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Canada’s Jasper Wood has long
been one of my favourite violinists,
ever since he used to come into
the music store where I was working
some ten years ago to promote
his terrific CDs of the Eckhardt-Gramatté
and Gary Kulesha solo Caprices and Saint-
Saëns’ Music for Violin and Piano.
Since then he has built a wideranging
discography, including
CDs of music by Ives, Stravinsky,
Bartók and Morawetz. His latest
CD on the American Max Frank
Music label (MFM 003) is titled
Chartreuse, and features Wood
and his long-time accompanist
David Riley in beautifully judged performances
of sonatas by Mozart,
Debussy and Richard Strauss.
The Mozart is the Sonata
in B-Flat Major K454, and the
playing here — as it is throughout
the CD — is Wood at his usual
best: clean; accurate; tasteful;
sweet-toned; stylish; intelligent and
thoughtful. The Debussy sonata
is given an impassioned reading;
and in the Strauss Sonata in E-Flat
Major, Op.18 Wood and Riley handle
the virtuosic demands with
sensitive subtlety, invoking Brahms
rather than providing a mere display
of fireworks. The sound
throughout is resonant and warm,
and the instrumental balance just right. The
CD digipak comes without booklet notes, but
none are really necessary; listening to this CD
is like being at a memorable live recital.
Cellist Simon Fryer teams up with pianist
Leslie De’Ath on a fascinating CD of Victorian
Cello Sonatas on the independent American
label Centaur Records (CRC 3216). The composers
Algernon Ashton and Samuel Liddle
are probably new to you — they certainly were
to me — but they are representative of that
generation of late 19th century English composers
whose style went out of fashion in the
years before the Great War, and whose works
virtually disappeared from the repertoire.
Not surprisingly, their works here — Ashton’s
Sonata No.2 in G Major from 1882 and
Liddle’s Sonata in E-Flat Major and his Elegy
from 1889 and 1900 respectively — are world
premiere recordings; the Sonata No.2 in D
Minor, Op.39 by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford
completes the recital.
The previously unknown Liddle sonata
was discovered by De’Ath in the course of
his hobby of collecting musical documents
and ephemera. The predominant influence
seems to be German, especially the music of
Mendelssohn and Brahms, but that’s hardly
surprising, given the musical connections
between the two countries in Victorian times.
TERRY ROBBINS
Ashton’s music, although scarcely acknowledged
at home, was widely published in
Germany, where he had studied at the Leipzig
Conservatory; Liddle and Stanford also studied
in Leipzig during the late 1870s, as had
Arthur Sullivan some 20 years earlier.
While the Stanford sonata may be the
stronger work, there is a great deal
of worthwhile and highly attractive
music here, clearly the work of
competent and imaginative craftsmen.
Fryer and De’Ath certainly
present a persuasive case for the
pieces, surmounting the often
formidable technical challenges
with expansive playing that never
resorts to overly Romantic indulgence.
Fryer’s tone in the lower
register is particularly lovely.
Sometimes, admittedly, works
do remain buried or neglected for
good reasons, but CDs like this
one remind us just how rewarding
it can be to take the path
less trodden.
Fans of violinist Christian
Tetzlaff will be delighted with his
new CD of three Mozart Sonatas
for Piano and Violin, with Lars
Vogt at the keyboard (Ondine
ODE 1204-2). The sonatas are
those in B Flat Major K454, G
Major K379 and A Major K526
and Tetzlaff more than lives up to
his usual world-class standard in works that
require not only virtuosity but also a great
deal of sensitivity. His playing seems effortless,
with a smooth legato and a lovely range
of dynamics.
The booklet notes tell us that Vogt and
Tetzlaff are both very conscious of the ambiguity
created in these sonatas by Mozart’s
customary emotional range, and their performances
quite beautifully reflect this.
Tetzlaff apparently came to Mozart’s music
fairly late — well, at 15; late for a prodigy — but
clearly understands that growing older is crucial
to understanding the music.
The sound is spacious without being overly
resonant, with the two instruments clearly
separated but nicely balanced, reminding
us — as does the CD’s title — that these were
not originally written as sonatas for solo violin
with piano accompaniment.
Strings Attached continues at
thewholenote.com with new releases by
the Amar and New Zealand string quartets
(music by Hindemith and Asian composers
respectively), violin music by the Polish
composer Ignaz Waghalter performed
by Irmina Trynkos and American
Serenade featuring Swiss violinist Rachel
Kolly D’Alba.
MODERN & CONTEMPORARY continued from previous page
“World Music” and a pioneer of new sounds
from his own instrument, the piano. His fascinating
1930 Synchrony for orchestra was
originally titled Synchrony of Dance, Music,
Light and was intended as a vehicle for the
American dance pioneer Martha Graham,
who unfortunately lost interest in this multimedia
project. There is undoubtedly a
scenario behind this work which might help
explain its episodic character. Unfortunately
the very meagre program notes leave us in
the dark. Cowell’s rather more conventional
three-movement Piano Concerto was also
composed in that year, with the composer
himself the pianist for the premiere performances.
Both scores make prominent use of
Cowell’s trademark “chord clusters” — aggressive
conglomerations of notes played by
closed fists or open palms — which caused
quite a sensation at the time. Pianist Jeremy
Denk is the soloist in a rousing rendition of
this very propulsive work.
Lou Harrison (1917–2003), a student of
Cowell’s, carried on his mentor’s interest
in Asian musical traditions with a particular
emphasis on Balinese music. His Concerto
for Organ with Percussion Orchestra, completed
in 1973 though incorporating elements
from as far back as 1951, features an excellent
performance from Paul Jacobs. The five movements
of the concerto form a convincing and
satisfying synthesis of Eastern and Western
elements seasoned with a strong French
influence reminiscent of Messiaen. The
percussion section of the orchestra is in particularly
fine form in this invigorating score.
A superlative performance ofthe landmark
1927 version of Amériques by Edgard Varèse
(1883–1965) brings the album to a close on a
spectacular note. Tilson Thomas has always
had an uncanny knack for voicing the most
dissonant of chords into a harmonious blend
and here he outdoes himself. These splendid
live performances from 2010 and 2012 are
indispensable fodder for devotees of any of
these unbranded composers.
—Daniel Foley
Barbara Pentland – Toccata
Barbara Pritchard
centrediscs cmccD 18312
! I am very happy
that Centrediscs, a
label on which I also
record, has released
this CD of the solo
piano music of
Barbara Pentland. She
was one of Canada’s
leading composers
who also had a place in the international
avant-garde. Although she favoured serial
techniques she did not let the rules restrict
her. Her music sings and flows with imagination
and colour. These are not the dry ascetic
pieces you might expect from a serialist.
The first piece on the CD, Toccata (1958),
is modelled on the toccatas of Frescobaldi
56 thewholenote.com February 1 – March 7, 2013