Bachs (?) overbekende Toccata in d wordt door Schlüter met verve neergezet. Aardig is dat het toch wel lukt om weer nieuwe accenten te leggen. Schlüter is een groot muzikant die met grote overtuiging en zeggingskracht speelt.

[Marc Coppey] d’autant qu’il y déploie un imaginaire sonore parfaitement assorti aux phrasés anguleux de l’ouvrage. Tout sonne juste dans ce premier mouvement tiré au cordeau, où l’accentuation acérée du discours s’accompagne d’une grande richesse de timbres. On admire le soin extrême apporté aux nuances dans un Adagio à la fois ascétique et profondément tourmenté.

Marc Coppey compte aujourd’hui parmi les violoncellistes français de premier rang. Il possède évidemment toute la technicité imaginable mais surtout un timbre personnel qui sied bien aux climats poétiques et lyriques, et qui attire l’attention dans des pages rebattues comme l’Élégie de Fauré ou Le Cygne de Saint-Saëns.

Jimin Oh-Havenith, 62, zieht Bilanz. Auf Beethoven und Schubert folgt jetzt ein Album mit charakteristisch Russischem. Gewiss, es gibt Interpretationen von virtuoserem Zugriff und größerer klanglicher Leuchtkraft. Aber was hier einnimmt, sind die Sorgfalt, Geschlossenheit und Abrundung, die sie jedem Titel mit auf den Weg geben kann, und die dezente Unterstreichung der tonmalerischen Elemente in Mussorgskis "Bildern" – fast glaubt man hören zu können, wie der promenierende Besucher von den einzelnen Ausstellungsobjekten mehr oder weniger beeindruckt ist.

A distinguished French cellist and a French orchestra present a fine programme which celebrates the important role of the cello in late 19th century France. This is a shrewd selection: the works by Saint-Saëns and Fauré are familiar, that by Lalo less so, and (outside the organ loft) the music of Léon Boëllmann remains obscure.

I was very glad to discover Boëllmann’s concertante work, as I suspect will be many music lovers. Its thirteen minutes contain plenty of rewarding music, and no note-spinning. The title pays homage to Franck’s piece for piano and orchestra, and it sounds to me almost in the same class as that work. The commanding Moderato maestoso opening introduces the cello at once with the first theme. The Andantino second theme has an appealing lyrical fragility, but is still strong enough to generate some lively variations, and crown the final apotheosis. There are several taxing display opportunities which Marc Coppey relishes. He is a fine advocate of this compact and engaging piece.

Is there a finer cello concerto than Saint-Saëns’s A minor? Maybe, but few that are over in less than twenty minutes and offer such opportunities for a skilled cellist. The soloist has a showcase for all the instrument can offer, including becoming a chamber musician, or one who is primus inter pares. Coppey’s playing is impressive. In particular, there is a rapturous quality to his playing of the lyrical music in both of this work’s outer movements.

The disc inevitably offers Saint-Saëns’s The Swan. This perhaps best known of all cello works is played here in Paul Vidal’s arrangement for cello and chamber orchestra, and it casts the usual serene spell.

Another arrangement for cello and orchestra, this time by the composer, is Fauré’s noble Élégie, originally a fragment of an abandoned cello and piano sonata. Coppey gives it a spontaneous-sounding account, at times almost improvisatory in feeling. The cellist’s tone and line are deployed in the service of a haunting interpretation, aided by touching flute and oboe contributions from the Strasbourg players under John Nelson, attentive collaborators throughout.

Lalo is best known for a single work, his Symphonie espagnole. His Cello Concerto could well stand alongside it if it received more performances as good as this one. The stormy opening is stirring, and the lyrical passages silken, in Coppey’s treatment of the opening movement, at thirteen minutes the longest track on the disc. The central intermezzo shifts neatly between slow and fast music, transitions which Nelson and Coppey manage without any undue jolt. The sprightly rondo finale is a spirited dance, delivered by all concerned.

The sound is reasonably good, if a bit lacking in terms of realistic orchestra colour. The recorded balance favours the cello, as is common, but sometimes a bit too much. It is tolerable when the orchestral music is loud, but less so when the music is quiet for both soloist and orchestra. Thus in the Allegretto con moto minuet of Saint-Saëns’s concerto and the swift passages of Lalo’s Intermezzo the solo instrument dominates the aural picture so much that it covers details in the orchestral contribution. One paradox of an instrument captured so close up is that the quality of a pianissimo is less easy to appreciate.

It is instructive to compare this performance of Saint-Saëns’s pieces with that which Mischa Maisky and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra recorded in 1998 for Deutsche Grammophon. There is a similarly forward cello but its prominence is better balanced and accommodated within the whole musical picture. Perhaps it helps that Maisky is both soloist and conductor, so there is just one view of the right balance.

Still, I would not wish to exaggerate this aspect of a fine disc, for I soon adjusted to it. It may worry some listeners more than others, and most will simply wish to get as close to such fine cello playing as they can. And it could be difficult to find exactly this well-chosen programme in such consistently good performances.

(REMY FRANCK) Sarah O’Brien, langjährige Soloharfenistin des Concertgebouw Orchesters Amsterdam und der Münchner Philharmoniker und seit 2014 als Pädagogin etabliert, widmet sich auf ihrer neuen CD einem vorwiegend französischen Repertoire mit einigen Juwelen aus Italien, Deutschland und Spanien. Sieben Impromptus befinden sich darunter, was sicherlich den Titel der CD rechtfertigt.

Sarah O’Brien hat ein wunderbares musikalisches Gespür für diese Werke, von denen einige von impressionistischen und symbolistischen Einflüssen geprägt sind, wobei die Musik sich oft zwischen Erzählung und Träumerei bewegt. Mit ihrer großartigen Technik in Dynamik und Farbpalette kann O’Brien mit vielen Nuancen eine suggestive Eloquenz erzielen, die den Zuhörer mit einer intensiven Poesie 80 Minuten lang fesselt.

Sarah O’Brien longtime principal harpist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam and the Munich Philharmonic and established as a pedagogue since 2014, devotes her new CD to a predominantly French repertoire with some gems from Italy, Germany and Spain. Seven impromptus are among them, which certainly justifies the CD’s title.
Sarah O’Brien has a wonderful musical feeling for these works, some of which are marked by impressionist and symbolist influences, with the music often moving between narrative and reverie. With her superb technique in dynamics and color palette, O’Brien is able to use many nuances to achieve an evocative eloquence that captivates the listener with an intense poetry for 80 minutes.


(GUY ENGELS) «Das Thema der Impromptus hat mich besonders fasziniert, weil es das Improvisatorische in sich hat, das direkt im Moment Entstehende», schreibt Sarah O’Brien im Booklet ihres neuen Albums Impromptu. Die langjährige Solo-Harfenistin des Amsterdamer Concergebouw und der Münchner Philharmoniker hat sich mit dieser Aufnahme einen Herzenswunsch erfüllt: Sämtlich Original-Impromptus für die Harfe einzuspielen. Dass sich dazwischen einige Bearbeitungen einschleichen (Rameau, Couperin, Scarlatti) tut der Vielfältigkeit des Programmes nur gut.

Was ein Herzenswunsch ist, wird auch mit viel Herzblut, mit viel Liebe und Einfühlungsvermögen interpretiert. Oft beschränkt man die Harfe ja auf ihre Glissandi-Funktion, auf die perlenden Klänge, die sie produziert. Selbstverständlich kann die Harfe viel mehr, und Sarah O’Brien liefert den stichhaltigen Beweis. Sie lässt ihre Harfe in allen Schattierungen singen, mal frisch-fröhlich, mal nachdenklich-poetisch. Dabei setzt sie sehr gekonnt und dramaturgisch schlüssig für den relativ freien Umgang mit den Tempi ein. Sarah O’Brien lässt ihrem Instrument und der Musik immer den nötigen Raum zu klingen, phrasiert sehr schön und transparent, auch wenn die Musikerin behauptet «wir haben ja auf unserem Instrument keinen Atem und keinen Bogen». Rein technisch mag das zutreffen, musikalisch belehrt uns Sarah O’Brien allerdings eines Besseren.

«I was particularly fascinated by the theme of the Impromptus because it has the improvisatory in it, the directly arising in the moment,» writes Sarah O’Brien in the booklet of her new album Impromptu. The longtime principal harpist of the Amsterdam Concergebouw and the Munich Philharmonic has fulfilled her heart’s desire with this recording: To record all original impromptus for the harp. The fact that a few arrangements sneak in between (Rameau, Couperin, Scarlatti) is only good for the diversity of the program.

What is a heart’s desire is also interpreted with a lot of heart, love and empathy. The harp is often limited to its glissandi function, to the pearly sounds it produces. Of course, the harp can do much more, and Sarah O’Brien provides solid proof. She makes her harp sing in all shades, sometimes freshly cheerful, sometimes thoughtfully poetic. She uses the relatively free handling of the tempi very skilfully and dramaturgically conclusively. Sarah O’Brien always leaves her instrument and the music the necessary space to sound, phrases very beautifully and transparently, even if the musician claims «we have no breath and no bow on our instrument». Technically this may be true, but musically Sarah O’Brien proves us wrong.

Avec une qualité instrumentale [...] le Quatuor Mandelring aborde l’œuvre avec une objectivité qui met en valeur sa modernité.

Marguerite of Austria lived from 1480 to 1530. From 1507 until her death she acted as governor of the Low Countries. Her court in Malines was not only a centre of political power, but a cultural centre as well. She herself was well educated, spoke several languages, wrote poetry, painted and played the clavichord. During her reign many writers and artists visited the court. Music had a special place at the court, to a large extent because of the dominance of Franco-Flemish musicians and composers in Europe. Marguerite left a couple of books with music, generally known as her 'chanson albums'. These contain some sacred pieces, but mainly secular works by composers such as Josquin Desprez, Alexander Agricola, Gaspar van Weerbeke, Heinrich Isaac, Jacob Obrecht and Pierre de la Rue.

The present disc is devoted to one of her chanson books. However, the name is that given to a copy which was commissioned by a wealthy Italian family, probably the patrician family Agostini of Siena, as the codex includes its coat of arms. In the 19th century an Italian collector, Abramo Basevi, acquired the codex and eventually donated it to the conservatory at Florence, where it is still preserved today.

The Basevi Codex comes from the workshop of Peter Alamire, the most famous music scribe of his time. To him we owe numerous collections of music by Franco-Flemish composers. The results of his work disseminated across Europe, often as a gift from one ruler to another. The Codex is divided into two sections: the first includes pieces for four voices, the second three-part items. In total the collection comprises 87 pieces, mostly secular, in Latin, Italian, French and Dutch. It opens with a motet in praise of the Virgin Mary.

The performers point out what are the problems modern interpreters have to solve if they want to perform the pieces from such a collection. One problem is the text: often the lyrics are incomplete or entirely absent. This problem has to be solved if one wants to perform them with a singer, as is the case here. But even in a purely instrumental performance, knowing the text may help to find the right way of performing them. It was decided to perform the chansons in two different ways. Some items are entirely played, in others the upper voice is sung, whereas the remaining voices are played by recorders. These were very common practices, apart from performances by voices alone. The upper parts could be ornamented, both in a vocal and an instrumental performance, as is the case here.

The Codex also bears witness to the popularity of some melodies which were set or arranged by different composers. The chanson Fors seulement, for instance, appears in eight different versions in the Codex. Four of them are included here. The versions by Johannes Ghiselin and Matthaeus Pipelare are performed instrumentally, whereas in those by Pierre de La Rue and Johannes Ockeghem the upper voice is sung; in those cases the text is divided among the two versions. Notable is that the Codex also includes some sacred works, and several of them - among them sections from Jacob Obrecht's Missa Fortuna desperata - are performed here. It attests to the fact that this kind of repertoire could also performed outside the liturgy, as domestic entertainment, in the same way as secular music.

If it is decided to perform this repertoire with a consort of instruments and a voice, it is of utmost importance that the latter does not act as a soloist. He or she should rather be part of the ensemble, like a register in the organ. The Boreas Quartett Bremen could hardly have made a better choice: Dorothee Mields has a vast experience in early music, and is able to adapt her voice to the sound of the recorders. Her performances are admirable, and her skills in the addition of ornaments very impressive. They are sometimes quite virtuosic and come off very well thanks to the flexibility of her voice. The Boreas Quartett Bremen is one of many recorder quartets, which often play English renaissance music and music of our time. This quartet has made an interesting choice of repertoire: a copy of the Basevi Codex was given to them after a concert, which has turned out to be a most fruitful gift. This disc is not only an impressive testimony of their qualities, but - more importantly - sheds light on music life at the court of Marguerite of Austria and performance practice in her time. This is a disc every lover of renaissance music may want to have,

On a technical note: in the digital booklet the order of the lyrics has been mixed up.

die Künstlerin verbindet Moderne und Barock und erweitert das beliebte romantische Harfen-Kernrepertoire in alle Richtungen.

Enregistré avec beaucoup de soin à Strasbourg par les équipes d’Audite, le programme offre un panorama du répertoire concertant français pour violoncelle de la fin du XIXe. Sans forcer son magnifique instrument (un Goffriller de 1711, le « Van Wilgenburg »), Coppey déploie une palette de couleurs, de dynamiques, de vibratos et une virtuosité d’archet qui ne laissent rien à désirer. La prise de son très claire, à la fois proche et bien spatialisée, permet d’apprécierle travailtout aussi léché de John Nelson avec un Philharmonique de Strasbourg à la sonorité pleine et équilibrée.

Malgré une entente profonde entre le chef et le violoncelliste, ravi de jouer avec l’orchestre de sa ville natale, l’ensemble n’est pas toujours rigoureusement parfait, çà etlà déstabilisé par les rubatos si personnels du soliste. Dans l’Elégie, prise bien plus lentement que ne le demandait Fauré, on frise parfois l’apoplexie à l’orchestre. Mais la maturité du musicien français et son enthousiasme font merveille chez Boëllmann, Saint-Saëns et Lalo. Mention spéciale pour le Concerto en ré mineur de ce dernier où les interprètes – Coppey s’y montre particulièrement brillant – savent chercher la grandeur et chasser l’emphase qui guette toujours la partition. Dommage que l’éditeur allemand n’ait pas cru utile de faire figurer une version française de son excellente notice ; la traversée du Rhin s’en serait trouvée facilitée.