Devil's Trill

Marc-Andre Hamelin: Automaton

2012-02-09T10:29:00.001Z

We've all heard the recent stories about phones in concerts, whether it's the NY Phil or the ringtone viola bloke. Marc Andre Hamelin has his own solution, as seen in the video above, but read the comments on the youtube page and you’ll find this antidote to the usual youtube flame wars:

“Well actually...Marc Andre Hamelin is robot. You only ever see films of him from the right hand side so the technicians at the Music Robot Company of Canada only fabricated a face to cover his right hand side to save costs. In the video the robot took the company by surprise so they only had a few hours to make a left side of his face and the result wasn't really a good match to what we know and love. Hope that clears things up.”

Wolfgang Rihm with the London Sinfonietta

2012-01-26T09:37:00.000Z

Evenings with the London Sinfonietta can be among the great unexpected joys of classical music. Unless you’ve seen it all before, you don’t know quite what to expect when the lights go down. In our hype driven culture, seeing or hearing without preconceptions is a rare treat. Sometimes you get a better deal than other times, and I can’t help feeling that their Wolfgang Rihm at 60 was one of their less riveting evenings. But that’s the lottery. Read my full review at Classicalsource.

Our Nige rewrites Vivaldi

2012-01-23T12:00:00.000Z

Well blow me down, but I enjoyed Nigel Kennedy’s Saturday night Barbican gig more than I imagined I would. Much too long, at three hours, but Vivaldi’s Four Seasons are robust enough to take a bit of well intentioned rewriting. Read my full review at Classicalsource.

Wendy Sutter plays Glass's First Cello Concerto

2012-01-14T11:20:00.001Z

Philip Glass

Concerto for cello for orchestra No.1

Wendy Sutter (cello)

Orchestra of the Americas

Dante Anzolini

Orange Mountain Music 0076

There was a time when the traditional form of the concerto was an anathema to the pared back language of minimalism. The two big beasts of the first wave of minimalism who are still in the public eye, Philip Glass and Steve Reich, came up with titles as spare as their music: Music in the Shape of a Square; Music for 18 Musicians; Music in Twelve Parts; etc., etc. Both graduated to more poetic titles, but Reich never fell back on the forms of old. Glass did, though, and he's now on his ninth symphony and second each of concertos for violin, piano and cello. But as he's shoehorned his hugely distinctive sound into these traditional structures, the original intensity of the style has been diluted and replaced with something altogether more conventional.

Glass's own label, Orange Mountain Music, gives us their second recording of Glass's Cello Concerto No.1 after a recording by the work's first interpreter, Julian Lloyd Webber, appeared in OMM's Glass Concerto Project series (OMM 0014). There it was coupled with Glass's Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra; here we get only the 31 minutes of the Cello Concerto with no filler – not much music for a full priced disc. Richard Guérin's sleeve notes don't mention why this concerto is numbered No.1, being mainly concerned with the performance history of the work since its composition in 2001, but Glass's website reveals it's because a second is to be premièred in 2012 and will be based on music from Glass's Naqoyqatsi soundtrack.

As for this first concerto, it begins well with a darkly shifting sequence of chords ground out by the cello: a weightier sound than usual from Glass and one which promises something a little different. But come the first orchestral tutti and we're into fairly generic Glass territory. The material of the second movement is brooding in a way that Glass does very well, but the variations that follow do outstay their welcome. The finale has a certain swagger to it, but comes to an abrupt halt in a way that suggests Glass doesn't really know where his material is heading.

I've not had a chance to hear OMM's first recording of the concerto, so cannot compare Wendy Sutter's performance against Lloyd Webber's. She does make the best case for the solo part with her dark and intense tone and faultless technique, though she's too prominent in the mix and the orchestra's contribution tends to fall away into the background. On paper, though, there's no reason to choose this disc over the earlier OMM one, as that release was double the length and I suspect only Glass completists are going to want Sutter's new recording. A shame, because she's clearly an appealing instrumentalist able to enliven a fairly dull piece of music.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-International.

Raise a glass for Piazzolla

2012-01-09T12:45:00.000Z

I spent the Christmas period immersed in Piazzolla, researching for a booklet note I’ve written for an upcoming Piazzolla CD. Along the way, I stumbled across Piazzolla on Video, a blog posting videos on his music. Two delights I must share with you: Piazzolla advertising Royal Command Whiskey (you'll have to follow the link for that one); and Libertango, performed on the glass harp:

Taking pot shots at Stradivari

2012-01-04T11:54:00.000Z

Another month, another Stradivari story. Of course, the ludicrous prices don’t help, but the press and public at large are fixated on the idea that Antonio Stradivari of No. 2, Piazza San Domenico, Cremona, is the One True Luthier. It’s been done before, but a recent blind test suggesting musicians can’t tell the difference between megabucks Strads and newer instruments is being widely reported. The press love an ‘emperor’s new clothes’ story, so it’s a relief to have Steven Isserlis jumping to the rescue with a reasoned response to the reported experiment, pointing out that a musician’s relationship with an instrument might be more complex than a five minute sound test. The usually excellent Radio 4 news Programme PM had a go at reproducing the experiment in their studio last night, though the results of this dismaying simplification of the argument seemed to be that while two violins do indeed sound different, doing it in the PM studio with microphones set up for speech was like comparing Titian and Turner through frosted glass.

Maria Bachmann: Glass Heart

2011-12-19T14:40:00.000Z

Glass Heart

Glass, Schubert, Bach/Gounod, Ravel

Maria Bachmann (violin)

Jon Klibonoff (piano)

Orange Mountain Music OMM7006

Maria Bachmann holds a cut glass heart before her on the cover of this violin recital disc and, indeed, the Glass is the heart of a programme ostensibly designed to compliment a new work for violin and piano. Philip Glass has written a violin sonata and, with it, has stepped into a long and formidable tradition hinted at in this attractive and enjoyable album. Does Glass's new work hold its own against such formidable companions as Schubert's great A major Sonata? I'm not so sure.

Glass Heart follows swiftly from Orange Mountain Music's live recording of Glass's 2nd Violin Concerto, subtitled the American Four Seasons, but Maria Bachmann's playing on the present album presents none of the problems of Robert MacDuffie's strained and inconsistent performance in the concerto. Bachmann's way with Glass is tender and gently expressive and her mellow tone is suited to the sonata. She is well balanced with pianist Jon Klibonoff, who throughout demstroates the same sensitivity and lightness of touch. The sonata, though, is less memorable. For the most part, it feels like a retread of the familiar Glass style, complete with copious arpeggios and repetitive figurations. It might seem ignorant to accuse the most high profile of minimalists of being repetitive, but here Glass's repetitions seem more to do with a musical style based around a paucity of material than one the hypnotic and slowly transforming minimalism of old. Each movement is actually based on a conventional chaconne model and, in the case of the first movement, the sequence of underlying chords yields only limited possibilities. There are some moments of finely realised beauty, however; the second movement stands out for its regretful and reflective character and its opening bars are really quite special. If only the rest were that good.

The booklet notes suggest that the rest of the programme has been chosen to reflect aspects of Glass's musical character. Gounod's heavenly Ave Maria melody over Bach's masterclass in arpeggiated writing is an obvious comparison, though I feel the Bach/Gounod team do it rather better. I suppose certain works of Schubert share Glass's introspective quality, but not the Sonata in A (originally published as the Duo) and in any case, the comparison between Glass's Sonata and Schubert's isn't a kind one. Schubert's Sonata is a great work, though Bachmann's subdued take on the first movement saps some of its energy. She seems always to be pulling back from Klibonoff's more incisive accompaniment and is unresponsive to the darting changes of character. Her playing is stylish, though some of her more extravagant shifts are in poor taste and she generally is better suited to Ravel's posthumously published violin sonata, which receives a lovely performance. Again, the stated connection to Glass's music is dubious, but Bachmann's sweet tone and control of colour suit it perfectly.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-international.

Razumovsky Ensemble at Wigmore Hall

2011-12-16T14:09:00.000Z

Tuesday’s Wigmore Hall appearance from the Razumovsky Ensemble was a decidedly mixed affair, with one member outclassing the others. Hamish Milne’s pianism was exquisite throughout, while Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s violin playing varied wildly. Read my review at Classicalsource.

Prokofiev's Violin Concertos from Pavel Berman

2011-12-13T14:02:00.000Z

Prokofiev

Violin Concertos

Sonata for two violins

Pavel Berman (violin)/Anna Tifu (violin, Op.56)

Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana/Andrey Boreyko

Dynamic CDS 676

He may have been a pianist, but something about the violin excited Prokofiev enough for him to produce some of the instrument’s finest works. Not much of the twentieth century’s repertoire for the violin can match the dazzling colour of the First Violin Concerto, completed in 1917 but not performed until the dust had settled after the Russian revolution, or the gravity and rhythmic energy of the Second, composed in 1935, shortly before Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union to assume the role of most favoured composer. Pavel Berman’s attractive coupling of the two is complemented by the Sonata for two violins of 1932, an ingenious and witty work much favoured by the father-son partnership of David and Igor Oistrakh.

In keeping the menu an all Prokofiev affair, Berman’s Dynamic recording would initially seem a more appealing proposition than some previous sets featuring both concertos. Maxim Vengerov’s recordings with Rostropovich were at one time available with the Glazunov concerto, while Decca’s CD rerelease of Kyung Wha Chung’s 1970s performances came with the Stravinsky concerto. Both of these venerable sets offer more persuasive performances, however, and while there are still things to be enjoyed in Berman’s playing, it was a disc that I found myself liking less as it progressed.

The First Concerto begins promisingly. Berman sets an unusually swift tempo, lending a dancing and dotted character to the opening melody, but this creates problems when he reaches the faster central section. There’s nowhere to go and little contrast to be found, and this lack of care over the pacing continues across both concertos and, ultimately, everything feels rather generalised. There are fine moments, though, particularly the first moment’s tranquil coda, captured very well by Berman and the Orchestra Della Svizzera Italiana.

Berman’s performance of the Second Concerto is also a mixed affair, with the first movement proceeding quite carefully; indeed, one moment seems to find Berman struggling with the basics of getting his fingers round Prokofiev’s passage work. The Andante suffers from more generalised pacing, stretching it out and making it feel more repetitive than it ought to. But the finale is a success, with Berman finding more grit and swagger for the unhinged rustic dance. In the Sonata for Two Violins, Berman is well matched with partner Anna Tifu, though the recording here lacks body.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-international.

In memory of a fellow writer

2011-12-09T10:34:00.000Z

My colleague at Musicweb and Classicalsource, Bob Briggs, has died after a long illness. Musicweb have published a tribute to him.

Even if you didn’t know Bob, you may well have spotted him at concerts. He was a huge guy, normally dressed in black; as Len Mullenger rightly says, a real life Hagrid. He was also extremely friendly and willing to compare musical tastes and opinions with anyone. I only met him on a couple of occasions, but on both spent a long and enjoyable time mulling over with him what we’d recently heard. He was a real champion of the unusual and neglected, and I for one will miss his company at some of London’s more unusual musical events.

5 for December

2011-12-07T20:09:00.000Z

5 interesting December releases that caught Devil's Trill's eye.

Brian - Gothic Symphony (Hyperion)

I for one didn't imagine that we'd have Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony at the Proms; that's precisely what we did get in this year's series, much to the delight of English music nerds everywhere. In the end, I thought it was a tremendous experience live, but not one I'd rush out to again in a hurry. I'm interested to see how Hyperion's live recording of the concert turned out, though, having been stood up in the crowded gallery on the occasion.

Elgar Conducts Elgar – Complete Recordings 1914-25 (Music & Arts)

Elgar's recordings are fascinating and haven't always been as readily available recently as they should. No idea what's in it though; Music & Arts's website hasn't been updated for some months and MDT's listing (presumably from the record company themselves) doesn't say either. Don't these people want to sell us things? You could just buy this really cheap EMI one.

Ernst – Complete Violin Works Vol.2 (Toccata Classics)

Ernst was a great rival of Paganini and was apparently desperate to discover his secrets. This second volume from Toccata Classics, those archaeologists of the obscure, adds to other recent revivals of Ernst's music.

Meyer – String Quartets Vol.2 (Naxos)

I've not heard Krzysztof Meyer's music, but his CV is very interesting. He was a pupil of Penderecki and Lutoslawski, and completed Shostakovich's unfinished opera The Gamblers.

Arthur Rubinstein - The Complete Album Collection (Sony)

Seriously wantable. Prices vary, but I've seen this 144 disc set online for less than £200, which is a bargain by any standards. Experience shows that these mega Sony behemoths don't hang around long; The 2009 Vladimir Horowitz set has gone from the catalogue, and last year's Heifetz collection is disappearing fast. So get in early if you want one. I'm seriously tempted...

Beethoven round 2 from the Belceas

2011-12-03T21:56:00.000Z

Thursday saw another terrific concert in the Belcea Quartet's Beethoven cycle at Wigmore Hall. Read my review at Classicalsource. Also, read my interview with Belcea violist Krzysztof Chorzelski from earlier this year.

British composer award winners

2011-12-01T11:57:00.000Z

The winners for the British Composer Awards were announced yesterday at a ceremony in London. Follow this link for news of who won what. Some composers won for string music, including Anthony Payne for his String Quartet No.2 and William Sweeney for his Cello Sonata. The ceremony is broadcast on Radio3 on Sunday at 2pm.

Georges Lentz's incredible Ingwe

2011-11-30T15:17:00.001Z

Georges Lentz

Ingwe from Mysterium (“Caeli enarrant... VII)

Zane Banks (electric guitar)

An hour long work for solo electric guitar might not sound like the best idea in the world, but in the hands of composer Georges Lentz it's an hour of startling power. Lentz was born in Luxenbourg but lives in Australia, and has spent two decades composing music for a monumental series of works: Caeli enarrant... (The Heavens are Telling (Psalm XIX)). Ingwe means 'night' in the indigenous Australian langauge of Aranda, and it's a very dark night of the soul exposed in this episode from the larger sub-cycle Mysterium, the seventh segment of Caeli enarrant.

Ingwe conjures visions of sand blasted expanses in its depiction of the vast barrenness of the Australian outback, which itself serves as a metaphor for the spiritual vacuum contemplated by Lentz as he ponders the uncaring void of the universe. Of course, there's no text here expounding Lentz's point of view, but it's amply communicated by the wailing intensity of Zane Bank's electric guitar which is rich in imagery and suggestion. At moments, we are enveloped by unyielding storms of sound (or maybe wind and sand), while another moment seems to depict the passing of a giant freight train which melts into the distance. Slices of silence punctuate the wall of noise, while the work's conclusion is the most violent episode of all; a series of cataclysmic bassy strokes that grow and grow in volume, bringing to my mind an image of bombs being dropped on an already dead city.

If all this sounds rather one-note, there are many moments of quiet reflection to counter the charge and, in the seventh of the eight continuous sections, an unexpected moment of clarity in the form of a soulful and tender melody picked out on the guitar. This episode begins with chords emerging intermittently only as the guitar's volume is turned up, producing gripping gulfs between the rise and fade of the sound. Throughout the work, the variety of timbre and technique that Lentz and Banks draw from the guitar is fascinating and makes this a genuinely involving hour that passes much faster than it feels it might at the outset.

Ingwe is Naxos's second disc of Lentz's music and features excellent notes from Richard Toop who gives a valuable guide through to the work. The earlier disc (8.557019) includes further segments of Mysterium, and we can only hope that Naxos bring us more slices of Lentz's ongoing cycle.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb International.

Naxos 8.572483

A personal apology to Charles Dutoit

2011-11-29T13:01:00.002Z

Mr Dutoit,

I’m sure you don’t keep up with the critics; why would you? Those symphonies aren’t going to learn themselves, after all. So here’s hoping you didn’t see what I wrote about your performance of Tchaikovsky’s 5^th Symphony with the RPO a few weeks ago. I think I said something like “Was anything ever at stake here? Were there depths beyond Dutoit's shimmering surface? ... on this occasion, not all of the hollowness was Tchaikovsky's own.” That was a bit much, wasn’t it. I’ll admit it: I was disappointed with the performance, especially after I’d so much enjoyed your Rite of Spring in London a few months before; but, all considered, I’ll admit I was guilty of a little overstatement. The performance left me rather nonplussed, but it didn’t make me angry. It took Valery Gergiev to do that; to make a performance of this same work not so much a distortion as an act of vandalism. So I’m sorry for being a bit mean and I’ll look forward to your next concert. Honestly, I will; now that I know just how much worse that Tchaikovsky really could have been.

Ta,
Andrew

The Big List of Classical Music Blogs

2011-11-28T20:03:00.000Z

This one does what it says on the tin. I've never seen such a comprehensive list of classical blogs as this, and it is nice to see my name next to Alex Ross's. But then, that's the alphabet for you.

Grill Mutter on Facebook

2011-11-26T20:15:00.000Z

Photo: Tina Tahir/DG

Want to ask Anne-Sophie Mutter a question? She'll be taking part in a Q&A session organised by the London Symphony Orchestra, to be streamed live on Facebook tomorrow afternoon. Come up with a good'un and fire it their way here.

Ehnes the violinist and violist in Bartok

2011-11-21T09:18:00.000Z

As promised, here's my review of James Ehnes's new Bartok disc posted on Classicalsource.

Liszt New Discoveries Vol 3

2011-11-15T14:49:00.000Z

Liszt

New Discoveries Vol 3

Leslie Howard (piano)

Hyperion CDA67810

All mammoth recording projects must resemble a mountain at their outset. Looking back on Leslie Howard's gigantic survey of Liszt's piano music, the great peaks were scaled and unknown plateaus and valleys revealed; and now, more than a decade on from the ostensible end of the project (for no international search for the continuing paper trail of a composer so intent on churning out manuscript can ever really be over) Howard presents another set mopping up loose Lisztian ends under the banner of 'New Discoveries'.

This is Howard's third volume of subsequently uncovered odds and ends, though the finds grow more academic and the newness of the material a little more dubious as time goes on. The bulk of the track listing is taken up with tiny fragments of music, some familiar and some not, classed as album leaves or, as Howard has it, 'keepsakes'. Very few could be considered independent musical works and many are little isolated passages which could be drafts. One of those that seems almost complete is track 27, an album leaf named Purgatorio (Andante in b minor), an intriguing series of descending figures with a melancholic tone. Howard doesn't specify in his sleeve notes which piece they may be connected to, and if this one is from a larger work it's not one I know.

One work appears in a number of guises. Howard suggests that Liszt must have had a special fondness for Lyubila Ya by Michael Wielhorsky (1788-1856) because of the couple of arrangements that Liszt made of the melody. We have three stages of the process here, though they're spread across the two discs, making comparisons a little difficult. What they do suggest is that Liszt was at his strongest when reigning in his instinct to hurl ornamentation into his familiar variation format. It's a point underscored by a simplified version of the Valse-Impromtu, which is all the more affecting for its pared back delicacy and transparency.

Of the more substantial pieces, the Romancero Espagnol includes a typical Lisztian mix of virtuosic variations and some moments of ear catchingly inventive tonality. Two pieces from the oratorio Christus come from Liszt's own transcription of the work for the published vocal score, and Howard clearly believes that they have pianistic value in their own right. One other curiosity is the Variations Tiszántuli szép léany, a work published under Liszt's name and mentioned in contemporary catalogues of his music but some way below the quality of even Liszt's most pedestrian works. Howard isn't convinced it's bona fide, but includes it for completnesses sake.

Completeness is the essence of this volume. To Lisztians, it's self recommending and anyone who has closely followed this Hyperion series will want this set. But this is specialist territory only and casual Liszt listeners are unlikely to have their picture of the composer broadened by it. Needless to say, Howard's playing is sensitive and enjoyable throughout.

This review originally appeared with a full tracklisting at Musicweb International.

It's the Barber for Ehnes

2011-11-09T22:52:00.000Z

Read my review of James Ehnes's Barber Violin Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic over at Classicalsource. Also look out in the next week or so for my review of his new Bartok CD.

Divine Art's Prokofiev

2011-11-03T09:14:00.001Z

Russian Piano Music Vol.7: Prokofiev

Piano Sonatas 2 & 7

Visions fugatives (selections)

10 pieces from Romeo and Juliet (selections)

Sergei Dukachev

Divine Art DDA25096

It seems appropriate that Prokofiev wrote some of his finest and most varied music for his own instrument, the piano. Prokofiev left a handful of recordings of his own playing for posterity, setting a high standard for those wanting to follow in his footsteps and tackle this remarkable oeuvre. That bar was maintained by two of Prokofiev’s pianist colleagues, Emil Gilels and Sviatoslav Ricther, so that anyone attempting this repertoire is stepping into a mighty tradition. This volume continues Divine Art’s survey of an even grander tradition: the hi-ways and by-ways of Russian piano music.

Divine Art’s Prokofiev compilation begins with the Second Piano Sonata of 1912, the most substantial among the first five. It’s a case of serving the best first in Dukachev’s case, as this performance is the most secure on the disc with only the final Vivace suffering from a few blemishes. The Andante is successful, with Dukachev building the tension effectively throughout.

Only a few notes into his selection from the Visions Fugitives, however, and alarm bells ring. Dukachev misses a chord in the left hand of No.1, leading to a bar or so of mismatched left and right hands. It sounds so deliberate that I questioned my own edition of the score, but checking the original Russian print confirms that it must be a mistake on Dukachev’s part. It turns out that these are live recordings, taken from a number of different concerts; not that you’d know from the back of the box. So, a memory slip could be forgiven - it’s certainly happened to the very best in the past – but who is going to want to listen to this mistake again and again?

Armed with the knowledge that these are live recordings (only confirmed inside the booklet), the lack of audience noise throughout (save for the end of the 7th Sonata, which includes applause) is a relief, and the disc’s live status goes some way to explain Dukachev’s untidy finger work in the faster passages of the Op.22 selections. All pianists make mistakes in concert, but these performances aren’t persuasive enough in their own terms to warrant anyone returning to them and hearing those mistakes again.

Four of Prokofiev’s Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet suffer from the same issues, though they confirm that Dukachev is at least good at dreamy atmosphere, such as that conjured for the beginning of Romeo and Juliet before parting. The Seventh Sonata, one of Prokofiev’s fiercest works in any genre, is given a reasonable performance which impresses mostly in the shell-shocked second movement Andante coloroso, but the Precipitato finale is disappointingly underpowered.

Across the entire disc, there is the added problem of poor sound, which varies quite noticeably between pieces but which is always consistently bad. It would have been poor by the standards of four decades ago; the fact that all of these recordings were taped during or after 2000 makes the situation particularly unforgivable. I’m inclined to give Dukachev the benefit of the doubt in some cases of muddy playing, as the acoustic and production can only have made the problems worse than they might have seemed at the time of the performances. But the sound problems are enough on their own for me to direct anyone interested in sampling Prokofiev’s wonderful piano music elsewhere, such as to Bernd Glemser’s three budget priced discs of Prokofiev’s complete piano sonatas (including the Romeo and Juliet pieces) on Naxos (8553021; 8554270; 8555030), at the very least.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb International.

Polish greats

2011-10-28T14:04:00.000+01:00

Violinist Giovanni Guzzo

It might be that seeing a great view from the top of a mountain is ehanced by there being no one else there. I think the opposite is true of concerts, as I found out at Cadogan Hall on Tuesday when the RPO gave a terrific performance of Polish classical music to an almost empty auditorium. Shame. Read my review at Classicalsource, including my report on two brillint young string players who, if there's any justice, will be stars soon.

The violinists' violinist

2011-10-27T09:45:00.000+01:00

The Guardian has asked a number of eminent violinists to choose their number one fiddler. Interestingly, there are two mentions apiece for Ida Haendel, Pinchas Zukerman and Gidon Kremer, but no Oistrakh, Heifetz, Milstein, Szigeti, etc, etc. I would have chosen Oistrakh myself, and Julia Fischer from the crop of current violinists. Who would you choose? Let us know in the comments section.

Herwig Zack: 4 Strings Only

2011-10-26T09:28:00.000+01:00

4 Strings Only: A Recital for Solo Violin

Bloch

Bach

Ben-Haim

Berio

Herwig Zack (violin)

AVIE AV2189

Several themes run through this album of solo violin music from German violinist Herwig Zack. Four of the works suggest a broadening of the repertoire in the shadow of the fifth; Bach’s violin works, after all, being so dominant in the repertoire. Three of them were composed for Yehudi Menuhin, a prolific commissioner of new music, while Menuhin’s Bach remains one of his most important legacies. And, perhaps more trivially, this disc reminds us that besides Bach, plenty of other Bs wrote solo violin music.

Zack’s recital gives us the two Suites by Bloch, in reverse order and separated by a sample of Bach’s mighty example of violin writing. Bloch’s Suites for solo violin, composed for Menuhin, date from quite late in the composer’s life (both written in 1958) and maybe their close proximity makes them sound like two sides of a musical coin. The Suites’ language is lonely, anguished, and at times quite angular. If anything, the First Suite in more introspective than the Second, though its initial upward stab makes for a striking and combative opening. At its heart is a brief Andante, just two lines long in the score, which evokes the more simple tonality of Bach. Zach underscores this link by paring back his tone and vibrato, a technique also deployed in the Bach Second Sonata.

The Second Suite occasionally slips into a Bartokian sound world, and perhaps its most striking moment is a series of declamatory chords in the moderato second movement. These are both intriguing works, but I must admit that despite having listened to them a number of times, I’ve struggled to retain the sound of them in my memory. Zack’s intonation is always precise, but he’s let down, particularly in these works, by the recording’s lack of dynamic contrast; fortissimo moments are often little varied from pianos that follow them, though I sense that this is not Zack’s fault. The dynamic issues are less of a problem in Bach’s Second Sonata, BWV 1003, in which Zack’s borrows period simplicity with minimal vibrato and sustain. He adapts his sound very well, though a less self consciously stylised performance might have made more of the lines of the Fuga or of the famous andante.

The last two works on the disc turn out to be the most appealing. Paul Ben-Haim’s Sonata of 1951 makes a great play of Jewish elements, such as a distinctive harmony and single note drones maintained beneath modal flourishes. Zack is at his very best in Berio’s Sequenza VIII, which plays with the idea of closely pitched clusters of notes and, in a brilliant central section, a ghostly toccata of smudged semi quavers. At one point, Zack excels himself by continuing the toccata while interjecting four-note chords into their flow without ever loosing the thread of the underlying semi quavers. It’s a bravura moment from a very impressive violinist.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-International.

British Composer Awards 2011

2011-10-24T13:23:00.000+01:00

Here's the shortlist for the British Composer Awards, as selected by the British Academy of Songwriters, Compsoers and Authors (BASCA). The winners will be announced on November 30th, and Radio 3 will be airing a special programme about the awards on 4th December.

FULL SHORTLIST:

Instrumental Solo or Duo

Oliver Knussen: Ophelia's Last Dance
Thomas Simaku: Soliloquy IV for Bass Clarinet
William Sweeney: Sonata for Cello & Piano

Chamber

David Matthews: Horn Quintet
Anthony Payne: String Quartet No. 2
Martin Suckling: To See the Dark Between

Vocal

Dai Fujikura: away we play
Martin Suckling: What Shall I Give?
Huw Watkins: Five Larkin Songs

Choral

Alexander Campkin: O magnum mysterium

Francis Pott: Mass in Eight Parts
Michael Zev Gordon: Allele

Wind Band or Brass Band

Tom Davoren: Looking In

Emily Howard: Obsidian
Lucy Pankhurst: In Pitch Black

Orchestral

Julian Anderson: Fantasias

Simon Bainbridge: Concerti Grossi
Huw Watkins: Violin Concerto

Stage Works

Orlando Gough: A Ring A Lamp A Thing
Tim Minchin: Matilda
Joby Talbot: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Liturgical

Julian Anderson: Bell Mass
Francis Grier: Missa Spiritus Sancti
Gabriel Jackson: The Glory of the Lord

Sonic Art

No Award

Contemporary Jazz Composition

Tommy Evans: The Green Seagull
Martin Kershaw: Closing In
Sid Peacock: Hallucinogenic Garden

Community or Educational Project

John Barber: Consider the Lilies

David Bedford: The Wreck of the Titanic
Anna Meredith: Night Shift

Making Music Award

Richard Bullen: I can't find brumm...

Kirsty Devaney: Hadal Zone
Tim Sutton: The Seven Joys

International Award

Gerald Barry: La Plus Forte

Brett Dean: Epitaphs
Bent Sørensen: La Mattina

Outreach

Mira Calix / Orlando Gough / Emily Hall / Andy Mellon / Paul Sartin: Fables - A Film Opera

Graham Fitkin: PK
Julian Joseph: Shadowball

Liszt on the violin

2011-10-20T12:52:00.000+01:00

This is a bit bonkers. Noam Sivan has transcribed Liszt's mighty B minor Piano Sonata for solo violin and it's performed here by Giora Schmidt. The Sonata is one of Liszt most formidable works, one which eschews the flashy virtuosity that Liszt's works can suffer from. This arrangement doesn't really work, but it's a really admirable attempt at reducing a dense score onto an instrument that doesn't really do harmony. It's also very well played here by Schmidt.

Takács Bartok round 1

2011-10-19T17:39:00.000+01:00

Photo: Richard Houghton

Over at Classicalsource, I review the first part of the Takács Quartet's Bartok cycle at Queen Elizabeth's Hall, London. Read the review here, and UK readers can listen to the concert for a week on iplayer.

Classic Turetzky

2011-10-18T16:00:00.000+01:00

Read my review of Bertrum Turetzky's classic album of new music for double bass at Classicalsource.

Rostropovich: The Genius of the Cello

2011-10-13T12:41:00.000+01:00

When Mstislav Rostropovich died in 2007, one of the last great connections to a generation of remarkable composers was lost. Rostropovich was celebrated internationally as the greatest cellist of his age, but he was also the man who coaxed the finest cello music of the Twentieth Century from its towering composers. Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Britten, Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Dutilleux - these are just a few, though it was the first three with whom Rostropovich's name become inextricably linked. John Bridcut's excellent documentary, broadcast last Friday on BBC4, touched on these special relationships and culminated in the first glimpse of newly discovered footage of the premiere, in Moscow, of Britten's Cello Symphony.

Here was a man of enormous energy, who inspired love and a certain degree of fear in his students and colleagues. Unlike many of his Soviet contemporaries, Rostropovich was sometimes outspoken in his criticisms of the authorities and their actions and it ultimately forced his exile from his homeland for almost two decades. Bridcut's documentary ties Rostropovich's story together with this story of political conscience, beginning with the story of his famous 1968 Proms appearance, playing Dvorak on the day Soviet tanks rolled into Prague, and ending with his dramatic intervention in the fall of the Soviet Union, two decades later. Hopefully, a DVD will follow this broadcast, with all of the footage from the Britten premiere.

Best CD cover of the month

2011-10-11T14:09:00.000+01:00

You just want one, don't you.

Capuçon's Mendelssohn

2011-10-10T19:43:00.000+01:00

Click here for my full review of Renaud Capuçon's Mendelssohn Violin Concerto at The Anvil, Basingstoke.

Proms Gothic gets CD release

2011-10-08T15:19:00.002+01:00

It seemed a sensible idea to release it on CD, but at the time of this year's Proms performance of Havergal Brian's gigantic Gothic Symphony, there was no word of it. It has now been announced that the live performance will be released by Hyperion Records in time for Christmas. Smart folks, those Hyperion people. Read what I thought about the performance at the time and go to Hyperion's site for a few clips of the performance.

Rostropovich on BBC4 tomorrow

2011-10-06T17:30:00.000+01:00

Viewers in the UK will get to see John Bridcut's documentary on the late cellist, Mistislav Rostropovich. It's on BBC4 at 7.30PM on Friday and I for one hope it's on iplayer there after as I'll be out at the time.

Would you like some Boulez with your Boulez?

2011-10-05T22:38:00.002+01:00

Wall to wall Boulez at the weekend proved to be a mind expanding but exhausting experience. Read my report for Classicalsource.com. Then have a look at Boulezian's extensive write up, Classical Iconoclast's always interesting view and Colin Anderson's review of the big finish, Pli selon pli. And, if you want to hear some for yourself, here's a link to a video of an earlier stop on the Pli selon pli tour.

Interview: Belceas take on Beethoven

2011-10-03T13:29:00.000+01:00

Boulez isn't the only B in town. Across at Wigmore Hall, the Belcea Quartet are beginning a year long cycle of Beethoven's string quartets, starting tonight with Op18/3, Op74 and Op130 (without Grosse Fuge). I spoke to the quartet's violist, Krzysztof Chorzelski, for Classicalsource.com about this new project. You can read the full interview here. Tickets for this evenings concert are sold out, but the concert is broadcast live on Radio 3 at 7.30pm and will be available for 7 days on BBC iplayer.

Boulez takes over Southbank Centre for the weekend

2011-09-30T12:33:00.000+01:00

If an entire weekend of Pierre Boulez sounds like fun to you, then you'll be pleased to hear that's just what's been programmed at London's Southbank Centre. It cultimates in a performance of his Pli selon pli for soprano and orchestra, conducted by the composer. Looks like there's plenty of tickets left, so if you want to show the old man your support, you know what to do. Me? I'm covering most of the weekend for Classicalsource.com, so expect my report soon.

Tetzlaff jumps to Finnish label Ondine

2011-09-27T12:40:00.000+01:00

Slipped Disc carries news of another top artist leaving the safety of a big record label for the freedom of an independant one. In this case, German violinist Christian Tetzlaff has left EMI to join the adventurous Finnish label Ondine, perhaps best known for their tireless advocacy of Finnish composers such as Rautavaara. Tetzlaff isn't the only big name to have left EMI recently; Krzysztof Chorzelski of the Belcea Quartet told me recently, for a forthcoming interview for Classicalsource.com, of their frustrations with EMI and their shift to small French outfit Zig Zag Territoires. It seems that the attractions can be greater artistic freedom and a choice of more unusual repertoire. Let's hope it works out for CT.

Copyright extension bad news for anyone who loves music

2011-09-22T10:10:00.001+01:00

No one seemed to think it was a good idea. Two government-commissioned reports casted doubt on it's benefits to the music industry. Nevertheless, the European Union Council has voted to increase the term of copyright on recorded performances from the current 50 years to 70. Cliff Richard was poster boy for a long campaign that argued it was wrong for performances such as his own to fall into the public domain within the lifetime of their artists. He and other famous artists can now rest assured that their early hits will not be viable for free use in advertising and other public platforms for some time to come. Those artists and corporations with revenue now guaranteed for a couple more decades will paint this as a moral victory for everyone who creates; music lovers who now find previously available half-century old recordings put under lock and key and see performing rights traded like commodities might beg to differ.

The full implications of the legislation will not be clear for some time - European governments have two years to fall into line. The headlines have focused on mega stars with back catalogues to protect, such as Cliff and The Beatles, but this will have ramifications for the classical music industry. Devil's Trill will be looking at just what the implications will be, but in the meantime, Bob Stanley's excellent piece in the Guardian explains why the new law is good news for celebrities and bad news for music.

A whole lotta Cage

2011-09-15T12:47:00.001+01:00

Over at Classicasource I review Apartment House's concert of music by John Cage at London's QEH. The programme included his unexpectedly lovely String Quartet. Then watch the above video and tell me Cage doesn't sound just like Vincent Price.

Israel Philharmonic Prom disrupted by protests

2011-09-02T10:02:00.002+01:00

It happened to the Jerusalem Quartet; now it's happened at the Proms. It seems that Israeli musicians performing in the UK must now come to expect disruption by pro-Palestinian protesters as a given. Last night's Prom featured violinist Gil Shaham and conductor Zubin Mehta, and included music by Webern, Bruch and Albeniz. Protests apparently marred many of the items; the BBC took the decision to pull the live broadcast of the concert before much of it had been heard. Igor Toronyi-Lalic was there and gives a full account at The Arts Desk.

We interrupt this programme...

2011-08-22T11:31:00.001+01:00

Devil's Trill is on his hols and will be back in a few weeks. If you've been following my Proms reports, do not fear! There are many good sources for Proms reviews. Check Classicalsource for reviews of every single Prom this year. Check The Arts Desk for typically irreverent views of the rest of the season, follow the excellent blogs listed on the blog list on the right hand sidebar, and above all, follow the concerts on TV, radio and, of course, in the Albert Hall itself.

See you in September!

Proms week 5 - Brahmsfest

2011-08-21T13:17:00.000+01:00

These were surely some of the must sees of the season. A pair of Proms continuing the Brahms concerto theme brought together Bernard Haitink and pianist Emanuel Ax to give the piano concertos over two evenings. With them were Brahms's last symphonies, set against the piano concerto most opposed to their character. Prom 47 (Haitink/COE/Ax - Brahms - August 19th) contrasted the fitfully sunny Third Symphony with the First Piano Concerto, actually his first concerto in any form.

I've found Haitink's direction a little calculated in the past; he's the master of classical shape and tasteful proportion, but not your go to man for searing passion and wild abandon. Thankfully, his sober manner was allied with the big tone and heart from the relitively small Chamber Orchestra of Europe, finding a way in the first movement of the symphony that remained clearly focused while recognising the unparalleled joie de vive of the music. The second movement was as delicate and beautifully textured as you could wish, though the allegretto sounded a little disctracted, as though Haitink wanted to avoid the spirit of yearning and anguish that often marks this wonderful movement.

Emanuel Ax might not be everyone's first choice of pianist in Brahms's titanic concertos, though that's as much to do with his relativley low profile on this side of the Atlantic as anything. In the First Concerto, though, he found the turmoil and deep seriousness of the work without having to exagerate, suggesting an interpretation borne out of hard won wisdom. The Second Concerto, beginning Prom 49 (August 20th) was, if anything, even better, and I urge you to catch it on BBC iplayer if you can (UK readers only).

Haitink's Brahms 4 exemplified his approach in a performance that said more about what the symphony had drawn from the past than what it said to the future. It had to be the least surging opening to the symphony that I've ever hear, recalling Mozart's 40th as much as anything and the point was driven home by the COE's minimal vibrato and small size. But this didn't mean a dull ride. The scherzo dashed forwards and the performance peaked, as it should, in the great final movement. Some decry Haitink's classicising approach, but it's genuninley unique and I think there's room in the world for a view of these works that places them in the tradition that Brahms was conciously emulating.

Proms week 5 - All the Russians

2011-08-19T12:56:00.001+01:00

Fewer of the tripartite, double intervalled Proms grace this season. They look good on paper but are hell to stand through and for that reason I wimped out and listened to Prom 43 (Litton/RPO/Wang - Copland/Bax/Barber/Bartok/Prokofiev - August 16th) on the radio. The programme drew on the musical legacy of conductor and double bassist Serge Koussevitsky who had a hand in commissioning many of the twentieth century's great orchestral works. A few of the works on show here were only tangentially linked to Koussevitsky - Prokofiev's Fourth Symphony was performed in its longer 1947 version and not the original 1930 version performed by Koussevistky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Barber's Adagio for Strings owed its existence (in orchestral form at least) to Toscanini.

It was a long but nonetheless enticing and unusual programme, particularly for the Royal Philharmonic, who must have relished being allowed away from Beethoven and Mozart for a night. The highlights were a rare outing for Arnold Bax's Second Symphony, which grew on me after a second hearing, by which time the initial over load of post-romantic harmony and complexity had started to reveal a compelling journey. The original version of Prokofiev's Fourth Symphony is a favourite of mine and while I'd not claim it to be one of his greatest works, it does include a couple of wonderful episodes dropped for the more symphonic spread of the revised score. Litton is a fan of the later version, telling Radio 3 that he thought Prokofiev had 'fixed' the first version's problems. I hope he fulfils his promise to play it more often.

I stood for Prom 44 (Salonen/Philharmonia/Batiashvili - Shostakovich/Stravinsky/Tchaikovsky - August 17th), though my legs told me the programme was longer than it needed to be. It was a packed house - I was standing further from the stage than I'd have liked to have been and some of the mischief of the suite from Shostakovich's ballet The Age of Gold was lost in the Albert Hall's temperamental acoustic. Luckily, Lisa Batiashvili projected her solo line in Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto beautifully and her volume was never at the expense of warmth of tone. I felt she coasted a little through the first two movements, really hitting her stride with an impassioned third movement and making the most of Shostakovich's astounding cadenza.

Another great violin concerto at the Proms

2011-08-17T15:21:00.001+01:00

We've had the Elgar and the Brahms; now Lisa Batiashvili brings Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto to the Proms. Listen from 7.30pm. Can she match the increadible heights of Julia Fischer's performance of the same work last year? While we wait for the answer, watch the man the work was written for: David Oistrakh.

Cost of the riots

2011-08-15T11:07:00.001+01:00

As reported elsewhere, my Musicweb colleague and renowned flautist Carla Rees lost everything when her Croydon flat was burnt to the ground in last week's rioting and looting. She lost all her possessions, including her collection of unique instruments, more than 600 unpublished musical works written for her and, most heartbreakingly of all, her two cats. Just Flutes have set up a page to take donations to help her rebuild her life and if you would like to donate you can do so by following this link.

Proms week 4: Russians, Reich and Spaghetti Westerns

2011-08-14T18:21:00.004+01:00

The Proms aren't just the London shop window for international orchestras; they're also just about the only chance for Britain's 'provincial' orchestras to display their wares in the capital. Each visits annually; we've had the CBSO and Halle, and Prom 35 (BSO/Karabits/Tynan - Liszt/Gliere/Rachmaninov - 10th August) was the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra's opportunity to show London the fruits of it's continuing relationship with Ukranian chief conductor Kirill Karabits.

Karabits is a man with pet interests and most take in the music of Russia and Eastern Europe. Shchedrin's music has featured prominently in the concert programmes and recent discography of the orchestra, and here it appeared that Karabits intended to dust off another infrequently heard Soviet era bit player. Reinhold Gliere's name doesn't pass over many people lips too frequently, though Russian music fans (though Gliere was in fact Ukrainian) might have heard the Concerto for Coloratura Soprano given in the first half of this Prom. I'm not as sceptical as Colin Anderson at Classicalsource, finding the work a pleasant if sugary diversion channelling Rachmaninov's Vocalise and some more fruity Italianate arias, but without the programme (which at £3.50 I'm refusing to buy) I never twigged that this sub-Tchaikovsky slice of lyrical kitsch could have been composed as late as 1943. Special mention, though, goes to singer Ailish Tynan whose beautiful voice made the best possible case for what at best remains a curiosity.

I've made my thoughts on Liszt known before (though there are exceptions), and his symphonic poem Mazeppa didn't change my mind, sounding to me like a second rate Flying Dutchman. Rachmaninov's Second Symphony is also a blind spot for me, amazing as that seems to be to anyone I admit it to. I've always found it an over long work which fulfils the apparent cliches about his music that are avoided in many of his greatest works. I was, though, swept along by the BSO's performance. Karabits's direction was mostly swift and straight forward (aside from a fatally mannered delivery of the scherzo's second theme), though, as much as I enjoyed it, I remain unconvinced that the last movement is a strong enough answer to the undoubted weight and attraction of the first.

Steve Reich is 75 this year, though you'd not put him beyond 60 in his trademark baseball cap. Prom 36 (Reich/Ensemble Modern - 10th August) celebrated his birthday (a little early) with three classic scores, two of which come from the very beginning of his classic minimalist phase. Clapping Music is as simple as a duet can be, but must be fiendish. The clapping parts phase out of synch until they reconnect at the end. Standing but five metres from the great man as he clapped his way through it will stay with me, even if the hard walls of the Albert Hall worked against the amplification.

Electric Counterpoint, of which I'm very fond, followed; but the centre piece was Reich's hour long statement of music as a gradual process: Music for 18 Musicians. On paper it sounds like a recipe for tedium, but the unchanging pulse gets inside the audience over the course of the hour and the effect is strangely uplifting and collective in scope. My feet fought against it, though, after standing through the Bournemouth Prom and ultimately I think Reich refined the process and acheived similar results in some of his later, shorter scores.

That was my last stand in the hall of the week, though I luckily got a seat to review Prom 39 (Spaghetti Western Orchestra) late on Friday and you can read my thoughts at Classicalsource. For reviews of all the Proms I haven't mentioned, head to the Classicalsource main page.

Proms are not the only festival: A report from Verbier

2011-08-11T20:52:00.000+01:00

Here's a reminder that the Proms are not the only big draw for soloists looking for some summertime fun. The Verbier Festival runs for a couple of weeks from the end of July in the Swiss mountain resort of the same name and attracts a starry roster of famous musicians. Friend of Devil's Trill Philippa has sent me this short report on the 2011 festival:

"I had a great time in Verbier and the Festival was as good as ever – something happening all the time from 9am until late – open rehearsals, master classes for voice, piano, violin, cello and chamber, free concerts every day given by members of the Verbier Festival Academy (mostly all with solo experience), interviews with some of the stars (Anne-Sophie Mutter was interviewed by James Naughtie), and of course the concerts in the main venues – the Eglise and the Salle de Combins. Also every evening there was a free Jazz concert in the main square.

"Alfred Brendel was there for a few days – not performing but he took some of the master classes for voice and piano. Violinist Joshua Bell was in good form in the three concerts he performed in. It was good to hear him play works I’d not heard him play before. On 25th he played Vieuxtemps's Violin Concerto No. 5 and also Ysaye's Poeme de L’Amitie for two violins with Renaud Capucon. In the Gala concert on 26th he just played the first movement from Ysaye's Sonata for 2 violins with Leonidas Kavakos and, on 29th, he played in the Brahms Second String Quintet. Martha Argerich played in the Gala concert on 26th – a brief appearance with Evgeny Kissin where they played Lutoslowski Variations de Paganini for 2 pianos. This was a rather moving concert which had opened with Yuri Bashmet and Kissin playing Brahms Viola Sonata No. 2 – Bashmet then played an encore which he dedicated to his father who had died the previous evening. He left the stage with tears glistening on his cheeks."

Proms week 4: Early Mahler and Scandinavian symphonies

2011-08-09T23:13:00.000+01:00

Great art challenges our certainties like little else. It's part of the deal: we enter the concert hall, or the gallery or cinema for that matter, in the hope of emerging changed by what we've witnessed. For once, though, in our safe and comfortable city, events outside of the hall seemed determined to challenge what we took for granted.

With a horrible irony that would become apparent only once the news of widespread rioting had sunk in, we stood gripped by the effervescent display of Nielsen's Inextinguishable Symphony, last on the bill for Prom 33 (Oramo/RSPO/Ott - Sibelius/Grieg/Nielsen - 9th August). As Andris Nelsons's whirlwind romance with the CBSO continues unabated, more people seem happy to cast doubt on Sakari Oramo's decade long tenure at the head of the Birmingham orchestra but there was nothing so equivocal about Oramao's Nielsen with his new band, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic. Their Inextinguishable was propulsive and virtuosic, while their Sibelius 6th, which opened the concert, had been a warm vision of abundant nature and its eventual decline. Only the orchestra and conductor's accompaniment of Alice Sara Ott's performance of Grieg's Piano Concerto seemed to miss the mark, smothering her precise and ardent reading in an anaesthetising blanket.

As we retreated home with news flooding in via smartphones on Monday evening, Sunday seemed a distant and more innocent time. Heavy rain and a leaking room meant I missed hearing Prom 32 (Gardner/BBCSO/Tetzlaff - Brahms/Mahler - 8th August) in the hall, making do with the radio instead. Mahler's fairy tale cantata Das klagende Lied, heard in its original three part form, must have surprised any casual Mahler fans energised into hearing more after the Simon Bolivar Orchestra's Friday Resurrection. Shades and intimations of mature Mahler haunt its pages, but never his familiar grip on the bigger picture and Mahler newbies might reasonably have wondered what they'd let themselves in for during its 65 minute span. Others more familiar with the work have suggested that it wasn't helped by the Edward Gardner's direction, but I for one found my mind wandering elsewhere.

There could be no risk of inattenetiveness in Christian Tetzlaff's vigorous and slightly scary performance of Brahms's Violin Concerto, though. Tetzlaff exploded out of the starting blocks and barely let up from then on, producing one of the swiftest renditions of the concerto that I've heard. It was frantic and strangely riveting stuff, grabbing us by the scruff of the neck with Tetzlaff's penetrating and brittle tone driving home the point. All the wildness got a bit much in the last movement, though, with Tezlaff sounding increasingly ragged as he flew to the finish.

Proms week 3: Part 2

2011-08-07T11:04:00.002+01:00

We're doing very well for violin concertos at this year's Proms, though as (bad) luck would have it, I'll be missing many of the best at the other end of the series. Prom 24 (BBCSO/Davis/Little - Elgar/Grainger/Strauss - August 2nd) gave us one of the very best: The Elgar. Tasmin Little has recently recorded it for Chandos, though hers appears shortly after acclaimed versions from James Ehnes and Nikolaj Znaider. I've not heard her disc, so I'm not sure how it compares with this concert performance, but here it seemed that Little's interpretation was more successful at some moments than others. The slow movement was particularly impassioned in her hands and the dream-like accompanied cadenza at the heart of the finale appropriately wistful, but in casting so much of the great first movement as a sombre elegy Little gave it a rather one dimensional reading. Even on the radio (and later TV broadcast), Little's rich, almost viola-like tone was attractive and distinctive, but I couldn't help but think of any number of violinists who could have given the work a more secure and incisive performance.

One of the delights of a concert (and even more so a Prom), is that, unless you're one of those people who makes for the exit at half time, there's a good chance of hearing something totally unexpected and utterly wonderful. Those moments are some of my most treasured concert memories - John Adams's Harmonielehre conducted by the composer; Saint-Saens Fifth Piano Concerto with Stephen Hough; a revelatory Brahms 1st Symphony with Mariss Jansons and the Concertgebouw when I didn't think I liked the piece. I'm adding Percy Grainger's suite In a Nutshell to that list, which opened out in it's third movement, Pastorale, into an awe inspiring landscape with twinkling pianos and percussion redolent of Charles Ives at his zaniest. UK readers should watch it on iplayer where it's available for a few more days.

My last Prom before the weekend was Wednesday's Prom 26 (BBC Scottish/Runnicles/Harrell - Debussy/Dutilleux/Ravel - August 3rd). Runnicles has done great things with the BBC Scottish, though he's had a fine tradition from previous maestros Osmo Vanska and Ilan Volkov to build on. His Daphnis et Chloe was terrific, resisting luxuriating in the fine details in favour of pace and balance; the playing and singing were also excellent and I really think we're in a golden age of the BBC orchestras (something politicians would be wise to realise before hacking away at the BBC any more). A low key Prelude a l'apres midi d'un faune began the concert, though the flute solo at its outset was ruined by dreadful clattering from the boxes. The level of coughing throughout the Prom was also infuriating; this seems to be particularly (though not exclusively) a Proms problem that isn't getting any better.

The string interest came with Lynn Harrell's traversal of Dutilleux's nocturnal cello concerto Tout un monde lointain... . Harrell is a fan of the work and it showed is his flowing and transfixed performance. His face was often a picture of wonderment, mouthing along to the rhythms of the orchestral tuttis and in an encore of music from Bach's Third Cello Suite, he beamed at the prommers, as though enjoying our enjoyment of what he was doing.

Life in general got in the way of the most recent few Proms, though I'd point you in the direction of the always interesting Richard Whitehouse at Classicalsource for Runnicles's second Prom and David Allen for coverage of the Second Coming of Dudamel and the Bolivars, and for yesterday's NYO Prom.

Proms week 3: Part 1

2011-08-04T10:21:00.001+01:00

Only a week away and yet so much Proms water is under the bridge. I returned from six nights abroad on Saturday and was persuaded to go to Prom 21 (CBSO/Nelsons/Midori - Strauss/Walton/Prokofiev - July 30th). Conductor Andris Nelsons is only 33 and is already the talk of the town. He has a particular love of Richard Strauss's music and his Don Juan showed his supple control of its shifts of tone and texture. At the other end of the programme was something of a Nelsons party piece: The Dance of the Seven Veils from Strauss's opera Salome, an odd choice of dessert to plonk after Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky. Nevsky was bold and clear with smaller than usual choral forces making the vocal textures lighter than they can be, though I'd have liked a bit more terror in the famous Battle on the Ice. Before that, Midori proved unpersuasive in Walton's little heard Violin Concerto; her performance might have been more appreciated in a smaller venue but didn't make the case for what seemed like an episodic work.

I caught the next few on the radio. Prom 22 (BBC Phil/Noseda - Rachmaninov - July 31st), the latest in the 'choral Sunday' series, was a treat for Russian music nerds. Rarely heard bits of Rachmaninov included his cantata Spring, composed around the time of his Second Piano Concerto; some short choral pieces and a pair of dance from his student opera Aleko. All very nice, if not quite top draw Rach, though his own favourite amoung his works, The Bells, concluded the concert and made a better impression on me than previous hearings. I couldn't take soprano Svetla Vassileva's warbling in Vocalise, though.

Prom 23 (BBC Phil/Noseda/Hough - Beethoven/Saint-Saens/Liszt - August 1st) took me back to my student days, when I heard Stephen Hough's magical performance of Saint-Saens's Fifth Piano Concerto (The Egyptian) with the LPO at the Festival Hall. I'd never heard it before and was bowled over by its wit and stylistic sleight of hand. Hough did it all again at the Proms on Monday, remarkably enough giving the work its first Proms outing since 1918. It's still dazzling and great fun, though Hough took some of the charm from the finale by driving on too fast. Liszt's Dante Symphony (another concert hall rarity) didn't completely hold my attention, so too swift a dismisal would be unfair - Liszt does still strike me, though, as a composer more remarkable for his inovations than for the general quality of his music.

The links above will take you to the Proms listings, from which UK readers can listen to the concert for a limited time only. Prom 21 was broadcast live on BBC TV.

Elgar's Violin Concerto at the Proms: Then and now

2011-08-02T10:38:00.000+01:00

It's one of the mightiest of all violin concertos and one of the longest. At around 50 minutes in length, Elgar's concerto is one of the greatest challenges in the repertoire, though a look at the Proms archive shows that the work is less often heard than it once was. Tasmin Little comes to the Albert Hall tonight to give the concerto its 33rd Proms outing, though only two of the previous 32 have been in the last ten years.

Little played the piece in 1994, but at (what will be) two performances, she's some way down the leader board. Albert Sammons, who made what some consider to be the difinitive recording of the work, with Proms founder Henry Wood in 1929, clocked up an admirable 8 performances between 1914 and 1944 (all but one with Henry Wood). Ida Haendel gave 4 between 1942 and 1986, though its highly unlikely that she'll add any more to that tally. The most celebrated performer of the work, Yehudi Menuhin, gave just 2 (1946 and 1972; both with Adrian Boult).

Another Proms Elgarian is Itzhak Perlman, still performing but rather less active than he once was. He solitary performance of the work came in 1981 and was captured on film. It's available as a DVD now, and a chunk of it can be seen below.

Proms week 1: Rite, Schubert and a visit to Spain

2011-07-27T13:19:00.001+01:00

From the festival's first foreign orchestra to chamber music in the Royal Albert Hall, the first full week of the 2011 Proms offered contrasts galore. None was more marked than the switch in scale between Sunday night's Gothic monster Prom and the Belcea Quartet's Schubert Quintet (19th July, Prom 7) in the hall late on Tuesday night. In the event, the Schubert was a revelation, both in performance (the Belceas remarkably adept at adapting the cavernous ringing sound of the hall) and in the way that the scale of the music was reflected in the grandeur of the space. Read my full review at Classicalsource. Before that, more mixed fare in Prom 6 from the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under their artistic director Myung-Whun Chung (brother of violinist Kyung-Wha Chung). Renaud and Gautier Capucon were certainly emphatic in Brahms's Double Concerto and much of their playing was enjoyable, but they received some leaden and soupy support from Chung and the orchestra. The ubiquitous Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia followed, though even a cynic would have found it riveting. Chung and the OPRF were on better form in the Rite of Spring after the interval. Chung's interpretation might have been considered a little two dimensional; it alternated dreamy languor with frantic energy, which was a valid view.

Thursday's visit by the Halle and Mark Elder (Prom 9) brought a compelling programme of 20th century classics; their Sibelius 7 was well cultivated but those who like their Sibelius rugged and exhausting might have found the ride too gentle. It was my first chance to hear Andras Schiff live and he didn't disappoint in Bartok's Third Piano Concerto, making the most of this mellow late work and phrasing the delicate second movement to perfection. Janacek's Sinfonietta is always a theatrical experience, and the bank of extra brass sitting above the main orchestra didn't fail to excite.

Both Thursday and Friday's Proms were broadcast live on BBC4, and I caught Juanjo Mena's Proms debut as chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic on TV (Prom 10). He presented an appealing programme of music mostly connected with Spain, including Debussy's Images and Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain but what struck me most was the BBC's interval programming. Presumably they are under pressure to produce something for no money, and at times it showed, but it was a great improvement on times past with less inane chat with uncomfortable musicians along the lines of 'why do you play the tuba?'. It wasn't perfect, but I came away imagining that newcomers might actually have learned something about how the music was written. A feature on Spanish guitar music dipped its toe into the genuinely interesting idea of how the technical limitations of an instrument can dictate the harmonic language of the music written for it. The coverage was a little Open University, and there was the constant feeling that there might be a test afterwards, but it represented a welcome improvement.

Devil's Trill is out of town this week, but will be back at the Proms next week.

BBC Proms opening weekend: From Glagolitic to Gothic

2011-07-21T13:55:00.003+01:00

Prom 1: Brahms and Liszt (and Janacek)

If there's a problem with a chief conductor who specialises in one particular area, it's that an orchestra's programmes get filled rather disproportionately with one kind of music. Jiří Bělohlávek is fond of laying on the Czech, and so in the first week of the Proms we're getting three quarters of the BBC Symphony's programmes dedicated to Czech music. It was Dvorak and Smetana in Prom 8 and Janacek at the first night. But Bělohlávek's way with this music is often stunning, and the first night of the 2011 season was a chance to hear him conduct Janacek's Glagolitic Mass. It's interesting (especially for a non-believer like me) partly because Janacek is one of the few composers of great sacred music to have held no such beliefs himself. I was struck by the concentration around the words 'I believe', which promptly vanished when the text took to the particulars of what was believed.

The BBC SO sounded a little harried in the darting music that makes up so much of the Mass; the performance was also saddled with three well matched singers (including the remarkable Hibla Gerzmava) and one sore thumb in the form of shouty tenor Stefan Vinke. Elsewhere, (just) 19 year old pianist Benjamin Grosvenor was effortless in Liszt's rather silly Second Piano Concerto and staggering in Cziffra's virtuosic take on Brahms's Fifth Hungarian Rhapsody. I wasn't much taken with the opener, though, Stars, Night, Music and Light by Judith Weir, which took a little too much from Walton.

Prom 4: Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony

Brian’s Gothic owes most of its allure to its inaccessibility which, as usual, leads some to make great claims of its quality. The cost involved in putting it on, combined with the sheer technical difficulties of score, ensure that performances have been few and far between. It’s been thirty years since the last performance in the UK (though one was mounted last year in Australia) but novelty value alone ensured that seats for Martyn Brabbins’s Proms performance sold out almost immediately. That may have in part been due to the fact that several hundred seats were not on sale to accommodate the huge choir and off-stage brass used for the performance, but it still must have been heartening for Roger Wright and co, who must have wondered if anyone would show up.

I first heard the work about ten years ago, finding the CD in my local public library (remember them?) and being thrilled by the orchestral music of part 1. I didn’t get very far into part 2 though, which marries the huge chorus and orchestra with 4 soloists and, a decade on, I can’t say I feel much different. Part 1 is divided into three movements and lasts around 45 minutes. It’s taut and dark and I was surprised all over again by how knotty the musical language is. This section utilises only the double orchestra (basically everyone seated on the built-out stage in Sunday’s performance), plus a few mind blowing interjections from the organ and it’s this music that most purely evokes the spaces of the gothic cathedrals that partly inspired the work. The huge number of string players are often used too contrapuntally to really make their collective weight felt, but it’s the massed wind and brass instruments that justify the scale of the orchestration: the great dark corners of those cathedrals are brilliantly depicted by the sheer depth of tone produced by wind and brass sections of this scale.

Part 2 sets the text of the Te Deum and there are arresting moments: Soprano Susan Gritton’s voice wafting from on high; the huge numbers of voices (almost 800) belting it out together (my ears went a bit funny at one point with the tremendous volume, even from my vantage point in the gallery); and, most of all, the sudden stillness of the coda – a rare moment of expressive intensity in this second part. But, honestly, vast swathes of unaccompanied choral writing that stand no chance of coherence could be cut and Brian is sometimes cruel in his expectation of this many voices meeting the orchestra’s pitch after so long spent a capella. And much of the musical material of this hour long choral section in undistinguished and rather aimless. If only more of the material could be expressed as dramatically and concisely as the work’s opening and conclusion.

But does this matter? Not everything can be a masterpiece and it would be better if we could stop expecting everything unusual to be so. It’s one of the lofty and rarely climbed peaks of English music; you bet I’m glad to have visited the top. Will I be returning? Not in a hurry.

BBC Proms 2011 begin today!

2011-07-15T19:30:00.001+01:00

For those of us in London, the first night of the BBC Proms is always the real start of summer. Below is a clip from last year's first night (actually, the first first night I'd ever been to), featuring Mahler's 8th Symphony. I won't be in the hall this evening, but will be enjoying it from the comfort of my own living room. Tune in from 7.30pm on BBC2.

Violinist Josef Suk has died

2011-07-07T21:32:00.002+01:00

Sad news (via JDCMB) - Czech violinist Josef Suk has died, aged 81. Suk was grandson of the composer of the same name, who was himself a pupil and son-in-law of Dvorak.

In the video below, Suk plays Dvorak's Violin Concerto.

Gidon Kremer takes on Putin

2011-07-07T21:25:00.000+01:00

Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer has spoken out about the imprisonment of Russian former billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his associate Platon Lebedev. CNN caries a statement by Kremer explaining his desire to fulfil his duty as an artist to speak out about political wrongdoings. Kremer states:

"As artists, it's our duty to raise our voices in a chorus of opposition to drown out those who seek to humiliate and punish men like Khodorkovsky. Why? Because history has proved men like Khodorkovsky right."

Kremer places his statement alongside other musicians who have spoken out over political situations, such as Yehudi Menuhin (who Kremer says is "often considered the best violinist in the 20th century". By whom? Beats me.) and, perhaps more appropriately, Mstislav Rostropovich, who sheltered Aleksander Solzhenitsyn at a time when the Soviet writer faced official censure for his political activities.

Tchaikovsky Compeition Moscow Gala - In Pictures!

2011-07-02T19:24:00.000+01:00

Two gala concerts followed the Tchaikovsky Competition's awards ceremony; one on Friday in Moscow and one in St Petersburg on Saturday. The old-school rectangle of the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory certainly contrasted with the modern stylings of the Mariinsky Theatre's Concert Hall, though the latters PA system-delivered announcements were rather smoother than Moscow's man with a clipboard. Excitingly, we got to hear a number of the finalists in a range of repertoire, rather than the Tchaikovskython I had anticipated. Here's some snaps of the Moscow gala concert, taken from the online stream.

The Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory

Conductor Valery Gergiev lurking

Amartuvshin Enkhbat of Mongolia

Krzysztof Penderecki, who composed the cello competition's set new work

Edgar Moraeu of France, playing Penderecki's set work in Moscow

Pianist Alexander Romanovsky, winner of the Special Vladimir Krainev Award

Piano gold medallist Daniil Trifanov, playing Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky Competition - all the other prizes

2011-07-01T11:03:00.001+01:00

Piano

Prize for the Best Performance of the Commissioned Work by Rodion Shchedrin:
Yeol Eum Son (South Korea)

Prize for the Best Performance of the Chamber Concerto:
Yeol Eum Son (South Korea)
Daniil Trifonov (Russia) 

Jury Discretionary Awards:
Pavel Kolesnikov (Russia)
François-Xavier Poizat (France)

The Special Vladimir Krainev Award:
Alexander Romanovsky (Ukraine)

Cello

Prize for the Best Performance of the Commissioned Work by Krzysztof Penderecki:
Edgar Moreau (France)

Prize for the Best Performance of the Chamber Concerto:
Narek Hakhnazaryan (Armenia)

Jury Discretionary Awards:
Jakob Koranyi (Sweden) 
Janina Ruh (Germany)

Violin

Prize for the Best Performance of the Commissioned Work by John Corigliano:
Nigel Armstrong (USA)

Prize for the Best Performance of the Chamber Concerto:
Jehye Lee (South Korea)

Jury Discretionary Awards:
Aylen Pritchin (Russia) 
Yu-Chien Tseng (Taiwan)

Voice

Jury Discretionary Awards, Female:
Oksana Davydenko (Kazakhstan)
Olga Pudova (Russia)

Jury Discretionary Awards, Male:
Dmitry Demidchik (Belarus)
Gevorg Grigorian (Russia)

Online Audience Awards:

Piano: Daniil Trifonov (Russia)
Cello: Narek Hakhnazaryan (Armenia) 
Violin: Sergey Dogadin (Russia) 
Female Voice: Elena Guseva (Russia)
Male Voice: Amartuvshin Enkhbat (Mongolia)

Don't miss your chance to see all the winners in action at the two winners concerts taking place today and tomorrow - It's Moscow tonight and St. Petersburg tomorrow, both at 7pm local time (4pm BST) and presumably streamed live on the Tchaikovsky Competition's website.

Tchaikovsky Competition winners in full

2011-06-30T22:24:00.001+01:00

Piano

1-Daniil Trifonov (Russia)
2-Yeol Eum Son (South Korea)
3-Seong Jin Cho (South Korea)
4-Alexander Romanovsky (Ukraine)
5-Alexei Chernov (Russia)

Violin

2-Sergey Dogadin (Russia) & Itmar Zorman (Israel)
3-Jehye Lee (South Korea)
4-Nigel Armstrong (USA)
5-Eric Silberger (USA)

Cello

1-Narek Hakhnazaryan (Armenia)
2-Edgar Moreau (France)
3-Ivan Karizna (Russia)
4-Norbert Anger (Germany)
5-Umberto Clerici (Italy)

Voice

Female

1-Sun Young Seo (South Korea)
2-Elena Guseva (Russia)

Male

1-Jong Min Park (South Korea)
2-Amartuvshin Enkhbat (Mongolia)

Tchaik Comp: Giving out the gongs

2011-06-30T19:56:00.000+01:00

As if they'd not done enough already, the organisers of the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition kindly delayed the awards ceremony until I'd got home and had my dinner. The slightly shambolic bilingual ceremony began more than an hour late and the hall was never more than half full, but once under way, the judges rattled through the honours in a manner alien to the epic duration of the Academy Awards.

There weren't, admittedly, as many awards on offer here, but even within the categories, there was some divergence in the format. Representatives of the male and female vocal award judging panels went first (Renate Scotto suffering from being on first and clearly unsure of what she was supposed to be doing) and awarded (as far as I could tell) first and second prizes in the respective categories. The instrumental prizes then built toward the piano award and in each case awarded prizes to all five finalists in each section. That seemed a bit harsh on the last place people, with the fifth placed pianist looking monumentally unimpressed as he slunk off the stage.

A full list of the winners has yet to be uploaded to the Tchaikovsky Competition's website (the list will follow here once it appears), but in the violin category no first place was given and the second price was shared between Itamar Zorman (Isreal) and Sergey Dogadin (Russia), who struck me as the two most interesting finalists. I had assumed that Dogadin's relaxed demenour and outstanding technique would take the top prize, but it's good to see the panel recognising Zorman's individuality.

Finally, the competition organisers scored real points for attracting 1958 piano gold medallist Van Cliburn (pictured) back, clearly still held in great esteem and affection by the Russian audience. In his deep Texan drawl, he reminded musicians of their responsibility to be soldiers for classical music. Sad to say, but it does often feel like we need to fight for it.

Tchaik Comp: Round three, day two

2011-06-29T12:27:00.002+01:00

Imagine a world where we didn't have to sleep. What would you do with the hours of 11pm-7am? I'd probably end up playing too many computer games, though this week I'd certainly be watching as much of the Tchaikovsky Competition finals as possible. Even with my self-imposed focus on the violin prize, there's not enough time in the day to see everything.

The second night of the third round saw a pair of Tchaikovsky Concertos and a Prokofiev 1st, which was an interesting opportunity to compare at least two soloists in the same repertoire. With time at a premium, I focused on the first movements, and found three quite different players gradually winning me over with their playing. First up was American violinist Eric Silberger (pictured), giving a nervy but persuasive Tchaikovsky Concerto which settled down as it progressed. I admired his engagement with the work's expressive core, but it was his misfortune to share an evening with Russian fiddler Sergey Dogadin, whose ease with the solo part's difficulties was exceptional and whose calm control and perfect technique reminded me of Julia Fischer. Between them came another American, Nigel Armstrong, whose choice of concerto (Prokofiev's 1st) was wise and whose performance was hugely enjoyable. You'd have to say, though, that on this evidence, Dogadin has the edge.

One issue of sound did concern me, however. Listening remotely is always going to be a different experience to being in the hall, but I was very aware of the dry tone of both Silberger and Armstrong during the first half, which had been replaced by a warmer and more reverberant sound for Dogadin. Had the technical people altered the mix for the second half, or was Dogadin simply standing in a better spot on the stage? Whatever the answer, I was left wondering how different the perspective of the judges must be, sitting close to half way back in this large hall, and how close to acoustical reality our online vantage point really was.

Tchaik Comp - Round three, day one

2011-06-28T12:31:00.000+01:00

Thanks to some troublesome time zones, the first half of the Tchaikovsky competition’s third round violin finals (with two more third round concerts to follow today and tomorrow) fell across the journey home from work, and internet gremlins made the second half an intermittent affair. What I did see was a great credit to the competition organisers, who have succeeded in making this an accessible and exciting event for those of us not lucky enough to be in the competition halls: picture and sound are very good for a free-to-view service.

I only caught the second half of South Korean violinist Jehye Lee’s Tchaikovsky concerto and my impression was of a player with a strong technique and presence who could have done with a bit more flair in the dancing finale. Still, I very much look forward to her performance of Bartok’s second concerto, which may well suit her better. The final performance of the evening came from Israeli violinist Itamar Zorman, whose choice of the Berg concerto was admirably brave. He often placed grit and expression above beauty of sound, which was refreshing, though I wonder if I was alone in finding his pained facial expressions distracting. His Tchaikovsky follows Lee’s Bartok on Wednesday evening. Follow this link for the complete final round schedule in the violin and cello categories.

Tchaikovsky Comp final rounds

2011-06-26T17:21:00.003+01:00

After two weeks of competition, we have the final week's schedule confirmed. The last three days of the violin compeition will look like this (note: times given are for St. Petersburg):

Violin

June 27

7:00 p.m. - Nigel Armstrong (USA)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major
7:40 p.m. - Sergey Dogadin (Russia)
SHOSTAKOVICH   Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in A minor

20-minute intermission

8:40 p.m. - Jehye Lee (South Korea)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major
9:20 p.m. - Itamar Zorman (Israel)
BERG Concerto for violin and orchestra (To the Memory of Angel)

June 28

7:00 p.m. - Eric Silberger (USA)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major
7:40 p.m. - Nigel Armstrong (USA)
PROKOFIEV   Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in D major

20-minute intermission

8:40 p.m. - Sergey Dogadin (Russia)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major

June 29

7:00 p.m. - Jehye Lee (South Korea)
BARTOK   Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 2
7:50 p.m. - Itamar Zorman (Israel)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major

20-minute intermission

8:40 p.m. - Eric Silberger (USA)
BRAHMS   Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major

And in the cello contest:

Cello

June 27
7:00 p.m. - Norbert Anger (Germany)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra in A major
7:30 p.m. - Narek Hakhnazaryan (Armenia)
DVORAK   Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B minor

20-minute intermission

8:50 p.m. - Ivan Karizna (Belarus)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra in A major
9:30 p.m. - Edgar Moreau (France)
SCHUMANN   Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in A minor

June 28
7:00 p.m. - Umberto Clerici (Italy)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra in A major
7:30 p.m. - Norbert Anger (Germany)
SHOSTAKOVICH   Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in A minor

20-minute intermission

8:50 p.m. - Narek Hakhnazaryan (Armenia)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra in A major

June 29
7:00 p.m. - Ivan Karizna (Belarus)
ELGAR   Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in E minor
8:00 p.m. - Edgar Moreau (France)
TCHAIKOVSKY   Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra in A major

20-minute intermission

8:50 p.m. - Umberto Clerici (Italy)
SCHUMANN   Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in A minor

I for one can't help feeling three days of Tchaikovsky Violin Concertos would be much preferable to three days of Rococo Variations...

All the Tchaikovsky Competition you could want

2011-06-23T12:56:00.001+01:00

Nobody likes competitions, right? Loads of people playing the same pieces for hours and hours... Well we certainly like them when they’re streamed FREE over the internet! We’ll have anything if it’s free. The International Tchaikovsky Competition organisers certainly think so, as they’ve opted to broadcast the whole thing online for our delectation. Aren’t they nice?

The competition is in full swing now with the first rounds already out of the way, and there have been a few tricky moments in the early stages. In the piano competition, star judge Nelson Freire has already pulled out, finding the contest too exhausting. And former runner up Peter Donohoe apparently found choosing the second round shortlist a little too emotional, saying ‘they are almost all wonderful’.

The four categories (violin, cello, piano, voice) head for their final rounds next week, followed by a pair of winners concerts in St Petersburg and Moscow. And all this is free and live to watch at the Tchaikovsky Competition’s website. You might need to download a player when prompted, but as far as I can tell the organisers are as good as their word, offering good quality sound and vision. The only downside to the whole thing is that each discipline takes place at the same time, meaning you’ll have to choose which to watch. I’m going to be dipping in this week and concentrating on the final week’s violin contest, bringing you some thoughts on the competitors.

Lady Blunt sells for £8.75 million

2011-06-20T21:43:00.003+01:00

Stradivari's 1721 Ludy Blunt violin has sold for a whopping £8.75 million, after an intense 2 hours of bidding which saw almost £3 million slapped on the starting price of £6 million. Tarisio's auction bidding history shows that two bidders escalted the price between 6.36pm and 8.03pm this evening, with the eventual winning bid being made by 080193XX, an particularly anonymous moniker that gives no clues as to where this increadible instrument will reside.

UPDATE: The final price of the violin has been revealed as £9.808 million, presumably including auction fees. Tarisio's press release calls the instrument 'without doubt the best preserved Stradivarius to come on the market in 40 years', and is by some distance a world record for a violin sold at auction.

Lady in waiting

2011-06-20T13:50:00.000+01:00

Time's almost up in the auction of the year. Bidding for the Lady Blunt Stradivari violin of 1721 ends at 7.30pm today (BST), though as of 1pm today, the action has yet to begin. It's hoped that it will raise more than $10 million for the Japanese earthquake relief effort, though its sale has hardly come at the most boyant of economic moments.

Tarisio, the auction house, is taking bids on a range of instruments from potential buyers all over the world, but the lots were today assembled in London and Devil's Trill paid them a visit. The viewing took place in the rather plush setting of a central London hotel, with Tarisio operating from a second floor room overlooking Conduit Street. The Lady Blunt was immediately obvious on leaving the lift, protected in a glass case at the centre of the room with light streaming in the large windows behind. I was a little surprised that the other instruments, with values ranging from £1000 to £120,000) were simply displayed on open tables (don't worry, Devil's Trill didn't touch). The Lady Blunt herself was every bit as unspoiled as Tarisio's extensive photographs suggested, and perhaps a little more so than the Royal Academy of Music's Viotti Strad of 1709, which is also reputed to be one of the best preserved. The varnish of the Lady Blunt looked, if anything, a little redder than the Viotti's, though the difference in presentation (the LB in full sunlight, the Viotti in the RAM's light-controlled museum) made it difficult to be sure.

When Ben met Slava

2011-06-17T12:42:00.003+01:00

An excellent article by John Bridcut in today's Guardian recalls the close relationship between Mstislav Rostropovich and Benjamin Britten. Britten wrote a number of pieces for Rostropovich, including the Cello Symphony of 1963, and a chance discovery of film from the work's first performance leads Bridcut into a description of the bond between the two men. Most excitingly of all, Bridcut mentions his new film on the cellist, entitled Rostropovich: Genius of the Cello, due to be screened at the Aldeburgh Festival on June 21st. The film will be broadcast on BBC4 as part of a special cello evening, though information conflicts as to when: The Guardian says this Autumn; Bridcut's website states July. Either way, I can't wait.

Review: Ehnes's Mendelssohn

2011-06-16T08:37:00.003+01:00

Mendelssohn
Violin Concerto in E minor

Octet

James Ehnes (violin)
Philharmonia Orchestra/Vladimir Ashkenazy
Musicians of the Seattle Chamber Music Society

ONYX 4060

We are very lucky that Canadian violinist James Ehnes is so frequent a visitor to this country; certainly, this recording of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, recorded live in Warwick with the Philharmonia Orchestra, is testament to the great work that he continues to do with British groups. Ehnes’s view of the Mendelssohn concert is fiery and impassioned, while being admirably tender at turns. He is imploring and swift in the opening melody, but the first movement’s second theme is fragile and intentionally hesitant. Throughout the Andante, Ehnes holds the long melody with a beautiful legato, and his finale sparkles: a wonderful little shift in the left hand into the finale’s lyrical countermelody [2:29] is evidence of the ease with which he is able to shape the music. He does occasionally push a little too hard such as at 4:31, where his power produces one of the very few moments of intonational uncertainty. But his sound on the whole is wonderfully warm, which is matched throughout by the Philharmonia. A very quiet audience and a good reverberant acoustic round off this very attractive performance.

Ehnes pairs one of Mendelssohn’s final masterpieces with his very earliest, the miraculously precocious Octet of 1825. No matter how often one hears the piece, it remains difficult to believe that it is the work of a sixteen year old composer. Too advanced to be considered juvenilia, the Octet nevertheless exudes the passions of youth, something which mature musicians can fail to grasp. Ehnes and his colleagues from the Seattle Chamber Music Society certainly present an immaculate account of the Octet, but I’m not sure they capture the music’s exuberance.

It begins very promisingly, with Ehnes and co setting an ideal tempo for the opening Allegro moderato. This is a lean and subtly shaped performance, the virtues of which suit the first movement very well. But I have doubts about this ensemble’s conception of the remaining three movements; that youthful fervour is largely absent from the Andante and the Scherzo lacks a vital degree of sparkle. That’s not to say that there aren’t many fine moments; Ehnes, for example, dispatches the fiendishly difficult trilling passage at the centre of the Scherzo with nonchalant ease, but he generally fails to lead the ensemble into the dynamic extremes specifically requested by Mendelssohn in the score. This is a good performance of the Octet, but not a great one; my own preference is for Hausmusik London’s performance on Virgin Veritas (5618092), though some will dislike the period instruments and lowered pitch.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-International.

Small scale Górecki

2011-06-15T09:08:00.001+01:00

"If ever there was a one-hit wonder, surely Henryk Górecki was it. Even when he died, in 2010 at the age of 76, his career was summed by a work rendered inexplicably famous during the 1990s which had itself languished in relative obscurity for a decade and a half. His Symphony No.3, known as Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, defied predictions that the wider public was not interested in contemporary classical music when David Zinman and Dawn Upshaw's Nonesuch recording climbed the charts; yet even when its composer died most people would have been hard-pressed to name another of his works."

Read my review of Górecki's String Quartets as played by the Royal String Quartet over at Classicalsource.

Five years without Ligeti

2011-06-12T10:42:00.000+01:00

Hard to believe, but it's five years since Gyorgy Ligeti died. Ligeti hit the big time when his music was used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey - there's a story, which I would love to believe, that he didn't know about the pivotal use of his music in the seminal film until he went to see it at the cinema.

Ligeti's string music includes two string quartets, concertos for violin and cello and sonatas for the same instruments that come from each end of his career. He has the distinction of being one of the few hardcore avant garde composers that most people will happily sit through, and I've always thought this is because his music has an immediate and visceral thrill which transcends whatever intellectual techniques have been used to put it together. Below is a fun video with a colourful graphic score created for his electronic piece Artikulation.

Top Rite at RFH

2011-06-09T11:49:00.003+01:00

No violin concertos, I know, but a brilliant Rite of Spring to report on. Dutoit and the RPO produced a Rite to rival Jurowski's 2008 LPO performance in the same hall, but this was totally different. Proof, if proof be need be, that there's no one way of playing a masterpiece.

You can read my full review at Classicalsource, but here’s an extract:

“It was to have been Martha Argerich in Schumann’s Piano Concerto; another cancellation and a change of work ensured some of the shine faded on this Royal Philharmonic Orchestra concert before it had even started. Argerich’s replacement, Nikolai Lugansky, was immaculate but dull in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto; but delight lay elsewhere, in a stunning performance of The Rite of Spring that grew inexorably in power as it progressed.”

The concert was broadcast live and can be heard (in the UK and before next Tuesday) here.

Will somebody turn the music down?

2011-06-08T22:12:00.000+01:00

A strange tale from Music Vs Drama (via Jessica Duchen) of outrage at the concert hall: During a performance of an apparently loudly amplified viola piece, a member of the audience begins to boo and heckle, leading to the abandonment of the performance and the damaging of the viola. Violent outrage at new music seems like a madness of a time long passed to us (more 1911 than 2011), but this story gets stranger as it goes on. The story, originally reported by Music Vs Drama, prompted comments from the violist in question, audience members, and the ultimately the chief heckler, who turned out to be none other than Bernard Zaslav of the pioneering Fine Arts Quartet, no strangers to contemporary music themselves. Zaslav reveals that his protracted protest was due to the pain inflicted by the amplified nature of the work, which he says was unbearable. It does beg the question, though, that if the music was so loud, how did anyone hear him over it? And I love that in his response to the article and defence of his actions, he manages to include a full plug for his upcoming autobiography. Read more here.

Radio review - Rare Bowen and Wigmore celebrations

2011-06-06T16:32:00.001+01:00

When planning what to do with this blog, it struck me that a vast amount of classical music broadcast on radio and, occasionally, TV, goes uncommented on and that, perhaps most importantly, lots of it is free. Why not comment on stuff on the radio? What’s more, much of it is available to listen to (in the UK) for up to a week after broadcast, so, unlike an unbroadcast concert, you could follow the links and listen for yourselves.

And so, here is the first of what should be a weekly series of radio reviews. Looking through the schedules, it became apparent to me that I might need to clone myself to cover everything interesting that BBC Radio 3 play in a week, so this will unfortunately have to be a roundup of select highlights. And if I’ve missed something great, or even not string related, why not mention it in the comments?

On to some broadcasts that caught my eye. The final concert of the 2011 English Music Festival in Oxfordshire (Monday, 30^th May – Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/David Hill) featured a couple of rarities, including the first ever performance of an early cantata by Vaughan Williams called The Garden of Proserpine (read more about the concert at Classicalsource). The string music interest came in the form York Bowen’s Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 74, performed by that champion of the unusual, Rafael Wallfisch. It wasn’t a first performance, but it must have been the first of modern times, having only recently been published and its appearance rides a recent wave of interest in Bowen’s music that has seen his discography swell. I’ve not been that taken with Bowen’s music in the past, but this was more memorable; certainly patchy, but with an unexpected attack at the outset that reminded me most of Hitchcockian scores by Bernard Herrmann (I was initially dismayed that the usually excellent radio host Catherine Bott compared the sound of what was to come to that of film music – how often anything tonal and mid-century is likened to a movie score – but in this instance she was right) and it was most successful in the quiet mysterioso moments when Bowen resisted heaping too many elements on top of each other.

Two starry concerts broadcast live from London’s Wigmore Hall marked the 110^th anniversary of the hall’s opening. As the effusive tribute doc informed us, the hall was originally called the Bechstein Hall and its list of past performers reads as a roll call of the great musicians of the last century. These two events lured some of today’s top players, the first of which featured the Takács Quartet and pianist Stephen Hough in music by Haydn, Beethoven and Dvorak (Tuesday, 31^st May). The Takács are feted as the greatest quartet of our time and, surprisingly, I had only ever heard them before on disc. The same concentration I have heard them bring to the Beethoven in their famous Decca cycle was present in Beethoven’s Op.135 and its wonderful slow movement was flowing and silken, but I was surprised by some of the more conspicuous rough edges from the violins.

Little Leila plays Vieuxtemps

2011-06-06T12:53:00.000+01:00

Belgian violinist and composer Henri Vieuxtemps died 130 years ago today. Here’s 12 year old Leila Josefowicz wowing the Hollywood Bowl with his Fifth violin concerto.

Strad for sale for Japan

2011-06-03T10:06:00.002+01:00

Need a Strad in your life? Got $$$ to spare? Tarisio, the online instrument auction house, is offering one of the best preserved of Antoini Stradiviari's violins for sale in June. The Nippon Music Foundation has offered up the Lady Blunt Stradivari of 1721, from their collection, in response to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami disaster. All the money raised will go to the disaster relief effort, an extraordinarily generous gesture given that the violin is expected to sell for several million pounds. Tarisio has a great deal of information about the instrument, including photos, at their website. Public viewings will take place in London in late June - Devil's Trill plans to be there to take a look at this fabulous instrument.

Don't look now - it's the Classic Brits

2011-05-30T21:07:00.001+01:00

Swapping ‘Classical’ for ‘Classic’, the Brits have (half) dropped the pretence of classical respectability this year for a ceremony which, conversely, featured fewer of the warbling cross-over horrors that have made past shows so car crashingly unmissable. The twelfth annual Classic Brit awards actually took place on May 12^th, but lucky TV audiences had to wait the customary few weeks to see it. The event was again hosted by no one’s favourite pianist, Mylene Klass, heavily plugging her show Pop Star to Opera Star, and featured a fairly bland solo from new PSTOS judge Katherine Jenkins.

What jars most about this event, though, is the inexplicable disparity between the award winners. As though stuck in a split personality spiral, the Brits hand out gongs alternately to proper classical musicians and embarrassing opera-lite types such as Il Divo, here named ‘Artist of the Decade’. That’s ten years of music, and the best they could come up with was Il Divo. And this is the same show that managed to lure the famously reclusive Estonian composer Arvo Pärt with a ‘Composer of the Year’ award, featured (what they said was) Anne-Sophie Mutter’s first appearance of her anniversary tour and handed an award to rising violin star Vilde Frang.

Unfortunately, we don’t get many Oscars style reaction shots from the famous faces in the audience, so we’ll never know if Antonio Pappano (winner of ‘Male Artist of the Year’) kept it together through Il Divo’s staggering rewrite of Barber’s Adagio for strings.

Joshua Bell to head St Martin in the Fields

2011-05-27T12:26:00.002+01:00

Joshua Bell has today been announced as the music director of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the first person to have been granted the position since Sir Neville Marriner founded the orchestra in 1958. Bell will spend double his previous commitment of time with the orchestra from September 2011, which will presumably mean a little less international solo touring. Read full details at the website of the Academy.

Review: Ruth Palmer's Hidden Acoustics

2011-05-27T09:22:00.001+01:00

Hidden Acoustics

Bartok

Sonata for solo violin
Bach

Partita No.2 for solo violin in D minor, BWV 1004

Ruth Palmer (violin)

Nimbus Alliance NI6133

Ruth Palmer is an enterprising British violinist with a talent for creating intriguing projects. Her first album featured music by Shostakovich, accompanied by a self financed documentary about her own personal journey with the music of the Russian master. Now she turns to two great pillars of the solo violin repertoire: Bartok's fearsome Sonata and the great D minor Partita by Bach. The album Hidden Acoustics coincides with a tour taking in a number of unusual venues in which music can interact with space. Alas, I find I have missed her in my area, but this disc offers full recompense with gripping performances of these mighty works.

Late in life, the uncompromising hard edge of Bartok's music softened a little: works such as the Concerto for Orchestra, the Third Piano Concerto and even the Second Violin Concerto step back from the musical precipice glimpsed in some of his more astringent works of the 1920s and 30s. You'll have to look hard for that softness in the Sonata for solo violin of 1944, but it's there in the greater recourse to lyrical melodic material, particularly in the reserved beauty of the third movement. Palmer is adept at emphasising the moments of tenderness in this score, though her interpretation is also shot through with muscularity and tremendous momentum. It's a riveting performance of a forbidding work aided by her sense of the emotional narrative of the music. The individual voice of the Fuga might not be as carefully characterised as in Isabelle Faust's Harmonia Mundi recording (HMG 508334-35), but Palmer makes a greater sense of the overall trajectory of the piece than I've heard from anyone else. She thankfully opts for the restored quarter-tones in the finale (originally excised by the work's dedicatee, Yehudi Menuhin, after Bartok's initial uncertainty as to the success of the effect) and her excellent intonation helps make this as compelling a case for this sonata as we're likely to hear.

Palmer is warm toned but urgent in Bach’s most formidable Partita, the D minor, capped by a broad and involving performance of the mighty Chaconne. At just shy of 17 minutes, Palmer’s Chaconne occupies more than a quarter of the disc’s duration and in this most demanding of solo violin works she takes the long view, carefully pacing her performance rather than exploiting contrasts. She doesn't push on with the defiance of Arthur Grumiaux (Philips 438 736-2), but she is more flexible in the four shorter movements than Julia Fischer is in her admirable recording for Pentatone (PTC 5186 072). Appropriately, given the disc’s title, the acoustic space feel vast and reverberant, but we miss no detail of Palmer's performance, thanks to the vivid and close recording of the violin. Rather, the vast space is felt when the music stops; in pauses and particularly at the end of the Chaconne, the sound rings out into the space as though continuing on its journey once it's left our ears.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-International.

Akiko Suwanai joins Sapporo SO's earthquake benefit concert in London

2011-05-25T12:32:00.002+01:00

Tadaaki Otaka's superb Sapporo Symphony Orchestra turned a date on their 50th anniversary tour into a benefit concert in support of aid charities working in the hardest hit areas of Japan. It was a great concert, though violinist Akiko Suwanai's exhaustingly forceful performance of the Bruch 1st concerto was perhaps not the high point. Here's a quote from my review:

"Suwanai now performs with the Dolphin Stradivari of 1714, once owned and played by Heifetz. By all accounts, Heifetz’s tone was comparatively small; Suwanai’s was at the other end of the spectrum, seeming to dwarf the collective contribution of the orchestra. She was hugely secure throughout, but her aggressively clipped articulation proved wearing and even in the ‘Adagio’ she never relaxed."

Read my full review at Classicalsource.

Review: Midori plays Paganini and Tchaikovsky

2011-05-24T21:19:00.005+01:00

Paganini

Violin Concerto No. 1 in D, Op. 6

Tchaikovsky

Sérénade mélancolique, Op.26

Valse-Scherzo, Op. 34

Midori (violin)

London Symphony Orchestra/

Leonard Slatkin

Newton Classics 8802028

If you've noticed a slew of red topped Newton Classics discs appearing in online catalogues and stores, the good news is that their mining of the recorded past is set to continue and will ultimately lead to new recordings of their own. One such reissue is this early recording by Japanese-American violinist Midori, who set these pieces down on disc in 1987, at the age of just 13. Her subsequent success has seen her avoid the pitfalls of such early precocity and forge a continuously rewarding solo career, but that first flush of talent is captured here and makes for startling listening.

From her first entry in Paganini's First Violin Concerto, Midori's playing demands no special allowances for her age. She's extrovert and characterful and has a greater perfection of intonation than some of her prominent seniors. If you were without prior warning, you'd never know that this super confident playing belonged to one so young. Her subtle slides are stylish and in the taxing cadenza she remains unfazed and commanding. In this Concerto, she is certainly superior in technique to Ilya Kaler on Naxos (8550694) and though Hilary Hahn is more crisply characterful and rhythmically incisive (Deutsche Grammophon 4776232), that hardly reduces Midori's achievement. If age is at all telling, it is in the more purely melodic moments which lack the expressive shading and nuance of a more mature musician.

It's this lack of maturity that makes Midori's performances of the two Tchaikovsky items less appealing. Although she still plays with a full, attractive tone, her way with the growing melody of the Serenade Melancolique is a little one dimensional. Once set, the dynamics and weight on the bow alter little and she suggests little in the way of spontaneity. The bounce of the Valse Scherzo is absent, and Leonard Slatkin's leaden direction in the orchestral introduction doesn't help. It may seem churlish to pick on aspects of musicianship that a 13 year old cannot yet possibly have developed, but if you're going to buy this disc for the repertoire alone, you'd be best looking for alternatives in the Tchaikovsky. Julia Fischer's Pentatone recording (PTC5186095), coupling these two charming works with the Violin Concerto and the Souvenir d'un lieu cher, is one of the best violin records of recent years and would serve as a better first port of call.

Ultimately, this reissue works best as a document of a remarkable case of early talent, with Midori offering a very enjoyable performance of Paganini's D major concerto and a technical security far beyond her years. The violin is consistently well recorded, though sits rather more prominently in the mix than the orchestral accompaniment.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-International.

Review: Wojciech Koprowski plays Ysaÿe

2011-05-23T09:32:00.005+01:00

Eugène Ysaÿe - Six Sonatas for violin solo, Op. 27

Wojciech Koprowski (violin)

CD Accord ACD 147-2

Judging by the number of new recordings of Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonatas for solo violin, it seems that this remarkable cycle of violinistic high-wire acts is taking hold among young string players. It may be that young violinists are seeing them as a short cut to credibility; the demands made of the musician are certainly as great as anything else in the solo violin repertoire and they are not simply flashy showpieces. Within them lies a world of reference (both to Bach and to Ysaÿe’s great violinist friends) as well as a technical time-capsule preserving in perpetuity the sound of their composer, one of the greatest of all violinists, who sadly peaked just before the advent of recorded sound.

Polish violinist Wojciech Koprowski, born in 1987, brings a staggeringly assured technique to these pieces, playing throughout with a clarity and beauty of tone. In the First Sonata, the most overtly Bachian in form and movement, Koprowski is precise and ultra smooth. The voices of the Fugato are excellently defined, played with minimal vibrato, and without prior knowledge you’d not know this was just one instrument. Koprowski is also excellent at the more introverted moments of the more celebrated Second Sonata, particularly in the Danse des ombres movement. It’s fair to say that you won’t hear a more immaculate recording of these works; every double stop is precisely tuned and ever voice clear.

There is, however, a lack of fire and movement in the faster movements, which can tend to sound a little metronomic. For all his technical command, he rarely engages with the score’s implicit demand to reproduce Ysaÿe’s idea of style and sound. Ysaÿe smothers these pieces with an unprecedented level of performance instruction, carefully managing every detail from rubato to fingering. Yet Koprowski’s are thoroughly modern performances, rarely employing the more antiquated style of shifts and slides familiar from the few recordings of Ysaÿe’s playing which are known to exist.

Koprowski doesn’t exploit the sense of fantasy in these pieces; the fluttering whole tone passages of the First and Fifth Sonatas are clean rather than mysterious and in general the more transformative moments in these works remain rather prosaic. In all, he’s tidier but less alive than Thomas Zehetmair in his recording for ECM (ECM4726872), who is thrilling and intelligent in equal measure in these works. It’s possible that some may prefer Koprowski’s total beauty of sound to Zehetmair’s more aggressive approach, but no one more clearly makes the case for these great masterpieces of the violinist-composer tradition than Zehetmair does.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-International.

Lang Lang and friends lost in the Royal Festival Hall

2011-05-21T18:24:00.003+01:00

The shortcomings of London’s Royal Festival Hall are well known, but Lang Lang’s second RFH recital was surely asking for trouble. He, Mischa Maisky and Vadim Repin were fighting a losing battle against the huge hall, a really unsuitable venue for a piano trio. Surprisingly, Lang Lang emerged as the strongest of the ensemble, far better than the lacklustre Repin who never seemed comfortable. Still, the audience gave it a standing ovation, so what do I know?

You can read my full review at Classical source.

Hilary Hahn at Cadogan Hall

2011-05-20T13:07:00.002+01:00

"We’ve come to expect flawless performances from the younger generation of string-players, but even by those dizzying standards, Hilary Hahn’s bullet-proof technique astounds. No challenge seems to be beyond her; what’s more, she’s able to faultlessly memorise the incessant repetitions of George Antheil’s insane First Violin Sonata, which can be no mean feat. But if something was missing from this tantalisingly programmed Cadogan Hall recital, it was a warmth and variety of tone that might have softened the edges of this muscular display."

Read my full review at Classicalsource.

Review: Philip Glass Violin Concerto No. 2

2011-05-18T14:03:00.009+01:00

Philip Glass - Violin Concerto No.2
The American Four Seasons
Robert McDuffie (violin)

London Philharmonic/Marin Alsop

Orange Mountain Music OMM0072

No contemporary composer has penetrated the popular consciousness quite as Philip Glass has; something that still rankles with much of the new music establishment. Mention his name in the wrong company and you're as likely to get a snort of derision as anything and there are times when the most long-suffering of Glass fans might be inclined to agree. The more discerning Glass followers are well used to the mechanisms of the Glass lottery, which might be defined as a frustrating lack of quality control from the creator of one of the most instantly recognisable and bewitching voices in modern music. Now Glass returns to the violin concerto, a form he last tackled in 1987. The good news is that the Glass is alright; the bad is that the ship's taken a direct hit from one of its own.

Certainly, this new violin concerto, subtitled The American Four Seasons would not exist without Robert McDuffie, the American violinist who asked for the kind of 'Rock and Roll' Glass 'that turned David Bowie on'. McDuffie was responsible for the inspired inclusion of harpsichord and synthesiser into the concerto's instrumentation, a request that does indeed bring Glass’s music closer to his late ’seventies heyday of Einstein on the Beach and Koyaanisqatsi.

But it's McDuffie who proves to be the largest barrier to success in this recording, taken live from the work's European premiere in 2010. I heard McDuffie play Glass's First Violin Concerto in the same hall last June and was alarmed by the quality of his playing; an inconsistent and wiry tone coupled with shaky intonation gave the impression that he was uncomfortable in music one might reasonably assume he was very familiar with. The same is true here, and if ever a performance worked against a new piece of music, surely this is it.

Glass's new concerto consists of a prologue, four substantial movements and three interludes for solo violin titled 'songs'. Which movement corresponds to which season isn't revealed and judging by interviews with Glass, McDuffie and conductor Marin Alsop, no one agrees on an interpretation. Letting performers and audiences decide for themselves is a nice idea, though in reality there's not much to indicate which season might be represented; these four movements are, after all, mainly four different shades of Glass.

Not everything in the Concerto works but this is music which grows in appeal with repeated hearings. Movement II seems initially to be a familiar concoction of stock Glass moves, but as it grows it becomes an affecting and delicate waltz. The best is saved for last; Movement IV, a zany toe-tapping slice of American gothic, recalls the best scores of Danny Elfman in making the greatest use of the harpsichord and synthesiser.

I'm sure that Glass's violin writing doesn't fall under the fingers with great ease; the arpeggiated oscillations of the First Concerto throw up some awkward passages that don't sit too well on the instrument. Even so, McDuffie can't sustain the unaccompanied passages or give them any kind of shape. He's very ably assisted by Alsop and the London Philharmonic, but ultimately, he's simply not good enough and I doubt the orchestra would have booked him had he not come attached to this prestigious project. It is to be hoped that this appealing work will be re-visited and re-recorded by more able soloists, but I fear that McDuffie’s performance may dissuade interested parties from lingering over this recording for long.

This review originally appeared at Musicweb-International

Zukerman at RFH London

2011-05-14T09:50:00.004+01:00

There are few violinists of Pinchas Zukerman's vintage still doing the rounds; how different from the scene when he was rising to the top. Zukerman gave us an excellent Beethoven Violin Concerto at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday, sounding like a visitor from a more warm-hearted past and if his conducting wasn't much cop, it didn't diminish the thrill of hearing him live. Read my full concert review at Classicalsource .