Il y a des disques qu’on croirait faits pour les vacances. De ces musiques à...

Vidor Nagy is the principal violist of the Wurttemberg Orchestra in Stuttgart. He is originally from Budapest, and his playing has many characteristics I associate with excellent Hungarian playing. Though it is by no means weak, Nagy’s lyrical playing has a light touch and a soft-spoken vocal quality. I very much like the way he plays the Märchenbilder and admire the way he gives the low register sextuplets in III a fanciful and almost ponticello quality.

It is nice to hear the Rebecca Clarke sonata played in a delicate and rhapsodic style and with a little bit of Hungarian accent, especially in II. I also like the intimacy of the Kodaly Adagio, a piece from 1905 written in a dreamy romantic style.

The Bartok Romanian Rhapsody is a transcription from the original for violin and piano written in 1928 and based on Bartok’s own transcription for cello and piano.

The Suite Populaire Espagnole is based on a transcription that Falla made for cello and piano of what were originally six songs. Aside from a somewhat lackluster ending, much of the suite works quite well for viola.

The Duo Vivace presents a classical pops variety program of 19th Century transcriptions for piano and percussion. What can I say? They’re fantastic performers, and there’s nothing to complain about. The nuance and details of the pieces are well considered and crisply executed. The recording is good, and the balance between the two instruments is fantastic. The most significant piece is Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. They play it well and I was surprised at how much the percussion adds to the piano original, which always sounds thin and ineffective to me compared to the orchestral version. Nothing can replace the power and color of strings and brass. The light ragtime pieces from early in the 20th Century are a nice addition. Marimbist Albrecht Volz is an accurate and expressive player.

The inescapable implication arises that this recording will include all of Mozart’s organ works. In reality, Mozart left us no genuine solo organ works, unless we count two minuscule Versets, K 154a. There are many eyewitness accounts of Mozart’s organ performances and of his consuming interest in the organs of cities he visited, but on those occasions he improvised, and he evidently never composed for the instrument per se (the 17 Organ Sonatas with instruments represent, of course, a distinctly separate body of literature).
Non of this diminishes the interest of these works recorded by Martin Sander or should detract from his impeccable performances. In fact, several are substantial masterworks from Mozart’s last year (Fantasias K 594 & 608 and Andante in F, K 617), as well as the magnificent, dark Adagio and Fugue in C minor, best known in its version for strings.
Sander is one of the finest young virtuoso organists of Europe. He is on the teaching staff of the conservatories in Heidelberg and Frankfurt. He plays here the Metzler organ in the Parish Church at Hopfgarten im Brixental (Tyrol), a recent and beautiful instrument of 44 stops. All of his registrations are listed in the brochure.
There is an unmistakable authority in his playing – a combination of rhythmic integrity, intensity of expression, clarity of articulation and absolute evenness and polish of technique.
Recorded sound is natural and luminous, and the notes are excellent.

Around the time this Symphony 4 was recorded in October 1979, I saw this same ensemble strict unison bowing and all, deliver a very robust Dvorak 8. I was struck by the discipline and intensity of the musicians, but I don’t recall the unrelenting sobriety that is so dominant here. I share my affection for Szell’s Cleveland recording of Beethoven 4 with my colleague Steven Richter, and if that should supply a touchstone, it also offers an antidote in the Cleveland’s joyousness, rhythmic freedom, and unfailing beauty. By comparison, Kubelik and his Bavarians are more like portly gentlemen shipping wine and thinking too hard. This is not the Fourth I want.
If you would like to know how this conductor and orchestra played Symphony 5 on November 20, 1969, the sound of the remastering is good. The performance is straightforward, nicely played, somewhat wearisome and hence outclassed. Along with Reiner’s terrific RCA, Carlos Kleiber on DG makes a first choice for whiplash energy, while I’d direct those preferring an emphasis on weight and grandeur to the recent Barenboim on Teldec.

Victorian England produced no more colorful and controversial woman than Ethel Smyth (1858 – 1944). Not only was she a wonderful composer, but a resolute political advocate who even suffered brief imprisonment for her activities as a suffragette. Her various and passionate romantic attachments to other brilliant and creative women – including Virginia Woolf – are well documented. Her notoriety notwithstanding, she was eventually accorded her well-deserved status as Dame of the British Empire.
Not one to suffer fools gladly, she could hold her own with the most chauvinistic men of her era. Even such a remarkable character (and critic) as George Bernard Shaw held her and her music in high esteem, treating her like “one of the boys” in their correspondence. To his own credit, he credited her with “curing me forever of the old delusion that women could not do men’s work in art or other things”. He went so far as to thank her, in the same letter, for “bullying” him into going to hear this wondrous mass, and asserting that her music was “more masculine than Handel’s”.
Indeed, this is forthright and original music of great virility. As I’ve heard only a scattering of her piano and chamber music, the intensity and unbridled spiritual power of this premiere recording came as quite a surprise to me. Dame Ethel is quoted in the excellent notes as having put “all there was in my heart” into it when she wrote it in 1890 – the final fruit of her early conventional faith, stemming from her high-church Anglican upbringing. Then she went to say, “but no sooner was it finished than…orthodox belief fell away from me, never to return”.
The music, scored for the usual soloists with mixed choir and orchestra, sets the usual propers of the Latin mass. The originality of her writing consistently transcends the apparent influences of her romantic-era forbears. She knew how to write effectively for both a large chorus and orchestra and worked her ravishing solo lines into the musical fabric most beautifully.
The urgent, driven Kyrie is leavened by moments of melting lyricism. Although the Gloria came next in the original score, it is here saved (in accordance with the composer’s wishes) until the work’s end, as it was in the two performances the mass was given in her lifetime. Power and passion predominate in most of the succeeding movements as well, though interludes of limpid, melodious serenity supply both contrasts and occasional relief. Only the Benedictus remains consistently low-key and lovely. The mighty Gloria brings this magnificent work to a jubilant, olympic close that would have done Beethoven proud. It left me feeling drained but exalted.
Performances are committed and memorable, with soloists, chorus, and orchestra giving their all in the service of such extraordinary music – probably Smyth’s masterpiece. Sound quality is very good, but texts are lacking.
Shame on the Brits for allowing this blockbuster to languish in obscurity for so long, and – for all their rich choral tradition and accomplishment – suffering German musicians to finally rescue what deserves to be an English national treasure. Take the time to research this amazing lady on-line – you’ll be glad you did. I can imagine Smyth’s irrepressibly self-confident spirit looking down on this effort with a smug, “I TOLD you it was good” sort of air. You have simply GOT to hear it!

Martin Sander plays this recital of music by North German composers plus Bach on a two-manual, 31-stop organ built by Schweimb in 1696 an modified by John in 1707 in Ringelheim, a village in the Hartz Mountains near Brunswick. The organ is in the style of Central Germany but handles all of this music wonderfully.
The title of the release is alliterative. When translated it is less clever but it points out the relationship between the toccata or “touch piece” and the dances that are its origins. Many organists seem oblivious to that, but Sander understands it well and his fingers dance over the keys of this beautiful organ, bringing these ancient pieces to life as though they’d been composed yesterday.
The technical aspect of this recording is excellent, too.

The great organ in the Basilica in Weingarten (near Lake Constance), completed by Josef Gabler in 1750, is a wonder of the organ world; and it is difficult to decide whether the immense, elaborate case or the resplendent sound are more magnificent. The young German Gerhard Gnann’s deft performance of a thoughtful and well-chosen selection of works expertly demonstrates this grand instrument, one of only two by this builder still extant.
A fascinating and unusual component of his program is Guy Bovet’s arrangement for organ of Vivaldi’s Concerto in B minor, No. 10 from L’Estro Armonico, arranged after the manner of Bach used in his own organ transcriptions of Vivaldi’s concertos. It is a brilliant and mercurial work that sounds especially delightful o this organ, and Gnann’s playing of it is impeccable. A Pachelbel chorale partita with 14 variations offers an apt showcase for an assortment of the unique registers of this organ and makes one wish that Gnann’s registration had been included in the booklet.
The curious Knecht Sonata and a sleepy performance of Mozart’s Andante, K 616, closer in tempo to Adagio, prove less felicitous. The Muffat Toccata, however, is given an ideal reading, full of French baroque exuberance; and the Bach trio movement is finely played, a difficult organ and room for intricate trios notwithstanding. But Bach’s lavishly ornamented version of ‘Allein Gott’ is weighed down by a dreadful plodding tempo, and the A-minor Prelude and Fugue will disappoint all those who expect something beyond fast and loud.
The sound has been expertly engineered. The organ was milked in a way that minimizes the extreme reverberation of this spacious room. Well recorded, well played recordings of well selected repertoire on this wondrous organ are not easy to find, so this deserves a recommendation, caveats aside.

This is a thrilling disc. One always senses that the sound world of Ravel...

The German-based Mandelring Quartet makes an auspicious start to a new cycle of...