Audite poursuit avec cette série Sergiu Celibidache la publication...

Aufgrund der großen Nachfrage nach einer LP-Version der international äußerst...

Wer Edvard Griegs Peer-Gynt-Suiten mag, wird auch am übrigen sinfonischen...

Wer Edvard Griegs Peer-Gynt-Suiten mag, wird auch am übrigen sinfonischen...

Voici un concert (4 juin 1950) particulièrement intéressant car il réunit...

Eine CD, die aufhorchen lässt und in jeder Hinsicht eigenwillig ist! Die...

Although a product of the Vienna Music Academy, which he entered at the age of 12 to study under Bruno Seidlhofer and Joseph Marx, Gulda was eventually to develop a disdain for authority. His unorthodox life eventually led him on a path of discovery and an attraction to jazz in the 1950s. Stories of him faking his own death in the late 1990s and his various nicknames (“terrorist pianist”, “Freddy the Ghoul”) point to a true eclectic. In addition to appearances at concerts around the world, he appeared with such jazz greats as Chick Corea and Dizzy Gillespie for improvisation sessions. He expressed a wish to die on the birthday of his adored Mozart, and did so on January 27, 2000 at the age of 69.

These recordings of the pianist in his 20s give us an opportunity to review his early accomplishments in the classical repertory. After being without these for many years, it was refreshing to hear them once again and resp[ond to some grand and astonishing music-making. The sound is generally fine— clear and warm, if close and monaural.

The Beethoven sonatas (10, 28, 30), Eroica Variations, and 32 Variations in C minor are sometimes brusque, with sharp accents and wide contrasts. They are not, however, out of keeping with what we know of Beethoven’s personality. The beauty of the composer’s slow sections is not slighted in the least, as Gulda’s marvelous concentration and phrasing come fully to the fore. Also present, as in the final movement of Sonata 10, is Beethoven’s sense of humor—this Scherzo rides the wind with gale speed.

Debussy’s Pour le Piano, Suite Bergamasque, and the few excerpts from the Preludes, Estampes, and Images are not patted down with layers of Impressionist gauze. They are very direct—forceful and impetuous. They are also, as in the final ‘Toccata’ from Pour le Piano virtuosic to the extreme. Gulda plays all of this music full out. The famous ‘Clair de Lune’, while refined, grows heavy with nostalgia as it unfolds its beauty; but these along with Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit show the artist considerably short of the imagination needed to be fully convincing.

The 24 Chopin Preludes do not find the pianist at his most persuasive. While there are certain niceties, Prelude 3 uses the pedal too much, causing a smear in the rippling left hand. Prelude 10, on the other hand, is most spirited, with the right hand always sparkling. Prelude 11 has perhaps more expressive rubato then it needs, while the ensuing Presto of Prelude 12 is driven and choppy, as it should be. The Allegro of Prelude 14 is thrilling, especially with its spare use of pedal and clearsounding organized chaos. Prelude 15 (Raindrop) begins daintily but soon finds Gulda, drenched with emotion, squeezing everything he can get out of the piece. The violence of Prelude 18 is well conveyed as it seizes one by the throat until its energy has been spent. The gentle but speedy 19th Prelude is just about perfect—one of the best I have heard—but the very last of the set puts you through the emotional wringer once again. In all, a mixed bag.

Chopin’s Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48:1, is not a laid-back performance. It moves in a positive way, and the contrasting stormy middle section is most effectively realized. The Barcarolle, on the other hand, is uneven, with rhythms that may be pulled about too much for some tastes. On the positive side, it’s certainly a big-boned approach to one of the composer’s finest compositions.

Prokofieff’s wartime Sonata 7 is appropriately demonic, with the final ‘Precipitato’ hammering away towards its violent conclusion. There is a respite in the slow movement’s lyricism, though the dark clouds are never far away.

Recorded in 1950, the sound can be a bit murky when razor-sharp vividness is what’s really called for.

The only work with orchestra in this set is Mozart’s dramatic Concerto 24 in C minor. Markevitch conducts with all the drama one could wish for, but the overall sound is astringent, with a sour sound in the oboes. All this is of small matter in view of the stirring musicmaking of Gulda. Wolfgang Rathert’s essays contribute substantially to the value of this album.

First impressions can be terrible things. The emotional footprint they have is...

Schubert penned this last, and some would say the greatest, of his sacred works...

Les Cornets Noirs (Black Cornettos) offers a program of 17th-Century Italian and German works that include striking examples of echo and response between instrumental groups or organs. Some of the composers are familiar (Salomone Rossi, Cesario Gussago, Dario Castello, Biagio Marini, Ludovico Grossi da Viadana, Giovanni Picchi, Alessandro Stradella, Samuel Scheidt) while others are less so (Dietrich Becker, Benedetto Re, Johann Sommer, Johann Staden).

Cornetto players Gebhard David and Bork- Frithjof Smith, violinists Amandine Beyer and Cosimo Stawiarski, and bassoonist Adrian Rovatkay are excellent. Sackbut player Franck Poitrineau’s tone quality is quite nasal, something I disliked at first but grew to appreciate as interesting and unusual.

The Basel, Switzerland-based, early-music ensemble performs in the Abbey of Muri, an ancient monastery with an elaborately decorated, 18th-Century church. Two Bossard organs from 1743 are heard here (complete specifications included, as well as registration codes for each piece). Some of the program’s most memorable pieces pit one organ against the other. The fine organists Markus Märkl and Johannes Strobl play Viadana’s ‘Sinfonia La Mantovana’ with penetrating tone and exuberant ornamentation. In Scheidt’s ‘Echo ad manual duplex forte & lene’, melodic passages, chord progressions, and even single chords are played stridently by one, and then imitated with softer tone (and seemingly from a distance) by the other. On and on it goes for almost nine minutes—Scheidt was enjoying himself and was in no hurry.