Tag: Keyboard

Julian Perkins & Emma Abbate
68:04
resonus RES10172
K358, 381, 521 + J. C. Bach: Sonata in A

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here is a measure of poignancy attached to this issue since it is the last recording to have been made at Finchcocks before the retirement of Katrina and Richard Burnett and the dispersal of the marvellous keyboard collection built up there. On a personal note, I can recall with the greatest pleasure many visits to Finchcocks over the years, particular during the annual early autumn festival. Both pianos employed here, a Viennese grand by J. P. Fritz of c.1815 (used for the Mozart) and a square piano by Anton Walter and son of c.1805 (J. C. Bach), were part of the collection.

Mozart’s piano duets fall into two groups, the first works for two players at one keyboard, the second pieces for two keyboards. All the works on the present CD fall into the former category, from which K19d and K497 will presumably appear on a second disc along with the two-piano Fugue in C minor and D-major Sonata, K448, probably the finest of the duets.

I have listed the Mozart sonatas in the order in which they are given on both the cover and in the booklet, but listeners who are familiar with the music will be surprised to hear at the outset not K521, but the opening bars of K381. It would seem that the information for these sonatas was inadvertently transposed; I understand that the error has already been corrected on-line and the documentation of the CD will be amended at the first opportunity.

Such matters of course have no bearing on the performances, which are excellent in all respects. The Fritz piano has full and gracious tonal qualities generously exploited by Julian Perkins (who plays primo throughout) and Emma Abbate, who especially relish exploiting the colours produced by the many imitative exchanges Mozart gives the players. Cantabile Mozartian lines are also beautifully drawn; listen for example to Perkins’ playing of the principal theme of the exquisitely lovely Adagio of K358, the kind of writing that would soon be finding its way into the central movements of the piano concertos. Both players are also untroubled by greater technical demands of K521, the big episode of the central Andante opening out to glorious blossom under the hands of Perkins and Abbate. The square piano on which the little J. C. Bach sonata is played is obviously a more modest instrument, but it has an attractively wheezy bass and the two-movement sonata, consisting of an Allegretto in the fashionable sentimental style and a breezy minuet, is ideal for this repertoire.

It is worth adding that all repeats are taken, allowing the performers ample opportunity to add ornamentation, which is always tastefully and not infrequently wittily added. The sound is a little close, but very much in line with what I remember as ‘the Finchcocks sound’. I await volume 2 with considerable anticipation.

Brian Robins

Jermaine Sprosse fortepiano & clavichord
76:01
deutsche harmonia mundi 88985369272

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a highly significant addition to the catalogue. Friedrich Wilhelm Rust was born into a musical family in the small Saxony-Anhalt town of Wörlitz in 1739. He undertook studies in law at Halle-Wittenberg University, at the same time deputising for W. F. Bach as church organist in return for lessons. Later he attracted the attention of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, who sent him to continue his studies firstly in Zerbst and then Berlin and Potsdam, where he was a violin pupil of Franz Benda and studied keyboard with C. P. E. Bach. In 1765-6 he travelled to Italy in the retinue of the prince, meeting Tartini, Nardini and G. B. Martini. He subsequently settled in Dessau, where he remained for the rest of his life, becoming Kapellmeister in 1775, the same year as a theatre was founded there under his auspices. He died in 1796.

Rust’s extant compositions include a substantial number of chamber works, including some 50 violin sonatas, a rather smaller body of keyboard works and both secular and sacred vocal works, including seven stage pieces. The present CD introduces three keyboard sonatas from different periods of Rust’s creative life, along with a charming set of variations on the song ‘Blühe liebes Veilchen’, a late work dating from 1794.

Judging from the three sonatas the major influences in forging Rust’s keyboard style were J. S. Bach’s two eldest sons and Franz Benda. Italy appears to have played little part, certainly in these works. The earliest of the three sonatas, in G minor, probably dates from the mid-1760s, the period during which Rust must have been heavily influenced by the north German style of Benda and C. P. E. Bach. In its at times wild spirit and lack of discipline in the opening movement it also surely betrays the eccentric hand of W. F. Bach. A thorough exploration of expressive sensitivity, the central Adagio sostenuto might have been created as a classic illustration of Empfindsamkeit. The performance, played on a copy of a Hubert clavichord of 1772 boasting a fine range of tonal colours, is outstanding. Jermaine Sprosse not only has a splendid technique that boasts nimble finger work and clean articulation, but he also responds with admirable empathy to the often-improvisatory character of Rust’s writing.

The mid-career Sonata in C (c. 1780) opens with bright confidence, but the feel of impetuosity remains. The development is full of restless modulation tempered by brief passages of poetic meditation, but some of the most remarkable music on the disc comes in the massive central movement, a quasi-rondo founded on an improvisatory, hymn-like theme. The long central episode, marked Adagio sostenuto, is extraordinary music that seems to drift off, dream-like into a world of its own, while the final movement breaks out into impulsive virtuosity. The spirit of the whole sonata is again completely captured by Sprosse’s involving performance.

The final two works, a late sonata in D dating from 1794 and the variations mentioned above, are played on a fortepiano built by J. A. Stein of Augsberg in 1792, so for once the excellent instrument is thoroughly contemporary with the music. However, this brings me to my single reservation regarding the disc, although it is an important one. Unfortunately, the engineering has cheated to allow the clavichord to be heard at the same volume as the fortepiano, which as anyone who has ever heard the small-voice of the former will know is a nonsense. The construction of the D-major Sonata is interesting. It consists of a brief Adagio con espressione founded on dark, portentous chords, before proceeding to a large-scale Haydnesque Allegro with another extraordinary development section that constantly seeks to discomfort the listener, but ends with an exquisitely tranquil coda, all passion now spent. The variations are based on a charming song of folk-like simplicity, while the succeeding twelve variations run a gamut from the bravura of variation 2 to the minor key darkness of its successor.

With the exception of the caveat noted, this is a CD I’ve found totally compelling. The highest praise is due to Jermaine Sprosse for bringing Rust out of the shadows in such sympathetic performances. I am in no doubt he is a major figure certainly in need of further investigation.

Brian Robins

Giovanni Togni, Tangentenflügel
66:44
Dynamic CDS 7762

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his recital includes sonatas, rondos and a fantasia all drawn from the composer’s anthologies Für Kenner und Liebhaber, published between 1779 and 1787. Both music and playing are absolutely first-class and enhanced by the wonderful Tangent Piano – an original from 1797 in excellent condition – used for the recording. (Think piano but one in which the strings are struck by slim and bare wooden ‘hammers’). This has all the brilliance and clarity of a harpsichord, but also the expressive potential of the clavichord and piano further enhanced by mechanical devices (three knee levers and three hand stops) which raise the dampers or modify the tone in some way. The booklet (It/Eng) gives a full account of these, as well the background to the music and the player (‘graduated with full marks’ – I can believe it) and also includes a number of photograhs showing details of the instrument. The music is such that all these ‘toys’ can be deployed with taste and skill so we have a disc that is exciting, rewarding, instructive and entertaining – sometimes all at once. I don’t often give out stars with quite this enthusiasm – I’ve docked one from the booklet as it is in only two languages and the translation grates once or twice.

David Hansell