A stuttgarti Audite cég több mint negyven éve működik a hanglemezpiacon....

Das Trio Testore musiziert aus einem Guss, kammermusikalisch geschlossen und ausgewogen. Dabei reizt es die dynamischen und artikulatorischen Kontraste beinah noch stärker aus als die drei Jahre alte, stärker solistisch profilierte CD mit Gidon Kremer, Giedré Dirvanauskaité und Khatia Bunashvili (ECM). Audites Produktion punktet zudem mit homogenen und satteren Klangfarben.

En 1953, Johanna Martzy entrait dans la cour des grands grâce à un concerto de Dvorak enregistré avec Ferenc Fricsay (DG). Quid de celui-ci, capté pour la radio deux jours plus tôt? Un doublon presque parfait. Linterprétation ne change pas d'un iota. La puissance plutôt virile, la passion, la chaleur, le magnétisme … Tout y est. Seul le finale, un peu moins solide aux entournures, ne se superpose pas exactement à la bande déjà connue. La prise de son, plus cassante ici, offre un point d'observation différent (d'où la soliste ressort moins de l'orchestre). La publication de cette rareté était-elle bien utile?

Autre cheval de bataille de la Hongroise : la musique pour violon seul de Bach, dont elle signa au milieu des années 1950 une intégrale incontournable. Immortalisée le 4 mai 1962 (témoignage déjà édité par le label Coup d'Archet), la BWV 1001 passionne tout autant. Chair généreuse (quelles basses !), vibrato marqué, ligne mélodique soutenue sans répit, sa patte rigoureuse se reconnaît de loin. Abordées dans le même esprit, les Sonates op. 1 n° 3 de Handel et RV 10 de Vivaldi/Respighi sont hors d'âge, et cela fait tout leur charme. Auquel on succombe, jusque dans la moindre inflexion mélodique (chez le Saxon surtout).

Le talon d'Achille de Martzy ? Jean Antonietti, « accompagnateur » fidèle et prosaïque. Difficile, voire impossible, avec un partenaire aussi limité, d'établir le dialogue attendu dans l'Opus 78 de Brahms. La violoniste, qui porte la culotte et se consume de l'intérieur, est aussi coupable en vérité. Pour que le miracle opère, il faut qu'un duo se parle. On préfère se souvenir de lui par ses inestimables Schubert (Diapason d'or, Testament). Ou céder à la Danse espagnole de Falla, la plus délicieuse des miniatures offertes en complément.

Voor de muzikale leiding tekenen kanjers als Jean Martinon en István Kertész. Ontroerend wordt het bij Fourniers aankondiging van het 'Lied van de vogels' van Casals. Hij vraagt het publiek uit eerbied voor de grote Spaanse cellist niet te klappen. Tijdens en na de magistrale vertolking is het muisstil. Adembenemend!

For the fourth (and next-to-last) installment of its stunning series of the complete symphonic works of Edvard Grieg, Audite made the canny decision to combine the composer’s least-known major work with the one performed with the most monotonous frequency. Incredibly enough, these two youthful half-hour works, written barely five years apart, hardly seem the work of the same composer.

Composed for Copenhagen at the suggestion of Niels Gade when Grieg was only 20, the Symphony in C Minor is an amiable, well-made stylistic hodge-podge that mixes Schumann, Mendelssohn and—for those with a very discerning ear—Gade himself. Finished in 1864, the symphony was not performed until 1980, when it was finally heard against the composer’s wishes and instructions. The premiere was given—wouldn’t you know it—in the Soviet Union, by the Russian conductor Vitali Katayev, who asked the Bergen city library for a photocopy for “research purposes only” and then performed it anyway. (One more reason not to lament the passing of The Evil Empire.)

The brilliant young Norwegian conductor Eivind Aadland treats the piece like the early work it is, wisely choosing never to overstate the case or try to turn it into the youthful masterpiece it clearly isn’t. Still, everything is done with such loving care and meticulous attention to detail—listen especially to the incredibly refined and sensitive phrasing in the lovely Adagio espressivo—that it’s difficult to imagine a stronger case ever being made for the piece.

The version of the piano concerto is as fresh-minted and spontaneous sounding as everything else in the series, with the WDR Symphony again playing in a way that suggests it’s coming to the music for the very first time (in the best possible sense). The Romanian-born Herbert Schuch is a probing and imaginative soloist, often acting like the first among equals in a fine chamber music recital. The playing itself is lithe and endearingly capricious, especially in the concerto’s cadenza, which for once sounds like cadenzas were meant to sound: as though someone were making it up on the spot. There’s also plenty of fire and muscle when the music requires it, most notably in a finale which steps off at a pace that manages to seem both cracking and completely comfortable. Again, the orchestra performs countless little expressive miracles along the way. Try sampling the flute solo about two and a half minutes in: You can actually smell the chilly morning air.

As in the previous installments in the series, the recorded sound is as warm and natural as the performances themselves. Alas, the concluding Volume Five must now be anticipated with equal amounts of eagerness and regret: as in, what a pity Grieg didn’t write more things for this bunch to record.

Over his entire career Grieg wrote only two orchestral works in the traditional multimovement format: this symphony and concerto. Both are early works. The symphony was completed in 1864, when the composer was 20; the concerto followed in 1868. The symphony had a curious fate because after some partial performances Grieg withdrew it, declaring it should not be performed. And so it wasn’t until 1980, and since then a few recordings have appeared. The work shows debt to Mendelssohn and Schumann but probably doesn’t have enough interest to enter the general repertory. It does have, though, catchy themes and lovely moments that show the remarkable skill and finesse of a young composer. The sweet romanticism we associate with Grieg is not yet part of his style—it really sounds more like Mendelssohn!—and it is clear that after these two early orchestral works he directed his career in other directions.

The symphony performance under Eivind Aadland has everything you would hope for: lots of energy and excitement, with a very fine, well-prepared orchestra. The music emerges with a sense of youth and enthusiasm, and rhythms are crisp. With the concerto, of course, we are on familiar ground. The catalog lists dozens of fine recordings, and a relative newcomer like Schuch (now in his mid-30s) won’t gain notice easily. But this is a fine performance. He throws himself into the piece with lots of excitement in the outer movements and plenty of virtuosic display, mainly in the big cadenza. He also gives us ample poetry in the slow movement and the finale (before the strange stop in the middle!) Schuch is ably backed by Aadland, who brings the same level of excitement here as in the symphony.

This is Volume IV of Audite’s complete edition of Grieg’s orchestral work in five volumes (see our index). It comes with fine, detailed notes, and the sound is first rate. A fine job all around!

Szell recorded both of these works more than once, and those recordings are highly regarded. Indeed, collectors particularly value a Concertgebouw Dvořák Eighth Symphony of his. So why single out this disc for Classical Hall of Fame status? The evidence is in the listening: Szell in live concert was meaningfully more free and flexible than in the studio, particularly in Europe, and both of these works benefit from that.

The Dvořák is perhaps the stronger of the two performances, though both are gripping and memorable in their own ways. The familiarity of the Czech Philharmonic with this score, which it must know by heart, when added to Szell’s rigor, results in a performance that is one of the truly great renditions on disc. Even the brief ensemble mess in the coda of the third movement doesn’t detract from the impact of this performance. To the qualities we know of Szell’s Dvořák, which include clean and clear textures, carefully judged balances, taut rhythms, and a logical juxtaposition and flow of tempo relationships, this performance adds a feeling of spontaneity and improvisation not always present with Szell. The sweet string tone, the impeccable ensemble between and among players in different sections as well as the same section, the tasteful but definite application of portamento, the sense of ebullience from beginning to end—all of these add up to a special sense of occasion. The most obvious point at which to compare this to Szell’s studio recording is the final coda. In all his recorded performances he applies an accelerando and a touch of extra energy. But here those qualities are in extra supply, with a unique sense of abandon that brings the symphony to a particularly thrilling close. The monaural recording is well balanced, clear, and surprisingly transparent.

The Brahms is almost at that same level. One doesn’t have the sense of utter comfort with the music that the Czech players bring to the Dvořák, and one recognizes that this is an ad hoc orchestra that came together for the Lucerne Festival, and while its members play well enough they do not convey the utter unity of sound picture and phrasing as one hears in the Czech players (or, for that matter, in Szell’s Cleveland Orchestra). However, compensating for that is again an improvisatory spirit that is not present to the same degree in those studio recordings, a sense of conductor and orchestra seeming to discover the music as they play it. Szell is more flexible, with a greater range between his dynamic and tempo extremes, and there is a sense of digging in from the string players that brings an extra intensity to the music. This stands as one of the great Brahms Firsts on disc, with Szell’s usual care for structure, shape, and balance married again to a sense of urgency and theater that we do not always hear in his music-making. Again, the monaural sound is fine, though a bit drier than the Dvořák.

This new series from the Lucerne Festival Archives on Audite promises much to discerning collectors. This is a great start. Interesting and intelligent program notes accompany the disc.

My first encounter with the Trio Testore was fairly recent. In 37:2, I reviewed the group’s two-disc set of Brahms’s piano trios and hated it for all the expressive conceits, slowish tempos, and rhythmic instability. Richard Kaplan, on the other hand, who reviewed the set in the same issue, loved it. In fact, he loved it so much that he put it at the top of his 2013 Want List.

Sometimes I wonder what readers must make of these diametrically opposing views. It’s like the philosophical paradox of the card that reads on one side, “The statement on the other side of this card is true,” and on the flip side, “The statement on the other side of this card is false.” I think in such situations what it comes down to is not so much about the specifics of what each reviewer says, as it is about which reviewer the reader tends to personally like and trust more. Obviously, Kaplan and I hear Brahms differently.

The heart-on-sleeve emotionalism of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff is perhaps more tolerant of the Trio Testore’s inclination towards Romantic effusiveness and excess, but, as with the group’s Brahms, the players take considerable liberties with the score as they push and pull tempos about, stretch notes for expressive effect, pour on portamento—even between adjacent notes, with little regard for how cloying it can be—and most troubling of all, rewrite the printed notes to suit their own purposes.

It was quite shocking, for example, to hear and see what violinist Franziska Pietsch does in measure eight of the Tchaikovsky. In the second half of the bar, the composer wrote the notes E, F, E, D, E, all in one beat, in a rhythm of a 16th note, two 32nd notes, and two 16th notes. When played as notated, it’s a written-out, in rhythm, turn: da-deedle-ah-da. But Ms. Pietsch knows better. Instead, she plays D, C, D, E, and evens out the rhythm to sound like basically four 16th notes: da-da-da-da. The pity of it is that she is either blithely or willfully ignorant of the fact that four bars earlier, starting on a B in the tenor clef, the cello has exactly the same note and rhythmic pattern Tchaikovsky wrote for the violin. And by the way, cellist Han-Christian Schweiker plays it correctly as written. Does Pietsch not understand that her part is supposed to echo the cello?

It’s that sort of playing fast and loose with the score that really turns me off to Trio Testore. It’s what I heard in the ensemble’s Brahms and, taken to even further extremes, it’s what I hear in these Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff readings. I would invite colleague Kaplan to listen to these performances while following the scores, and tell me if this release doesn’t alter his earlier opinion of the Trio Testore.

For this same coupling of works, I’d recommend the Kempf Trio on BIS for performances that deliver plenty of Russian brooding and emotional intensity, while managing to preserve the composers’ integrity and the musicians’ self-respect.

This is a commemorative album of Abbado’s years at the Lucerne Festival, which spanned five decades. He became a major presence there from 2000 onward after he founded the latest incarnation of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, its core being the Mahler Chamber Orchestra plus hand-picked players from the Berlin Philharmonic and other prestigious European orchestras. Their chief output has been on DVD, with a sprinkling of CD releases. Here, however, we get the Vienna Philharmonic in 1978 (Schubert) and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in 1988 (Beethoven and Wagner), captured in good broadcast stereo, with the better sound given to the 1988 concert.

That’s also where the highlight of the CD occurs, in a dashing account of the Beethoven Second Symphony that surpasses what Abbado usually achieved with Beethoven on disc. I expected a polished, rather noncommittal reading, but this one is fully engaged (actually, the Second Symphony was notably successful in Abbado’s two Beethoven cycles for DG). It has pace in every movement and some jauntiness in the Larghetto. Using a chamber orchestra doesn’t shrink the sonorities by much, although you’d never think this was Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic—that sort of massiveness became less to Abbado’s taste in his maturity. (With Berlin he performed even a middle-period symphony like the “Pastorale” with reduced strings, I believe.)

The Schubert “Unfinished” performance isn’t as alive or as convincing. Abbado delivers the kind of high-level subscription concert reading to be heard seven days a week in major music capitals. He seems to have no special affection for the score. To avoid complete impersonality, he makes the soft passages quite soft in contrast with the fortissimo outbursts in the first movement. But the big tune feels anemic as a result, and in the Andante second movement the melting woodwind solos are a touch businesslike. Couldn’t the radio archives yield up something more striking?

Conducting Wagner is inescapable if you are the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, but Abbado avoided his duty on disc, leaving only a single CD completely devoted to orchestral excerpts; everything else was with singers like Jonas Kaufmann and Bryn Terfel. The sole Wagner opera he recorded was Lohengrin in 1995 (it turned out so well one wonders why DG didn’t ask for more). This live Siegfried Idyll is a premiere recording in the Abbado discography so far as I can tell. It is gentle, civilized, and nicely balanced, but not very involved. Wagner presented the work as a present to Cosmia when she woke up on Christmas morning in 1870, not just before she went to bed. The villa where a small ensemble of musicians gathered on the stairs to play the piece was in present-day Lucerne, hence the connection. After a relaxed 15 minutes Abbado does stir up some energy at the climax, but that’s not quite good enough.

In all, this new release is half a loaf, serving mainly as a memento to a great conductor, not captured at his very best, unfortunately.

I wish I could be more enthusiastic about these performances. But I’m afraid sympathy is in order—for the continuing tendency of German orchestras to inflict HIP revisionists upon themselves. The RSO Stuttgart was eccentric enough a few years ago, recording Elgar with what sounded like a string section assembled at Williams-Sonoma. That was Roger Norrington’s not very convincing take on history. Now, in Schumann’s Cologne, we waste the talents of the WDR on a perversely reduced “expanded version” of the Fourth Symphony.

About a year ago, I had more favorable things to say about Heinz Holliger’s CD of the “Spring” Symphony and early version of the Fourth. He seemed to bring a joyous bounce to the fanfares in the young work, and his foreshortening of things went well with notions of impetuous ardor. Similarly, the early Fourth, whose holes in orchestration are the aural equivalent of Swiss cheese, benefitted from a tight and virtuosic zest, clipping virtually everything to its benefit. It sounded demoted to piano suite status—but brought off well. Small consolation for admirers of original versions….

The CD here records the 1850 revision and expansion of the score. Schumann’s reworking fleshes out all the gaps which existed earlier and encourages grand, blazing, and sweeping phrases. In the right performance, the work lands nearly within reach of the Brahms Second Symphony in terms of impact—27 years before the fact. But in the wrong hands?

The performance here is perversely scrawny and metallic on top, tubby on the bottom from an uninspired timpanist, and discombobulated beyond prediction. Every phrase is too short, in a sort of Baroque manner, except for the ones which should be short. Every syncopation seems to have its own syncopation. And worse, there is considerable energy, only it never soars. Such electricity as there is, is wasted on aggression. It is like being rabbit-punched by Handel.

One of the persistent and poorly supported ideas about the Mendelssohn/Schumann era is the notion that these composers only experienced small orchestras. Even if this were true, it wouldn’t mean composers were necessarily happy with the resources before them. Schumann and Mendelssohn were friends and participated in numerous music festivals together during the 1840s. I don’t imagine the early music purists like to be reminded that the orchestras were enormous. The premieres of Paulus and Elijah had orchestras of 176 and 172 musicians respectively. Berlioz managed to conduct the Fantastique at the Crystal Palace with 150 (and his score demands 250). I cannot quote similar chapter and verse about Schumann, but he was well aware that music was getting really “big” and probably had conducted his own symphonies with large orchestras.

I shouldn’t fail to mention the cello concerto, the other late work included on this CD. It is always fascinating structurally, demonstrating how powerful an example the influence of Mendelssohn, in general and his violin concerto, in particular, had been. One could argue, though, that the themes are not so memorable as they should be, nor the textures sufficiently varied. Without the lively finale, the piece would languish away from the repertory. I refreshed my ears for this review with the Jacqueline du Pré performance and was struck by how alive, beautiful, and somehow sweepingly “upward” her phrasing manner always was. Oren Shevlin is the principal cellist of the Cologne orchestra and an accurate and musicianly player. But his manner is far too even. It doesn’t help that the orchestra avoids vibrato. This is the Schumann Concerto on Sominex.

I cannot really recommend the CD, despite good sound and scholarly notes. Schumann’s music is surely somewhere to be found between Handel’s Water Music and the Delius Cello Concerto. But Holliger’s HIP divining rod didn’t work.