The blurb for this new recital from the estimable German violinist Franziska Pietsch says that the solo violin sonatas by Bartók and Ysaÿe were the most important works in the genre since Bach. No one would seriously dispute this claim, I imagine, but the two composers worked at different levels, Bartók consciously writing with the serious concentration of Bach, Ysaÿe in the tradition of brilliant virtuosity exemplified by the Paganini Caprices. Pietsch was probably wise to separate them with the easy-going, accessible Prokofiev Solo Sonata, because Bartók created an intense, thorny piece that often assaults the ear aggressively; you need to decompress before enjoying the three-ring circus presented by Ysaÿe, which isn’t to deny the charm and musicality that’s also present.

The first recording of the Bartók to come my way as a reviewer (in Fanfare 38:3) was by the superb Hungarian violinist Barnabás Kelemen on Hungaroton. He captures every facet of a rich, dense, extremely varied score. Comparing the piece with the two violin-and-piano sonatas, I wrote, “Perhaps the most difficult is the Sonata for Solo Violin commissioned by Yehudi Menuhin in 1944. The dying Bartók set himself the challenge of updating Bach in an uncompromising modernist idiom. The entry point here is formal, because we get a Bach-like Chaconne and Fuga in the first two movements, followed by a slow Melodia and a virtuosic Presto finale.”

Some performers, notably Christian Tetzlaff, smooth out the sonata’s aggressiveness, while others, like Vilde Frang, go for broke. Either way, the listener has to brace himself. Bartók employs the violin’s capacity to scrape, scratch, and wail more often than its capacity for song. Pietsch vies with Frang’s take-no-prisoners approach, underlining the work’s tonal extremes to an abrasive degree, risking more screech and scratch than I am comfortable with. Musically, however, she lacks Tetzlaff’s wonderful ability to give us a sense of wholeness in Bartók’s conception—the music shouldn’t be all noise and chaos. I also admire how Tetzlaff adds warmth to the lyric passages that crop up here and there, so despite her obvious skill and commitment, Pietsch’s reading wouldn’t be among my top choices. It should appeal, however, to anyone who wants an explosive performance of an astonishing work.

I admired Pietsch’s recording of the two Prokofiev Violin Concertos and the two sonatas with piano. She’s equally sympathetic in his late Solo Violin Sonata in D from 1947. By then Prokofiev’s inspiration was declining along with his health, but the solo sonata is agreeably tuneful, nimble, and upbeat. The work was commissioned by the Soviet music system as a teaching piece, so it is not technically very difficult. It was originally designed to be played by an ensemble of talented students rather than as a solo work. Pietsch’s reading is less pointed and intense than, say, Viktoria Mullova’s (Onyx), but it doesn’t suffer by comparison, being lyrical and appealing in its own right.

Ysaÿe’s Six Solo Violin Sonatas, gathered as his op. 27 in 1923, are beloved by virtuosos, giving them scope for brilliance and Romanticism to the utmost. In the second sonata of the group, dedicated to Jacques Thibaud, the “obsession” of the subtitle refers to Thibaud’s love of Bach and his habit of including the opening Preludio of Partita No. 3 in his morning practice sessions. Just as obsessive, however, is the contrasting use of the Gregorian Dies irae that captured the ear of many composers, most notably Liszt and Rachmaninoff. The juxtaposition of the two borrowings is incongruous but quite entertaining.

In the last issue Robert Maxham was enthusiastic about a performance from Maïté Louis (Continuo), who highlights the stark contrasts in Ysaÿe’s quotations. She maintains a beautiful, consistent tone as well and focuses on Romantic expression to an enticing degree. I’d say that Pietsch goes one better in expressing both the moods and contrasts in the piece. She has an air of personal involvement that’s captivating. The combination of excitement and presence makes this a memorable reading in all four movements, whether Ysaÿe is being misterioso or theatrical.

The program ends with Ysaÿe’s Sonata No. 3, “Ballade,” dedicated to Georges Enescu. Its single movement is in two sections, the first being lyrical and passionate, with almost continuous double- and triple-stops, the second, marked con bravura, moving into brilliant passagework without letting up on the double-stops. Pietsch gives an account as charismatic and captivating as in the previous sonata, which makes the Ysaÿe portion of the disc very compelling.

There’s always something of absorbing value in every release I’ve heard from this artist, and even if Pietsch’s Bartók frayed my nerves, that’s a personal reaction. On every other count this disc, which has excellent recorded sound, is strongly recommended.

Eine interessante Trouvaille, die dem Liszt-Bild eine neue Facette hinzufügt.

This is the fourth recording by German violinist Franziska Pietsch that I have had the pleasure to review. The earlier ones were the Grieg Violin Sonatas (J/F 2016), the Franck Violin Sonata and Szymanowski’s Myths and Romance (S/O 2017), and the Prokofieff Violin Sonatas and Five Melodies (N/D 2016). In those, she showed that she is a charismatic performer with her own ideas about the music. She doesn’t just regurgitate the interpretations fed to her by her teachers. I noticed her enchanting way with passages at low dynamic levels and was bowled over by her superb Prokofieff disc, so I was very excited to get this disc to review when I noticed the Prokofieff Solo Violin Sonata in the program. This sonata, the Bartok Solo Violin Sonata, and the Six Solo Violin Sonatas by Eugene Ysaye are, I believe, the finest works in that genre produced since 1900 (sorry, Reger and Hindemith).

My excitement turned to disappointment when I listened. I noticed that she wasn’t able to sustain the long lines of the Franck Sonata, and here she fails to elucidate the architecture of the Bartok. It is a very classical work in its emphasis on form, and she doesn’t make the work’s structure her first priority, opting instead to use varying tone colors in an attempt to give the piece episodic interest. This does not do the piece justice, in spite of the fact that Bartok was a great colorist, especially in his writing for strings. It fragments the work. Robert Mann’s recording (J/A 2003) is the most effective at making the form of the piece plain, and Pietsch and everyone else would do well to listen to it. On top of this, she decided not to play Bartok’s original quarter tones in the finale, which I believe ruins the buzzing house fly-like character of those passages.

I was surprised to hear Pietsch failing to bring out the simple lyricism of the Prokofieff. Again, her interpretation is episodic and fails to knit these three brief movements together. I expected that she would finally feel sympathy for the two Ysaye sonatas; they are the most volatile and episodic works here and demand a broad range of moods and colors from the performer. Again, she is more interested in surface effects than in getting to the heart of the music, especially in the deeply felt Sonata 2, which is a character portrait of the great French violinist Jacques Thibaud.

These are the weakest performances I have heard from her. She relies on her personality instead of her intellect to sustain the music, but it can’t. Great music must be met on its own terms and cannot be reduced to a medium for the display of virtuosity and temperament. I had always found Pietsch’s manner very appealing, but it hinders rather than helps these performances. The violin was made in 1751 by the Milanese violin maker Carlo Antonio Testore.

It’s mighty considerate of the Swiss Piano Trio to collect Beethoven’s crummiest trios on one convenient disc—perfect for ignoring—when it could have spread the rubble across all five volumes of its thorough integrale. To give Beethoven his due, though, if the early 1791 trio in E-flat were by Haydn, we’d marvel and its unprecedented pianistic brilliance, frequent independence of parts, and unconventional macrostructure of three fast movements in a row. We can also admire how Beethoven limns Schubert’s sweetly naive cantabile in the short, stand-alone Allegretto of 1812. I doubt anyone loves the frivolous Kakadu Variations, though it’s come my way for review three times in as many years—if by any other composer, we’d never hear it.

The big work here, the Triple Concerto, runs for dead last place, tied neck-in-neck with the Second Piano Concerto as Beethoven’s worst concerto; but it is a bold and radical experiment, largely unreplicated by other composers—except the gorgeous slow movement of Tchaikovsky’s neglected Second Piano Concerto. And the Triple Concerto’s dominant cello grants us a glimpse into the cello concerto Beethoven never wrote. The trio is accompanied here by a puny chamber orchestra, 24- weak, thrusting the soloists far forward in the sonic picture while orchestral details get crammed into a backdrop that seems sometimes imagined rather than heard.

The Swiss Trio captures the spirit of every work: plaintive and tender in the Allegretto, insouciant and athletic in the early trio, and brawny but playful in the Triple Concerto. I particularly enjoy violinist Angela Golubeva’s warm, unhurried vibrato. These players make the strongest possible case for what might be called “Beethoven’s Greatest Misses for Trio”. Previous volumes won praise in these pages (J/A 2015, S/O 2016, J/F 2018). Sound is close and detailed.

Bolet’s legato, his sterling trill, inflected diminuendos, and those precious, music-box scales that take us to the explosive mix that defines the aristocrat of piano concertos.

Tenor Airam Hernandez sports a sweetly voluptuous voice as the sympathetic Sardanapalo, while basso Oleksander Pushniak defines a predictable foil as Beleso.

This may well become your preferred reading of a long “familiar” score.

Odessa-born Nathan Milstein (1904-1992) made his debut at the Lucerne Festival...

De eerste release van de complete producties gerealiseerd door Quartetto Italiano voor de RIAS in Berlijn tussen 1951 en 1963, belicht twee aspecten. Naast zelden gespeelde werken van Donizetti, Cherubini en Gian Francesco Malipiero, brengen ze een sonoor beeld van de enorme reikwijdte van hun repertoire, variërend van Joseph Haydn, de vader van het klassiek strijkkwartet, tot het 7de Strijkkwartet van Dmitri Sjostakovitsj, dat gloednieuw was ten tijde van de opname. De release maakt deel uit van de serie “Legendary Recordings”.

De enigszins opvallende naam van het ensemble maakte vanaf het begin duidelijk dat Quartetto Italiano zichzelf zo maar niet beschouwde als een Italiaans Strijkkwartet onder vele, maar als hét gezaghebbend Kwartet in Italië. Het ensemble werd al snel erkend als een pionier in de Italiaanse kamermuziekcultuur van na de Tweede Wereldoorlog en door hun onvermoeibare obsessie voor detail, diepgaande verkenning van de muzikale expressie en de opmerkelijke homogeniteit van hun klank en samenspel, veroverde Quartetto Italiano een vaste plaats in de topklasse van toonaangevende strijkkwartetten gedurende de eerste twee decennia van hun carrière. Naast hun opnamen voor Decca, Philips en Deutsche Grammophon, behoorden hun opnamen voor de Berlijnse Radio, tot de toenmalige wereldklasse. RIAS, de afkorting van “Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor”, was een omroep in West-Berlijn die tussen 1946 en 1993, onder toezicht van de Amerikaanse bezettingsmacht, radio-uitzendingen maakte en later televisie-uitzendingen.

Quartetto Italiano werd in 1945 in Reggio Emilia opgericht. Ze debuteerden in 1945 in Carpi in de provincie Modena, toen alle vier de spelers nog jonge twintigers waren. Oorspronkelijk heetten ze “Nuovo Quartetto Italiano” voor ze in 1951 “Nuovo” weglieten. Ze werden vooral bekend om hun opname gemaakt tussen 1967 en 1975, van de complete Strijkkwartetten van Beethoven. De vaste leden van 1945 tot 1980 waren Paolo Borciani, viool en zijn vrouw, Elisa Pegreffi, viool, en Franco Rossi, cello. Naast hen speelden achtereenvolgens Lionello Forzanti, en Piero Farulli (van 1947 tot 1977), altviool, en vanaf 1977 was dat Dino Asciolla.

Borciani, Pegreffi en Rossi ontmoetten elkaar in 1940 op de Concorso Nazionale in La Spezia. In de zomer van 1942 ontmoetten ze elkaar opnieuw in de Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, waar de cellist Arturo Bonucci (Sr.) (hoofd van de kamerklas, echtgenoot van Pina Carmirelli) ze samen met de altviolist Lionello Forzanti plaatste voor de studiesessie. Ze werkten samen aan het Debussy kwartet en voerden het uit in september 1942.

In augustus 1945 begon de groep opnieuw samen te spelen in het huis van Borciani in Reggio Emilia. Hun debuut volgde in november 1945 in de Sala dei Mori in Carpi, als Nuovo Quartetto Italiano. Het was het inaugureel concert van de Società degli Amici della Musica. Tegen het einde van het jaar speelden ze ook in Milaan en in maart 1946 waren ze winnaars op het Concorso van de Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, en het Concorso van de Accademia Filarmonica Romana. Een concert voor de gerenommeerde, reeds in 1866 opgerichte Società del Quartetto di Milano volgde, en hun eerste buitenlands concert was in de Tonhalle in Zürich.

Het Kwartet ontbond in 1980. Paolo Borciani wijdde zijn latere jaren, samen met zijn vrouw Elisa Pegreffi, aan Bachs “Kunst der Fuge”, Elisa ging ook lesgeven, Piero Farulli ging les geven in Fiesole en Franco Rossi keerde als chambrist terug naar de uitvoering van kamermuziek. Alle vier werden ze tijdens het Festa della Repubblica (Italiaans Nationale Feestdag), bekroond met de sedert 1950 uitgereikte gouden medaille van de “Benemeriti della Scuola, della Cultura e dell’Arte”.

Op de drie cd’s staan het Strijkkwartet nr. 7 in fa klein van Donizetti, het Strijkkwartet nr. 5 in F van Cherubini, het Strijkkwartet nr. 4 van Malipiero en het Strijkkwartet nr. 7 in fis klein, op. 108 van Sjostakovitsj, het Strijkkwartet in F van Ravel en het Strijkkwartet nr. 8 in Bes, D112 van Schubert, het Strijkkwartet nr. 2 in F, op. 41 No. 2 en het Strijkkwartet nr. 3 in A , op. 41 nr. 3 van Schumann, en het Strijkkwartet, op. 77 nr. 1 in G van Haydn. Drie werken in deze release (Cherubini, Donizetti en Sjostakovitsj) zijn overigens voor het eerst op cd te horen door Quartetto Italiano. Meesterlijk samenspel, zowel gedreven als ingetogen, met een constante doordringende expressie. Niet te missen!

The choral singing is strong throughout and the soloists perform magnificently; [...] The orchestral players, under Kirill Karabits, are on top of their game and give us a weighty performance with piercing brass and thrusting strings that have been captured in top quality sound by the Audite team.