Volume 25 Issue 2 - October 2019

Outstanding playing coupled with the usual top-notch Naxos
production standards make for a terrific CD.
Another Naxos CD explores Works for
Cello and Piano by Mario Castelnuovo-
Tedesco with the Italian duo of cellist Enrico
Dindo and pianist Alessandro Marangoni
(Naxos 8.573881 naxos.com).
The selected pieces cover the period 1927-
1946, the main works being the Cello Sonata
Op.50 (1928), I nottmbuli (Variazioni
fantastiche) Op.47 (1927), the Toccata Op.83
(1935) and, in a world-premiere recording, the Sonatina Op.130
from 1946. Four short pieces, including the unpublished Kol Nidre
“Meditation” (1941) complete the CD.
There’s fine playing throughout a beautifully recorded disc, with the
virtuoso piano part reflecting the composer’s own pianistic skills.
Cleveland Orchestra cellist Brian Thornton
is the cellist and Spencer Myer the pianist
on Robert Schumann Works for Cello &
Piano on the Steinway & Sons label which
was founded in 2010 (Steinway 30117
steinway.com).
Thornton has a deep, warm and velvety
tone in the Adagio and Allegro Op.70, the
Fünf Stücke im Volkston Op.102 and the
Fantasiestücke Op.73, ably partnered by Myer.
Schubert’s Ave Maria D839 is a simply lovely, if somewhat
unexpected, closing track.
There’s more Schumann cello on Une
rencontre, a CD of works by Robert
Schumann and the French composer
Tristan Murail (born 1947), who explains
his encounters with both Schumann and
cellist Marie Ythier in the extensive booklet
notes (Métier msv 28590 divineartrecords.
com). There’s a lighter and cleaner balance
between Ythier and pianist Marie Vermeulin
in the Fünf Stücke im Volkston Op.102 and
the Fantasiestücke Op.73 than on the Steinway disc, with perhaps a
touch more tonal nuance.
Attracteurs étranges (1992) and C’est un jardin secret, ma sœur, ma
fiancée, une fontaine close, une source scellée from 1976 are both solo
cello works by Murail; flutist Samuel Bricault joins Ythier in Murail’s
Une letter de Vincent (2018).
The final encounter is Murail’s recent instrumental re-interpretation
of Schumann’s piano work Scènes d’enfants (Kinderszenen) Op.15,
subtitled Une Relecture pour violoncelle, flûte et piano, Murail using
a range of instrumental techniques to make the orchestration sound
larger than a trio.
The sheet music publishing company Opus
Cello was formed by Boston Symphony
Orchestra principal cellist Blaise Déjardin in
2013 with the aim of bringing new, quality
additions to the cello ensemble repertoire.
Three works arranged by Déjardin
are on Mozart New Cello Duos, the first CD
release from Opus Cello (opuscello.com)
and featuring Blaise Déjardin and the Parker
String Quartet’s cellist Kee-Hyun Kim.
The 12 Variations on “Ah, vous dirai-je Maman” K265/300e provide
plenty of virtuosic fireworks as an introduction to the two Duos for
Violin and Viola in G Major K423 and B-flat Major K424. There’s a
lovely feel to the duo transcriptions, although the lower voicings make
for a slightly thicker texture at times. Still, there’s really fine playing
on a nicely recorded and highly enjoyable disc.
Keyed In
Three Keyboard Masters – Bach; Beethoven; Rachmaninoff
Jane Coop
Skylark Music Sky1901 (skylark-music.com)
!!
Veteran pianist Jane Coop brings three
composers into focus on her new fall
release: Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and
Bach. While the aggregate of the music on
disc is indeed a favourable one, the record
as a whole tends to play more as a recital
program than as an album. Coop’s musical
conviction and integrity merits discussion of
each component, singly:
Her choice to record the seven jejune Bagatelles Op.33 of Beethoven
is a fruitful one. Coop brings a childlike exuberance to this music,
augmented by just the right dash of buffoonery. She achieves an
essentially scherzando quality, from which the personal side of
Beethoven’s art can gleam. Coop has a zeal for these pieces, expert
in the Canadian tradition of Beethoven pianism inherited from her
teacher, the great Anton Kuerti.
In drastic juxtaposition, a set by Sergei Rachmaninoff plunges in
next. Despite the extreme textural disparity between Rachmaninoff’s
preludes and Beethoven’s bagatelles, Coop seems easily at home in
the vaulting halls of Russian Romanticism. One hears an icy, almost
Gouldian austerity. Punctuating the preludes are lesser-known transcriptions
by Rachmaninoff, penned late in the composer’s life and
intended for his own concert tours.
Finally, Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue brings a sense of
homecoming. One has the suspicion that each of these pieces has
been well-worn and well-loved by Coop; this is music she’s held dear
for a long time. How generous of her then, to share it with us.
Adam Sherkin
Mozart – Piano Sonatas Nos.2, 3, 8 & 13
Lars Vogt
Ondine ODE 1318-2 (naxos.com)
! ! The newest disc from the 40-something
pianist, conductor and educator, Lars Vogt,
delivers refined and compelling readings
of four Mozart piano sonatas. The range of
curation here is admirable, as is the enticing
(and thoroughly considered) nature of Vogt’s
interpretation. We meet an accomplished
and intellectually curious artist at the height
of mid-career prowess.
To open such an album with Mozart’s early Sonata in F major,
K280 is an unusual choice, yet a convincing one. Where Vogt overrides
status quo classical sensibilities with modern expressive concepts (cf.
the A minor Sonata, K310), he manages to steer us aptly to the brink
and then back again with just enough mastery to re-charm us under
his pianistic spell. It takes some level of courage to play Mozart like
this. Notwithstanding, it seems more acceptable today for a performer
to stretch such boundaries and take small yet consequential risks,
finding novel paths through well-trodden music.
Among the disc’s notable attributes are its polish and poise. Vogt
renders Mozart’s familiar notes with both a wide-eyed curiosity, (as if
hearing it all for the first time) and a learned interpretive command
that is exceedingly well informed (the second movement of the Sonata
in B-flat Major, K333, Andante cantabile, is one such example.)
If anything is amiss, it is a reluctance to take these convictions and
whims even further: to pilot the listener beyond the brink, as it were,
66 | October 2019 thewholenote.com