Tag: Keyboard music

Categories
Recording

Chamber Music of Clara Schumann

CD cover Clara Schumann chamber music

Byron Schenkman 1875 Streicher piano, Jesse Irons violin, Kate Bennett Wadsworth cello
57:51
BSF191

Click HERE to buy this recording on amazon.co.uk

Byron Schenkman must be used to reading rave reviews in/on Early Music Review. Almost everything he does – across a vast range of musical styles – garners praise from whichever of our reviewers I send the discs to. This time, I decided to keep the disc for myself, mostly because I have long wondered why Clara Schumann remains outside the musical mainstream when the music I’ve heard by her is outstanding. With his colleagues, Jesse Irons and Kate Bennett Wadsworth, Byron has merely underlined my disbelief; the three Romances op. 22 are more than capable of holding their own in any violin recital (the first is in the challenging key of D flat major!), the G minor Piano trio op. 17 held my wrapt attention for the duration (and I have to confess that there are few such works that have managed that!), and the Romance from her teenage Piano concerto op. 7 (how audacious of a 16 year old to write the central movement of a work whose home key is A minor in A flat major!) which I had initially thought a miscalculated way to end the disc (after Schenkman’s immaculate readings of her husband’s Kinderszenen op. 15) turned out to be a poignant “yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is that talent that was the young Clara Schumann, who (being a dutiful wife) largely abandoned her creative genius in favour of supporting her husband”. In a short additional note, the cellist explains that research into 19th-century performance practice has broadened the palette of interpretative techniques at the group’s disposal. These are deployed appropriately and it is obvious throughout that the trio have an excellent rapport, such is the precision of their ensemble playing, despite the rhythmic ebb and flow. So full marks to performers, recording engineer, piano technicians and, last but not least, the still underrated composer! An hour of unmitigated pleasure.

Brian Clark

Categories
Recording

Toccata from Claudio Merulo to Johann Sebastian Bach

CD cover of Buccarella recording

Andrea Buccarella harpsichord
59:24
Ricercar RIC 407

This young harpsichordist was the winner of the Musica Antiqua Bruges competition in 2018, resulting in this, his first recording. He has chosen a stimulating programme which traces the development of the toccata from Claudio Merulo to J. S. Bach, via Sweelinck, Frescobaldi, Froberger, Buxtehude and others. In the process he shows how enduring the genre was while pointing up each composer’s individual style. This is helped by his use of four different harpsichords: small and large Italian-style instruments for the earlier repertory, a Hans Ruckers double-manual copy for Weckmann, Buxthude and Reincken, and a John Heinrich Gräbner copy for Bach. He uses flexible tempi and emphasises the improvisatory quality of much of the music, while never losing the pulse. Among his fine performances I was struck by Giovanni Picchi’s toccata from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and that by Michelangelo Rossi with its adventurous chromatic scales – but all have aspects of interest. Bach’s D major toccata (BWV 912) is given a masterly execution which brings out the composer’s youthful exuberance, particularly in an almost aggressive approach to the opening flourishes. Recording quality is excellent, with the instruments given a close-up presence, while Buccarella’s informative sleeve notes help enlighten the listening experience. This is a highly-assured debut and I look forward to hearing more.

Noel O’Regan

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.co.uk

Categories
Recording

Sweelinck: Fantasias, Toccatas & Variations

Sweelinck key board music CD cover Richard Egarr

Richard Egarr harpsichord
76:13
Linn Records CKD 589

This recording has all the signs of having been a labour of love for Richard Egarr who self-confessedly set out to to make the music vibrant and exciting, rather than what he sees as the non-expressive and detached (aka ‘colourless and academic’) way Sweelinck has traditionally been performed. I’m not sure that’s a fair judgement of all previous recordings but this one does certainly succeed in bringing the music to life. Beautifully recorded on Egarr’s own Ruckers copy by Joel Katzman at 393 Hz, with a close-up acoustic, it successfully recreates the sort of genial late-night domestic music-making among friends which Willem Baudartius described in Sweelinck’s Amsterdam house (referred to in Egarr’s sleeve note). The playing reflects that milieu too, never too showy but always firmly committed and showing a deep-rooted understanding of each of the genres represented. He starts with an extended Praeludium Toccata [Seiffert 21] which shows the full breadth of Sweelinck’s art and its debt to his English musical forbears. In some ways the four toccatas are the star pieces here, giving scope for both careful voice-leading and virtuosity. Five extended fantasias provide intellectual heft, including one on the hexachord which starts conventionally but ends in a riot of scales in all directions. The Fantasia Crommatica gets a particularly fine performance as do two sets of variations. The booklet gives us Egarr’s personal rationale for the recording but nothing much about the actual music. In this fine recording, he is probably entitled to assume that it can speak for itself.

Noel O’Regan

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.co.uk 

Categories
Recording

Bach: The Toccatas BWV910-916

CD booklet cover for Bach: The toccatas

Mahan Esfahani harpsichord
76:53
hyperion CDA68244

The seven Toccatas BWV 910-916 are performance pieces sans pareil. They are exactly what you might have expect to hear if you had asked Johann Sebastian to try out a new harpsichord for you – sonorous chords to test the resonance and the stringing, fugal sections to prove the clarity of the voicing and the responsiveness of the action, episodes to test the two-part balance in lighter sections, sequential passages to gauge the temperament as you slide up and down the keyboard, shifting from key to key and slower sections to assess the chromatic and rhapsodic possibilities – they are all there.

This makes them ideal vehicles for Esfahani – and his harpsichord.  Esfahani is a harpsichordist rather than a period instrument player, and is a champion of the instrument’s possibilities in music old and new. On this recording – the microphones are set close enough to give us every nuance of the damping, and the final chords are frequently held very long as the instrument’s resonance is allowed to continue – Esfahani plays a 2018 instrument from the Prague workshop of the Finnish maker, Jukka Ollikka, ‘based on the theories and surviving examples of Michael Mieke with the hypothetical addition of an extra soundboard for the 16’ register and a cheek inspired by Pleyel 1912; the disposition is as follows: 16’ 8’ 8” 4’ with buff on the upper manual/soundboard from carbon fibre composite, EE to f3/length 2.8 metres.’

I quote this note from the booklet (p.5) in its entirety, as there is no photograph there of the instrument or any other information, and listeners must judge for themselves just what they make of it. It is certainly both powerful and technically faultless, like Esfahani’s playing. If you look up the maker on the internet, his website will direct you a Youtube recording of the flute sonatas where Esfahani talks about as well as plays his custom-made instrument.

His essay in the booklet discusses the many variant readings of the texts, as no autograph of the music has survived in Bach’s hand, and in the process reveals something of Esfahani’s spiritual journey. He sees the combination of the ‘earthy free sections of the toccatas with the highly abstract ‘divine’ truth of the fugues as a meeting point of human imperfection and godly perfection.’

His essay offers a well-argued and highly plausible usicological-theological reflection on the interrelationship between text and performance which deserves a wide exposure to critical debate.

I wholly recommend this disc not just for its well-argued and committed performances of these mysterious works, but also for the insights into the performer’s continuing dialogue between ‘authenticity’ and expression.

David Stancliffe

Click HERE to buy this CD on amazon.

Categories
Recording

J.S. Bach: Das wohltemperierte Klavier , Volume 1

Steven Devine harpsichord
111:19 (2 CDs in a card tryptych)
Resonus RES10239

Steven Devine plays a double-manual harpsichord by Colin Booth from 2000 after an 18th-century Johann Christoff Fleischer original (Hamburg 1710) that he tunes in a version of Kirkberger III, ‘gently modified so as to retain the key colours that make the harpsichord sing so much better, but eliminating any extreme dissonances’.

The distinctive tuning that results can be heard in the opening eight tracks, where the C# major and minor after the C keys sounds delightfully zingy, especially in the great C# minor fugue. Devine spends much of his liner note (where all the quotations from German are idiomatically translated into English) discussing what Wohltemperierte means. The mellow tone of Colin Booth’s harpsichord and Steven Devine’s elegant, unfussy playing make these CDs a delight to listen to. His technique is faultless, his ornaments elegant and the rhythmic playing has give without being mannered. Imitative passages are intelligently articulated and registration is so well chosen that it never obtrudes – it just feels right and how you’d love to be able to play it yourself.

A bonus is the lovely warm acoustic – St Mary’s church, Birdsall in North Yorkshire – and the sensitive recording. The harpsichord sounds caressed rather than hammered and its treble is crystal clear while the bass speaks roundly without being plummy.  This is an altogether delightful pair of CDs, and makes me impatient for the second part. There are other recordings about, including Colin Booth’s own, but Devine’s has a particular seemingly effortless grace, and it’s the one of all I’ve heard in the past ten years that I am happiest to live with.

David Stancliffe

Categories
Recording

Schubert: Sonatas & Impromptus

András Schiff (Brodman c. 1820)
124:21
ECM 2535/36 (2 CDs in a card wallet)
D899, 946, 958 & 959

Schubert’s final two years before his tragically early death in November 1828 were marked by a fecundity that would have been extraordinary for a man in his prime. For a man in failing health they were miraculous. These were the years of not only Der Winterreise, the two Piano Trios (opp 99 & 100) and the sublime C major String Quintet, but the piano works included on these CDs: the four Impromptus, D 899 (1827), the Drei Klavierstücke, D946 and the two big sonatas, the C minor, D 958, and A major, D 959, all composed in the year of the composer’s death.

Riches indeed and riches enhanced not only by the superb performances of Andras Schiff, one of the great Schubertians of our day, but also his choice of instrument, a remarkable Viennese fortepiano built by Franz Brodmann around 1820. Among its features are no fewer than four pedals: soft pedal, bassoon, moderator and a sustaining pedal. It is the judicious and highly effective use of these pedals that allows Schiff to bring to these works a kaleidoscopic gamut of aural colour, from the delicacy of the soft cimbalom-like sounds in the top register to the rich, nut-brown chocolaty timbres in the middle to lower register, where at the bottom of the compass the sounds take on a bell-tolling profundity. At times, as in the heavy peasant stomping of the third of the pieces of D 946, the instrument becomes capable of an almost orchestral depth and richness of sonority.

Schiff’s mastery and understanding of this remarkable instrument is apparent from the opening chord of the first piece on the programme, the C-minor Impromptu, where the dying away of the overtones is judged to perfection. The listener’s attention is thus immediately fully engaged and prepared for the perfectly articulated opening theme, a melody of infinite sadness, of longing for some idealized, long lost world. One notes almost immediately, too, the rich resonance of the bass and the perfect balance of weight between hands. The latter is very much a feature of these performances in general, an important point because it enables the part writing to be revealed with a natural clarity that never has to be highlighted or forced.

There are wonders to be experienced throughout these performances, but the great A major Sonata, perhaps deserves special mention for the manner in which Schiff captures its multifaceted character. In the big opening Allegro the strong imposing chords of the opening give way to watery cascading rippling. When the contrasting second idea arrives after an entrancingly muted introduction – exquisite use of the soft pedal, which is quite different to that of a modern piano – it has in Schiff’s hands all the innocent vernal freshness of a spring day. In the Andantino, a sad, limping waltz, the pianist also manages to convey a kind of inner repose, while in the strange, stormy central section he conjures up strangely harsh, disconcerting chords. Nothing could be more contrasted than the playfully capricious Scherzo that follows, tellingly set off against the more reflective central Trio. The Rondo finale has for its main theme one of those timeless, heavenly melodies that could have been written by no one other than Schubert, any temptation to sentimentality adroitly avoided by Schiff.

There is much else that might be said about such stellar playing, but in truth these are performances to be experienced, not subjected to the inadequacies of the written word. I would fervently urge everyone to hear them.

Brian Robins

Categories
Recording

Royer: Premiere Livre de Pièces de Clavecin

Mie Hayashi harpsichord
65:11
resonus RES10236

At an aristocratic funeral recently I was impressed by the fact that one of the participants had a double-barrelled middle name, but the French Baroque harpsichord composer Royer knocks that into a cocked hat with his triple-barrelled name! From the generation after the great François Couperin, Royer powerfully illustrates that the French harpsichord tradition continued to go from strength to strength. One of the most influential French composers of his time, Royer oversaw much of the more lavish orchestral and chamber music which graced the French court in the mid-eighteenth century. It is striking that his First book of harpsichord music from which this programme is drawn appeared in 1746, the year of the battle of Culloden, and the world of contrived elegance it evokes stands as testimony to the refinement of the Court of Louis XVth. Playing a lovely 2010 reproduction by Andrew Garlick of a Jean-Claude Goujon harpsichord of 1749, harpsichordist Mie Hayashi has selected a wonderfully varied set of pieces, ranging from demure dances to a thunderous pair of Tambourins, an unsettlingly unbalanced Vertigo and Royer’s only well-known piece nowadays his wonderfully virtuosic Marche des Scythes. My favourite piece was the enigmatic Les tendres Sentiments, as with all the repertoire, played with sensitivity and élan by Miss Hayashi.

D. James Ross

Click here to visit the record company’s website.

Categories
Recording

François Couperin: Quatrième Livres de Pièces de Clavecin

Guillermo Brachetta harpsichord
resonus RES10240
156:56 (2 CDs inj a card triptych)

Couperin’s final collection of ordres is the first release in this series which will eventually include all his harpsichord music. Brachetta’s playing can be quite flamboyant but here he adopts a suitably sober approach to match that of the composer who always comes across as rather wistful in this last publication. Tempos are calm and nicely judged, inégalité gentle and fluide, and ornaments almost unobtrusively absorbed into the musical lines. And the instrument is lovely too – a copy (2010) by Keith Hill of a notable Taskin (1769). Some might feel that this is a little late for music published in 1730, but the clear treble and rich lower registers do serve the music well. It can be frustrating when the titles of French character pieces are neither translated nor explained but here careful reading of the booklet’s tiny print will add significantly to the listener’s understanding and enjoyment of the music. The booklet (in English only) includes a general introduction by the player, notes on the music (which could have been longer – there’s space) and biographical information. Couperin’s music comes across as finely-spun gold.

David Hansell

Click here to visit the record company’s website.

Categories
Recording

Cabanilles: Keyboard works, volume three: 21 works for organ and for harpsichord

Timothy Roberts
70:49
Toccata Classics TOCC 0451

This is the third release in a series of as yet unspecified length that may eventually include the composer’s complete keyboard music. This is quite an ambition as there is a lot of it; much is not yet published; and the sources are poor, requiring a creative and corrective approach from editors and performers. Three instruments are used: two splendidly restored historic Spanish organs (one big, one small) and a Ruckers-style harpsichord by Michael Johnson and I’d like to pay a small tribute at this point to those who prepared the instruments for the recording. Though one seldom hears on disc an instrument that is unacceptably out-of-tune, it is also rare to hear instruments, especially organs, that are quite as well in tune as these two. Given the pungent nature of some of the sounds, this is an important and a significant factor in the recital’s success. The booklet (English only) contains concise essays on the composer’s life, his musical style, the instruments used and the player: frustratingly, footnotes suggest referring to the notes from previous releases in the series. I hoped to find these online but was unsuccessful.

Many EMR readers will know Tim Roberts as a player of skill and taste, and there is plenty of both on display. Typically, the pieces consist of a florid and colourful solo line supported by a gently contrapuntal accompaniment. Cabanilles’s sequential passages can sometimes threaten over-predictability, but here they always have a sense of direction and purpose. Some Spanish theorists recommended an approach to rhythm that combines elements of French-style inequality with almost modern concepts of rubato. Perhaps there could be a bit more of this in the performances: on the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for a relatively conservative approach when recording, especially when music is committed to disc for the first (and only?) time. I enjoyed this, and recommend that anyone not yet familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the Spanish organ school give it a try. But be prepared for a few shocks!

David Hansell

Click here to visit the recording company’s website.

Categories
Recording

Joseph Haydn and his London Disciples

Pink chrysanthemum

Rebecca Maurer fortepiano
79:04
Genuin classics GEN19650
Music by Haydn, Thomas Haigh and Charles Ignatius Latrobe

Haydn’s visits to London were notable from a number of aspects, above all their great success with the capital’s concert-going public, but also for his interaction with native composers. It was an interaction that worked both ways, leading not only to a significant body of works by English composers either influenced by or dedicated to Haydn, but also to the visitor embracing in his own compositions such quintessentially native forms as the catch and the glee.

The present CD focuses on the former, framing works by Thomas Haigh (1769-1808?) and Christian Ignatius Latrobe (1758-1836) between sonatas composed by Haydn for his second London visit. Both the Sonatas in C (Hob XVI:50) and in E-flat (Hob XVI:52) date from 1794 or 5 and comprise two of three dedicated to Therese Jansen, an exceptionally talented pupil of Clementi; they are also the last group of piano sonatas composed by Haydn. That Jansen was a virtuoso is clear from the size and scope of these works, big pieces that require considerable technique and fingering strength in such as the outer movements of the E-flat Sonata. They are also admirably suited to the instrument played by the German keyboard player Rebecca Maurer, a Broadwood of 1816 with a bell-like upper register and bold, resonant bass. As Maurer points out in her excellent notes, with these sonatas the piano leaves the confines of the salon and enters the concert hall. Her actions match her words; these are performances at once boldly virtuosic and sensitively poetic, performances in which her ability to lay out counterpoint clearly is matched by a strong sense of innovatory fantasy and appreciation of Haydn’s wit. Listen, for example, to the fun of the light staccato touch Maurer brings to the opening of the C-major Sonata, or the boldness of that of No. 52, a boldness complemented by the wonderful moment of suspense created by the silence that precedes the codetta of the exposition. In short this is Haydn playing of a high order.

Little is known of London-born Thomas Haigh, other than that he studied with Haydn during the course of his first visit to London in 1791-92. His Sonata in B flat is one of three published in 1796 and ‘humbly dedicated (by Permission) to Dr. Haydn’. Like its fellows it is in two movements, the first of which opens with an adagio before proceeding to a bright-eyed sonata-form Allegro with many scalic flourishes. The second movement Allegretto is based on ‘a celebrated air by Asioli’, a rather naïve rondo with Alberti bass. Published in the same year are three rondos with the principal theme based on one of the popular canzonettas Haydn composed in 1794, the episodes being of Haigh’s composition. His Fantasie was published posthumously (in 1817) and again pays tribute to his master by juxtaposing somewhat incongruously the famous ‘Emperor’s Hymn’ with the whirling folk dance that forms the finale of the ‘Drumroll’. While Haigh’s music is not without interest it is less engaging than that of the Moravian minister and dilettante composer Christian Latrobe, represented here by only the central Lente (sic) movement of his Sonata in B flat, opus 3/2. According to Latrobe Haydn visited him and having heard the sonatas suggested he publish them, which the former agreed to do if Haydn would allow him to dedicate them to him. The appealing movement played by Maurer has a simple song-like theme in the sentimental style. It would be interesting to hear the rest of the sonata if it is all as good as this.

Maurer plays the lesser works of Haigh and Latrobe with as much insight and respect that she brings to the Haydn. To cap off what is both an interesting and extremely well-played and recorded CD, the presentation is exemplary, including not only notes on music and performer but also colour photographs and a description of the piano.

Brian Robins