They have the tone to match don’t they. Very warm, very rich and soupy, it’s lovely.

The current performance by the Ernst Senff Chor, Staatskapelle Weimar, and conductor Karabits fully embraces the music’s wild contrasts of extremes. The choral contributions are mighty: sometimes fierce, sometimes warm, always robust and precise. Much the same can be said for the orchestral playing, which is full of biting rhythms, aggressive attacks, and a wild array of colors. It says much about the interpretation, though, that the piece comes over with such cohesion, never, even in its loudest episodes, simply dissolving into noise. This is an ensemble and conductor that have the music in their blood and they proselytize for it accordingly.

After the surprise of one apparent outsider shooting to the top of the Prokofiev...

Mengelberg la dirigeant à Budapest en 1943 fut soufflé: belle fille certes,...

Diese Aufnahmen aus den Jahren 1971 bis 1982 zeigen Jorge Bolet als einen überragenden Liszt-Interpreten, dessen ebenso spannende wie virtuose und intelligent konzipierte Interpretationen bis heute nichts von ihrem Reiz eingebüßt haben.

Das Programm ist mit den beiden Klavierkonzerten, Auszügen aus den ‘Années de Pèlerinage’ und der ‘Tannhäuser’-Ouvertüre interessant zusammengesetzt.

Das Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin unter der Leitung von Lawrence Foster (Klavierkonzert Nr. 1) und Edo de Waart spielt in beiden Live-Mitschnitten kraftvoll, aber nie pathetisch und passt sich jedes Mal dem Interpretationsstil Bolets optimal an. Und dieser besticht durch ein atemberaubendes Klavierspiel: virtuos, expressiv, poetisch, feinsinnig. Er beherrscht alle Schattierungen, was insbesondere in den Auszügen von ‘Italie’ aus den ‘Années de Pèlerinage’ zum Tragen kommt. Die ‘Tannhäuser’-Ouvertüre ist dann am Schluss noch ein besonderer Leckerbissen.

Klanglich ist die Produktion mit ihren fast 80 Minuten Spielzeit mehr als überzeugend, so dass man diesen phantastischen, heute leider etwas vergessenen Pianisten in absoluter Bestform hören und sein einmaliges Spiel hundertprozentig schätzen kann.

There is a lot of breathtaking piano playing on this disc. Bolet is virtuosic, expressive, poetic and subtle. The sound quality is excellent and allows the listener to fully admire the legendary pianist.

I can understand why many find Reger's music unforgiving and daunting. It took me a while to crack the hard shell of the nut. Once I did, after much perseverance, I discovered the wealth of treasures that lie within. I am pleased to say that the music featured on this disc is some of the least forbidding in his output. A large part of Reger's compositional oeuvre consists of chamber music, and these two String Trios and Piano Quartet are certainly more approachable than the String Quartets.

“It is absolutely clear to me that what our present age lacks is a Mozart” declared Reger in June 1904. The result was the String Trio No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77b. It was premiered in November of that same year to great critical acclaim. It sounds quite extrovert at times, almost certainly in an attempt to capture some of that Mozartian lightness. After a solemn introduction, the opening movement suddenly springs to life, the energetic thrust alternates with contrasting lyrical warmth. A tender Larghetto follows, reflective in disposition. The good-humoured Scherzo sounds quite neoclassical in style. Quoting a theme from Mozart's Abduction from the Seraglio, the finale cannot fail to raise a smile.

I, personally, find the String Trio in D minor, Op. 141b the more attractive of the two; maybe this is the reason why it is positioned first on the CD. A late work, it was completed in 1915, a year before Reger’s untimely death. It is a reworking of a Flute Serenade, Op. 141a, and is structured in three movements. Despite the glow of the opening movement, there is a pervading sadness and sense of longing. This is followed by a theme and variations, elegant and skilfully etched. The Vivace, which ends the work, is sun-soaked, with a playful abandon. The Trio proved popular with public and critics alike after the first performance, and it is hardly surprising.

The Trio Lirico join forces with pianist Detlev Eisinger for an impassioned reading of the Piano Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 133. The work was begun in 1914 and premiered at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in February 1915. It was published a year later. At the time, the critics praised its “glorious sororities” and its “vocal, vivid and catchy” melodies. For me, there are powerful echoes of Brahms in the music. Reger's often dense, syrupy textures and virtuosic piano writing are a notable feature of the intensely passionate opening movement. A frolicsome Vivace follows, offering some light relief. A noble, ardently-etched Largo precedes a spirited finale.

The Trio Lirico was formed in 2014, and this is their debut CD. Recorded last year, it marks the centenary of the composer's death on 1916. These are stunning performances, with precision ensemble. The Trio are utterly committed to the music and their interpretations are thoroughly convincing. Detlev Eisinger I would equally praise for the passion, energy and refinement he brings to the Piano Quartet. Audite's plush sound is another asset. For the uninitiated, especially, this constitutes a highly recommended Reger chamber music primer.

Darius Milhaud is perhaps rivalled only by Paul Hindemith among twentieth-century composers for his substantial and varied oeuvre of chamber music. In a collection of published interviews with Claude Rostand (1952), Milhaud supplemented a characteristically droll statement that he would like to write eighteen string quartets, ‘one more than Beethoven’, with the explanation that writing chamber music was a way of defending the genre ‘during a period when it was being sacrificed to the aesthetic of mass-produced music, to the aesthetic of the music hall and the circus’.

He also looked back to his childhood: ‘I took part in too much chamber music in my youth: sonatas, trios, quartets-played with my father at home or with the quartet of my dear old Bruguier [his violin teacher], not to have retained the taste for it. And besides, it is a form, the quartet above all, that conduces to meditation, to the expression of what is deepest in oneself – it is very satisfying for its austerity, for its character as essentially a vehicle of pure music, and also for the economy of means to which one must adapt oneself. It is at once an intellectual discipline and the crucible of the most intense emotion.’

This disc, which presents not the string quartets but Milhaud’s two works for string trio, alongside those by Bohuslav Martinů, confirms that the string trio medium can be every bit as intense, austere and disciplined as the more prevalent quartet idiom.

In the hands of the Jacques Thibaud String Trio, the first movement of Milhaud’s String Trio No.1 (1947) springs nimbly into vibrant life, propelled by Bogdan Jianu’s incisive cello pizzicatos which seem to flip forward the freely flowing contrapuntal interplay of the two upper strings. Vif is the first of five short movements in which brevity is no barrier to Milhaud’s fecundity or breadth of invention. If not all the musical ideas are necessarily striking or memorable, the Jacques Thibaud Trio takes care to emphasise the melodic grace and rhythmic thrust of the small motifs which tumble forth. The lines are cleanly articulated and there is a good balance between the three voices as, even in this opening miniature, they range – often in the blink of an eye – from high to low, from diatonicism to dissonance, from strength to a whisper, from well-tuned unisons to vigorous counterpoint.

There’s no lack of timbral contrast either. Modéré opens with grainy chords, which resonate with a warm folky jangle, while the gentle melodic probings unfold sweetly. In the central Sérénade the players take turns to dance in sprightly style above pizzicato strumming, coming together for more sentimental reflection. The counterpoint of Canons generates thoughtful intensity – the cello’s songful tone, in particular, draws the ear into the arguments – while in the concluding Jeu Fugué intertwining lines patter forth with wit and dexterity.

There was to be no String Trio ‘No.2’ from Milhaud, but he had composed a Sonatina à trois for the same forces in 1940. While the counterpoint here seems more ‘scholarly’ than ingenious, the Jacques Thibaud Trio’s soft-toned warmth and appealing colours injects some charm into the first two brief movements, and the pizzicatos of Animé are pert and perky beneath Burkhard Maiß’s high-rise surfing and Hannah Strijbos’ rich slithers.

Martinů’s interest in the music of Debussy and Ravel led him, in the early 1920s, from his native Czechoslovakia to Paris, where he studied with Albert Roussel, and it was during this time that his first String Trio (1924) was composed. The work inevitably reflects Martinů’s exposure to a variety of new forms of musical expression. And, as Paris in the Twenties was a veritable musical melting pot, one hears robust folksiness alongside hazy jazz hues, as vigorous counterpoint is countered by impressionistic colorism.

The interpretative and virtuosic demands are more challenging here than in Milhaud’s two slender trios. All three instruments are pushed to high-lying extremes, but the players sustain tonal beauty and precision – Maiß’s violin glistens like a thread of silver – and they embrace the score’s delicacies and abrasiveness with equal command and care. The Andante is played with especial beauty and real tenderness: perhaps it’s fanciful, but one feels that one can hear Bohemian sentiments of love, longing and loss here, though in the chordal climax, as the strings combine in a rich blend that seems to comprise many more than three voices, there is a compelling sense of release and joy. The final Poco Allegro has an improvisatory and infectious joie de vivre, as if Martinů was rambling, in his memory, through a Czech village, hearing snatches of language, song and dance, as the music of modern-day Paris drifted through his open window. In this movement, the Jacques Thibaud Trio creates a driving dynamism, which is brusque, brisk and breezy.

The Second Trio was written ten years later. It is performed here with impressive accord and insight as romantic and modern sentiments again collide, or rather, are assimilated. The Jacques Thibaud Trio has a strong appreciation of the structure and idiom, and displays technical mastery in sustaining a persuasive tautness. In the Allegro, textures feel sinewy, whether the three string parts are conversing, sometimes ferociously, or melodising expressively. The motoring repetitions of the concluding episode are tremendously exciting and resolve into juicily satisfying fat cadential chords. Jianu’s solo introduction to the Poco moderato is played with a heart-touching eloquence which avoids sentimentalism, and which takes a piquant turn in the ensuing Vivo, with its whipping glissandi, chuntering repetitions, fizzing trills and flutterings, and string-slapping pizzicatos.

This is a refreshing recording. The Jacques Thibaud String Trio has lavished care and attention on these small forms, confirming without doubt that ‘slight’ does not mean a lack of musical substance or sincerity.

Toujours soucieux de mettre ses pas dans ceux de ses augustes modèles, Max Reger ne pou – vait pas passer à côté du trio à cordes illustré par Mozart (le génial Divertimento KV 563 ) et Beethoven (les Opus 3, 8 et 9). Il en a composé deux, glissés dans des opus doubles (ce qui explique le « b » après le numéro). La volonté de simplification du langage s’y accorde à la concision du propos. Le naturel l’emporte, et la qualité de l’écriture n’a rien à envier à celle des quatuors, datant de la même époque. Quant au Quatuor avec piano n° 2 de 1915, une des dernières œuvres de Reger, il se situe dans la descendance avouée de l’ Opus 60 de Brahms, tout comme le quintette avec clarinette, à peine plus tardif, s’inspire également de l’ Opus 115 de son prédécesseur.

Le Trio Lirico, formation allemande créée en 2014, maîtrise les codes très spécifiques du Reger tardif (entre épure et tension harmonique extrême). Detlev Eisinger apporte une densité du son toute brahmsienne au Quatuor op. 133, dont il fait un chef-d’œuvre comparable au Quintette avec clarinette op. 146, avec une plus grande décantation que dans le Quatuor op. 113. Ce programme original n’a pour concurrence que la série MDG du Quatuor de Mannheim avec Claudius Tansky, aux couplages différents. La version des quatuors avec piano par le Quatuor Elyséen, dans l’ancienne intégrale Da camera Magna, s’incline devant les nouveaux venus.

Voici publiée pour la première fois l’intégralité du concert que Furtwängler donna le 26 août 1953, dans le cadre des Semaines musicales internationales de Lucerne. L’« Eroica » et la Symphonie n° 4 de Schumann étaient connues de longue date (mais dans un son bien inférieur, en termes de relief, de profondeur, de présence, à ce qu’Audite nous révèle ici, en transférant les bandes originales ré – cemment découvertes). Inédite à ce jour, l’Ouverture de Manfred – une des œuvres dans lesquelles l’art de Furtwängler trouvait le mieux à s’exprimer – apparaît moins noire, moins haletante en sa partie centrale (à partir de 5’59’’), moins convulsive aussi que dans l’affolant concert berlinois capté trois mois auparavant (DG). L’architecture y est également moins saillante, Furtwängler étirant les lignes à l’extrême, tandis que les deux ultimes mesures tenuto et pianissimo n’offrent plus tout à fait cette lueur tremblante et blafarde.

Le même constat s’impose pour la 4e de Schumann, d’un cantabile et d’une effusion certes irrésistibles, mais dans laquelle l’orchestre – em – mené par un Michel Schwalbé de trente-trois ans – ne semble pouvoir aller partout où Furtwängler aspire à l’entraîner. Manquent notamment ces imprévisibles et fatals coups de rein qu’y délivrait Berlin dans la version studio de 1951, où la transition conduisant au finale s’ouvrait tel un gouffre alors que nous demeurons ici tranquillement au bord du ravin. Par ailleurs, les scories instrumentales qui étaient à Berlin quantité négligeable passent ici moins bien.

Parmi les différentes « Eroica » de Furtwängler, celle de Lucerne n’est pas au nombre des plus indispensables. Les limites de l’orchestre suisse (le trio du Scherzo) concourent à mettre trop en avant le pathos qu’y insufflait le chef, à laisser même affleurer une lourdeur dont les versions viennoises de novembre 1952 et, surtout, décembre 1944 étaient exemptes.

Un détail convaincra certain(e)s d’acquérir à tout prix ce double album : dans le livret, deux clichés rarissimes montrent le maître en baignade, arborant, par un bel après-midi, le plus auguste et affriolant slip kangourou qui soit.

The Audite SACD/CD (91.441) featuring a recording of the Schumann Manfred overture previously thought to have been lost, has arrived. This double SACD/CD is remastered from newly discovered tapes from the Swiss Radio, of the concert on 26 August 1953.

We are lucky to have this new addition to the discography of Furtwängler, as this Manfred overture is apparently finer than the other 2 extant recordings: the 18 Dec 1949 Berlin Iive and the 24 Jan 1952 Vienna studio. Here his rendition is more dramatic , with pulsating urgency intermingled with relaxing Iyricism.

The sound is good compared to previous releases of the Eroica and Schumann Symphony No. 4 in the same concert using a private amateur tape as the sound source, e.g. Tahra, Elaboration (thought to be pirate copies of the SWf CDs). It is full-bodied with a slight emphasis on the bass and quite prominent reverberations. The sound palette is quite different from that heard in the Tahra or Elaboration CDs. It is the interesting thing about historical recordings as the impressions on the music can be affected by the sound source, the remastering process and even the medium in which it is presented.