Still Life: Australian
Music for Viola. Patricia Pollett, viola; Colin Spiers, piano;
Phillipa Robinson, clarinet. (Tall Poppies, TP162)
Australia's shining light
of the viola, Patricia Pollett, needs little introduction to most string
players. Pollett is well known internationally where she has performed
as both a soloist and chamber musician. She has been particularly active
in promoting and performing the works of contemporary Australian composers.
This is her second disc
of Australian viola works. The first, entitled Viola Power (Tall
Poppies, TP098), featured works by Ross Edwards, Percy Grainger, Nigel
Sabin, and Margaret Sutherland, among others. This latest release continues
Pollett's deep commitment to leading Australian composers as well as
to younger talents.
Her recital begins with
Elena Kats-Chernin's "Still Life." This highly imaginative
score, set in six short movements, moves swiftly through different moods
from slow and hypnotic to blues to an energetic tango before finally
returning to the first soft, haunting theme. Pollett brings her tonal
skills into full play, characterizing each segment with a warm and intimate
sound when required, lean and spare when the simplicity of the music
demands it. The playing is idiomatic and technically impeccable.
"Threnody" by
Peter Sculthorpe is based on the main theme of his orchestral piece
Kakadu, a free version of an aboriginal lament. Originally written
for cello, "Threnody" equally well suits the viola in its
poetic feeling and intensity. This beautiful lament is dedicated to
the memory of the late conductor Stuart Challender.
Robert Davidson's "Lento,"
written for Pollett, is dark-hued and melancholy but never bleak. The
lyrical passages are finely shaped and the bell-like and transparent
piano accompaniment (beautifully played by Colin Spiers) adds a ray
of hope to the inner stillness. Pollett blends romantic freedom and
poetic introspection with a highly disciplined and masterful technique.
"Swansong" by
Andrew Ford moves through an intense emotional spectrum with a tonal
and harmonic texture that is nevertheless sparse and angular. There
are interesting double-stops evoking bagpipe effects, and a more lively
rhythmic and vividly dramatic middle section ensues before the swan
gives up the ghost at the very end. (This finale is an excerpt from
Orlando Gibbons' famous madrigal.)
Nigel Sabin's "Postcards
from France," for
clarinet and viola, is entirely delightful. Evoking a train journey
to Paris, clarinetist Phillipa Robinson combines with Pollett in a perfectly
integrated duo achieving an ideal balance and wonderfully blended sound.
This is highly evocative music that is also witty and agile. The duo
plays with great drive and vitality, indeed with a rhythmic zest that
is irresistible.
"Flux" by Stephen
Cronin, again composed expressly for Pollett, is written entirely in
harmonics and has the effect of jewel-like notes seen through a prism
of kaleidoscopic color. Pollett plays with deep feeling and finesse,
bringing a luminous tone to this intriguing piece and an overall feeling
of relaxation and effortlessness.
Gerard Brophy's "The
Room of the Saints" is chaste and voluptuous in turn, with an underlying
rhythmic drive and exoticism that reveals his interest in non-Western
instrumentation. Pollett is always sensitively attuned to its changing
moods.
Leading the younger generation
of Australian composers, Paul Stanhope wrote his "Dawn Lament"
as a response to an aboriginal poem—a ritual wailing for the dead.
However, the piece can also be viewed as a lament for the wrongs done
to indigenous people. Pollett sensitively portrays this reflective,
finely spun work.
Betty Beath's work as composer,
pianist and educator is unrivaled. She actively promotes and performs
the music of women composers and her works have been performed and recorded
worldwide. Her composition "From a Quiet Place" is a fitting
conclusion to this collection of Australian viola music. Inspired by
Pollett's playing and her oneness with her instrument, "Quiet Place"
is also influenced by the beautiful sounds of Nepalese bells. The piano
intertwines in a dialogue that is integral to the whole, exquisitely
underpinning the music as it moves through moods of tranquility and
meditative calm to "exaltation and a final serenity" (in Beath's
own words).
Australian composers as
well as her listeners owe Pollett a great debt for her dedication and
for her immense skills in interpreting these works. With this recording
she further validates her position as one of Australia's finest string
players.
Mendelssohn and Bruch
Violin Concertos. Midori, violin; Mariss Jansons conducting the
Berlin Philharmonic. (Sony, 87740)
On this recording, one of
her best, Midori makes these two warhorses sound fresh and new, and
raises the Bruch to a higher musical level. Recorded live, her playing
combines consummate perfection with the excitement and spontaneity of
a performance, balancing virtuosity and expressiveness. Her phrasing
is elegant, her tone ravishingly beautiful, pure, sweet, focused, and
variable. Her playing is romantically ardent, intense, and free, but
never loses its simplicity and noble restraint—her liberties are
poised and organic. The Mendelssohn is wistful and poetic. Despite a
relaxed tempo, the Finale is brilliant and light, full of charm and
elfin grace.
The Bruch opens with improvisatory
hesitation, becoming dramatic, fiery, and rhapsodic. The slow movement
is reposeful, introspective, the Finale scintillatingly vivacious. Throughout,
the orchestra sounds wonderful, bringing out voices usually obscured.
Midori weaves her part into the texture, creating a seamless, radiant
tapestry.
—Edith
Eisler
Beethoven and Mendelssohn
Violin Concertos. Viktoria Mullova, violin; John Eliot Gardiner
conducting Orchestre Révolutionaire et Romantique. (Philips,
473 872-2)
These performances incorporate
some "alternative readings" that Viktoria Mullova and John
Gardiner discovered in original scores. Affecting a few rhythms, articulations,
and figurations in the solo part, and instrumentation in the orchestra,
the changes are minor. It's the interpretations that are unusual. Perhaps
influenced by Gardiner's period-style orientation, textures are unusually
clear and transparent, tempos are moderate. The playing is superb. Mullova's
technique is flawless, her tone has a luminous, pristine purity. She
uses a focused, sparing vibrato. Spinning long sustained lines over
chiseled phrases, her expressiveness is inward and subdued. The Beethoven
is severe, a bit prosaic, but the slow movement is wonderfully serene,
the Finale sparkles, and the Dantone cadenzas display her stunning virtuosity.
The Mendelssohn, though
not really romantic, is warm, noble, and simple, but the Finale is too
slow to get off the ground.
—Edith
Eisler
Bach: Violin Concertos.
Hilary Hahn, violin, Jeffrey Kahane conducting the Los Angeles Chamber
Orchestra. (Deutsche Grammophon, 474 99-2)
Hilary Hahn, one of our
best young violinists, seems to have succumbed to the jet-age-induced
trend among today's performers to play as fast as their fingers will
carry them. But her musicality and feeling for Bach (she has already
recorded his unaccompanied works) is so genuine that she cannot be suspected
of merely showing off. In these concertos, her first for the Deutsche
Grammophon label, her flawless technique, beautiful tone, and restrained,
noble expressiveness are on full display. Still she takes the fast movements
at such excessive speeds that the music loses all elegance, grace, charm,
and atmosphere, and sounds aggressive, prone to false accents, hectic,
and breathless. Yet, the slow movements are beautiful, calm, emotionally
concentrated, expansive enough for carefully shaped phrases. Hahn's
teamwork with violinist Margaret Batjer and oboist Allan Vogel, both
excellent partners, is close and unanimous; the orchestra sounds good
but rather lush.
—Edith
Eisler
Sea Sketches: Walters, Walton, Williams, Warlock. Roy Goodman
conducting the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. (Canadian Broadcasting Records,
SMCD 5227)
"I've lived most of
my life within sight of the sea, and I shall never tire of looking at
it and listening to its wonderful sounds," writes Grace Williams.
Her Sea Sketches (1944) is a musical voyage that transparently
glides through five oceanic moods—from High Wind to Calm Sea in
Summer. Gareth Walter's Divertimento for Strings uses short excerpts
from Welsh folk music to craft a melodic work highlighted by two wistful
slow movements. Peter Warlock's Serenade for Strings honors Frederick
Delius' 60th birthday with a romantic tribute to his pensive depictions
of English landscapes. William Walton's two interludes from the movie
Henry V and his transcription for string orchestra of the Quartet
in A Minor complete this well-played and lusciously recorded disc of
off-beat music for string orchestra.
—Robert
Moon
East Meets East.
Nigel Kennedy, violin, electric violin; the Kroke Band: Tomasz Kukurba,
viola, flues, percussion; Jerzy Bawol, accordion; Tomasz Lato, bass.
Guests: vocalist Natacha Atlas and others. (EMI Classics, 7243 5 57512
2 5)
In this new adventure, Nigel
Kennedy, his first name restored, joins the excellent Kroke Band from
Krakow, Poland, pioneers in Klezmer and folk music, in a program featuring
his own and the other players' original compositions and arrangements
of traditional songs. A strong Oriental or gypsy flavor gives the music
a mournful character; the rhythms and meters are often quirky and off-center.
Though the tunes are endlessly repetitive, inventive improvisation,
varying articulation, and texture and tempo avoid monotony. This blending
of acoustic and electric instruments produces rich, shimmering sounds.
Kennedy is a phenomenon, equally at home in every style and idiom, a
brilliant virtuoso with incredible facility, perfect double-stops, and
ringing harmonics. And his tone—glowing on the low strings, soaring
up high, has an aching, beguiling sweetness.
—Edith
Eisler
Vivaldi La Stravaganza:
Violin Concertos Op. 4, Nos. 1-12. Rachel Podger, violin, Arte dei
Suonatori. Two CDs or one SACD. (Channel Classics, CCS 19598 or CCSSA
19503)
This sexy new set of Vivaldi's
surprisingly neglected La Stravaganza goes right to the head of the
class. Featuring British violin virtuoso
Rachel Podger at the top of her form
and a group of hand-picked original-instrument musicians based in Poznan,
Poland, the performances hypnotically explore the delicious tension
of improvisation within the intoxicating framework of Vivaldi's sumptuous
melodies. Rivaling the Italian Baroque champion Giulianno Carmignola
in her luminous tone and seductive lyricism, Podger and her 1739 Pesarini
sweep into Vivaldi's richly colorful, emotional world with a thrilling
command of Baroque convention. The lovely, detailed sound on the conventional
CDs is even more brilliant on the SACD-formatted version. Priced at
two CDs for the cost of one, and accompanied by liner notes by Jonathan
Freeman-Attwood, which are engaging in an academic way, this is a Vivaldi
treasure not to be missed.
—Laurence
Vittes
Rachmaninov, Franck:
Cello Sonatas. Steven Isserlis, cello; Stephen Hough, piano; with
Rebecca Evans, soprano. (Hyperion, CDA67378)
Steven Isserlis, adventurous
cellist extraordinaire, always has a surprise in store. Here, it is
two cello pieces by Rachmaninov, and two songs with cello obbligato
by Franck. The playing throughout is beyond praise. Isserlis' instrumental
command is complete; technical problems do not exist. His tone is flawlessly
pure, and infinitely variable in color and nuance. His playing is free
but controlled and always noble—pensive and expressive but never
sentimental, ardently passionate but never exaggerated. The opening
of the Rachmaninov is magic, like a gradual awakening, the Finale is
all triumphant joy. The Franck combines artless simplicity with radiant
serenity and tempestuous abandon. His program notes are, as always,
both enlightening and entertaining. Stephen Hough is a splendid partner.
The balance is exemplary.
—Edith
Eisler
Together. Li Chuanyun,
violin, Huang Yameng, piano. (Milan, M2-36016)
In director Chen Kaige's
recent sentimental film Together, a young violin prodigy is torn
between his love of music and his father's hopes of success for him
in a rapidly modernizing China, a country that is similarly caught in
the pull between tradition and modernization. It is fitting then, that
the film's soundtrack reflects those same contradictions, alternating
as it does between Zhaolin's original score—a sly blend of the
traditionally Chinese and the grand multistringed orchestrations of
Hollywood—and a stirring set of classical pieces (everything from
Tchaikovsky and Paganini to Verdi and Bruch), all featuring the sweet,
emotion-drenched playing of 22-year-old violinist Li Chuanyun. After
a career in China as a prodigy, Chuanyun moved to New York and studied
at Juilliard with Dorothy DeLay and Itzhak Perlman. The highlight of
the CD, as in the film, is the heartbreaking violin solo in Liszt’s
Consolation No. 3, exquisitely played by Chuanyun with Huang Yameng
on piano. The CD's only disappointment is its exclusion of Chuanyun's
version of the Gershwin show chestnut "It Ain't Necessarily So,"
featured prominently, and rather deliciously, in the film.
—David
Templeton
Beethoven: String Quintets:
Op. 1, No. 2; Op. 11; Op. 17. Transcriptions by Carl Khym. Metamorphosis
Quintet. (Naxos, 8-553827).
Carl Khym (c.1770–1819)
was a Bohemian oboist and composer who arranged Beethoven’s Piano
Trio, Op. 1, No. 2, the Clarinet Trio in Bb Major, Op. 11, (known as
the Gassenhauer Trio, but often played by violin, cello, and piano),
and the Sonata for Horn and Piano in F Major, Op. 17, for string quintet.
Khym's arrangements preserve the lyrical essence of these masterpieces
and the strings provide a richer expressive palette but lack the
piano’s rhythmic bite. The performers, members of the Budapest
Festival Orchestra, play with an infectious spirit that projects the
freedom and verve of their Bohemian heritage. String lovers will welcome
and savor these arrangements and performances.
—Robert
Moon
Stravinsky and Berg Violin Concertos. Mark Kaplan, violin; Lawrence
Foster conducting the Budapest Festival Orchestra. (Koch International
Classics, 3-7530-2 III)
Lalo: Symphonie Espagnol;
Manen: Concierto Espagnol. Mark Kaplan, violin; Lawrence Foster
conducting the Orquestra Simfonica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya.
(Koch International Classics, 3-7531-2 HI)
The Stravinsky and Berg
CD pairs two very different 20th-century masterpieces and provides a
fitting showcase for the talents of violinist Mark Kaplan, a young performer
and professor of violin at UCLA. Berg transcends stringent 12-tone technique
by guiding the ear with hints of tonality to the melodic, harmonic,
and thus the emotional content of the music.
Written in memory of the
teenage daughter of Alma and Walter Gropius who had just died of polio,
Berg's concerto depicts her vibrant life with a lilting waltz and mourns
her death with deeply moving lamentations, culminating in a quote from
a Bach chorale. On the other hand, Stravinsky's concerto is a cheerful
romp: brilliant, elegant, bouncy, rhythmically spiky, sarcastic, masterfully
orchestrated, with lovely melodies in the slow movements. The performances
are wonderful. Playing from deep inside the music, Kaplan uses his brilliant
virtuosity and strikingly beautiful, variable tone to evoke and instantly
change mood, character, and expression; the orchestra supports him splendidly.
Only a performer could have
written his scholarly, illuminating program notes.
The Lalo and Manen disc
spotlights two Spanish violin concertos: one the best-known work of
a familiar French composer, the other the unknown work of a forgotten
Spanish composer. Like many of his compatriots, Edouard Lalo was attracted
to the dance-rhythms and melodies of Spain. Written for Spanish violinist
Pablo Sarasate, his Symphonie Espagnol abounds with technical fireworks
and passionate ardor. Kaplan's dazzling virtuosity and sumptuous tone
make it glow, shimmer, and soar. The first two movements are a bit fussy,
but the rest is terrific. Juan Manen was a famous virtuoso on both piano
and violin as well as a serious and prolific composer. This obscure
concerto is distinguished by its unexpectedly chromatic harmonies,
sometimes overly lush orchestration, and mixture of many different dance
rhythms. A true showpiece, it makes use of every violinistic effect,
including long passages in sixths and thirds, and ends high up with
a bird-like trill. Though charming and inventive, it is a bit long and
discursive, but the performance could not be more brilliant, persuasive,
and affectionate.
—Edith
Eisler
