Tag: Romantic

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Brahms: Cello sonatas

CD cover Brahms Cello sonatas Amy Norrington Piet Kuijken

Amy Norrington cello, Piet Kuijken fortepiano
61:55
Etcetera KTC 1820

It is not often Early Music Review strays into the second half of the 19th century, or indeed that I do when it comes to reviewing. The reasoning here is that the performances of the two Brahms cello sonatas are played on period instruments, the cello being a 1695 Francesco Ruggiero with covered gut strings while the piano is a Johann Baptist Streicher from 1868. As will be seen both play a prominent role in contributing to the success of the performances. And many readers will doubtless guess from the names that the performers have strong connections with early music, Amy Norrington being the daughter of Sir Roger, while Piet Kuijken is the son of Wieland Kuijken, a distinguished member of perhaps the most prominent of all early music families.

A period of over twenty years separates the two sonatas for cello and piano. The first, the three-movement op 38 in E minor, dates originally from 1862, but three years later Brahms replaced the slow movement with a new fugally-orientated finale. The sonata is dominated by its expansive opening Allegro non troppo, here running for over 14 minutes. It opens with a gently lyrical statement for the cello which is immediately answered by the piano, and already in the laying of the foundations of this movement we hear a number of features that will come to typify the characteristics of these performances. The first is the beautiful shaping of the cello theme and the tone produced by Norrington, a long line in which the purity is maintained without recourse to a distracting degree of vibrato. And although Norrington proves in many places she has the technique for the more strenuous writing, it is these expressive cantabile passages more than anything that remain in the mind. Secondly, the piano proves to my mind ideal for this music, perhaps unsurprisingly given that apparently Brahms himself owned a Streicher constructed in the same year as the instrument employed here. The top has a beautiful silvery tone in lyrical writing, but across the range produces a rich tonal quality of real character. Most importantly, the balance between cello and piano is near ideal in denser, more intense passages where the cello can tend to be swamped by a modern piano.

The later four-movement Sonata in F, op 99, dates from 1886 and is technically more demanding in some ways, particularly the urgent, thrusting third movement, its dynamism alleviated to some degree by the more lyrical central section. The briefer, fleet-footed final Allegro molto also demands considerable agility, again more than convincingly met in the present case. Finally, and especially rewarding for the present writer, are three song transcriptions – presumably made by the performers – ‘Es träumte mir’ from op 57 especially inducing some of the magically sensitive playing on the disc, the little touches of portamento in particular perfectly judged. It was a pleasing idea to include the texts and translations of the songs; it adds to the excellent impression left by what is for this writer an unexpectedly rewarding excursion into unfamiliar territory.

Brian Robins

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Bravura: Repertoire for natural horn and pianoforte

CD cover of Bravura

Louis-Pierre Bergeron horn, Meagan Milatz fortepiano
70:01
ATMA ACD2 2864

Perhaps the only familiar name on this recital of music for natural horn and piano is that of Beethoven, who is represented by his opus 17 Sonata. The other composers, Vincenzo Righini, Cipriani Potter, Nikolaus Freiherr van Krufft are largely unknown, while Franz Xavier Süssmayr is largely remembered as the man who completed Mozart’s Requiem. The common denominator among them all is unsurprisingly Vienna, to which they all gravitated at one time or another. The Beethoven is a recognised masterpiece of the genre, composed for the virtuoso Giovanni Punto, although it was probably Beethoven’s publisher Nikolaus Simmrock, also a horn player, who provided him with the necessary advice on how to write idiomatically for the instrument. Potter’s Sonata di Bravura (which provides us with the eye-catching CD title) is also associated with a horn virtuoso, Giovanni Puzzi, but it is as much the virtuoso piano part, presumably designed to show off the composer’s keyboard skills, that make this piece so attractive. In addition to playing the repertoire with admirable expressiveness and indeed bravura, the performers have made an astute choice of repertoire, and in addition to the Beethoven at least one piece – the Potter – is a considerable masterpiece deserving of further attention. Clearly horn players who have the Beethoven safely in their repertoire need to go in search of further gems in the wealth of repertoire from the same period. Bergeron plays a copy of a pre-classical valveless Viennese horn by Anton Kerner, while for the Beethoven, Krufft and Potter he plays a copy of a slightly later instrument by Lucien-Joseph Raoux, both of which have rich and flexible tone. Milatz plays a fine copy of a Viennese fortepiano of around 1792 by Anton Walter. The extensive programme notes include a fascinating essay by Claude Maury on the valveless horn.

D. James Ross

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Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

CD cover Olivier Baumont Un clavecin pour Marcel Proust

Olivier Baumont
46:00
Encelade ECL2204

The idea of a harpsichord for Marcel Proust may at first glance seem like a bit of a historical mismatch between an essentially Baroque instrument and a writer of the late 19th and early 20th century. But of course this is an author in search of times gone by, and harpsichords and harpsichordists make regular appearances in his writings. Olivier Baumont has cleverly sought out these allusions and constructed a programme of the music mentioned as well as pieces ‘in the old style’ by Proust’s friends and fellow enthusiasts for earlier centuries, Reynaldo Hahn and Louis Diémer. Playing appropriately three impressive 20th-century copies of 18th-century original harpsichords, Baumont explores the 19th-century revival of this Baroque repertoire witnessed by Proust and included in his novels. Grouping the music by Rameau, Bach, Scarlatti and Couperin interspersed by pastiches by Anthiome, Hahn and Ravel under the heading of the Proust characters the music is associated with, Baumont constructs a concert programme for an event which never in fact took place on an instrument (Proust’s clavecin) which never actually existed – a very proustian questioning of memory! He is joined by soprano Ingrid Perruche, violinist Pierre-Eric Nimylowycz, and fellow clavecinist Nicolas Mackowiak for what turns out to be a very engaging sequence of music. This CD is very much a flight of fancy of harpsichordist Olivier Baumont and for all it hangs on what in Scotland we would call ‘a bit of a shoogly peg’, his beautiful playing and the thought-provoking juxtaposition of pieces makes for a satisfying and involving experience.

D. James Ross

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Fauré: Complete Works for Cello and Piano

CD cover Fauré for Cello and Piano Tong Michael

Robin Michael cello, Daniel Tong piano
63:21
resonus RES10343

A foray into Fauré – apologies, it was irrestible – on EMR? I have to confess that it is some while since my own musical path took me in this direction. Notwithstanding, some of our more astute readers will doubtless put two and two together with the recognition that ‘early music’ in this instance is applied in the sense that the performances are played on instruments  appropriate to the music, or set up to be. Thus the cello used here is a modern copy of an instrument made at the end of the 17th century by Matteo Goffriller, the founder of the Venetian luthier school, and strung with gut strings. It has a rich tone, with a particularly mellow lower register. The piano is an Erard of 1885.

The CD contains all the works Gabriel Faure composed for cello and piano over a period of some 40 years (if you count the early Berceuse, op 16, which was written for violin or cello). At its heart lie the two late sonatas, the first in D minor dating from 1918, the second in G minor from 1922, being one of the composer’s last major works. The remaining works are all small-scale salon pieces and include the Sicilienne, op 78 (1898), which will be familiar to many listeners from its use in the incidental music Fauré wrote for Maeterlinck’s Pelleas et Mélisande.

Both sonatas utilise music from Fauré’s opera Penelope, first given a long-awaited premiere at Monte Carlo in 1913. But in his excellent note Robin Michael also points to such early influences on Fauré such Renaissance polyphony and plainsong, influences that here reveal themselves in othe occasional hints of modality and rhythmic complexities. Those that think of the composer in terms of the Requiem, the popular piano music or the well-known songs, may indeed be surprised by the fragmentary grittiness of the main theme of the opening allegro of the D-minor Sonata, op 109, where the disjointed rhythm of the piano part creates a disconcertingly discursive effect only dissipated when the music settles to the more lyrical middle section of the movement. The final movement of the same sonata is dominated by an expressive falling motif full or ardent longing. The opening allegro of the G-minor sonata, op 117, is driven by an impatient, thrusting theme led by the piano, it demanding considerable dexterity from the player when later taken up by the cellist, requirements well met by Michael. Conversely, the central andante with its hints of a funeral procession needs an expressive cantabile line, the pianissimo ending of the movement creating a moment of magic from both players.

The smaller pieces require little comment. The fluttering cello part in Papillon, op 77 is brought off with virtuoso aplomb, while the lovely Berceuse, op 16 is lovingly coaxed by both players, in particular demonstrating effectively the sensuality of the cello’s middle register.

Overall these are immensely rewarding performances that have reminded me just how exceptional a composer Fauré is. The sole reservations are to wonder whether a marginally greater use of rubato might have been appropriate at times and to tentatively suggest the bowing in the Sicilienne might with advantage have been lighter. A rewarding, and for one coming to the music from an earlier period, revealing CD.

Brian Robins

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Schumann & Mendelssohn: Symphonies

CD cover Mendelssohn Italian Schumann Rhenish Ottavio Dantone

Accademia Bizantina, conducted by Ottavio Dantone
59:08
HDB-AB-ST-004

An old cliché has it that Schumann’s symphonies suffer from thick, indifferently orchestrated textures. Not if they are played like this performance of the ‘Rhenish’ they don’t. Throughout both symphonies the listener is constantly struck not only by Dantone’s superb ear for balance but how helpful period instruments are when it comes to clarifying textures and providing colour. Thanks to conductors such as Mackerras and Norrington we are by now used to hearing this repertoire in this guise, but I do not recall previously being so aware of the rich inner detail of the contrapuntal writing in these works as there is here. It is relevant that in a perceptive note Dantone draws attention to the relationship both composers have with Bach, one of his great heroes. Thus, for example, in the development of the opening Allegro Vivace of the Mendelssohn, the counterpoint stands superbly revealed thanks to a lightness of touch comparable with the scintillating writing of the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” Overture.

‘Lightness of touch’ and ‘clarity of texture’ are two phrases that referring back to my notes I see recur time and again. They are benefits aided and complemented by the superb playing Dantoni inspires from an augmented Accademia Bizantina. String articulation is outstanding, the benchmark set by the cellos and double basses at the start of the Italian Symphony taken up and equalled by that of the upper strings in the secondary idea. The harmonie band is exceptional, too, never more telling than in the Andante con moto (the ‘moto’ well observed), where the delicate luminosity of the period flutes gives the music a magical ambiance. The beautifully paced Nicht schnell third movement of the Schumann finds lower strings and wind band exuding an affectionate, glowing warmth.

The succeeding Feierlich (‘solemn or grave’) is the most telling example of Dantone’s ability to span the architectural sweep of an entire movement, building the majestic edifice, said to have been inspired by a visit to Cologne Cathedral, to a quite overwhelming climax before gradually subsiding to a tranquil conclusion. In the final movement Lebhaft (lively, vivacious) Dantone avoids the temptation to take the heading to imply a fast tempo, keeping the movement moving at a brisk, but not rushed tempo which once again allows for admirable clarity of texture and building to an exuberant climax.

In his ‘Conductor’s Notes’ Dantone also discusses the importance of rhetoric in interpreting the music of the period, a topic that plays a major role in the recent Narratio Quartet recording of Beeethoven’s op. 18 String Quartets reviewed in EMR. It is fascinating to observe what seems to be an increasing preoccupation among some of today’s musicians with a topic whose importance, once a vital part of education, went out of fashion to the point where few today understand its linguistic let alone musical importance. Here there are fewer obvious cases of its application than in the Beethoven quartets; the use of portamento, for example, is subtly understated, often more hinted at then observed, but rubato is sparingly if tellingly applied at times, the second idea of the opening movement of the Schumann being an example.

In sum, I’ve found these performances revealing, challenging and endlessly fascinating. If, like me, you now infrequently visit works such as these, the music most of us grew up on, then do listen to these performances and prepare to have the senses refreshed.

It should be noted that the CD is available direct from www.accademiabizantina.it or www.hdbsonus.it  

Brian Robins

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Beethoven: String Quartets, op. 18

CD cover Beethoven op 18 Narratio Quartet

Narratio Quartet
165:35 (3 CDs)
Challenge CC72969

Published less than five years apart, what a world of difference exists between the six opus 18 String Quartets of Beethoven and the similarly constituted opus 76 set of Haydn! While the latter are the supreme work of a man at the height of his powers, the man indeed responsible above all others for the creation of the form, opus 18 represent the entry into the field by a young man who had probably just reached 30 by the time he completed the set. And it had proved to be a far from an easy entry. We know because Beethoven himself admitted it – ‘Only now’, he wrote to a friend in 1801, the year of publication, ‘do I know how to write string quartets’. 

This feeling of exploration and questing with a form accepted as arguably the most difficult to master is also very much a part of these performances by the Amsterdam-based Narratio Quartet. Playing on period instruments they have spent some fifteen years re-examining and working on the quartets in the context of the expressive performing traditions of Beethoven’s own time. These include a more flexible approach to tempo and rhythm than the strict, metronomic time-keeping we generally encounter today. The use of rubato was once a valuable expressive tool and is often used in harness with dynamic and other expressive markings. You can hear an example at the point of arrival of the secondary subject of the opening Allegro con brio of the F-major Quartet (no. 1), where the brisk opening subsides not only into a decrescendo and piano marking but also here an unmarked slowing of tempo, all combining to tell us we’ve moved into fresh territory.  Less innovative is the restriction of vibrato to expressive use, a technique now employed by many instrumentalists and singers. Most radical of all is the use of portamento or glissando, the sliding of one note into another in imitation of the human voice. It is used for expressive purposes, but needs to be employed sparingly. Especially in slower music, it carries a risk of sentimentality if used excessively. Beethoven is reported to have liked it, particularly in his chamber music. The Narratios seem to me to have got it just right, with the technique used sparingly and always sensitively, with little impression of simply making a spectacular effect. You can hear a startling example right at the start of the first CD, in the opening of the D-major Quartet (no. 3), where Beethoven’s unexpectedly poetic opening seems to expect this kind of expression. Incidentally, the quartets are arranged in the order it was once thought they were composed: 3; 1; 2; 5; 4; 6. It is now disputed.  

All this attention to such detail would be to little effect were the performances less perceptive than they are. Other more usual expressive devices such as dynamics and hairpin markings are keenly observed and I could find no tempo with which to take exception. But more importantly, the Narratios have for me captured the youthful essence and spirit of the six quartets to as near ideal an extent as can be humanly expected. Perhaps above all, it is the manner in which the wit and humour are embraced, a characteristic so frequently missing by those that would have Beethoven elevated to some kind of spiritual status. There are countless examples dotted through these performances, but I’ll highlight one. One of the most striking movements of opus 18 is the finale of the B-flat Quartet (no. 6), the structure of which has led some commentators to think in terms of an anticipation of the designs of the late quartets. It opens with an adagio marked La Malinchonia, an intensely inward passage almost entirely marked pp, it is played here with a rapt, intense inwardness brought to a halt by a fortissimo chord that quickly segues into a bright, witty triple-time movement marked Allegretto quasi Allegro. It is Beethoven laughing at us: ‘Ah, fooled you there, didn’t I?’ Wit, good humour and the dance now pervade the movement until a climax, led to in the present performance by an ever-quicker tempo subsiding to a dozen bars of the Adagio interspersed with four bars of triple-time. The coda brings a final example of these two extremes. You will find nothing comparable in the quartets on Haydn and Mozart; it is music that announces a musical revolutionary to whom the Narratio Quartet respond with compelling insight.

The quartet’s name refers to the art of rhetoric, the projection of which is tellingly apparent in these marvellously communicative performances. The continuation of the Narratio’s cycle can be awaited with the keenest anticipation.

Brian Robins    

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Hélène de Montgeroult

CD cover Montgeroult Hadjimarkos

Portrait d’une compositrice visionnaire
Marcia Hadjimarkos fortepiano, Beth Taylor mS, Nicolas Mazzolini violin
61:51
Seulétoile SE09

The composer and pianist Hélène de Nervo, Marquise de Montgeroult by marriage, 1764-1836) lived through tumultuous times in her native France. With such a colourful career and such characterful music as the performers have found here, it is remarkable that she has passed below the radar for so long. A student of Dussek and Clementi, Montgeroult benefited from the rapid development of the piano-forte during her lifetime, a process she was able to take full advantage of during her years in Paris. Pianist Hadjimarkos also takes full advantage of the developing pianoforte in her choice of some striking stops in her performances of the solo Etudes (1812 and 1816) and accompanying Beth Taylor’s powerful accounts of the Nocturnes (1807). She plays a beautiful 1817 pianoforte by Antoine Neuhaus. The piano works appear as an appendix to a Complete Method for Piano, and while seven of the Etudes recorded here are for both hands, a further three focus more intently on the right hand and yet another on the left – presumably Montgeroult’s intention was to strengthen both hands of the performer independently and to build up their distinctive roles. Given their very practical purpose, these Etudes are remarkably imaginative and effective, and are given superbly expressive performances here. The subtitle of the CD is ‘Portrait d’une compositrice visionnaire’ and this aspect of Montgeroult’s strikingly individual musical style is very much to the fore in the performers’ minds. Mezzosoprano Beth Taylor gives beautifully eloquent accounts of the six short Nocturnes op 6 for solo voice and piano accompaniment. In the style of the time, the opus 2 Sonata no 6 (1800) for piano with accompaniment by the violin is just that, a piece very much led by the piano with fairly restrained commentary from the violin. It too is imaginatively presented by Hadjimarkkos with violinist Nicolas Mazzoleni. Montgeroult’s biographer Jérôme Dorival considers her the missing link between Mozart and Chopin, and while she might not be the only deserving candidate for this title, she is clearly an important composer who thoroughly deserves a place in the history of the early piano and in composition generally. These performers have done us all a great service in shining such a musically convincing spotlight on a composer who clearly merits much more attention.

D. James Ross

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Fantaisie Romantique

James Akers Fantaisie Romantique CD cover

19th-Century Eastern European Guitar Music
James Akers
63:07
resonus RES10334

With this charming CD, James Akers continues his exploration of guitar music from 19th-century Ukraine and its neighbours. He plays music by seven composers on three different guitars: by Pietro Pettoletti (c. 1795-c. 1870) on a six-string guitar; by Johann Dubez (1828-1891), Nicolai Petrovich Makaroff (1810-1890), and Johann Kaspar Mertz (1806-1856) on an eight-string guitar; and by Mikhail Polupayenko (1848-1902), Johann  Decker-Schenk (1826-1899), and Nicolas Pavilstscheff (1802-1879) on a nine-string guitar. All three instruments have their first six strings tuned the same as a conventional Spanish or classical guitar from Western Europe (EAdgbe’), and although some of these composers also wrote for the seven-string Russian guitar with its distinctive open G tuning (DGBdgbd’), none of that repertory is included on the present CD. The instruments with two or three extra strings may at first sight look weird, because the extra strings are fixed equidistant from the other strings at the bridge, but splay out away from the sixth string to their own separate nut leaving quite a gap between the sixth and seventh strings. I guess that this enables the instruments to feel the same at the nut end, and allows the player space for his left-hand thumb to reach round the neck to stop notes on the sixth string.
 
The harmonic palette of these guitarist-composers is at times somewhat restricted – take away all the tonic, dominant and diminished seventh chords, and there is not always so very much left – but the simple melodies decorated with appoggiaturas and acciaccaturas, occasional chromatic touches, flourishes of arpeggios up and down the neck, and a tessitura widened by extra strings in the bass and extra frets at the treble end of things, combine to create an overall effect which is pleasing to the ear, and would have provided easy listening for salon audiences. No doubt the listeners would have felt at home if they recognised popular folk melodies or well-known tunes from operas, and would have been impressed by the virtuosity of flashy, extrovert variations. Each item is quite short – a total of 39 tracks lasting a mere 63 minutes.
 
From Oleg Timofeyev’s interesting and informative liner notes we learn that Mikhail Polupayenko was born in Kharkiv, studied medicine in Kharhiv and Kyiv, and gave guitar recitals throughout the Ukraine. His last performance was in Bakhmut in 1902. His Fantasia on Zaporozyhe Themes consists of five short contrasting movements, now slow, now fast, ending with an exciting Allegro vivo where repeated riffs get faster and faster. It brings to my mind Cossack dancers wearing furry hats, with baggy trousers tucked into their boots, kicking out as they crouch down, and calling out with triumph and joy. One thing is for certain: Polupayenko’s music is pleasantly brought to life with Akers’ interpretation and his subtle contrasts of tone colour.
 
Polupayenko’s Fantasia was dedicated to his friend, the Austrian-born guitarist Johann Decker-Schenk, who moved to Russia in 1861. There is much variety in his music too: Ukrainische Weise is enhanced by some delicate harmonics, and the third movement of his Fantaisie Romantique has a tremolo effect sounding like a Neapolitan mandoline.
 
Unlike the other composers represented here, Johann Dubez was Austrian. He was a versatile musician who played the violin, harp, mandoline and zither, as well as the guitar. His flamboyant Fantaisie sur des motifs hongrois pour la Guitare consists of 11 short items, including Tempo di Marcia, a setting of the well-known Rácóczi March. The music for the Fantaisie is available online for free download from the IMSLP website, where you can see evidence of his extravagant style, including an Allegretto with fast, arpeggios up and down the neck of the guitar followed by five sextuplets, a passage of descending quavers, rounded off with a super-fast rising scale in broken octaves, diatonic for the first octave and chromatic for the second.
 
Virtuosity is a constant feature of the music of Nikolai Makaroff, and his Fleurs du Nord, Op. 3, No. 1, also available on IMSLP, are no exception. He finds various ways of catching a casual ear’s attention, including a tricky passage in “Down on Mother Volga”, where the melody is played entirely in harmonics. James Akers makes it all sound so easy, but it most certainly is not.
 
Pietro Pettoletti was born in Norway, lived for a while in Germany, moved to Sweden when he was 25, and eventually settled in St Petersburg. In his liner notes Oleg Timofeyev explains that Pettoletti’s Fantaisie sur une Romance favorite de Paschkoff, Op. 31, consists of variations on the song, “He fell out of love with me”, by Alexander Guriliov (1803-1858), and that there are no apparent links to the eponymous Paschkoff.
 
Akers ends his CD with Nicolas Pavilstscheff’s Grande Fantaisie sur un motif de l’Opera “La fiancée” d’Auber, Op. 25 – a splendid showpiece deserving much applause.
 
Stewart McCoy
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Beethoven: String Quartets, opp. 74 & 130

CD cover Beethoven String Quartets, opp. 74 & 130

Chiaroscuro String Quartet
71:26
BIS BIS-2668

As late as 1801, Beethoven – already 30 years of age – felt the need to write to a friend that ‘only now do I know how to write string quartets properly’. They are words that might be said to provide a telling introduction to the publication of the six quartets of opus 18 the same year. Beethoven’s admission that he had found the medium a difficult one to master is pre-echoed by both Haydn and Mozart. Haydn, more aptly given the appendage ‘father of the string quartet’ than the more familiar ‘father of the symphony’, had a near-decade gap between producing his six opus 20 string quartets and his next set, opus 33 in 1781. It was a lengthy period for such a prolific composer and one in which he intimates that the cause may have been the need to reconsider the medium and compose the recent group ‘in an entirely new and special way’. And we know even Mozart, too, had to work on the string quartet to satisfy himself, writing in his dedication to Haydn of his first set of mature strong quartets that ‘they were the fruits of long and laborious toil’.

This struggle for mastery over the medium is mirrored in the demands made of performers of string quartets and none more so than the later quartets of Beethoven, among which we can include for the present purposes the E-flat Quartet, op. 74, ‘The Harp’ of 1809. It is probably at least in part for this reason that few period instrument quartets have to date tackled them, the wide range of tone and sonority, the extremes of expression making demands few feel confident of tackling. If there was one quartet one felt might be admirably suited to do so it is the Chiaroscuro Quartet, which has already demonstrated convincingly in Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ that it is quite capable of bringing off the big gestures of the early 19th-century repertoire, my review suggesting, ‘It is rare to hear period instrument playing of such technical accomplishment and perfect sense of balance’. Those qualities are again well to the fore in these superbly accomplished performances, embracing as they do an extensive range of sonority and colour achieved across a range of dynamics that extends from little more to a pianissimo whisper to, for example, the attack of the Presto (ii) of op. 130 in B flat, a headlong collision between music and performer. Just occasionally such extremes may be found by some a little too exaggerated, but throughout they fill the performances with vibrant immediacy.

At the other end of the scale, one need only listen to the manner in which the Chiaroscuros lure the listener into the opening Poco Adagio of op. 74, with playing owning to a rapt concentration that segues with the utmost naturalness into loving tenderness at the start of the Allegro. In the context of a performance that captures the general geniality of the quartet, the Presto scherzo brings the savagery of a galloping madman’s cavorting fury along with the grotesquery of the central trio vividly to life, providing a marvellously stark contrast.

For many op. 130 is the epitome of not just Beethoven’s string quartets but the medium itself. Yet associated with that perception are the myths that grew up surrounding the work, that this is music that gives up its secret only on a transcendental level. And then only to those granted some kind of spiritual insight into the work.  To remind those less familiar with it, the quartet is unusually cast in six movements, with four shorter inner movements framed by a large-scale opening movement that, like that of op. 74, opens with an intensely inward Adagio leading to a masculine, strongly muscled Allegro and a finale whose playfulness is affectionately toyed with in the present performance, especially in the feather-light spiccato playing. Equally at odds with the reputation of the forbidding aesthete Beethoven is the tiny Alla danza tedesca (iv), an enchanting German dance caught by the Chiaroscuros with beguiling charm and just a hint of rubato rather than the hefty nudge some quartets give it. And finally I hope it will be forgiven if a personal note creeps into a comment on the heart of the work, the Cavatina (v). But I cannot hear this movement without it recalling a dear friend, long dead. One of the most cultured people I have ever known, for her this was simply the most profound music ever written. She was no friend of period instruments, but I like to think even she would have been moved by the inner concentration and extraordinarily beautiful sonority of the Chiaroscuro Quartet’s playing here.

Brian Robins

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Beethoven: Piano Sonatas, op. 10

CD cover Tong Beethoven op 10

Daniel  Tong
61:31
Resonus RES 10307

Daniel Tong here plays a copy of an Anton Walter fortepiano of 1805 built by the prolific Paul McNulty. In his informative note, Tong makes a number of points regarding the advantages of playing Beethoven on a fortepiano, correctly observing that it brings both the ‘player and the listener closer to Beethoven’s sound world’. Strangely, among other well-made points, he doesn’t mention what to me is always one of the principal advantages of playing the music of this period on a fine fortepiano, which this example unarguably is. That is the deliberate contrasts of tonal colour in the various registers of the instrument, one of the key differences to the modern grand piano, which aims for homogeneity across the spectrum. This seems to me particularly on display in the opus 10 sonatas, where one senses time and again that Beethoven is deliberately exploiting the contrasting sonorities of the instrument. This exploitation is especially potent in such imitative passages between treble and bass (much exploited in these sonatas) as the coda in the Presto of the D-major Sonata.

The three sonatas that constitute opus 10 were published in 1798 with a dedication to Countess von Browne-Camus, the wife of one of Beethoven’s wealthy patrons, one of several dedications of his publications to both count and countess. As Tong notes, the sonatas follow a pattern that applies to almost all of Beethoven’s publications in threes, aiming at works of considerable diversity and one work in a minor key (No 1 in C minor). The one thing all three have in common is their evident intent to provide above all music for Beethoven the virtuoso pianist who wowed the aristocratic salons of Vienna during the 1790s. This is particularly the case with the D-major Sonata, the only one of the three with four rather than three movements and at once the most ambitious and the most technically demanding for the pianist. Tong meets these demands admirably, articulating the virtuoso passagework of the Rondo finale with nimble fingers and great clarity.  He is also capable of extracting poetry from the music where required, as for example in the final bars of the Largo e mesto of the same sonata, where the dynamics are exquisitely controlled to bring the movement to a close of perfectly attained peace. Neither is wit absent from Tong’s playing of a movement like the mostly playful Allegro of the F-major Sonata, where Beethoven uniquely in this set asks for the repeat of the development and recapitulation.

Overall these are admirable performances, enhanced by a recording that presents the instrument itself in the best light, its lovely bell-like treble admirably set off by a characterful middle register and richly resonant bass notes.        

Brian Robins