Volume 24 Issue 5 - February 2019

original piano settings well, and it shows.
There are some familiar old favourites here, but all are gems. There’s
never a dull moment in an outstanding disc.
The Indianapolis Commissions 1982-
2014 is a fascinating CD issued for the
tenth Quadrennial International Violin
Competition of Indianapolis (IVCI) in 2018,
and presents all nine specially commissioned
works written through the 2014
competition (Azica Records ACD-71321;
naxosdirect.com).
Violinist Jinjoo Cho, the Gold Prize
Winner in the 2014 IVCI, is quite stunning in a wide range of pieces
that include three – by Joan Tower, Leon Kirchner and Ellen Taaffe
Zwilich – for solo violin. Pianist Hyun Soo Kim supplies first-rate
collaboration in works by Richard Danielpour, George Rochberg,
Bright Sheng (the particularly dazzling A Night at the Chinese Opera),
Joonas Kokkonen, Witold Lutosławski and Ned Rorem. One gets the
impression that Cho could probably have won every one of the other
eight competitions as well.
There’s another 2CD volume available in
the outstanding ongoing series of Haydn
String Quartets by The London Haydn
Quartet, this time the Six Quartets Op.64
from the London Forster edition (Hyperion
CDA68221; hyperion-records.co.uk/
dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68221).
The previous six volumes over the past 11
years have garnered rave reviews, and
rightly so. These are period instrument performances simply bursting
with life and energy, and with faultless intonation on gut strings – no
easy feat. Hyperion’s two-CDs-for-the-price-of-one deal makes these
terrific issues even more of a bargain.
Cellist Anja Lechner and guitarist Pablo
Márquez team up on Die Nacht, a recital
of works by Schubert and his contemporary
Friedrich Burgmüller (ECM New
Series 2555; ecmrecords.com/catalogue).
A lovely performance of Schubert’s
Arpeggione Sonata is the centrepiece of the
disc, surrounded by five Schubert songs
interspersed with Burgmüller’s Trois
Nocturnes for cello and guitar. Songs with guitar accompaniment
were a strong tradition in 19th-century Vienna, many of Schubert’s
being published in guitar versions. The songs here are Nacht und
Träume D827, Fischerweise D881, Meeres Stille D216, Der Leiermann
from Die Winterreise and the Romanze from Rosamunde, the last two
in transcriptions by the artists. A rich cello sound and warm guitar
tone add greatly to a simply lovely CD.
Schumann is the latest CD from cellist Sol
Gabetta and features three works for cello
and piano with her long-time collaborator
Bertrand Chamayou and the Cello
Concerto in A Minor Op.129 with the
Kammerorchester Basel under Giovanni
Antonini (Sony Classical 88985352272;
sonyclassical.de).
The works with piano are 5 Pieces in
Folk Style Op.102, the Adagio and Allegro Op.70 (originally for horn
and piano), and the Fantasiestücke Op.73 (originally for clarinet and
piano), Schumann allowing that the latter two could be played “also
on melody instrument.”
Gabetta has a deep strong tone but never lacks warmth and subtlety.
She has performed with and known the members of the Basel
orchestra for many years, and the comfort level is apparent in a warm
and engaging performance.
I don’t recall receiving any CDs of the music of German composer
Walter Braunfels (1882-1954) before,
which made his Works for String
Orchestra performed by the Münchner
Rundfunkorchester under Ulf Schirmer all
the more interesting (cpo 777 579-2;
naxosdirect.com).
Both works here are relatively late
compositions from the mid-1940s. The
Quintet for String Orchestra Op.63a is
a setting of Braunfels’ Op.63 String Quintet by his student, the
conductor and musicologist Frithjof Haas. It’s a fine work with a
particularly lovely Adagio movement, although one gets the feeling
that some of the intimacy of the original is lost in the bigger sound.
The Sinfonia Concertante Op.68 for Violin, Viola, 2 Horns and
String Orchestra is a shorter but more substantial and impressive
work. Described in the notes as “more modern and radical” it
is decidedly in the German Romantic tradition with a strong post-
Mahlerian and Straussian feel to it, the prominence of the solo violin
in particular giving the work more the feel of a concerto.
The excellent recordings were made in 2007 and 2009, presumably
for radio broadcast.
The Great Necks – original arrangements for
three guitars is the excellent debut CD from
the guitar trio of Scott Borg, Adam Levin
and Matthew Rohde
(thegreatnecks.com/shop).
Borg is the arranger for the first four offerings:
Sibelius’ Finlandia, the three-fold
heavy strumming making for a rather thick
texture; four unrelated individual movements
by J. S. Bach; Villa-Lobos’ Chóros No.5 “alma brasileira”; and
Albeniz’s Asturias. Rohde joins him in transcribing four brief preludes
from Scriabin’s Op.11 keyboard set, but is solely responsible for, by far
the most effective track on the disc, an engrossing arrangement of the
hypnotic Danzón No.2 by Arturo Márquez.
Recorded in Toronto and engineered by the always reliable guitarist
Drew Henderson, the sound is clear and resonant.
The Orchestre d’Auvergne under Roberto
Fores Veses performs string works by
Dvořák, Janáček and Martinů on a new
CD described as “a testimony to the Czech
musical soul over a period of more than a
century.” (Aparté AP 195D;
apartemusic.com/discography).
Dvořák’s Serenade in E Major Op.22 from
1875 is heard here in its complete version,
the composer’s cuts and corrections from 1879 reinstated. Janáček’s
Suite for String Orchestra was written in 1877, a year in which the
composer spent the summer walking in Bohemia with Dvořák. The
latter’s influence is apparent in a delightful work. Martinů’s String
Sextet dates from 1932, and is heard here in the string orchestra
arrangement made by the composer in 1951.
Performances full of warmth of works that all came from happy
periods in the composers’ lives make for a highly satisfying disc.
Two rarely performed works by the Polish/
Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg
are presented on Weinberg – Concertino,
24 Preludes, with the Russian cellist Marina
Tarasova and the Music Viva Chamber
Orchestra under Alexander Rudin in the
Northern Flowers St. Petersburg Musical
Archive series (NF/PMA 99131; altocd.com/
northernflowers/nfpma99131/).
The Concertino for Violoncello and String Orchestra Op.43 was
written in 1948; never played, it became the basis for the Cello
Concerto with the same opus number, and was not discovered until
2016. It’s a lovely if brief work – the four movements are each under
five minutes long – with a strong Jewish klezmer influence and
68 | February 2019 thewholenote.com