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Here are two superior performances, each, in its own way, redundant. Robert Casadesus made two fine studio recordings of the Saint-Saëns Concerto, one, with Artur Rodzinski, the other, with Leonard Bernstein. Neither of them is currently available here, so it would seem that this good- sounding mono broadcast might find its niche. The Fourth Concerto requires little in the way of "interpretation" – one could say that the surface is the music. It requires a technician who has good marksmanship and who can rattle off scintillating scales and arpeggios. Although, it being a live performance, one may detect a missed note here and there; Robert Casadesus certainly met the requirements, but so have many others, some of whose stereo recordings have more appropriate discmates.

Ormandy's rhythmically supple, dynamic performance of the Symphony runs into a different problem: the availability of a better-sounding stereo recording by the same conductor. There appears to have been good chemistry between Ormandy and the RIAS orchestra, and once again, the mono broadcast is clear and not lacking in dynamic range. Among my favorite mono Fourths, it competes with Furtwängler's, but there's no lack of strong stereo competition, including that provided by this same conductor with his own Philadelphia Orchestra (the third of his four recordings of the piece).

The enthusiastic annotations are in German and English.

The stopwatch is notoriously unreliable when it comes to describing performances, especially when it comes to music as variable in its ebb and flow as Scriabin’s. But even though overall tempo isn’t everything, it becomes an increasingly dominant interpretive parameter when you push (or sink) toward the extremes. And Vladimir Stoupel, a Russian-born pianist now in his mid-forties, is nothing if not extreme: these performances are consistently slow, often extremely slow, and sometimes nearly immobile. Take the Fifth Sonata: most performances clock in between 12 and 13 minutes, with a few speeders crossing the finish line in under 11 and a couple of tortoises taking 14 or so. Okashiro, whose performance was until now the slowest I knew, takes just over a quarter of an hour – but Stoupel trudges along more than a minute behind her, having relished (even ravished) every meno vivo marking in the score. This is hardly atypical of Stoupel’s set. His account of the Third’s first movement makes Gould’s sound up-tempo; his Sixth is, by a good two minutes, the slowest in my collection; moments of the Ninth may make you think the music has simply expired.

I suspect that no one could sustain the music at these glacial tempos – but if any pianist could, he or she would have to depend on a kind of textural clarity and plasticity of phrasing that, on the evidence here, Stoupel simply doesn’t possess. These are bass-saturated performances in which the bottom register (in alliance with the right foot) often covers everything else that’s going on (listen to the left-hand octaves in the third movement of the First). And even when the main material is audible, motivic profile is weak and contrapuntal lines are insufficiently differentiated: rarely has the climax of the Ninth sounded so much like aimless banging. As for the music’s long lines: Stoupel’s shortness of breath often gives the music a foursquare quality that makes the readings sound even more lethargic than they are (try, as but two examples, the huff-and-puff phrasing of the Eighth or the heavy-lifting in the climaxes of the Tenth).

In sum, these are dark, heavy, and unsubtle performances that lumber where they should leap, insist where they should hint, and drone on where they should come to the point. If Hamelin, especially in the late music, gives us an aquarium of darting iridescent tropicals, what we get here is a tank stocked with jellyfish.

Isn’t there anything here to enjoy? Sure: the still opening of the Fourth, the uneasy harmonic haze in the third movement of the Third, the wide dynamic range capped by an overpowering sonority in the climaxes throughout (the second movement of the Second and the Sixth are especially imposing). But for the most part, this is playing in which Scriabin’s fire has been doused and his transgressive ecstasy transformed into deadly duty. As I’ve said often, Hamelin’s rapturously airy cycle (20:1) is my benchmark; but even for readers ready to duplicate, there are lots of preferable alternatives. Kasman’s hard-hitting set (29:3) provides an especially illuminating second opinion; so does Ogdon’s sometimes manic tour of the repertoire. Then, of course, there are classic recordings of individual sonatas by Richter (his Carnegie Fifth is especially imposing, 29:6), Horowitz, Sofronitsky, Kun Woo Paik, and Wild. Even with Audite’s excellent engineering, this release – the only cycle ever to require three CDs – simply isn’t competitive.

This is Eduard Franck (1817-93) of Breslau, not Cesar Franck of Liège, and there are four violin sonatas here. Sonata 1, composed in 1853, is not a worthwhile work. Sonata 2 of 1859 shows considerable improvement and is engaging. Sonata 3 (no date) is even better, and the posthumous sonata without opus from 1861 is the best of the bunch.

It's good to see that Franck improved. He chose good models too; I of the 1861 sonata owe a debt to I of Beethoven's Violin Sonata 10. In fact, Franck's violin sonatas occupy a special niche, according to the booklet notes. The only major composer in the mid-19th Century to compose violin sonatas was Schumann. While I don't think these works are quite as good as Schumann's first two violin sonatas, they are good nonetheless and have a true romantic spirit combined with classical form.

The performances are adequate. Christiane Edinger has a wobbly vibrato that sometimes knocks the notes out of tune and sounds a bit frumpy. She is at her best in the slow movement of the 1861 sonata, which is lovely. James Tocco is a musical, equal partner and more of a pleasure to listen to. Good sound.

My other complete Scriabin Piano Sonata recordings are two-disc sets that include additional works besides the ten sonatas (Ashkenazy on Decca 452961 and Hamelin on Hyperion 67131, Sept/Oct 1996). Stoupel's total time precludes fitting all ten on two discs, and that leaves us with a short 44-minute CD. CD Universe had Stoupel at $31.29, about $3 less than Hamelin and more than double the older Ashkenazy.

I set up a spread sheet to compare timings and yes, Stoupel takes more time on every movement of every sonata than either Ashkenazy or Hamelin. I tossed in a few Sofronitsky and Horowitz times just to complete the picture. After several complete hearings, I believe that Stoupel has a strong affinity for Scriabin and great intellect to sort everything out clearly in some of the densest piano music of the 20th Century. The recorded sound is excellent and the big climaxes are as powerful as any on records. Yet, he fusses over little details and uses much more rubato than the others. There are times when the music almost stops and simply hangs in the air. Movements that
should dance tend to plod.

The Ninth Sonata, Black Mass in the hands of Sofronitsky, conjures up images of demons with cloven hooves darting in and out of the shadows. Stoupel's devil is massive, slowly breathing fire and laying waste to all that come before him. Ashkenazy's Fifth Sonata easily switches gears in and out of Impetuoso and Languido and Presto con allegrezza. Stoupel has all the necessary technique to manage the treacherous difficulties here, but when he hits the Languido section and shows us his wonderful dynamic control, all forward momentum comes to a halt. We are reduced to waiting for the next note.

The Tenth Sonata, with all of its trills and tremolos, builds, under Horowitz, to a shattering climax. Stoupel gets caught up in all of the minute dynamic markings. I heard new things in his performance, but I want the kinetic energy of Horowitz. For the money, Ashkenazy can't be beat. Yet, even though the other great performances mentioned here might edge Stoupel out, I like this music enough to want all of these recordings, including his. Any time I can hear a good performance, especially when it perks up my ears and makes me think anew about the music, I consider it worthwhile.

I made the mistake of listening to the Three Pieces first. I didn't like them. No. 2 is my favorite, and it seems rushed and businesslike. The other two are boring here. So I was against this pianist and thought him insensitive. I took out Cooper, Jando, and Perianes (May/June 2008) and loved what they did with these three pieces.

But then I played the sonata and found it charming! Can it be that he hadn't really spent any time on the three pieces and just worked them up as an afterthought – as fill? What else could explain the comparative excellence of the sonata?

The sonata is one of Schubert's long ones – 44 minutes – and has a very moving slow movement (17 minutes in itself) and a light and delightful scherzo. This pianist seems to have entered into Schubert's world and mind and replicated his thoughts for us. It sounds like Schubert, and it's quite beautiful. I see that we have reviewed a dozen other recordings of the sonata, including the inimitable Imogen Cooper, who does Schubert very idiomatically (Jan/Feb 1990). I made no comparisons, but I like this recording, and I don't like what most pianists do with Schubert.

Audite has been releasing recordings made for German radio in the early-to-mid 1950s by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. With so many recordings by this artist available, you may wonder what could make it worth your while to consider any of these. Here are two good reasons: (1) the artist's voice is in its fullest bloom, with a youthful passion tempered by an intellectual acuity that few singers possess and (2) Audite has used the latest audio engineering to produce a really fine sound.

When he recorded these songs at age 36 F-D's young voice fully embodied the qualities for which he is so glowingly remembered – the careful caressing of words, the exquisite phrasing, and the sublime head voice. In the intense moments of vocal drama, he does not show the tendency of his later years to bark out notes.

The program includes 18 of Wolf's Mörike Lieder from 1888. As the liner notes comment, the songs selected are "contemplative and internalized, with undertones of existential despair and farewell, dominated by a quest for (religious) solace" Most of the songs are slow and quiet and offer one of the best opportunities available to hear the remarkable textual exegesis F-D brought to lieder singing.

Except in one song, he is accompanied by Hertha Klust, his preferred pianist in the early 1950s. P-D is in complete control of his vocal technique and is in his most luscious voice. Indeed it is beyond my capacity to imagine these songs sung more beautifully. His reading of 'In der Frühe' is almost unbearably lovely. All of this will melt your heart.

The sound is bass-heavy in the piano, but for mid-1950 sound it is warm and wonderful. Orfeo released a disc of Mörike Lieder as part of an 11-CD set of 1956-1965 Salzburg recitals by F-D and Gerald Moore (S/0 2005) that offers a more spacious sound and captures accurately what it was like to hear him in recital. This studio recording is more like being in a small padded room with the singer; it's extraordinarily intimate. If you're a F-D devotee, this is indispensable. If you have not been won over to Wolf's songs, this will do it.

Texts but no translations.

„Woher kommt überhaupt mein Erfolg - und es gibt Länder, wo ich einen ganz...