Audio on the new Audite set is clear enough to convey the performances, and the set has a booklet with detailed information about each recording. And it is super-budget priced!

This is the stuff that legends are made of. Receiving their first outing on disc, both live performances from the Lucerne Festival feature a flexibility and spontaneity that rockets them to the top of the heap. In each work, the competition comes directly from Szell himself, as these are pieces that he recorded numerous times throughout his storied career. Great at those are, the additional warmth and excitement of being live is evident in nearly every bar.

[...] a delightful SACD of some of the composer's most charming music, impeccably played and beautifully recorded.

Performed by the Mandelring Quartett and the Quartetto di Cremona Mendelssohn’s Octet Op. 20 became one of the composer’s best – loved pieces.

Audite has released a set of recordings; made for RIAS Berlin by Julius Katchen in 1962 and 1964. The great discovery here is a major work Katchen didn't record commercially: Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor. Katchen's 1962 performance is simply stunning, and fiercely intelligent too: from a technical point of view his accuracy is downright astonishing since it was taped without any interruptions or major edits. But what makes it so engrossing is the way in which Katchen brings together detail, virtuosity and a long-term view of the structure into a conception of tremendous concentration. The drama and poetry of the music is realized to the fullest extent, and all with blazingly assured pianism. It was recorded on the same day (February 19th, 1962) as the Chopin Ballade in A flat, two pieces from Brahms's Op. 118 (Nos. 2 and 5) and two works by Beethoven: the Rondo a capriccio, Op. 129 (otherwise known as 'Rage over a lost penny'), which is new to Katchen's discography, and the Variations in C minor, WoO80, of which a live Katchen performance exists but not, I believe, a studio recording. Finally there's Schumann's Vogel als Prophete. The 1964 session (May 25th) includes all of the Brahms Fantasien, Op. 116 and the Scherzo, Op. 4 along with three works by Chopin that Katchen didn't record otherwise: the Nocturnes, Op. 9 No. 2 and Op. 27 No. 2 and the Berceuse, Op. 57. The original tapes have been superbly remastered by Ludger Böckenhoff and the sound is extraordinary. Katchen was one of the outstanding pianists of his generation, and this set is an important and inspiring addition to his recorded legacy (Audite 21.419, two discs, 1 hour 49 minutes).

'Fortuna scherzosa', the title of this engaging disc taken from Georg Philipp Telemann's Italian cantata included in the programme, can best be translated as 'mischievous Fortune'. The fickleness of Fortune is more or less the theme of all the works. Dorothea Schröder's programme notes expand on this, pointing out that Johann Philipp Krieger (1649-1725), Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657-1714) and Johann Ulich ( 1677-I741) have been Fortune's victims owing to the loss of all but a minuscule portion of their music. (Or, since they are oblivious to the fact, are we the victims?) In Telemann's case, on the other hand, we are blessed with an abundance of surviving music, but he certainly suffered domestic and financial setbacks at various points during his long career.

The disc's programme is made up entirely of secular pieces. Unfortunately, no text translations are provided. The most obscure composer is Ulich, who was Kapellmeister at the Court of Zerbst from 1708 to 1742 (for part of that period alongside Johann Friedrich Fasch) and whose entire oeuvre was presumed lost in the fire that destroyed the princely palace of Anhalt-Zerbst during the Second World War. However, three cantatas survived in the North German town of Jever, once part of Zerbst's territory. lhr hellen Sterne ('You bright stars'), for soprano and basso continuo, is the longest work in the programme and also a most attractive piece, revealing Ulich as a composer with a distinct voice, albeit never breaking away from the musical language of his time, and a real gift for melody. His mellifluous and almost naïve style is perfectly suited to the unadorned sweet voice of the German soprano Ina Siedlaczek.

Readers may have noticed I have sometimes offered mild reproach against singers who do not restrain their vibrato in historically informed performances of Baroque music. Siedlaczek is at the opposite extreme from these, for she uses no vibrato at all except in rare cadences. Far from sounding pallid and characterless, her voice, modulated by subtle dynamic and tonal shifts, is strongly expressive.

With three cantatas, Telemann takes up the lion's share of the programme. The title piece, Fortuna scherzosa, which pre-dates his move to Hamburg, was discovered just over a decade ago in the archives of the Berlin Sing-Akademie in Kiev. While its clumsy, unidiomatic Italian suggests Telemann himself may have written its ironic text, the pure Italian style of his music is utterly convincing, especially as sung by the bright-toned, almost girlish Siedlaczek. Its lilting yet harmonically striking final aria is a particular highlight among many in the programme. In Amor heißt mich ('Love calls me') and Hoffnung ('Happiness'), Telemann returns to his familiar cantata idiom, playful, tuneful and full of interesting turns of phrase. Both works are again given stylish renditions by Siedlaczek.

Erlebach also contributes three works to the programme, but they are all considerably shorter than Telemann's. Like Ulich, most of his music, written for the Count of Schwarberg-Rudolstadt between 1681 and 1714, was lost in a palace fire. The three arias were published in two collections of extracts from Erlebach's operas, which he published in 1697 and 1710. The rapid figures in Des Glückes Spiele ('Of Fortune's Games') show Siedlaczek's great agility is still not quite the equal of that of a Dorothee Mields, Moruka Mauch or Ulrike Hofbauer, superb performers of German music of the seventeenth century. Even so, hers is an impressive performance. Krieger's only contribution, the not completely unknown An die Einsamkeit ('To Solitude'), a meltingly beautiful slow aria over a gentle ciaccona bass, is evocatively performed by Siedlaczek. Her flexible voice, unadulterated by vibrato, is perfectly suited to its long dreamily melismatic soprano line spinning out across the ostinato bass.

The musicians of Hamburger Ratsmusik, Simone Eckert on viola da gamba, Michael Fuerst on harpsichord and the theorbo player Ulrich Wedemeier, all particular experts in the music of seventeenth-century Germany, provide Siedlaczek with an unfailingly rich and sensitive accompaniment, which contributes significantly to the impact of the recital. In addition to omitting text translations, the disc's documentation also omits any reference to the two violins (or perhaps treble viol and violin) that join the ensemble in the opening track, Erlebach's Des Glückes Spiel.

Given the purely secular nature of the programme, a wood-and-plaster lined Baroque hall or salon rather than the reverberant stone abbey church in Marienmünster, North Rhine-Westphalia may have served the recording better. Nevertheless, the sound is admirably clear and detailed and also easy on the ear, without any excessively close miking to overcome the muddying effect of the reverberation. As usual with hybrid Super Audio CDs, in addition to playing the disc on a standard stereo CD player, high-resolution stereo and multi-channel (or surround-sound) versions of the recording included on the disc can be accessed by using a disc player with SACD capability to produce an even more detailed and airy sound.

Enthusiastically recommended.

As per usual, excellence from the Mandelring players although some may find one...

[...] this collection will provide hours (literally) of engaging listening experiences. Even without the backstory of the “revival” of the Berlin Philharmonic, this is a fascinating time capsule for an ensemble whose significance dates back to the late nineteenth century. More importantly, it is a major document of a young conductor determined to take this major “ensemble of tradition” and establish a rightful place in the twentieth century.

La version de Stephen Hough et Mark Wigglesworth des deux concertos de Brahms,...

As part of their excavating activities at the RIAS tapes, the Audite label has now come up with a very nearly complete* Beethoven string quartet cycle from the famed, great Amadeus Quartet, recorded between 1950 and 1967**. In a sense this is hardly a re-release, but a first-time-ever issue on CD. Still, a half-century old recording seems a better fit under re-issues, so here it is.

What makes the set stand out is the Amadeus Quartet’s complete command of that chamber-music feel: the musicians—headed but not dominated by Norbert Brainin—become one organism that finds its expression through Beethoven (in this case). The fact that each movement of every work has been recorded in one continuous take only helps with this impression of a continuous arch and development. Warmth and an eager tension are combined to great results, leaving plenty younger interpretations that take the either athletic-Olympic approach or a merely beauticious one well behind.

There’s no need to pretend that many modern string quartets haven’t even greater technical mastery today. Or that recording quality hasn’t considerably improved*** (admittedly pointless when it’s voided via mp3 or poor streaming). Or that there aren’t select quartets which have just as much artistic and musical urgency and expressiveness. The qualities that make the Amadeus Quartet in Beethoven great are still most appreciable today: Among the great historic cycles, this is one that Beethoven lovers will immediately embrace alongside the first Budapest and second Végh cycles (more of the latter soon or above) as their go-to choices for old-world nostalgic beauty and musical insight.


* Only the “Harp Quartet” No.10, op.74 is missing, but to fill the void the String Quintet op.29 (with Cecil Aronowitz) is added. The Grosse Fuge is performed separately from op.130, as on their slightly later, fine but less vigorous, studio DG set.

** Really 1950 through 1962; only op.127 stems from 1967

*** The sound quality of these re-masterings off the original high speed analogue tapes are actually of superb quality and far better than anything one would ever expect from to hear from recordings that old.