain a fascination almost unbroken throughout.

The recording's an oddity too: it's apparently from an LP of a live performance in 1975, but there's no applause or audience noise. Looking at the waveforms between movements, they could have resulted from the audience noise being faded to zero, but could equally well just be track breaks.

One way or the other, this recording has something of a cult status. I leave it to the reader to judge if the status be deserved or no.

mp3 192 kbs

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Mahler : Das Lied von der Erde - the legendary Merriman/Haefliger/Von Beinum one

2011-12-24T03:03:00.000-08:00

I am not sure that I have the story utterly correct here, and doubtless someone will put me right if I err.

Van Beinum recorded Das Lied for Philips in 1957, shortly before his death. However, the recording had not been approved for release by him and so (apparently) it remained unissued until the late 1960s when it was briefly available on LP. For his singers, van Beinum had the incomparable Nan Merriman and Ernst Haefliger. These two were to re-record Das Lied only about a year later, this time for DG and in stereo. The DG recording has been highly regarded ever since, but for my money this is one of the finest recordings of Das Lied ever.

Let's face it, the whole work hinges around the ability of conductor and alto to sustain the vast final movement, and it is here that Merriman shows herself to be not just a fine singer but – far more important – an incomparable musician. There are times where Mahler pushes the voice to do things that it cannot do beautifully – like the inexorable downward line at 'Die Schönheit dieses Abends zu genießen' – and it is here that Merriman makes it clear that she isn't there to be pretty, she is there to throw her entire resources behind the music. Maybe no-one can sing that line beautifully, but Merriman sings it with such fierce focus as to be almost terrifying.

And that's just one moment of a performance that is marked, throughout, by utter integrity from everyone. A treasure, in short.

I am grateful to Maria (happy Christmas, my dear!) for making this available as a lossless transfer, and permitting me to share it.

And thank you to an anonymous comment for more detail on the subsequent history of the recording.

Mahler : Das Lied von der Erde - Ernst Haefliger, Nan Merriman, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Eduard Van Beinum, 1957

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Beethoven : Two late quartets - Belcea Quartet

2011-12-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

Here you are: a Christmas present for the Belcea Quartet fans who have placed countless comments on the blog pages (two, actually – I just counted them) asking for Belcea Quartet late Beethoven.

The monumental E flat quartet (like a string quartet, only bigger) and the mysterious B flat. I love the way that when you think the last movement of the E flat must surely be about to finish, there is a sound like everything beginning to grow again after the Winter, and a joyous coda erupts.

I hadn't realised until recently, but Beethoven originally conceived the B flat in the form of a divertimento – hence the peculiar arrangement of the movements. Unfortunately, every single movement grew way out of all æsthetic proportion to the original idea. And this still doesn't help to make sense of the work. Perhaps nothing, other than knowing every note of it, helps.

Quartet in B flat Op 130
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Quartet in E flat Op 127
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Beethoven : "Harp" and "Serioso" quartets – Belcea Quartet

2011-12-14T06:22:00.000-08:00

The Belcea quartet go from strength to strength. Something seems to have happened to them in the last few years that has caused both a remarkable deepening of their interpretations and the development of a very characteristic quartet sound. One of the most striking features of the sound is the dynamic range that they span, running from a whisper that is always articulate to a full-throated fortissimo that is still rich and full in its tone.

But the interpretations are what arrested me. I first came across them from their live Bartók quartet performances, and was on the edge of my seat throughout.

Now they are embarking on a complete Beethoven quartet cycle, and luckily for us they are performing the quartets in concert extensively before they commit them to the studio.

Just this week, the news broke that EMI (Every Mistake Imaginable) has abandoned their Beethoven quartet project, following its takeover by some vast music holding company called Engulf and Devour, or All Your Copyrights Are Belong To Us or some such.

The good news is that the Beethoven cycle will instead appear on the ZigZag label, which will mean that the quartet will have the benefit of committed engineers, producers and designers, and will have the creative freedom that you get from a small company run by zealots. I'm delighted, and the quartet cycle is on my shopping list whenever it appears!

In the meantime, I am hoping to make a few converts to the Belcea cause. Here they are in two of Beethoven's middle quartets: the Harp (Op 74) and the Serioso (Op 95). Both were recorded at Wigmore hall concerts this year. If this doesn't completely convince you, I'm going to have to upload two late quartets as well. In fact, I should do that anyway.

Recorded from BBC Radio 3 high-resolution internet stream (320 kbs)

Quartet Op 74 from Mediafire
Quartet Op 95 from Mediafire

Mendelssohn : Violin Concerto - Ibragimova

2011-12-13T07:30:00.000-08:00

This is by special request of PdA, who kindly gave me the precise details of the concert.

And now, by golly, I'm going to have to start posting performances by someone else or this blog will turn into Ibragimova's unofficial fan site.

Mendelssohn : Violin Concerto in E minor
Alina Ibragimova, Radio Kamer Filharmonie, Philippe Herreweghe
Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht - 9 december 2011

192 kbs from Dutch Radio 4 stream - good sound

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Mozart : Quintet in G minor K 516 - Leipzig quartet

2011-12-06T03:53:00.000-08:00

Here it is: the second instalment of the Leipzig Quartet's Mozart quintets. This is a work I've known all my life, it seems to me. Fifty years certainly. As a teenager, I loved the sweet sadness of the slow movement, but I could never adjust to the way the last movement started with a tragic introduction and then, like a butterfly emerging, took off in a lilting, whistlable melody. How could he finish such a tragic work like this?

I now look forward to that moment, when the rondo takes wing in G major. The disquiet and doubt hasn't gone away, but we are leaving it far below. The truly wonderful property of this quintet is the solace that it brings.

And these, I assure you, are really fine performances. The Leipzig Quartet is joined by the violist Hartmut Rode in these 2006 radio recordings, captured losslessly by a friend of Don, who is the original uploader, and with whose permission I have re-upped the files.

m4a lossless files (>725 kbs) tracked and tagged

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Shostakovich : Violin concerto no 1 - Ibragimova

2011-12-06T03:13:00.000-08:00

I hadn't meant to upload this – I still haven't put up the second Mozart quintet with the Leipzigers, but I recorded this from the BBC internet stream and really you have to hear it. I know I do a disproportionate amount of publicity for Alina Ibragimova, but she does a disproportionate amount for my mental health.

I still recall the first time I heard this concerto. Ida Haendel played it on the proms, and I taped it from my uncertain radio 3 signal, hoping, as usual, that the reception would hold out. I still recall the shock of hearing her end the first movement, how she gradually drained all color from the sound, and flicked the last note of the first movement upwards into a haunted harmonic.

Sorry. I'm going on about a recording I no longer have! This one does the same sort of tonal magic, though. Ibragimova catches the unsentimental mood of the music perfectly. There is the sense that this work is about something too important to trivialise into virtuosity.

And the recording is splendid - BBCs new high-quality stream is a constant companion these days, despite the sad trivialisation of Radio 3.

mp3 320kbs, tracked and tagged, with a photo of Ms Ibragimova

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Mozart quintet K515 - Leipzig Quartet, Hartmut Rode

2011-12-05T03:54:00.000-08:00

I, and a lot of other people, have been listening to the Leipzig quartet's live recordings of the Mozart string quintets with considerable pleasure for the last while. So much so that when the original links apparently disappeared, there was a barrage of emails requesting someone to re-upload them.

With the kind permission of Don, the original uploader, I am posting two of the finest of the quintets, starting today with K515 in C.

K 515 and 516 are an amazing pair of works. 516, the famous G minor, is one of Mozart's most searching works. By comparison, 515, in C major, is more elusive. For sure, the slow movement has a serenity that is breathtaking, but the first movement is all in the soft-spoken dialogue between the violins and the violas. It's art that does nothing to advertise its presence. As the years have gone by, I realise that 515 is one of the works I listen to most often, and there are few occasions in life when it cannot bring solace.

The Leipzig quartet are joined by the violist Hartmut Rode in this beautiful concert recording, captured losslessly from German radio. The files are apple lossless.

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Alina Ibragimova – French violin sonatas with Cedric Tiberghien

2011-11-28T08:01:00.000-08:00

A big thank you to fellow blogger Boom for this recital!

Ibragimova is Cedric Tiberghien in a programme of french violin sonatas: the Debussy and Ravel, together with the sonata by Lekeu, a promising pupil of César Franck who died tragically young.

As usual, Ibragimova's playing is unfailingly idiomatic and Tiberghien is a sympathetic partner. The more I hear of this young women, the more in awe of her I am. Is there something she doesn't excel at?

The concert was recorded at the Concertgebouw on the 25th of September last.

mp3, 256 kbs, tracked and tagged

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Nicola Benedetti plays Brahms and Beethoven

2011-10-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

I spend a recent weekend in Termonfechin, a sleepy village in Louth, where twice a year a whole slew of people go to play chamber music. I was playing Brahms (the third piano quartet). Our violinist was amazed that I didn't know of Nicola Benedetti, though I discovered she hadn't heard Alina Ibragimova or Amandine Beyer, so everyone came away with something to discover.

I think I had been put off Nicola Benedetti by the pouffy-lipped publicity photos that you see everywhere, making her look like a soviet supermodel. I have been listening to her playing, though, and have to admit that once again I let myself be fooled by the idiots in the publicity department.

It's a sweet, warm sound and a wonderful way of responding to the music that is close to the singer's art. People often think of cantabile as meaning seamless playing, but when you listen to singers you realise that the vowels are separated and shaped by consonants – tiny breaks that convey much of the meaning. Listen to her playing and you'll see what I mean. It's more about the attack and release of the notes than the beautiful tone in the centre.

And to decorate this posting, I've managed to find a great photo that shows Benedetti as a real, actual person, with a very ordinary Alexei Grynyuk slouching at the piano beside her. It's when the playing starts that you are suddenly aware of the magic.

And as a postscript, I have to add that I smiled when I heard the Brahms. Miriam, the violinist who recommended Benedetti to me, plays just like that though with, for me, a slightly darker vision. Thanks Miriam!

Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 7 in C minor Op. 30 No. 2
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G major Op. 78

Nicola Benedetti, Alexei Grynyuk (Piano)
Wigmore Hall, 10 Oct 2011

m4a 320kbs VBR

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Alina Ibragimova – Beethoven Violin Concerto

2011-09-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

In response to a plea from an Ibragimova fan, here she is, in the Beethoven concerto, with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. The recording dates from 2009, but I have no further details.

It's in mp3 at 192kbs, in good radio sound. What can I say about her that I haven't said before? She's a heck of a musician.

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Rediscovery – a treasure trove of old recordings

2011-09-11T12:46:00.000-07:00

My childhood was greatly enriched by those wonderful budget recordings my parents bought in the local supermarket, and, when I got a job at nights in a pub, a sizeable chunk of my spare cash went on them too.

Some of the artists were more famous names working under pseudonyms, but more were honest-to-goodness working musicians who may not have been glitzy, but who turned in a musical and professional performance.

The wonderful people at Rediscovery lovingly remaster these old recordings, often from reel-to-reel tape. They make their polished products available for a mere five bucks an album to download, and furthermore they make a whole slew of recordings available for free – their paperback classics section. The paperback classics are recordings they tried to refurbish but that didn't meet their rather high standards!

So head off, dear reader, to Rediscovery and check out their catalogue.

Of course, you can ram-raid their Paperback section, but spend a few bucks on their commercial restorations too. Encourage them. They are crazy!

Don't forget to try Fou Ts'ong playing Mozart concertos. It's free – and splendid playing!

Schubert String Quintet – Alina Ibragimova and friends

2011-08-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

I am really interested by anything that Alina Ibragimova does. I've got a wonderful recording of her doing the Beethoven concerto, riding a wave of big, warm tone, and recordings of her doing Bach unaccompanied, challenging the violin in all sorts of risky ways. She's a person who seems to be constantly exploring the possibilities of the music.

She's a really good chamber musician too – something I appreciate. I play chamber music, and you can tell a lot about a musician by the way they interact musically with others in a chamber setting. And I really like this photo of her too – looking like a real musician, and not as the advertising people want us to see her, looking like something that escaped from Laboratoire Garnier and stole a violin!

I was bowled over by this live recording of the great Schubert Quintet, D956. This is chamber music playing of the highest order. And, of course, one of the summits of classical music.

Many thanks to István for his permission to share this.
Schubert : String Quintet in C major D.956

Alina Ibragimova - first violin
Katalin Kokas - second violin
Maxim Rysanov - viola
Dóra Kokas - first cello
Nicolas Altstaedt - second cello

Recorded on the 13th of August 2011 at Szivárvány Zeneház, Kaposvár, Hungary
FM Broadcast converted to mp3 at 320kbs

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Sergio Fiorentino – Chopin Nocturnes Vol 2

2011-08-17T03:50:00.000-07:00

As promised, volume 2. And the good news is that my source for this one is a CD release from the early 1990s, so I have been able to upload the music as FLAC with a cue sheet.

Fiorentino's playing was one of the formative influences on my childhood. And I was delighted at the stream of recordings he made during his final years. What a pity that his early recordings were made under such poor circumstances – sometimes recording music he had barely had a chance to practice! Still, there is no hint of unease in these Nocturnes, which emerge with a sureness of vision to rival the legendary account of Moravec.

But see what you think!

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Takahiro Sonoda plays the Well Tempered Clavier Book I

2011-08-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

I've already posted Sonoda's Book II and now, dammit, here is book I. The original post has some biographical information.

I love the humour and grace of the photos of Sonoda teaching. These characteristics are in evidence in his playing, too, of course. And you can see that his playing style was formed around his own hands, which are, in his own words, the delicate, maple-leaf-shaped hand of Japanese people.

You can read transcipts of some of his "mini-lectures" by Googling them.

And you can now download his Well Tempered Clavier Book I in mp3 VBR 240k

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Takahiro Sonoda plays the Well Tempered Clavier Book II

2011-08-15T06:25:00.000-07:00

The name of Takahiro Sonoda (1928-2004) is not at all well known outside his native Japan. He was a pupil of the great Leo Sirota, whose teaching in Japan in the thirties and forties kickstarted a distinctive Japanese school of pianism. Lyrical, passionate yet fastidious are the qualities I would pinpoint in Sirota's playing that seem to have been handed down to the succeeding generations.

Sonoda's recordings of Bach well examplify this quality. His own philosophy, preserved in transcripts of his own teaching, is well worth a read if you are interested in pianism. A little quote: Comparing the delicate, maple-leaf-shaped hand of Japanese people with the baseball-glove-shaped hand of foreigners, there's a huge difference between the two as far as the force and weight of the palm are concerned.

These recordings are very scarce. The CDs have disappeared these many years – sadly, because this is pianism of a high order indeed. My transfers are in mp3, VBR at about 240k. The recordings are from the 1990s, and sound very well indeed.

If there's interest, I can put up Book I, which contains a C sharp minor fugue of uncommon intensity.

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Nikita Magaloff – Scriabin Etudes

2011-08-12T06:58:00.000-07:00

Magaloff's late recordings were a revelation to those who knew him as the elegant and stylish pianist who was the first person to record all the Chopin piano works. In his last years, he took risks, and allowed the style he learned in pre-revolutionary Russia to break through the polished surface that Isidore Philippe had honed for him in 1920s Paris.

Here he is, in a long-vanished Valois recording of the complete Scriabin studies. Piano scores included in the archive, in case you want to try it yourselves at home.

I'm sorry this isn't higher quality, but it is as I got it a number of years ago from a fellow-enthusiast in Spain who seems to have vanished from cyberspace.

1. Etude Op. 2, No. 1
12 Etudes, Op. 8
3 Etudes, Op. 65

Nikita Magaloff, piano

mp3 @ 192 kbs

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Sergio Fiorentino – Chopin Nocturnes Vol 1

2011-08-12T06:50:00.000-07:00

I've been asked for Fiorentino's Chopin Nocturnes, which have been not just unavailable but almost impossible to lay hands on for many years.

The good news is that I have volume 2 on CD, and will be uploading it as FLAC. But the bad news is that my only copy of volume 1 is in mp3 at 192kbs. Nonetheless, the pianism is perfectly clear and, come to think of it, it still sounds better than the original gritty SAGA LP that we had at home!

I loved the comment left by one visitor on Fiorentino's Chopin Waltzes – "It's like hearing Liszt playing Chopin". That's very true, but his readings of the nocturnes reveal a far deeper and more insightful relationship with the music. Together with Magaloff's cycle, they are among the most undervalued interpretations I know. I hope that this posting goes some way to bringing them back to general attention.

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Rachmaninoff Vespers – Polyanski 1986

2011-08-10T05:05:00.000-07:00

The Rach vespers are among my favourite works, and singing or conducting them is one of life's ultimate pleasures. Just listen to the alto lines, for example. Instead of being humdrum fillers-in of textures, the altos are powerhouses: the horn section, not the violas!

And I've always loved this performance in particular. And performance it is – it was recorded live in Smolensk Cathedral in 1986. Polyansky's concentration never wavers, and the USSR Ministry of Culture Chamber Choir sing wonderfully. You can hear them tiring and having to make that exra effort in the final section, where Polyansky lets the tempo simply float timelessly, but by golly they rise to the challenge amazingly.

This old Melodya CD has been out of print for years.

I've ripped it to FLAC with a cue-sheet, and embedded the cover art.

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Brahms : Organ works - Virgil Fox

2011-06-16T05:21:00.000-07:00

This is a tribute to the wonderful blog that Fred runs over at Random Classics. Among the many treasures I've discovered there is this recording of the Brahms chorale preludes Op 122.

Not many people seem to realise that Brahms wrote organ music, and not many recordings of these chorale preludes can be called successful in my opinion. Which was way I was bowled over by Fox's interpretations. For a start, he precedes each prelude with the appropriate chorale, in such a way that Brahms' music flows naturally from the chorale melody. But more than that, Fox creates a sound world from the Hammond Castle organ in Gloucester Massachusetts that captures the mood of the music precisely. He uses endless variations on the reed chorus of the organ to maintain a unified atmosphere, but allow each chorale prelude to take on its own character.

And the playing – meditative and powerful at once, reminding me forcefully of the recordings of Albert Schweitzer.

There's a complicated reason why I ended up doing a small editing job on Fred's original upload, which isn't interesting enough to put here. Suffice it to say that this upload is my small tribute to Fred and his wonderfully eclectic tastes in LPs.

These are Apple Lossless audio files. I'm a Mac person. That's life.

And thank you, Fred!

Download from Mediafire

Takemitsu : Kwaidan sound track

2011-06-16T05:08:00.000-07:00

The 1960s film of a selection of the Japanese Kwaidan (strange tales) has a wonderful score by Toru Takemitsu. The film's credits describe it as 'sound' rather than 'music' and you can see why. Takemitsu produces a score that combines Japanese traditional musical instruments and idioms with very avant garde techniques.

The selection here comes from the late-lamented Avant Garde Project. Ki is the story of a samurai who leaves his wife in poverty to seek his fortune. When he returns, the house is in ruins, but she is there, unchanged, still waiting for him. You can imagine the rest… In Yuki, a young woodcutter meets Yuki Onna, the woman of the snow, while trapped by a violent blizzard. In Japanese folk belief, she is a malevolent spirit who freezes hapless travellers to death, but in this story she falls in love with the woodcutter. Things do not, however, turn out well.

The central panel of Kwaidan is the tale of Hōichi the Earless. Yes, it's gruesome, but it revolves around the restless spirits of the Heike who died in the battle of Dan no Ura. Hoichi is a blind singer and biwa player, and he inadvertently ends up entertaining the Heike with the tale of their own downfall.
Takemitsu's score builds on the traditional recitation of the tale of the Heike, and as a bonus track the upload includes Kinshi Tsurita declaiming the legend of the battle of Dan no Ura. I am amazed at the ability of the biwa and Tsurita's voice to conjure up the images of this legendary event. You will hear arrows whistling through the air, and the desolate voice of the Lady Nii, who, when she realises all is lost, takes the infant emperor in her arms and jumps into the sea. If you've seen the film, you will know what I mean. If you haven't, well, just listen and marvel.

mp3 at 320 kbs

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Happy 70th birthday, Martha Argerich - 1965 Chopin Competition

2011-06-07T03:07:00.000-07:00

Everyone's posting performances by one of the most iconic of pianists. Here are excerpts from her performances at the 1965 Chopin competition, for which I have my old friend Dr John to thank.

Chopin:
Preludes Op 25 Nos 19-24
Etudes Op 10 No 1 and 10
Nocturne in E flat major op. 55 No 2
Barcarolle in F sharp major Op. 60
Scherzo No 3 in C sharp minor Op. 39
Polonaise in A flat major Op. 53

Decent MP3 320kbs

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Fergus Johnston - Piano works, played by Izumi Kimura

2011-05-30T04:49:00.000-07:00

The piano music of my old friend Fergus Johnston this time, in really excellent performances by the Japanese/Irish pianist Izumi Kimura.

Fergus writes music that is full of whimsy and lyricism. The piano pieces here are often dedicated to friends – the composer Raymond Deane and the pianist Reamonn Keary (who was Izumi Kimura's teacher), as well as two of Fergus' former teachers.

I really like Kimura's playing; she combines utter clarity with a wonderful responsiveness to the music's shifts of mood and expression. I just bought her album, Asymmetry, contemporary piano music from Japan and Ireland, and it's a delight. It's on iTunes if you can't be bothered paying post and packing.

The recordings were posted on Fergus' website, and are uploaded with his blessing. I've just collated, tagged and bagged them for ease of use.

Fergus is above, Izumi is on the right, for the avoidance of doubt.

mp3 at 190-ish kbs, but excellent recorded sound. And did I say excellent playing? I did? OK.

Legal stuff: By downloading this material you agree (i) to contact Fergus if you want to use any of the material, (ii) to give Fergus and Izumi due credit if you use it, and (iii) if you make any profit from your use of the material, you agree to share that profit with Fergus, who will share it with Izumi, I am sure

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Takahashi Aki plays Feldman's Triadic Memories

2011-05-27T02:26:00.000-07:00

If all you know of Takahashi Aki's playing is the astonishing recording of Feldman's "Piano and String Quartet" you will already know what to expect here. Yes, she recorded more – but it's almost impossible to find the recordings. I am indebted to a fellow enthusiast in Japan who originally uploaded this disc. The links are now defunct, so I feel obliged to upload it myself to make sure that it's still somehow available.

The playing has the stillness you would expect from Feldman, but it has something more, something like rapture.

It's also at a decent 256kbs.

https://rapidshare.com/files/336343848/Feldman_Triadic_Memories_Takahashi.zip

Sergio Fiorentino - Live at Erbdrostenhof, Münster 20.vi.94

2011-05-27T02:02:00.000-07:00

When Fiorentino got the the concert venue, at the Erndrostenhof, he discovered, somewhat to his consternation, that the piano was an 1892 Erard, lovingly restored, it is true, but an old piano nonetheless.
You can hear him, I think, still getting used to the sonority in the first item, the Bach French Suite No 5. But as he settles in the concert just goes on getting better.
Perhaps it was the moment-by-moment wrestling with an unfamiliar piano that gives the performance of Schubert's last piano sonata a tension that is unlike his commercially available recording. Whatever the reason, it has you on the edge of your seat.
And, finally, a chance to hear Fiorentino playing his own arrangement of the Rosenkavalier Waltzes. He could play any score by ear – there's a great YouTube clip of him humming and playing the Mendelssohn fiddle concerto.
These recordings came from Fiorentino's great champion, Ernst Lumpe, who distributed them free, at his own expense.
What a musician we have lost!

Sergio Fiorentino
Bach: French Suite No 5
Franck: Prelude, Aria & Finale
Schubert: Piano Sonata in B flat D 960
- Impromptu in E flat
Chopin: Waltz Op 18
Strauss (arr Fiorentino) Rosenkavalier waltzes
Chopin : Waltz in C sharp
MP3 192kbs

https://rapidshare.com/files/3528464802/Fiorentinot_Erbdrostenhof_20.vi.94.zip

Schmidt again - his fourth symphony

2011-03-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

The fourth was, for many years, the only Schmidt symphony to stay in the repertoire, and that largely because of the Viennese, who have kept his reputation alive. The symphony is a long, reflective work which begins with a melancholy trumpet call that will not resolve onto the tonic – C – until the last bar of the whole work. Schmidt played the trumpet (though he was a cellist by profession before turning to composition full time) and used to take his trumpet on hill walks for the pleasure of playing it in the open air. And, of course, his other instrument - the cello - features in the slow movement.

Schmidt's later life was not happy. His wife developed serious mental illness, and you cannot hear this work without thinking of a man reflecting on youth in the adversity of old age.

The fact that the work is in C should tell you a lot too. But if the musical language is conservative, the work is, I think, a masterpiece in its own way. A personal utterance that nevertheless works as an aesthetic whole.

Here is Fabio Luisi (pictured testing to see if his baton is al dente as he requested) conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. Sound is very decent at 192 kbs, mp3.

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Ina Boyle : The Magic Harp (1920)

2011-02-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

Ina Boyle again!

I was delighted to attend the concert in the Hugh Lane Gallery at which her string quartet was performed for the first time since the 1930s. It bears the imprint of her studies with Vaughan Williams, but a distinct personality, introspective and lyrical, familiar from the violin concerto, still emerges.

Here's another performance I have managed to track down. A rather basic radio recording, I'm afraid, but this is the piece included in the Carnegie Collection of British Music – the only piece by a woman composer to be included. It's a fine piece of writing, and of orchestration. She has a real ear for colour, if I can say that…

The Ulster Orchestra is conducted by Prionnsías O'Duinn.

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Ramon Montes de Oca - El descendimiento según Rembrandt

2011-02-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

Ramon Montes de Oca (1953-2006) was a Mexican composer of whom I know very little indeed, but the one piece I have come across is well worth a listen. El descendimiento según Rembrandt is a slow meditation for string orchestra on the Rembrandt painting of Jesus being taken down from the cross. He wrote it in 1991, and I believe that this recording comes from a concert given in 2007 by the Orquesta Sinfonica de la ciudad de Guanajuato (México) under the direction of Richard Marckson. I'm afraid it's only 128kbs, but as a unique recording, hey, it's better than nothing.

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Amy Beach - Symphony in E minor, Op. 32, "Gaelic Symphony"

2011-02-02T04:10:00.000-08:00

Amy Beach (1867-1944), the US composer, wrote a symphony on Irish melodies which she entitled a "Gaelic Symphony". So while I am in the mood for publicising women composers and Irish connexions, here is a recording, with the Ulster Orchestra (again!) conducted by the indefatigable JoAnn Faletta (that's her on the left), who has championed music written by women in her extensive conducting career.

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Ina Boyle – a rediscovered Irish composer

2011-02-02T02:23:00.000-08:00

Ina Boyle (1889-1967) lived all her life in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow. She was a major Irish composer of the early 20th century, yet she has been almost completely forgotten. She is the only woman composer included in the Carnegie Collection of British Music. She studied with Vaughan Williams, but she often had to struggle to get her music performed or published. She lived out her final years alone in the large house in Enniskerry, an increasingly eccentric figure, still determined to follow the path she had chosen as a composer.
Her recently-discovered violin concerto (1935) is redolent of Vaughan Williams, but a work of haunting power and poetry. It gets an utterly magical performance from the young violinist Catherine Leonard, with the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Montgomery. Alas, as is often the case, it is the Ulster Orchestra that champions Irish classical music (their recordings of Stanford under the baton of Tod Hanley put his symphonies on the map in the 90s).

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Stanford : Fifth symphony and first Irish rhapsody

2010-09-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

The Stanford festival continues here. First, remember to check the programme for Dublin's first actual Stanford festival at the website of the Stanford Society. And second, enjoy some more of his music.

I've chosen two of his best works for this second upload. The symphony No. 5 in D major, Op. 56, "L'Allegro ed il Pensieroso" is based on Milton's poem, and a companionable piece of music. The opening movement changes boisterously in with apparently unstoppable good humour (and an orchestral depiction of 'laughter holding both his sides'). The second depicts the pleasures of rustic life (you can tell that because it starts with open fifths in the lower strings and then horn fifths' in the horns). The opening of the third movement is one of my favourite Stanford moments as melancholy sweeps majestically – and by no means depressingly - into the picture. The final movement returns to the energetic mould which seemed to come naturally to CVS, and introduces the organ – not in a pealing burst, in the manner of Saint-Saens, but rather stealthily and effectively. The closing pages of the score unfold from a single quiet A on the trumpet most magically.

This performance by the Ulster Orchestra is conducted by Tuomas Ollila-Hannikainen. While the Finn may not have seen Stanford before, the Ulster Orchestra are old hands, having played and recorded Stanford superbly for many years under the baton of Vernon (Tod) Handley.

And it is to Tod Handley that I turn for the stocking-filler: Stanford's first Irish Rhapsody, recorded for the BBC. Vintage Stanford this, with a particularly splendid tympany part (well, it's Irish). And that wonderful tune in the middle? Ah—sure everyone knows that wan, yer honour.

Stanford : Symphony No. 5 in D major, Op. 56, "L'Allegro ed il Pensieroso"

Irish Rhapsody No 1 in Dminor

In praise of Charles Villiers Stanford – Ireland's finest composer

2010-09-06T04:33:00.000-07:00

In Ireland, Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) is relegated to the shadowy status of "Anglo-Irish". What this terms means is that Protestant, unionist, English-speaking artists were not, somehow, truly Irish. Universities have departments of "Anglo-Irish Literature", to which our finest writers are relegated (Yeats and Beckett, for example). Why should a country deny citizenship to some of its greatest creative spirits? Because they did not fit in with the ethnically clean ethos of post-independence nationalism.

In Stanford's case, his opposition to independence made his position even worse. Although Trinity College Dublin wanted to give him an honorary doctorate in the early twenties, they were advised that it would be unsafe for him to travel to Ireland.

Anyone who has sung in a cathedral choir in Britain or Ireland will know and love Stanford's church music, which set a standard and started a vigorous tradition what extended almost to the present day. But what I am uploading is one of his piano concertos, played with great verve by the young Irish pianist Finghin Collins. It's classic Stanford – you can hear a nod to Rachmaninoff in the first movement, but the bluff, muscular energy is very much Stanford. I played the first piano quartet a while back, and you notice the same thing – you have to dig into the music from bar one (literally for the strings, who have a wonderful flourish to open the work).

Ireland named the recital room of its national concert hall after that pianistic nonentity John Field. So far, they have not honoured Stanford at all. However, signs of life – a Stanford festival is coming up, with a significant concert from John Finucane's Hibernian Orchestra. John, who is a superb clarinetist, championed the Stanford concerto. Imagine his surprise when he proposed playing it with the national symphony orchestra, only to be told that it was five minutes too long! Clearly, the petty nationalists are still ensconced. More about the Hibernian Orchestra's concert here. And more about the festival at the nascent Stanford Society's website.

And here, for your delectation, is Finghin Collins, with the Ulster Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Montgomery at the 2008 Proms, in the Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 126

Download the concerto from Rapidshare

Bonus! A recording of Stanford's Stanford: Irish rhapsody No 4 in A minor, Op 141 (The Fisherman of Loch Neagh and what he saw) with the Ulster Orchestra under the magical influence of Vernon (Tod) Handley.

Download the Irish Rhapsody from Rapidshare

Jean Wiener (1896-1982) - Concerto Franco-Américain and solos

2010-08-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

I got to know Wiener as a child, with an Associated Board examination piece by him simply entitled Blues, which was a piece I continued to play long after the exam was over. Other than that, I never heard a note by him until a couple of years ago when David posted this wonderful Concerto Franco-Américain and, in response to a request from me, the B side of the concerto, which features an unlikely programme of piano solos.

The concerto combines the idioms of France, jazz and Broadway in an engaging manner that brings the year 1922 to life before your very ears. The solo playing shows a Poulenc-like alternation of moods with a rapt Non komm der Heiden Heiland segue-ing into Cole Porter's Love for Sale! Hardly has the shock registered when your foot starts tapping.

Many thanks to David for permission to make this wonderful music available.

Enjoy!

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Klemperer conducts Mahler in memory of Robert Kennedy 1968

2010-06-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

1968.

I was up in Summer college in the far North West of Ireland learning gaelic and falling madly in love with every girl I saw.

On June the 5th, Robert Kennedy was assasinated. The picture always scares me. He's younger than I am, and he has a look on his face of I'm going to be OK, right?

At the Wiener Festwoche, shortly afterwards, Otto Klemperer was scheduled to conduct Mahler's ninth. He prefaced the performance with Mozart's masonic funeral music, and dedicated the concert the the memory of Kennedy.

The recording sounds like a good quality tape, and was posted in a now-defunct Spanish Mahler forum which I used to read to keep up my Spanish. And for the Mahler, of course. It's at 192 kbs, mp3, which was state of the art in those days.

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Souzay : Schumann Dichterliebe - rare early recording

2010-06-08T03:56:00.000-07:00

Apparently Souzay was very critical of his own early recordings, and resisted attempts to reissue them. Certainly, his singing grew in stature as he got older, but there is also something wonderful about the freshness of his youthful interpretations.

Here is is with Jacqueline Bonneau, in Schumann's Dichterliebe, with a bonus of four Wolf lieder thrown in.

Many thanks to Frits, who originally uploaded this, and with whose kind permission I've uploaded it here. The LP is in great condition considering its age!

mp3, mono, about 220 kbs, VBR, tracked and tagged.

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Ou bien –
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Luisada plays Fauré and Chopin

2010-05-18T05:16:00.000-07:00

Concert donné le 25 avril 2010, Théâtre du Châtelet à Paris
Carte blanche à Jean-Marc Luisada

I had reservations about recording this recital. Luisada's recordings ranged from remarkable simplicity and sensitivity (his Bizet, for example) to downright annoying mannerism (some of his Chopin).

I need not have worried. Time seems to have favoured the sensitivity and banished the eccentricity. His reading of the haunting eleventh nocturne which opens the recital is utterly gallic in its restrained grief, and his mazurkas are, I think, vastly better than those he recorded in the 90s for DGG.

Fauré
Nocturne n°11 en fa dièse mineur op 104 n°1 (à la mémoire de Noemie Lalo)    6:54
Nocturne n°12 en si majeur op 104 n°2    6:54
Nocturne n°6 en ré bémol Majeur op 63    10:07
Nocturne n°7 en ut dièse mineur op 74    10:04

Chopin
Ballade n°2 en fa majeur opus 38    8:09
Quatre Mazurkas opus 24 n° 1 en sol mineur    2:08
Quatre Mazurkas opus 24 n° 2 en ut majeur    2:08
Quatre Mazurkas opus 24 n° 3 en la bémol majeur    1:33
Quatre Mazurkas opus 24 n° 4 en si bémol mineur    4:42
Andante Spianato et Grande Polonaise brillante en mi bémol Majeur op 22    14:39

Encore : Morricone - incidental music from Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma    2:47

Once again, France Musique has done an astonishing job of engineering.

France Musique internet 128kbs
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Anatole Kitain - a pianist who might have been

2010-05-17T04:29:00.000-07:00

Another might-have-been post. This one is a rare recording by the Russian pianist Anatole Kitain. Born in Saint Petersburg, his family moved to Kiev, where he studied in the Kiev Conservatory, whose students at that time included Horowitz, Alexander Uninsky and Alexander Brailowsky). In time, Kitain became the private pupil of Felix Blumenfeld, whose few private pupils also included Simon Barere and Horowitz (I'm quoting here from the Wikipedia entry which, in all fairness, I wrote).

Kitain moved to France, and then to the US, but success eluded him. His European recordings were released by APR on a fascinating two disc set which show him to have been a pianist of considerable technique and interpretive powers. It's hard to know why he never achieved even the cult status of Barere. His recordings are rare, and this one, of Bach and Scarlatti, even more of an oddity because it features the so-called Siena Pianoforte.

There are doubts about the Siena Pianoforte, a richly-ornamented 19th century piano which, it is claimed, was originally commissioned in 1800 by a wealthy Sienese farmer. To my mind, the sound is quite unlike anything else from the period, and I would place it later for that reason alone. The subsequent history of the piano makes unlikely reading, and even if it were true, it is difficult to believe that the piano we hear on this recording is actually one and the same piano that in 1868 became the wedding gift from the city of Siena to the Crown Prince Umberto and was kept in Rome with other art treasures of the Royal Family.

So then - a mystery pianist playing a mystery piano.

What is less mysterious is the playing. Kitain plays with grace, power and depth - listen to the Scarlatti sonata, played with poignant simplicity, and imagine the piano quake as he unleashes the full might of Busoni's transcription of the D minor chaconne. How did the instrument survive?

There were six LPs made on the Siena piano, which included an album by Charles Rosen, which I will post as soon as I finish marking my assignments. The transfer is by that old rogue Dr Duffy, pianophile, maniacal recording restorer and philosopher. Long life to you, John!

Download from Rapidshare mp3 224 kbs

Wyn Morris conducts Mahler's tenth

2010-05-17T03:59:00.000-07:00

The conductor who might have been – Wyn Morris, born in1929, died last February. His career was marked by sensational conducting combined with his utter inability to manage his relations with others. Time and time again he managed to squander the advantages that opened up - he scuppered a recording deal that was offered to him by negotiating one with another recording company (neither, apparently materialised) and threatened legal action in the most bizarre of circumstances. You can read a fascinating obituary here.

His recording of Mahler's songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Janet Baker and Geraint Evans are the stuff of legend, and have been available almost continuously since they were recorded by a small and short-lived label. They were subsequently released by Decca, then by another small independent company, then by Nimbus.

However, he came to my attention as the man to record Deryck Cooke's second revised performing version of Mahler's tenth symphony for Philips. It appeared on two LPs but, young and Mahler-crazed as I was, I promptly shelled out and bought it. I think I played the LPs into oblivion over the next year. It was a work that fascinated me and there was not a moment of Morris's interpretation that didn't seem exactly right.

Philips didn't release the recording on CD, much to my surprise. So here, as a tribute to one of the oddest members of an odd profession, is an LP transfer - not mine, and not the work of the friend who passed it on to me.

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Alexandre Tharaud : Chopin, Schubert and a third half!

2010-05-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

Alexandre Tharaud
Recital 7 avril 2010, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées à Paris

France Musique has been doing us pianophiles proud - Angelich and
Tharaud on successive days.

Tharaud's programme is a very personal selection of Chopin, along with his own transcription of four of the movements from Rosamunde, and his five encores amount to a virtual 'third half'.

I love his long, spidery arms, very evident in the photo. Another pianist of remarkable physique whom I haven't posted here is Roger Muraro, a real giant in every sense. Must do. But not yet - I'm off to Cambodia for a couple of weeks. Work…

Franz Schubert
Six Moments Musicaux op 94 D 780
Four movements from Rosamunde op 26 D 797 (transcription d'Alexandre
Tharaud)

Frédéric Chopin :
Nocturne n° 2 en mi bémol Majeur op 9 n° 2
Fantaisie-Impromptu en ut dièse mineur op 66
Fantaisie en fa mineur op 49
Nocturne n° 20 en ut dièse mineur op posth
Mazurka en la mineur op 17 n° 4
Ballade n° 1 en sol mineur op 23

Encores
Bach : Concerto BWV 979 (transcription d'Alexandre Tharaud)
Chopin : Mazurka en ut dièse mineur Op 63
Rameau : Les Sauvages
Chopin : Valse (la mineur)
Couperin : Le tic-toc choc

France Musique Internet 128 kbs mp3
Engineering excellent comme d'habitude.

http://rapidshare.com/files/380860597/Tharaud_Paris_2010.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?koy3kvnfdt3

Nicholas Angelich : Haydn, Bach and Liszt

2010-05-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

Another excellent recital from Nicholas Angelich in a decent recording
from France Musique

Angelich is a pianist who has been quietly gaining in stature in the past couple of years. If I haven't posted his Brahms and Schumann, I must. I've been listening to it over the last couple of months, and it's got me revisiting my old Brahms scores.

Joseph Haydn : Variations en fa mineur Hob. XVII:6

Johann Sebastian Bach : Suite anglaise n° 2 en la mineur BWV 807

Franz Liszt : Sonate en si mineur

Encores: Rachmaninoff: Preludes in G and G sharp minor
Schumann : Traumerei

Recorded 30 Jenuary 2009, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées à Paris

France Musique Internet 128 kbs
Broadcast 26th April 2010

http://rapidshare.com/files/380424265/Nicholas_Angelich_2009.ziA

Bach : Five cello suites - Jean-Guihen Queyras

2010-04-19T03:58:00.000-07:00

Five cello suites and an abject apology. I recorded this wonderful concert from the radio, but didn't notice that it was going out live. The concert over-ran, as live concerts do, and the timer shut off the recording just as M Queyras was on the point of playing the sixth and final suite.

So here are suites 1 to 5, beautifully played by Jean-Guihen Queyras, and lovingly recorded by France Musique in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysés in Paris on the 14th of April 2010.

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Chopin piano works - Philippe Giusiano

2010-04-15T03:31:00.000-07:00

Another installment from the Nantes Chopin marathon. Giusiano won the Chopin competition in 1995 (having been placed eighth five years earlier at the age of just 17). He enjoys a considerable following in his native France (he is from Marseille) but for some reason he is less well known in the English speaking world.

I was very impressed by his playing - a fine grasp of the big picture in the ballades, and a merry humour that bubbles up in the Valses - and invested in his recording of the etudes and preludes on Mirare.

Once again, these are compiled from the original multi-performer concerts.

Chopin
Prélude en ut dièse mineur opus 45
Ballade n°1 en sol mineur opus 23
Nocturne en fa majeur opus 15 n°1
Mazurka en la bémol majeur KK IV b/4
Prélude en la bémol majeur "Presto con leggierezza"
Trois Mazurkas opus 56 No 1
Trois Mazurkas opus 56 No 2
Trois Mazurkas opus 56 No 3
Deux Nocturnes opus 32 No 1
Deux Nocturnes opus 32 No 2
Galop Marquis en la bémol majeur
Impromptu en la bémol majeur opus 29
Trois Valses opus 64 No 1
Trois Valses opus 64 No 2
Trois Valses opus 64 No 3
Ballade n°2 en fa majeur opus 38

France Musique 128kbs internet, well-engineered recording

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Chopin Piano Works - Iddo Bar-Shaï

2010-03-31T13:03:00.000-07:00

Folle Journée de Nantes 2010
recorded in recitals on 30th and 31st of January 2010

Iddo Bar-Shaï has just released a recital of Chopin Mazurkas on Mirare which has drawn very significant praise. The redoubtable Tom Deacon, in fact, made one of his occasional forays into praise on RMCR. Actually, what I like about Tom is that he is constantly on the listen out for young players who stand out from the crowd. And I think you will agree, this is one.

As you might expect, too, Iddo Bar-Shaï's contribution to the Chopin festivities was dominated by Mazurkas, though we also got a splendid second sonata.

Deux Mazurkas en la mineur KK II b/4
Deux Mazurkas en la mineur KK II b/5
Nocturne en fa dièse mineur opus 48 n°2
Sonate n°2 en si bémol mineur opus 35 "Funèbre" I
Sonate n°2 en si bémol mineur opus 35 "Funèbre" II
Sonate n°2 en si bémol mineur opus 35 "Funèbre" III
Sonate n°2 en si bémol mineur opus 35 "Funèbre" IV
Nocturnes opus 55 No 1
Nocturnes opus 55 No 2
Polonaise-Fantaisie en la bémol majeur opus 61
Trois Mazurkas opus 63 No 1
Trois Mazurkas opus 63 No 2
Trois Mazurkas opus 63 No 3
Mazurkas opus 67 n°4
Quatre Mazurkas opus 30 No 1
Mazurkas opus 67 n°2
Quatre Mazurkas opus 30 No 2
Quatre Mazurkas opus 30 No 3
Quatre Mazurkas opus 30 No 4
Quatre Mazurkas opus 33 No 1
Quatre Mazurkas opus 33 No 2
Quatre Mazurkas opus 33 No 3
Quatre Mazurkas opus 33 No 4
Polonaise en la majeur opus 40 n°1
Mazurka en si bémol majeur KK II b/1
Quatre Mazurkas opus 17 No 1
Quatre Mazurkas opus 17 No 2
Quatre Mazurkas opus 17 No 3
Quatre Mazurkas opus 17 No 4
Mazurka en ré majeur KK IV b/2 (2ème version de KK IV a/7)
Grande Valse brillante en mi bémol majeur opus 18
Mazurkas opus 67 n°3
Mazurkas opus 67 n°1
Mazurka en ut majeur KK IV b/3

France Musique, Internet 128kbs, good sound, though there are occasional shifts in perspective as we move from one recital to another.

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Chopin Piano Works - Anne Queffélec

2010-03-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

Anne Queffélec's playing is fascinating. Her early recordings bubbled with wit and personality. More recently, though, her playing has acquired an added zen-like sense of simple clarity. She herself said, in an interview, « Il y a une dimension sacrée dans la pratique approfondie de l’art » It certainly comes across. Listen, for example, to the sheer grace with which she lets the A flat ballade unfold. Magical!

Ballade n°3 en la bémol majeur opus 47
Ballade n°4 en fa mineur opus 52
Nocturne en sol mineur opus 37 n°1
Scherzo n°4 en mi majeur opus 54
Trois Mazurkas opus 50 No 1
Trois Mazurkas opus 50 No 2
Trois Mazurkas opus 50 No 3
Valse en fa mineur opus 70 n°2
Valse en mi bémol majeur "Sostenuto"
Berceuse en ré bémol majeur opus 57
Barcarolle en fa dièse majeur opus 60
Nocturne en sol mineur opus 15 n°3
Cantabile en si bémol majeur
Largo en mi bémol majeur
Valse en la bémol majeur opus 69 n°1

Edited and tagged from two of France Musique's all-night Chopin broadcasts
Internet 128 kbs
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Troyanos in Das Lied von der Erde

2010-02-24T09:56:00.000-08:00

I first got to know Troyanos' voice in her doom-laden recording of Bluebeard's Castle. It ruined the piece for me in the sense that I cannot listen to anyone else without missing her intensely. I mentioned this to a South American friend, who kindly sent me this recording. The sound is, well, FM radio, but the singing is another reason to lament her early death.

MP3 240-ish kbs, VBR, from FM broadcast.

Gustav Mahler
Das Lied von der Erde
Peter Hoffman, Tatiana Troyanos,
Carlo Maria Giulini
Los Angeles Philharmonic
November 9, 1980

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Fauré : Piano Quintet No 2 - Quatuor Belcea, Bertrand Chamayou

2010-02-12T09:49:00.000-08:00

The french pianist Bertrand Chamayou has yet to make an enormous splash, but on the basis of his Mendelssohn CD and an almost-all Mendelssohn recital at La Roque d'Anthéron, it's only a matter of time. And France Musique came up trumps in this recording, made in 2007, of Chamayou and the Quatuor Belcea playing Fauré's autumnal masterpiece.

I have owned a score of this for decades, always hoping that I'll get to play it. (I also own the Schnittke – hope springs eternal!). There is something about the way the strings weave in and out that has the austere sensuality of renaissance counterpoint. Listen, do, to the closing pages of the first movement, as the motoric semiquavers from the piano accompany a seemingly unstoppable flow of counterpoint, wave upon wave, right up to the final exultant chords. Is it any wonder I am determined to play this before I die?

In memory of Debbie Metrustry, with whom I sang for many, many years, who died suddenly this morning.

mp3, 128 kbs in surprisingly good sound, from France Musique.

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Bernstein : Mahler's second - Musicians Against Nuclear Arms

2010-02-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

Here's a piece of history – Bernstein conducting Mahler's second symphony in the National Cathedral in Washington, with Jessye Norman, Barbara Hendricks and musicians drawn from the National Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony, playing under the banner of Musicians Against Nuclear Arms.

Can you imagine this happening now? Can you imagine three of the US's most famous musicians leading a performance in the National Cathedral under the banner of, say, 'Musicians Against Military Intervention'?

No. I miss the days in which the US had a genuine opposition, when opponents of militarism could speak up, could play Mahler in the National Cathedral.

The performance has its ragged moments, but I find it moving precisely because it is a testament to a better age. Perhaps the ideals were foolish, but foolish ideals are better than paranoid ideation any day.

Alex Ross has an interesting piece on this performance here. The cover was made by a contributor to a Spanish Mahler forum, now defunct.

Mahler : Symphony No 2

Barbara Hendricks, Jessye Norman, Musicians Against Nuclear Arms.

National Cathedral, Washington, 1984

MP3 at 192kbs from FM radio broadcast

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Chopin : Piano Concerto No 2 - Clara Haskil 1954

2010-01-28T04:20:00.000-08:00

There are some pianists who become pigeon-holed – Hewitt equals Bach, Uchida equals Mozart/Schubert, Glenn Gould equals Goldbergs. Haskil's Mozart has tended to do the same for her. This does a serious disservice to a very versatile performer. To hear her play Beethoven's op 111, for example, is to hear a totally different player (Music & Arts have it on a superbly remastered recital disk which also features her Ravel, Debussy and Schumann).

I am eternally grateful to G, who recently uploaded a clutch of live Haskil performances, including this one, of the first Chopin piano concerto, the Piano Concerto no 2 (confusing? Both the Chopin and the Beethoven concertos were published out of sequence; in each case, the first published was the second one written)

Listen to how she manages the build up to the first movement recapitulation. She lets off the pedal in order to get a more incisive, emphatic sound from the passage work, cranking up the tension wonderfully. And listen to her bell-like and telling use of the bass line in the slow movement, supporting that lyrical right hand on a noble foundation. And, of course, listen to her glitter in the closing pages of the last movement. What a player!

Clara Haskil, National Orchestra, André Cluytens April 1954
Mp3 @ 320kbs from radio re-broadcast

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Martin : Et in terra pax

2010-01-28T04:03:00.000-08:00

I had never heard of Martin before I heard this oratorio, which he composed in the last months of World War II. I was in Belgium at a choral festival with my girlfriend. We cycled to a concert which featured, in the first half, a local virtuoso pianist who was premièring his new piano concerto - a witty confection that suggested that Gershwin wasn't quite dead. He gave numerous encores to a delighted audience, improvising on Beatles tunes in the style of, and finishing with an improvisation on a bunch of random notes selected by different audience members. Everyone loved it.

Then came the second half. From the first chords of the music, I was transported to another era. The music was grainy, gritty, black and white. I remember, in particular, seeing the tenor sing the words of the beatitudes (track 9). Each one he sang more softly, until at the last line – Father, forgive them, they do no know what they are doing – he achieved a breathtaking pianissimo. Even the concluding chorus – Holy is the Lord God, Who was, Who is and Who is to come – holds out hope but doesn't suggest that everything will be fine instantly.

Afterwards, we looked around. It was clear from the applause and the faces of the audience that they would have preferred more sub-Gershwin. But I was convinced that I had heard a masterpiece. Much less pretentious than Britten's War Requiem, it's a work that convinces through those two reliables: personal integrity and good part-writing.

This performance is in German, but none the worse for that - Martin himself supervised the version.

Catherine Naglestadt, Doris Soffel, Charles Workman, Christian Gerhaher, Ralf Lukas
MDR Symphony orchestra and choir, Hartmut Haenchen
mp3 @ 256 kbs

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Beethoven : Piano Concerto No 5 - Bruno-Leonardo Gelber

2010-01-21T08:10:00.000-08:00

Those trademark eyebrows are hard at work here, in a wonderful live "Emperor" from 2006.

There's something about Beethoven's Emperor concerto that seems to divide households. My father and mother were both fond of classical music, but with the proviso that my father found the string quartets which my mother favoured a little dull, while my mother made no secret of her opinion that anything with a blaring orchestra was vulgar. Her face, as my father put on Dvorák's New World symphony or Respighi's Pines of Rome was a study in distaste. It was the very face she put on when she absent-mindedly took a mouthful from a cup of tea that had long gone cold. I associate orchestral music with Saturday mornings, on which my father would get up early and play his symphonies and concertos while my mother lay on in bed, her normal reluctance to get up in the morning doubtless intensified by the prospect of going downstairs and facing the music.

The one thing she could not tolerate was swing, which was a shame because my father dearly loved it – Django Reinhardt, Stefan Grapelli and the boys especially. It was an eerie sound, the slap-wump slap-wump that sometimes came from the living room. It was the sound of my father, drumming on the arms of the armchair as he listened to swing on the headphones, a beatific smile on his face, in silence.

And I, in my turn, am married to a woman who tolerates my preoccupation with classical music, but who has never seen the attraction of washing the dishes to the accompaniment of some loud orchestral racket. It was watching her slight wince at the opening of Beethoven's Emperor concerto that made me remember Tony.

My uncle Tony hadn't the easiest of marriages, and I suspected sometimes that we saw him more frequently, just dropping in, when things were going less well at home.
The music I associate with him is Beethoven's Emperor concerto. On one of his impromptu visits, Tony told us how, one Summer evening, he had listened to it in his garden. On a whim, he had rigged up an extension cable and brought his gramophone out to the garden and put the record on. His next door neighbour, who had been out mowing the lawn, had stopped, brought out an armchair and sat there listening too.

In my mind, it is a perfect Saturday afternoon in the suburbs, and Tony and his neighbour, each in the armchairs they have carried out of their respective drawing rooms, are listening to the music as it rises into the air.

Did they listen to it all? I wish that they did.

Many years later, I realise that this is the only happy story I know about Tony, and I treasure it.

Bruno-Leonardo Gelber, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis
MP3 256 kbs
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Sergio Fiorentino - the Chopin Waltzes

2010-01-20T04:36:00.000-08:00

There has always been a bit of hesitancy among Fiorentino fans about his Waltzes, recorded in July 1958. These are, well, the waltzes of a young touring pianist - extrovert, devil-may-care.

I first heard this record when I was twelve, and loved it. These was something intoxicating about the sheer verve of the playing. And this was the first time anyone had recorded all 19 waltzes - I was bitterly disappointed when I bought my first score and discovered that there were only 14 'official' waltzes in it. (The last is certainly not by Chopin, but the editors of the Henle edition decided to keep publishing it, on the grounds that people liked it, and that there would be no chance of anyone publishing or playing it unless they did so.)

Fiorentino does a little rewriting here and there (listen carefully and have your ears tickled), and has no hesitation in doing a little filling in of the texture in the unpublished waltzes. And, I believe, the first recording of the three little Ecossais, recorded in 1955.

It's a document of an era when you could sit down at the piano and just play without someone rustling an urtext. Many years later I still love it.

This is a needledrop, done by a friend. No noise reduction (this is left as an exercise to the reader) and only mp3 at 192 kbs, but I did manage to find and embed the original cover art.

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Bloch : String Quartet No 5 - Fine Arts Quartet

2010-01-08T00:59:00.000-08:00

Bloch wrote all but the first of his string quartets in the last years of his life, inspired to tackle the medium by hearing a performance of his first quartet by the Griller Quartet. The Grillers recorded all but the final quartet in wonderful idiomatic readings.My introduction to the last quartet came from the Fine Arts Quartet, an ensemble which even now is under-rated. Their reading captures the idiom perfectly.

The quartet, written when Bloch was terminally ill, has a language that is gentle and searching at once. The composer's daughter, Suzanne, tells of how he wrestled with the end, writing four or five versions, each perfectly good, before he arrived at the one that made sense to him. It is a magical moment as the music loses pace, the instruments begin to separate into distinct voices, the cello hovers on D flat - the last note before the open C string, and then the chord simply opens into C major, calm, firm and final.

This is a 160 kbs needledrop, but from a decent copy of the LP, and the performance is utterly special. If you like this, head over to Music & Arts and get hold of their wonderful Bartók quartets.

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Aldo Ciccolini : Beethoven Sonatas 31 and 23 (Appassionata)

2010-01-05T11:01:00.000-08:00

Aldo Ciccolini was born in August 1925, which would make him, in July 2006 when these sonatas were recorded in Montpellier, an eighty-year-old.

You won't get much sense of this in the playing. The first sonata, the A flat, takes a minute or two to settle in, but by the time he tackles the Appassionata he's in full flow. This is one of those performances that makes you think Beethoven—yes! rather than Ciccolini—yes! It has fire in its belly, and certainly doesn't wallow in the lyrical side of the slow movement. There is something fierce about the way he brings it to its climax.

Ciccolini is a pianist whose considerable popularity in his adopted France is mirrored by his utter neglect elsewhere. Perhaps these performances will arouse a little curiosity…

Beethoven: Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57

Aldo Ciccolini, Piano
Recorded July 2006 in Montpellier
MP3 VBR averaging about 190 kbs

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Etsuko Hirose plays the Chopin Preludes

2009-12-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

You may not have heard of Etsuko Hirose, but you will. This young woman won the International Martha Argerich Competition in Buenos Aires in 1997. Competition winners are many, but the signs are that she is maturing into a formidable musician.

This is a live recording from La roque d'Anthéron, 13 August 2009. Aside from the Preludes, she plays a couple of Polonaises, just to warm up.

The reason for posting this, though, is the preludes - a sustained feat of concentration and pianism. Even the things that don't come off are spellbinding.

The recording, from France Musique, is open air, and you will have to get used to the occasional sounds of children playing in the distance. But you do. Sound is 320 kbs, mp3.

Many thanks to Chris, the original uploader, with whose permission this is posted here.

Polonaise-fantaisie in A flat major, op 61
Polonaise in A flat major, op 53 "Héroïque"
24 Préludes, op 28
Encore : Etude in A Flat Op 25 No 1
Etsuko Hirose, Piano

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Backhaus : Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4

2009-12-15T04:24:00.000-08:00

Wilhelm Backhaus, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ferenc Fricsay - Recorded 1961

It's a pity that Backhaus' late recordings for Decca were marked by Decca's hamfisted recording technique. His Diabelli Variations, for instance, are marred by a microphone placed far too close to the keyboard, which picks up the clicking of his fingernails!

Here he is, captured by honest radio engineers, in a wonderfully natural recording that shows off his burnished tone and sure sense of the music's structure perfectly. Listen to how the passagework flows - no sense of yammering semiquavers here! (I am reminded of Fauré's comment to a pupil who was making a meal of a difficult passage: Remember: they're only semiquavers).

Once again, thanks to R, who originally captured and uploaded this performance.

mp3, 256 VBR

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Mozart : Piano Concertos 17 and 18 - Ingrid Haebler

2009-12-09T02:38:00.000-08:00

There were a number of well-worn LPs that dominated my childhood listening. Richter playing Rachmaninoff, Solomon playing Beethoven and Haebler playing the 15th and 18th Mozart concertos on an old Vox LP that dated from more or less the year of my birth

She has never been up there with the greats - though Tom Deacon, rather contentiously, put her into the Great Pianists of the Century series. Haebler, like Nikita Magaloff, was a Phillips house pianist for many years, recording Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert (her foray into Chopin - the waltzes - is, well, odd).

Perhaps it's time to listen again to her playing. I think the photo does her justice - there's a merry twinkle in that eye. Her impeccable and meticulous phrasing is matched by an ability to catch the wit and wisdom of Mozart without making a fuss over the discovery.

The two recordings are twenty years apart. The 18th concerto is from 1961, and is a youthful Haebler (she was 32 at the time). The slow movement is a perfectly balanced whole - seldom has the transition from minor to major seemed so poignant. And her fermatas fit seamlessly in - I really like the one in the last movement just before Mozart mischievously slips from B flat major to B minor (listen out for it - the piano also slips into 2/4 time while the orchestra continues in 6/8!)

The second recording is from 1981, and is a affectionate reading of one of the gentler concertos.

Oh - I should mention that the orchestra for the 1961 recording is using some corrupt version of the score, with the horns playing their parts an octave lower than Mozart actually wrote it! This shows up the bassoons, but subtracts a beautiful glow from the orchestral sound. Still, it's a small flaw in a really enjoyable recording.

Mozart : Piano Concerto 17 - 1981

Ingrid Haebler, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Gerhard Wimberger

Mozart : Piano Concerto No 18 - 30.10.1961

Ingrid Haebler, Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, Joseph Keilberth

mp3 at 256kbs VBR - good sound quality from German Radio rebroadcasts

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Kristian Bezuidenhout : Mozart Concerto No 18

2009-12-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

I told you he was good!

Mozart's 18th concerto gets less than its fair share of performances, seen as a 'slighter' concerto than its fellows. This performance certainly argues the case persuasively. Bezuidenhout effortlessly varies Mozart's written figuration and improvises fermatas and cadenzas that fit seamlessly into the music - and that's hard to do. Mozart sounds natural until you try writing some.

The slow movement, in particular, benefits from this approach. I'd like it a little more poignant, especially where the theme turns from G minor to G major, but, well, some people are never satisfied.

This is from a recent concert which I was recording from the internet when my connexion vanished for two maddening minutes during the last movement. All's well, however, thanks to Jaques, who had recorded the concert in far higher quality sound, and uploaded it. This posting is done with his permission.

Bezuidenhout now has a snazzy website – have a look.

Kristian Bezuidenhout, Les Arts Florissants, Jonathan Cohen
Mozart Piano Concerto No 18 in B flat
321kbs mp3

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Sergio Fiorentino - the Chopin Preludes and Impromptus

2009-11-30T05:40:00.000-08:00

Here is the second instalment of Fiorentino's Chopin recordings, made in the fifties for Concert Artist/SAGA records. For more about these recordings, see the previous post which, due to the reverse-chronology of blogging, appears after this one.

Chopin: Preludes Op 28
recorded: 4 March 1959 London, Hornsey Town Hall
First issued
LP: Saga XID 5076 (1959)
      Saga STM 6009 (1959)
      Roulette R 75004 (1961)

Prelude in C sharp Minor, op. 45
recorded: 4 March 1959 London, Hornsey Town Hall
First issued
LP: Saga XID 5076 (1959)
      Saga STM 6009 (1959)
      Roulette R 75004 (1961)

Prelude in A flat Major, op. posth.
recorded: 4 March 1959 London, Hornsey Town Hall

LP: Saga XID 5076 (1959)
      Saga STM 6009 (1959)
      Roulette R 75004 (1961)

Impromptus
recorded: 30 May - 1 June 1962 Paris, Salle Wagram

LP: Fidelio ATL 4098 / TLS 6035 (1965)
Recording dates from information from Ernst Lumpe's website at

FLAC file & Cuesheet. No covers

http://rapidshare.com/files/314274518/Chopin_Pr__ludes_and_Impromptus.zip.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/314280806/Chopin_Pr__ludes_and_Impromptus.zip.002

Sergio Fiorentino - the Chopin Studies

2009-11-30T04:40:00.000-08:00

Sergio Fiorentino (December 22, 1927 – August 22, 1998)

One of the most undervalued pianists of the last century. He recorded a large amount of repertoire for the now notorious Concert Artist label, run by William Barrington-Coupe, who perpetrated the Joyce Hatto fraud.

Alas, Barrington-Coupe also issued fraudulent recordings under Fiorentino's name, cashing in on the pianist's popularity in the last years of his life. We will probably never know which of these recordings are actual Fiorentino and which were fakes. However, these Chopin studies are for real. They were issued in Fiorentino's own lifetime.

I am grateful to Ernst Lumpe, who was Fiorentino's champion, benefactor and friend in the last decade of his life, for the original recordings. They are posted here with his blessing.

The studies are a variable feast, I think, with signs of the hasty and often improvised recording conditions. However, I will be posting the Preludes, which are of a more consistently high quality. Be patient!

Chopin: The complete studies Op 10 and 25, and three Nouvelles Etudes, Op Posth.
Sergio Fiorentino, Piano
FLAC and Cue file. No covers
Recorded : Op 10: 8 January 1962 London, Greenwich Borough Hall
Op 25: 4 March 1959 London, Hornsey Town Hall
3 Nouvelles Etudes : 14 October 1954 London, Conway Hall

http://rapidshare.com/files/314240011/Chopin_Etudes.zip.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/314240792/Chopin_Etudes.zip.002

Poulenc : Concerto for 2 pianos - US première with Poulenc and Crochet

2009-11-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Here's an evening to remember! Poulenc himself, together with the young french pianist Evelyne Crochet, joined the Boston Symphony for the US première of Poulenc's 2-piano concerto, with Charles Munch conducting. 21st of February 1961.

The playing sparkles and rollicks. There is an air of everyone enjoying themselves hugely.

This recording seems to be a rebroadcast of the original radio tape. It's hissy, but, by golly, you forget that within a couple of minutes.

And I must put in a plug for Evelyne Crochet's recording of the Bach Well-tempered Clavier (Music and Arts). This is Bach playing to live with for years - exquisite. Indeed, why not head over to Music and Arts - the whole outfit is virtually a one-man band. Fred Maroth, who runs it, is a wonderful character who has somehow managed to maintain a label of staggering diversity when many others have gone to the wall.

mp3, 256kps VBR - hissy but great.

Download from Rapidshare

Stockhausen : Stimmung - Theatre of Voices, Paul Hillier live

2009-11-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

That old curmudgeon Sir Thomas Beecham was asked if he had ever conducted any Stockhausen.
No, he replied, but it's curious you should mention it – I trod in some only yesterday.

Alas, a lot of avant-garde music of yesteryear is like the sci-fi of yesteryear – the vision of the future of the past. I get nostalgic listening to old time classics like Morton Subotnik's SilverApples of the Moon, which now seem as old as formica kitchens.

Stimmung, though, has somehow survived all this. I still like it, and feel it hasn't lost any of its lustre with the passage of time.

This is a truly remarkable live performance, with Ian Dearden (sound projection), Theatre of Voices directed by Paul Hillier. It was recorded on 2nd of August 2008.

Download from Rapidshare

From Yiddish Folk-Poetry Song Cycle Op.79 - Simonov 1997

2009-11-10T06:14:00.000-08:00

A wonderful performance from the, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, October 1997. I'd like to thank John, the original uploader, for his permission to post the file here.

I'd never really warmed to this song cycle before, but this performance is a clincher. The soloists are splendid and the whole cycle moves with the sense of purposefulness that you get in live performance.

The soloists are
Maria Chagoutch, mezzo soprano
Anastasia Soupovskaya, mezzo soprano
Evgueny Akhimov, tenor
with the Saint Peterburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor Yuri Simonov

MP3, 256kbs from radio

Download from Rapidshare

Georges Pludermacher - a recital of Janacek, Beethoven and Stravinsky

2009-11-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

Janacek : In the Mists
Beethoven : Piano Sonata No 17 op 31/2 in D minor 'The Tempest'
Stravinsky : Le Sacre du Printemps (version for piano solo)
Debussy : From Etudes : Pour les quartes (encore)

Georges Pludermacher
Festival Radio France et Monpellier 2009

I can't stand Stravinsky, but for completeness I've posted it. You may have more fun with it than I've had.

The Beethoven is excellent, and a good teaser for Pludermacher's startlingly cheap complete sonatas, which you can download for the outrageous price of €9.99 from Qobuz - and you get the Diabelli variations thrown in!

Recorded from France Musique, internet 128 kbs

Download from Rapidshare

Herbert Schuch - Chopin, Beethoven & Debussy

2009-10-28T06:16:00.000-07:00

Herbert Schuch was a new name to me, but this young man can certainly play! It's not just the interpretations, which are wonderfully mature, but the sound he makes too, which is a joy to the senses.

The recital comes from a colleague who recorded it from satellite radio, so the sound is wonderful too. Many thanks Barny!

Rheingau Musik Festival, Schloss Johannisberg,  5. August 2009

Debussy : Brouillards (Préludes Book II No 1)  
Debussy : Feuilles Mortes (Préludes Book II No 2)  
Debussy : La Puerta del Vino (Préludes Book II No 3)  
Debussy : "Les fees sond d'exquises danseuses" (Préludes Book II No 4)  

Beethoven : Sonata No.32 In C Minor, Op.111: Maestoso-Allegro con brio ed appassionato  
Beethoven : Sonata No.32 In C Minor, Op.111: Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile  

Debussy : Ondine (Préludes Book II No 8) 
 
Debussy : Canope (Préludes Book II No 10)
Debussy : Les tierces alternées (Préludes Book II No 11)
Debussy : Feux d'Artifice (Préludes Book II No 12)

Chopin : Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: I. Allegro maestoso
Chopin : Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: II. Scherzo - Molto Vivace
Chopin : Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: III. Largo
Chopin : Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 58: IV. Finale - Presto non tanto

Encore : Beethoven : Bagatelle No 5
Encore : Schumann : Eusebius (from Carneval)

Mp3 320kbs from Digital Satellite mp2 

Download from Rapidshare

Arcadi Volodos : Schwetzingen Festival 2009

2009-10-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm aware that I've posted Uchida yesterday, and I don't want you to get the idea that I can spend my time uploading music.

Scriabin : Prelude Op 37 No 1 
Scriabin : Prelude Op 11 No 16 
Scriabin : Piano Sonata No 7 op 64 'White Mass' 
Mompou : Paisajes : 3 piano pieces 
Ravel : Valses Nobles et Sentimentales 
Liszt : Apres une lecture de Dante, Fantasia quasi sonata 
Bach : Largo from concerto BWV 595 after Vivaldi Op 3 No 11 
Tchaikovsky (arr Volodos) : Berceuse Op 16 (encore) 
Scriabin : Album leaf (encore) 
Schumann : Der Vogel als Prophet (encore)

France Musique, internet, 22 Oct 2009 mp3 128kbs

Very well recorded - and an antidote to the image of Volodos as a sort of barnstormer. 

Download from Rapidshare

Beethoven : The Last Three Piano Sonatas - Mitsuko Uchida, Paris 2009

2009-10-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

Concert given 30th of September 2009, Paris (Théâtre des Champs Elysées)

Beethoven : The Last Three Piano Sonatas - Mitsuko Uchida, Paris 2009

Uchida has recorded these on CD - a wonderful recording which I would recommend to anyone - but these performances are live: three of the highest peaks in the repertoire, one after the other, without a break, without a retake. That gives this recording the magic of live performance. They are so different, one from the other. It is truly a piano triathlon, with the most searching test saved for last.

I've written a paper on the last sonata, thanks to the prompting of my versatile colleague Dr Des O'Neill, who organised a symposium on creativity in older age. It's my most downloaded paper, curiously.

You can read it here

Recorded from France Musique, internet, 21 October 2009

Download from Rapidshare

Tipo, not Michelangeli, in a legendary Beethoven 4th concerto

2009-10-21T02:39:00.000-07:00

This recording was long thought to be by the legendary Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. I came across it because a colleague who is a Michelangeli obsessive was searching for it and enlisted my help, and I, of course, put out feelers across that vast web that connects pianists and pianophiles everywhere...

And it isn't Michelangeli – recent research has identified the pianist as Maria Tipo - a pianist whom Marta Argerich rated as one of the world's best pianists.

I was prompted to dig this recording out by The High Pony Tail's posting of a wonderful recital of Scarlatti by Maria Tipo. When you've finished here, head over there and download it.

Here, then, is my contribution to Tipo Day: the legendary, almost mythical Beethoven 4. Sound is, well, a bit Soviet, but they got the microphones close to the piano, which emerges well – it's the poor orchestra that sounds a bit like they are playing out on the theatre stepsl

Beethoven Piano Concerto no 4 op 58
Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra/Zivojin Zdravkovic
Maria Tipo, Piano

Download from Rapidshare

Shostakovich : Symphony No 14 - and Blok Romances première

2009-10-20T04:52:00.000-07:00

Shostakovich
Symphony No 14 Op 135
Galina Vishnevskya, Mark Reshetin
Chamber Orchestra of Moscow, Mstislav Rostropovich
Recorded 12 Feb 1973

Seven Romances on Poems of Alexander Blok Op 127
Galina Vishnevskaya, David Oistrakh,
Mstislav Rostropovich, Moisei Vainberg
Recorded 27 October 1967 at the premiere

The première of the14th symphony was cancelled by the authorities at the last minute. However, someone had tipped off the orchestra, who gave a public 'dress rehearsal' the night before the scheduled première. The young bass Mark Reshetin sang, as he does in this recording of the 'official' première. Shostakovich had, of course, wanted Nestorenko, but he - and any other likely singer - was officially 'booked for another engagement'. Shows how nervous the authorities were.

And they had every reason to be. Shostakovich spoke briefly at the public dress rehearsal, and said that the symphony was a tribute to the people of the USSR, who had endured so much that was, he said, disgusting.

The bonus is another star-studded première: the Blok romances, played by the A team.

Ripped from an out of print Russian Revelation CD

Download from Rapidshare

Anna Kravtchenko - Chopin, Beethoven and Haydn

2009-10-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

Anna Kravtchenko's playing is a reminder of all that pianism should be, in an age of idiot savant barnstormers. It's intelligent, nuanced, with a warm, bell-like tone.

But in case you think I exaggerate, let me quote from the New York Times critic, Harold Schonberg:

"Anna Kravtchenko reminded old-timers on the jury of Guiomar Novaes, the late Brazilian pianist whose radiant sound and poetical interpretations could sometimes reduce audience to tears."

And here she is in a wonderful recital from Dutch radio:

Haydn - Sonate in E, Hob. XVI.13 'Divertimento' Moderato
Haydn - Sonate in E, Hob. XVI.13 'Divertimento' Menuet
Haydn - Sonate in E, Hob. XVI.13 'Divertimento' Finale: Presto
Chopin - Sonate No 3 in b minor, op. 58 Allegro maestoso
Chopin - Sonate No 3 in b minor, op. 58 Molto vivace
Chopin - Sonate No 3 in b minor, op. 58 Largo
Chopin - Sonate No 3 in b minor, op. 58 Finale Presto non tanto
Beethoven - Sonate No 30 in E, op. 109 Vivace ma non troppo
Beethoven - Sonate No 30 in E, op. 109 Prestissimo
Beethoven - Sonate No 30 in E, op. 109 Thema Variazioni
Chopin - Sonate No 2 in bes, op. 35 'Marche funèbre' Grave - Doppip movimento
Chopin - Sonate No 2 in bes, op. 35 'Marche funèbre' Scherzo - Presto ma non troppo
Chopin - Sonate No 2 in bes, op. 35 'Marche funèbre' Marche funebre
Chopin - Sonate No 2 in bes, op. 35 'Marche funèbre' Finale - Presto
Chopin - Prelude op. 28 No 15 in D flat "raindrop" - Sostenuto

Recorded at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, 15 Jan 2006

Enjoy

http://rapidshare.com/files/105796998/Kravtchenko.zip.001

http://rapidshare.com/files/105797851/Kravtchenko.zip.002

András Schiff - a whole Haydn recital

2009-10-15T02:25:00.000-07:00

Digital satellite recording from German radio, 320kbs

Schiff does Haydn proud. The programme includes old favourites such as the world-weary F minor variations, which Haydn playfully entitled Un piccolo divertimento and the well-known E-flat sonata, but also some works which really deserve more exposure – the G minor sonata, for instance.

I am grateful to a German colleague for making the original mp2 available to me,
which I have converted and edited.

Programme
Capriccio on "Acht Sauschneider müssen sein" G-dur Hob. XVII Nr. 1
Sonate g-moll Hob. XVI Nr. 44
Fantasie C-dur Hob. XVII Nr. 4
Sonate e-moll Hob. XVI Nr. 34
Variationen f-moll Hob. XVII Nr. 6 "Un piccolo divertimento"
Sonate Es-dur Hob. XVI Nr. 52
Mendelssohn : Zwei Lieder ohne Worte - Op 19/1 in E dur, Op 67/4 in C dur
Mozart : Adagio für Glasharmonika C-Dur, KV 356

András Schiff
Schwetzinger Festspiele June 7, 2009

Mp3, 320kbs

http://rapidshare.com/files/292954580/Schiff_Haydn.zip

Nami Ejiri in high-voltage Chopin and Mussorgsky

2009-10-14T02:36:00.000-07:00

Nami Ejiri : Recital in the Alten Oper Frankfurt (April 24,2009)
Recorded from German radio

Chopin : Scherzo no 1 in B minor
Chopin : Scherzo no 2 in D flat
Chopin : Scherzo no 3 in C sharp
Chopin : Scherzo no 4 in E
Mussorgsky : Pictures at an Exhibition
Chopin : Valse Op 64 1 in D flat (Minute Waltz) (Encore)
Chopin : Noctourne in C sharp minor Op Posth (Encore)
Scriabin : Etude in B flat minor Op 8/12 (Encore)
Siloti : Prelude in B (After Bach Prelude BWV 855a) - Version played by Emil
Gilels
Chopin : Etude in C minor Op 10 No 12 (Encore)

High voltage playing from the young Japanese pianist now resident in Germany.
More about her here : http://www.pianoconcert.de/english/e_index.html

Many thanks to the original uploader, with whose permission I have edited the
broadcast into tracks and cut out the chatter.

http://rapidshare.com/files/292376499/Ejiri.zip

Brams German Requiem with a Twist (and Natalie Dessay)

2009-10-06T03:09:00.000-07:00

This performance of the German Requiem has four interpolated pieces by Rihm which
actually work well. I have divided the work into tracks so you can bypass the
Rihm if you like, though I would recommend giving it a try.

I also left some interesting commentary at the end which tells you more about
the Rihm if you speak French.

Johannes Brahms:
Ein deutsches Requiem Op. 45
Wolfgang Rihm:
Das Lesen der Schrift

Natalie Dessay, soprano
Ludovic Tézier, baritoe

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Choeur de Radio France, Myung-Whun Chung

Source: France Musique, internet 128 kbs

http://rapidshare.com/files/289095579/Brahms_Rihm.zip.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/289096419/Brahms_Rihm.zip.002

More Olivier Greif

2009-10-06T03:03:00.000-07:00

Two more pieces by the French composer Olivier Greif, who died in 2000 aged just
50. They are from a concert dedicated to his memory given on then19 September
2009, in the Studio Charles Trenet de la maison de Radio France à Paris.

The concert also included a piece by Guillaume Conneson for viola and piano.

The performances are superb.

Greif : Le Tombeau De Ravel for Piano Duo 17:37
Géraldine Dutroncy & Fuminori Tanada (Piano Duo)

Connesson : Constellation de la couronne boreale, Constellation II for Viola &
Piano 14:16
Jitka Hosprovà (viola) Eric le Sage (Piano)

Greif : Lettres de Westerbork for Mezzo Soprano and two violins 17:51
Andréas Hill (Mezzo) Hélène Collerette & Florent Brannens (vln)

Source: France Musique internet 128 kbs

http://rapidshare.com/files/289099492/Greif_Connesson.zip

The photo shows Fuminori Tanada, one of the piano duo. He has also recorded Takemitsu piano works for BIS

Greif : Cello Concerto - in a blazing live performance

2009-09-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

Olivier Greif died in 2000, aged only 50. This cello concerto, subtitled Durch Adams Fall, was premiered by Henri Demarquette (photo above). This recording comes from a Radio France concert given on the 18th of September 2009.

It's a masterpiece - dark, anguished, taking almost half an hour to find some sort of reprieve. Henri Demarquette's playing is astonishing, and the Orchestre Nationale de France under Jean-Claude Casadesus play as if possessed.

If you only download one piece this month, make sure this is it!

Greif : Cello Concerto

Sokolov plays Couperin

2009-09-11T08:29:00.001-07:00

Another Sokolov programme: Music by François Couperin

Les Lis Naissans
Les Rozeaux (Rondeau)
L'Engageante
La Virginité, sous le Domino couleur d'invisible
La Pudeur, sous le Domino couleur de rose
L'Ardeur, sous le Domino incarnat
L'Espérance, sous le Domino vert
La Fidélité, sous le Domino bleu
La Persévérance, sous le Domino gris de lin
La Langueur, sous le Domino violet
La Coquéterie, sous différents Dominos
Les Vieux Galans et les Trésorières Suranées, sous les Dominos pourpres et fe...
Les Coucous bénévoles, sous des Dominos jaunes
La Jalousie taciturne, sous le Domino gris de maure
La Frénésie, ou le Désespoir, sous le Domino noir
L'âme en peine
Allemande (La Verneuille)
La Verneuilléte
Soeur Monique (Rondeau)
Le Turbulent
L'Atendrissante
Le Tic-Toc-Choc, ou les Maillotins (Rondeau)
Le Gaillard-Boiteux

Very good sound – mp3, VBR with a bitrate about 220

Download

Kristian Bezuidenhout plays Mozart

2009-09-07T03:55:00.000-07:00

All right - the picture shows him playing a harpsichord! In this recording, however, he plays a copy of a Walther piano.

Mozart : Rondo in A minor K511 - Andante
Mozart : Variations on Unser dummer Pobel meint K455
Mozart : Ch'io me scordi di te (Carolyn Sampson, Soprano)
Mozart : Piano Concerto no 17 in G, K453

Kristian Bezuidenhout, Piano
Carolyn Sampson, Soprano
Orchestre des Chaps-Elysees, Phillipe Herreweghe

Concert given 13 July 2009 en the Abbaye aux Dames; Festival de Saintes.
Piano: copy of a Walther by Clarke

Recorded 7 September 2009, France Musique, Internet
128 Kbs, good sound.

I have left in some of the commentaries because it was impossible to slice them out cleanly.

Download here

Schumann : Konzertstuck for four horns - a Cracking Performance Gromit!

2009-08-06T03:16:00.000-07:00

A piece that is unjustly neglected, I think. The glorious sound of four french horns - what's not to like? One of my favourite moments, though, is carried by the trumpet. At the end of the dreamy, reflective slow movement, there is a quiet trumpet call that is ignored by the rest of the orchestra. The trumpet repeats the call, louder, and this time it's taken up by everyone, and the last movement is ushered in.

The four players on this marvellous recording are David Pyatt, Michael Thompson, Martin Owen, and Cormac Ó hAodáin, with the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras.

It was recorded at a concert on the 28th of July 2007.

Link

Angela Hewitt - Glorious Goldbergs!

2009-08-04T03:29:00.000-07:00

Angela Hewitt live from the BBC playing Bach's Goldberg Variations at the Royal Festival Hall, 29th April, 2009.

This is wonderful playing. If you have her studio version of the Goldbergs, this is, well, different. The intervening years have brought an affection to her playing - a way of pointing up details that she obviously loves, and a warmth of sound.

Very good recording from the BBC. 320Kbs, about 180 Mb of mp3 file. Includes an attractive photo of Ms Hewitt you can sigh over.

Download here

Beethoven : Triple Concerto with Patricia Kopatchinskaja

2009-07-10T04:21:00.000-07:00

Patricia Kopatchinskaja's website used to have a lot of recordings available for download. However, these have now disappeared. Luckily, I had downloaded some of them already.

Here she is in Beethoven's triple concerto:

Beethoven: Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello Op 56
Patricia Kopatchinskaia (violin),
Henri Sigfridsson (piano) and
Sol Gabetta (cello),
Berne Symphony Orchestra, Andrey Boreyko

Live recording, 15.6.2007.

Download here

Bach : The Leipzig Chorales - Kibbie

2009-07-10T04:14:00.000-07:00

Another volume from James Kibbie's monumental project to record all the Bach organ works on historic instruments and make them available free.

As I pointed out before, the only problem with the website is that the pieces come in individual music files, tagged only with their BWV number. I have downloaded them, labelled them and used the 'comments' section to identify the organ on which they were recorded and even, in some cases, the registration used.

Go along to James Kibbie's website to read more about the project and download more music.

Bach: The Leipzig Chorale Preludes, BWV 651-668

Patricia Kopatchinskaja - Beethoven Violin concerto

2009-07-08T02:09:00.000-07:00

The violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja has caused a certain amount of controversy with her recent release of Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata with the pianist Fazil Say (that's them in the picture). It's a hair-raising ride, that much is for sure. Her playing takes a lot of risks and she doesn't play safe. You can read her spirited defence of their interpretation at her website. And you can listen (and watch) the pair performing on YouTube - see what you think.

One of her projects is a recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with Philippe Herrreweghe and the Orchestre des Champs Elysées, due for release later this year. In the meantime, here is a live recording made with those same forces. At the orchestra's website, an anonymous critique claims Grâce à l’explosive Patricia Kopatchinskaia, le concerto pour violon de Beethoven devient une expérience décapante. I'd certainly agree with that! Not everything she tries works, but the performance crackles with electricity.

And the encore is a virtuoso explosion of playing, half-playing, singing and other vocal noises, all in less than a minute!

Kopatchinskaja is one of those performers who bristles with oddball musical musical intelligence. It's going to be fascinating to hear how she develops.

Ludwig van Beethoven :
Concerto for violin & orchestra in D opus 61 (1806)
01 - I Allegro ma non troppo 22'02"
02 - II Larghetto + III Rondo 18'22"
Encore
Jorge Sanchez-Chiong (Born 1969):
Crin [for solo violin] (1996-7)
03 - Crin 00'55"

Orchestre des Champs-élyses
Philippe Herreweghe - conductor
Patricia Kopatchinskaia - violin
Abbaye aux Dames, Saintes (FR) (Academies Musicales)
15th july 2007.

Download here

Sokolov Plays Stravinsky - Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka and more

2009-07-07T02:11:00.000-07:00

Here is Sokolov in a live recording of unknown provenance, playing the
Stravinsky, and a couple of other pieces. I got this from a friend who
has no idea where it originated. Perhaps someone else out there knows.

Stravinsky - Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka - I - Danse Russe
Stravinsky - Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka - II - Chez Petrouchka
Stravinsky - Trois Mouvements de Petrouchka - III - La Semaine Grasse
Rameau-Sokolov - La Livri (from Pieces de Clavecin en Concert)
Bach-Sokolov - Nun freut euch, lieben Christen gmein, BWV 734a
Chopin - Prelude in E minor, Op28 No4
Chopin - Etude in C minor, Op25 No12
Brahms - Intermezzo in B-flat minor, Op117 No2

Download here

Sokolov Plays Rameau

2009-07-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

The pianist Grigory Sokolov has gained a cult following that reminds me of Glenn Gould. A friend passed on some fascinating recordings which apparently originated on German Radio. This is one of them.

The sound is good - it's VBR MP3, about 220 KBS

Rameau
Les Tricotets (Rondeau)
L'Indifferente
Menuet
Menuet II
La Poule
Les Triolets
Les Sauvages
L'Enharmonique
L'Egyptienne

Download here

Schmidt : Symphony no 2

2009-06-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Franz Schmidt (1874-1939) is rarely performed nowadays. More's the pity, because three of his four symphonies are substantial and original works. I've been listening to them recently, and I'm posting them over the next while.

Starting with the second symphony, his first truly original work, I think. Here it is in a wonderful live performance with the MDR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fabio Luisi.

Listen to how the players respond to the work - the horn section, in particular, play gloriously. It's wonderful to hear such a joyful noise!

The James Kibbie Bach Organ Project: Chorale Preludes

2009-06-19T02:14:00.000-07:00

There is a remarkable project under way to record the complete Bach organ works on organs of Bach's day (not a new idea) and make them available free in the internet (that's the new bit!). The organist is the American James Kibbie. You can visit the website here.

The funding for this venture came from a donation by the widow of one of Kibbie's admirers as a memorial to her husband. This is considerably more civic spirited than my wife's plans to celebrate my death. I understand she intends to demolish the greenhouse.

The organs chosen are superb, and the recordings excellent. It can be quite a challenge to record organs. Not only do you have the background noise of urban traffic to deal with, but the hissing of blowers, the clacking of trackers and the trampling of feet on pedal boards make it hard to position microphones properly so as to catch the full effect of the organ in its native acoustic. The team has done an excellent job. I recommend listening on loudspeakers rather than headphones. There are some things that you really can't achieve on cans, and a baroque organ in fully cry is one of them!

There is only one problem with the project: each work is uploaded individually, and tagged only with the BWV number of the work. I have been downloading them and tagging them and, as an appetiser for the collection, here are the miscellaneous chorale preludes recorded so far. Incidentally, I have identified the organ involved in each prelude in the comments field.

BWV 720 Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott à 3 claviers et pédale
BWV 721 Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott
BWV 722 Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ
BWV 724 Gott, durch deine Güte / Gottes Sohn ist kommen
BWV 725 Herr Gott, dich loben wir
BWV 726 Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend
BWV 727 Herzlich tut mich verlangen à 2 clav e ped
BWV 728 Jesus, meine Zuversicht
BWV 729 In dulci jubilo
BWV 730 Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier
BWV 731 Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier à 2 claviers et pédale
BWV 732 Lobt Gott, ihr Christen, allzugleich
BWV 733 Meine Seel erhebt den Herren (Fuge über das Magnificat; pro organo pleno)
BWV 734 Nun freut euch, lieben Christen gmein / Es ist gewisslich an der Zeit
BWV 735 Fantasia super Valet will ich dir geben
BWV 736 Valet will ich dir geben
BWV 737 Vater unser im Himmelreich (manualiter)
BWV 738 Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her
BWV 749 Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend
BWV 750 Herr Jesu Christ meines Lebens Licht
BWV 752 Jesu, der du meine Seele
BWV 753 Jesu, meine Freude
BWV 754 Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier
BWV 755 Nun freut euch, lieben Christen
BWV 756 Nun ruhen alle Wälder
BWV 757 O Herre Gott, dein göttlich's Wort
BWV 758 O Vater, allmächtiger Gott
BWV 762 Vater unser im Himmelreich
BWV 763 Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern
BWV 764 Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (fragment)
BWV 765 Wir glauben all' an einen Gott, Schöpfer

These are in AAC format - enjoy.

http://rapidshare.com/files/246212752/Bach___Organ_Works_-_Miscellaneous_Chorales_-_Kibbie.zip

Bloch : Piano Quintet No 1 - 1934 recording

2009-06-09T03:26:00.001-07:00

Alfredo Casella and the Pro Arte Quartet
Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959): Piano Quintet No 1 (1923)

Rapidshare link

Vintage Bloch! The gruff, wild character of his early works combines a late romantic style with some quite daring experiments - listen out for the quarter tones in the first movement! The recording blazes with life. Bloch must have been delighted with it.

Niklas Sivelöv on danish radio

2009-06-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

Danish Radio have thoughtfully made available a whole series of concerts for downloading. Unfortunately, you have to navigate the website in Danish! I downloaded this concert by the Swedish Pianist Niklas Sivelöv. It includes his own "Suite in modo classico" as well as Beethoven's Op 111 sonata and the Schumann "Concert sans Orchestre". I've tagged the MP3s properly and included a nice picture of Mr Sivelöv to grace your iPod.

Sivelöv: Suite in modo classico (14:31)
Ach Värmland du sköne (Swedish Traditional) (05:27)
Schumann: Concert sans Orchestre (Grand Sonata) Op 14 (24:32)
Bach: Das Wohltemperirte Klavier II - Preludes & Fugues in C, C minor and C sharp (12:09)
Beethoven: Pianosonata Nr. 32 in C, Op 111 (23:38)

You can download the whole thing here.