Het resultaat is spectaculair. We horen Italiaans belcanto, Von Weber-achtige passages, dat alles met Wagner-achtige trekjes. In de preludio neemt Liszt de luisteraar mee de natuur in, met een pastoraal wijsje en de suggestie van fluitende vogels. Zeer monumentaal is L'altera Ninive at te s'inchina. Aan Liszt is een groot operacomponist verloren gegaan.

The Beethoven Cello Sonatas discography has always been very generous, yet these sonatas still stand somewhat in the shadow of Beethoven’s other chamber cycles. This past few weeks saw two new releases of the complete Cello Sonatas. Marc Coppey (Cello) and Peter Laul (Piano) on the Audite label are adding the complete variations for the duo instruments, while Leonard Elschenbroich (Cello) and Alexei Grynyuk (Piano) on Onyx are adding the Sonata Op. 17, originally for horn and piano.

Comparing the two cycles are a rewarding experience. First, these are two highly impressive and enjoyable performances. Coppey and Laul are recorded live at St Petersburg Philharmonia, and their performances are the more spontaneous-sounding of the two. Coppey’s voice has an emotional intensity that shines through even in the classical influenced Op. 5 sonatas. Laul is attuned to the dramatic contrasts in Beethoven’s piano writing and his sharp attacks are effectively conveyed when called for.

Turning to Elschenbroich and Grynyuk in the early sonatas, and you’d find a more reserved, even refined playing, with broader tempos and emotional projection in check. There is more patience in their transition from the slow introductions to the faster allegros on both of the Op. 5 sonatas. Grynyuk’s playing is honestly and simply conveyed, and the balance between the pair is superb. The results, though, is less exciting than Coppey et Laul, or less unpredictable, depending on your taste.

Elschenbroich and Grynyuk let loose some in the Op. 69, with a highly successful account of the most famous piece of the cycle. They make the best of the short Bach quote from St. Johannes Passion at the beginning of the development section, clearly see it as the highlight of the first movement. Turn to Coppey and Laul and you’ll meet an even more tumultuous Op. 69, where the development section is played with sharp attacks and direct tone that’s hard to resist. Not everyone will be convinced by the slowing down at the beginning of the Bach quote, though (6:45, track 1 in the second CD). Overall, it’s the same conundrum – Coppey and Laul are more charged with energy and with what sounds like on-the-spot decisions, while Elschenbroich and Grynyuk are calmer, organized and planned, their musical ideas projected with more subtleness. Coppey and Laul are apt for more humor in the Scherzo too, while Elschenbroich and Grynyuk are more nervous.

Elschenbroich and Grynyuk’s more reserved approach is very suitable to their take on the late Op. 102 sonatas. This is also where Grynyuk is at his best – Listen to his superb voicing at 0:55 of the last sonata’s slow movement. Coppey and Laul’s more public approach, quite literally, takes away from the music’s inwardness. Yet the fugue that finishes the cycle is prepared with a suspenseful grin, in contrast to, yet again, the seriousness of Elschenbroich and Grynyuk.

Another two impressive additions to a tough competitive catalog, then. The live set is exciting as any, with a recording that is transparent yet tends to the edginess in the loud passages. Elschenbroich and Grynyuk are better and more intimately recorded at the studio, with a more steady, reflective approach. Both deserve your attention, along with highly successful alternatives (linked below) – namely Miklós Perényi and András Schiff (ECM), Alfred Brendel and son Adrian on Phillips/Decca and Xavier Phillips and François-Frédéric Guy on little Tribeca. Not to mention the legendaries accounts by Mstislav Rostropovich and Sviatoslav Richter, or Pablo Casals’ early cycle released by Naxos.

[...] Trippett's instrumentation is bold, truly reflecting the score's over-exuberance... This important audite issue is a model of how rare works such as sardanapalo ought to be presented.

[...] Sardanapalo receives an outstanding performance from the Weimar Staatskapelle and Nationaltheater Opera Chorus under Kirill Karabits. Joyce El-Khoury brings her fascinating soprano to bear upon the role of Mirra, arching some spacious phrases with intensity. Airam Hernández brings warmth to the tenor title role, and Oleksandr Pushniak's bass-baritone provides thunder as Beleso.

Particolarmente meticolosa la cura dei dettagli, in un contesto nel quale ogni minimo particolare, ogni impercettibile sfumatura (timbrica e dinamica) sono messi al servizio di ogni edificio, offrendo così per ogni creazione un quadro d’insieme energico ed organico.

This is the first time that the Quartetto Italiano’s complete RAIS broadcast recordings have been made available, direct from the master tapes made between 1951 and 1963. The broadcasts are interspersed throughout the three discs but extracting the details shows that there are four broadcasts in total. The earliest in February 1951 (apparently taped over two consecutive days) saw the Austro-German programme of Haydn, Schubert and Schumann. In October 1958 they essayed Cherubini and Schumann’s Third Quartet, and the following year the more radical pairing of Donizetti and Ravel. Finally, in October 1963 they played the cutting-edge Shostakovich 7 (only very recently published) and Malipiero’s Fourth of 1934. Not the least of the many virtues of this release is that the ensemble’s Cherubini, Donizetti and Shostakovich Quartets are making their first appearances on CD.

It’s evident that by the late 1950s their stature was sufficiently high for them to exhume older Italian quartets and to add them, however briefly, to their repertoire to supplement their more standard fare. The Donizetti Quartet No.7 is, in any case, rather closer to Schubert stylistically than to Beethoven and its clarity and refinement are alike fully projected by this most fastidious and beautifully textured of quartets. There’s no want of elegance and charm. Their crispness of articulation and unanimity of weight garland Cherubini’s F major quartet to great advantage. In this first disc the two-movement Malipiero comes as welcome grit, its tempestuous agilities and beauties opening into broad polyphony; bright, alive and flexible. The Quartetto Italiano must surely have welcomed the Ravelian hues of its second movement, which they play with great warmth.

It’s a real surprise, and of enormous benefit, to hear their very particular insight into the Shostakovich. It’s neither as vibrato-heavy as the Borodin nor as biting and acidic as the Taneyev; that, of course, was not the Italians’ tonal, timbral or expressive heritage. Instead they chart a rhythmically resilient, focused course playing the funereal Lento – the composer’s tribute to his late wife, Nina – with exemplary refinement. They recorded the Ravel commercially in Milan in 1959, the same year that they left behind this Berlin broadcast performance. Here it’s just as beautifully balanced and atmospheric, the control of narrative just as gripping. It offers a welcome respite from the Juilliard Quartet’s frost-bitten recording of it, which was made at almost the same time. Perhaps this broadcast performance of Schubert’s B flat major quartet is a touch slower than the studio inscription but there’s not much in it expressively, and the characterisation of the Menuetto is a real highlight; the terpsichorean wit, control of dynamics and pizzicati unforgettably alluring.

The final disc is given over to Schumann’s Second and Third Quartets, and Haydn’s Op.77/1. German critics of the time may not have always welcomed Schumann if the booklet notes are reflective of their views, but the Italians play both works with affection and a sure sense of direction. The F major is buoyant, deft in the slow movement, and sporting an insouciantly dispatched Scherzo. The A major is the more popular quartet but whilst the slow movement is sensitively voiced it is never mawkish. The Quartetto Italiano remains scrupulously elegant throughout. The Haydn is both rarefied and gallant; the briefest moments of insecurity in the Menuetto apart, everything goes beautifully.

The original tapes have been presented in the very best aural light, whether taped in the RIAS Funkhaus or in Siemensvilla, and the booklet notes and production standards exemplary. It’s difficult to think of a time during its distinguished existence when this quartet wasn’t at its peak and any chance to explore the hitherto unpublished elements of its repertoire should be relished. Time spent here is stimulating, rewarding and enriching.

[...] dann kommen ja, gerade im Spätwerk von Franz Schubert, dem sein neues Album gewidmet ist, auch die leisen und sanften Passagen, und da entfaltet Lucchesini erstaunliche Präsenz und Zärtlichkeit.

Prinz Johann Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar, der im Dunstkreis von Georg Philipp Thelemann, Johann Gottfried Walther und Johann Sebastian Bach eine Reihe barocker Virtuosenkonzerte schrieb, die in ihrer prächtig munteren Art an Vivaldi erinnern, und doch eine eigene Handschrift aufweisen (audite). Das Thüringer Bach-Collegium ermöglicht diese erstaunliche wie erfreuliche Entdeckung.

Die Orientierung an Formensprache und Ausdrucksvielfalt von Johann Sebastian...

[…] Im Streichquintett von Franz Schubert ist die Liebe eine von vielen Facetten eines reichen emotionalen Kosmos. Das rund einstündige Werk, wenige Monate vor seinem Tod entstanden, scheint die existenziellen Erfahrungen des Menschseins noch einmal in vollen Zügen zu durchleben. Für Eckart Runge, den scheidenden Cellisten des Artemis Quartetts, ist das Stück deshalb eine "groß angelegte Reise". Zu der ist er in einer neuen Aufnahme mit den Kollegen vom Quartetto di Cremona aufgebrochen.