Buried Musical Treasure

Todd; for a long time I also found the Bartok solo violin sonata a difficult piece to appreciate. I had the Osostowicz version on Hyperion, which has all the right notes but just doesn't seem to gel and consequently I rarely listened to it. Then I came across Kurt Nikkanen's version on Collins (now defunct) in a market stall - it is a supremely lyrical and assured account which I would recommend. (I will look out for the version that you have mentioned above). The stall, in Guildford, seems to have many of the Collins titles for a fiver.

I came across his string quartets on vinyl recently by Takacs S.Q. and they are really weird. Can't take all of them at once, but one at a time after a Beethoven and something else soothing afterward and they just jump out at you and mess with your head. Good clean recording and quite a buy for about $6 us. Same with comparing Szymanowsky to late Beethoven and Stravinsky. Amazing stuff.

I recently picked up Moura Lympany playing Chopin's Waltzes and Nocturnes on a Dutton re-reissue. I paid a mighty $9 for the two-disc set new, so it's a chep one.

The playing is splendid. Lympany plays with a light, crisp tone that sounds quite nice. She does not quite reach the same heights or depths as others, perhaps, but this is a fine set. No, these performances will not supplant Moravec in the Nocturnes or Lipatti in the Waltzes - or Rubinstein in either - but they make a welcome addition to my collection.

I picked up a cut-out of Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting the Minnesota Orchestra in a three disc collection of Bartok orchestral works on Vox. (All for $6!) A half-dozen works are included. All are finely done. In fact, some are better than finely done.

The Concerto for Orchestra is the opeing work and is very good. No, it does not displace the great Hungarian conductors (Reiner, Dorati, Fischer, and, above all, for me, Fricsay), but he does rather better than many other post-1965 recordings. The fourth movement is superb, which is essential in this work, and the finale is finely done. Not a great performance, but one worthy of consideration.

The Music for Strings, Percusion, and Celesta is also very fine. If it lacks the vehemence of Reiner or Fricsay, and seems more like the Dorati recording (on Mercury), it is still fine. It is definitely more propulsive than the Dorati, and the orchestra play quite well. The sound on this recording is audiophile-grade.

A trio of suites fill out most of the rest of the discs - the Dance Suite, The Miraculous Mandarin suite, and The Wooden Prince suite all are well-done. World beaters they may not be (and how can they be, at least for the latter two, since they are mere suites and not the real thing), but they are all worth a listen.

The gem of the set, though, is clearly the Divertimento. This is one of the very finest versions I have heard and desperately deserves a listen.

Sound for all of the recordings is outstanding. They were all recorded between 1976 and 1982, and the late analog sound is simply wondeful. Hell, at $15 for a new set (probably a little more in other countries), any Bartok fan should seek this out before it is deleted.

[This message was edited by Todd Arola on THURSDAY 12 September 2002 at 18:55.]

Though I've been immersed in opera for a while, I have still managed to listen to other music and to discover some gems. Among them is Vlado Perlemuter's two-disc survey of Ravel's piano music recorded in the mid-50's on Vox. I believe this set has been mentioned before on this forum and with good reason: it is remarkable. The most remarkable thing about the set is what one does not hear: flashy virtuosity.

Indeed, when I spun Gaspard de la nuit, I was taken aback by its "slowness." It's not slow, mind you, it's just that Perlemuter does not rip through any passages; instead he clarifies everything. The middle-register dominant recording helps accentuate this, but his approach is decidedly more reserved than is usual today. It's as if Wilhelm Kempff refined his technique, became French and played the piece.

There's more to the set, of course. All of the most important larger pieces are included. Jeux d'eau, in particular, benefits from Perlemuter's approach. One can quite easily envision the fountain. As for Miroirs and Le Tombeau de Couperin, well, those too are wonderful. The only weak performances are the two concertos, though that is due to the orchestral playing. Jascha Horenstein does his best, but the orchestra is not the equal of the soloist. Even with that, the performances are well worth hearing.

If I still think there are better specific performances of any of the works available, or that Robert Casadesus is still the finest overall Ravel pianist, this cheap set is a very welcome addition to my collection. The mono sound is acceptable. I highly recommend this for all fans of Ravel's piano music.

Thanks for the recommendations. V. Well written. You sound like a connoisseur and you certainly seem to be able to spot a bargain.

Thanks,

Markus

My gem in this area is a recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons by Nils-Erik Sparf & the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble on Boots' [Boots is a UK pharmacy chain] 'Classical Collection', licenced from BIS in 1988, when the most unlikely retailers tried cashing in on the CD boom [even Marks & Spencer!!] My vinyl version had been the Karajan lift music affair [strangely kitsch charm, you have to admit] and in a fervour to update, I chanced upon this. It really is awesome, and is the best performance by far that I have ever heard, enabling you to overcome the contempt bred by familiarity in a spectacular way. It really is like no other recording. It might be acquired in a car boot, or may even have been licenced to another label, but if you ever see it it will revitalise your interest in the piece, even though I imagine that you think that would take some doing. Honestly.

throb

When last I visited my local CD hut, the new integral set of Beethoven's violin sonatas by Maria Joao Pires and Augustin Dumay was on display, and right next to it selling at a special 3-for-price-of-1 price was a reissue of Petr Messiereur (erstwhile leader of the Talich Quartet) and Stanislav Bogunia's 1994-1995 set on Calliope. I opted for the latter option. I'm glad I did.

Now, I like the Talich set of the quartets immensely, so I figured that this would be pretty good. It is that and more. The two Czechs play this music in a very direct manner, with very little in the way of idiosyncratic "interpretation" (not that that is bad). They make one more aware than normal that the majority of these works belong to Beethoven's early output, and as such deserve energetic, even occasionally happy performances. The Kreutzer and the Op 96 are delivered appropriately to there relative time periods, too. When listening, I kept noticing the swiftness of the playing; tempos are swift across the board. In this repertoire, that is a good thing. Sound quality is spiffy. Altogether, this is a fine set worthy of consideration at full price, let alone at its current price.

After all, one can never have enough Beethoven.


[This message was edited by LvB on THURSDAY 12 DECEMBER at 20:22]

In a mood for some 20th Century fare again, I picked up an interesting little release on Vox. It is a set of three major violin concertos from the last century - by Berg, Hindemith, and Stravinsky - by the violinst Ivry Gitlis. I'd seen the name perhaps once or twice in various articles and decided to take a $7.50 chance. What a find. The oldish recordings - two mono recordings from the 50s and one stereo from the 60s - are masterful. Hindemith not being a favorite of mine, this was my first exposure to the concerto. If it does not match up to the other two, it is quite fine, and Gitlis delivers what must be one of the best renditions available. How can I write that, not having heard it before? Because the other two concerto recordings are among the very best I have ever heard for those works. The Stravinsky is immediately striking, with Gitlis taking the angular solo lines and dispensing them with ease and a romantic flair one might not expect to hear in this work. He does not make the work romantic, but his approach is a nice mix of 19th and 20th century romantic and neo-classical styles. The trumpet has a prominent part, especially in the second aria, and some may not like it, though I did.

As for the Berg - that's the reason to buy this disc. This must be one of the most searing, intense, and romantic recordings of this masterpiece ever made. It is truly special.

If none of the three recordings can necessarily displace any of the best options available, they all certainly rank with the finest. The Stern / Stravinsky set of the Stravinsky obviously has an authority that no other recording can duplicate, and the Mutter / Levine recording of the Berg is something quite special, but this set stands with them. The sound is quite acceptable. Looks like I'll have to buy the Vox twofer with a selection of other concertos played by Mr. Gitlis.

[This message was edited by Todd Arola on FRIDAY 10 January 2003 at 20:42.]

As I am a confessed Bartok junkie, I am always on the lookout for something new. Or perhaps old. While browsing through the used bin at the CD hut, I very happily stumbled across the Orfeo release of the Concerto for Orchestra and Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta conducted by Rafael Kubelik. The recordings are of two concerts, given in 1978 and 1981, respectively.

If you like Bartok and/or Kubelik, buy this disc immediately. Both performances are extremely fine, and the sound is amazingly good given that these are both live. The Music starts the disc, and it is one of the finest performances I have heard, ranking right up there with Ferenc Fricsay and Fritz Reiner. (I own eight versions of this work and have heard two others on the radio, if you were wondering.) The BRSO is on top form here, easily able to rival and band you care to name. The forward momentum of the piece and the riveting finish are at times almost breathtaking. Okay, there are a few flubs, this being a concert and all, like in the second movement where the piano and percussion are not quite perfectly timed, but so what? The opening has that uneasy feel about it and the tension is high at all times. This is a truly great performance.

The Concerto is also fine, though not as relatively good. It is hard for a version of this work to impress me as this is the piece I have collected the most: I own 16 versions of the Concerto and have heard at least six others, including two concerts. I write this only to give a sense of what type of comparisons I am making.

The piece starts fine and never really falters. The recording or venue (or both) render the woodwinds, especially the oboes and clarinets, a little odd sounding. In the Elegia this lends an eerie quality to the movement, but later in the fourth movement it can be a distraction. Ah, and the fourth movement, so critical for a succesful performance. How is it? Outstanding. And the finale is one of the most charged, energetic I have heard. If this version ultimately cannot reach the same dizzying heights as the great Hungarian led performances - by Fricsay, Reiner Dorati (Mercury) or Ivan Fischer (the greatest living Bartok conductor) - then it surely must rank with other great performances by the likes of Bernstein or Solti (1965). This disc is a peach.

Interesting Todd. I'll keep my eyes peeled. Is the 1981 recording digital, or perhaps not? The one thing I have against Kubelik's Orfeo Brahms recordings with the Bavaria is the early digital sound.

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Originally posted by herm:
Is the 1981 recording digital, or perhaps not?

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It's analog. Blessedly so.

In that case I'm goin' get it.

I just love box sets. You can get so much music for so little money. Yes, I know, many people view box sets as the lazy way to build a collection, but not me. I view it as essential. In some cases mandatory. After all, it seems that the only way to assess a given pianist’s Beethoven credentials is to listen to their interpretations of all of LvB's sonatas. (And is it ever possible to have too many Beethoven sonata recordings? Clearly not.) I use box sets for other reasons. One is to provide a survey of a large body of work to serve as a sort of baseline for those works. For instance, I have the complete Mozart symphonies conducted by Charles Mackerras. The performances are all very good to great, but, to be honest, I doubt I’ll listen to the early symphonies too much. Of course, I know not buy other versions, too.

Another reason I love box sets is that they allow one to cheaply survey obscure works by great and sometimes obscure composers. I have several boxes that serve this purpose. For instance, I have the Vladimir Ashkenazy survey of Chopin’s complete solo piano works and find it invaluable, and many of the performances outstanding. My latest entry into this area is a real rarity: I have a survey of the complete solo piano music of Robert Schumann by Jorg Demus on Nuova Era. The 13-disc set serves much the same purpose as the Chopin box, and it is enlightening to say the least. Thank goodness I was able to pick up for a very reasonable $52. (At Berkshire, of course.) I do believe it has been reissued again as a bargain box, so it should be cheap everywhere.

Jorg Demus is one of those pianists that I had heard of but who I had never heard. Most of the little I have read of him has been positive, and the only recordings of him I knew about were as an accompanist. Clearly, anyone who undertakes a complete cycle of works must be devoted to the composer. And so it sounds.

A couple quick notes on the box. The production values are not too impressive. The Italian notes are brief and not too informative, and the English translations are often a bit odd and replete with gross spelling and punctuation errors. All the discs are labeled as digital recordings, but they are all clearly analog, as evidenced by the varying level of hiss. My guess is that these recordings were made in the 70s and early 80s. The recorded sound varies from surprisingly poor in a handful of works to slightly above average; on the whole, recorded sound is more than acceptable.

All of that is ultimately irrelevant, of course. What of the playing? Well, that varies, too. Some of the pieces come off wonderfully and some suffer in comparison to other recordings. In a complete set that is to be expected. There are some real gems here, though.

I’ll start with the winners. If Demus cannot compete in some of the most famous works, he does well in some of the lesser works. Gesange der Fruhe may very well be the best performance of the lot. I even prefer it to Pollini’s exceptional recording from last year. This is a great performance. Demus plays every passage with feeling and insight and the requisite sense of unease that permeates Schumann’s late piano works. Bunte Blatter, too, is exceptional. If Demus lacks the precision and polish of Volodos, he makes up for it in other ways. The concluding movement comes off especially well, with a somewhat eerie feel to it. Waldszenen is another highlight. Demus also offers compelling performances of two of the sonatas. The Op 22 sonata is a great performance, truly one of the best I’ve ever heard. The Concert sans Orchestre, here in its scherzofied version, is likewise terrific, able to compete with Pollini’s in all areas except technique. The Op 11 fares a little less well, but is good.

As to the more famous works, well here Demus is at somewhat of a relative disadvantage. With Cortot, Richter, Pollini, or any other great Schumann interpreter you care to mention out there as alternatives, one can do better. Not that Demus is bad, mind you. Most successful of the famous pieces are the Symphonic Etudes, Kinderszenen, Humoreske, and Novelletten. Demus may not have a sparkling technique or especially forceful presentation, but each of these kept me avidly waiting for the next passage. The Etudes are probably the best of the lot and it is presented in its original 12 variation form, with the five posthumous variations placed after the work. It is extremely effective.

I listened to the Demus Carnaval about a month after buying Michelangeli’s 1975 EMI recording. Demus sounds crude and unprepared by comparison. Put him up against Cortot and the Frenchman’s romantic abandon simply overpowers this performance. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. That’s a problem. Likewise, his Fantasie suffers from not quite being fantastic enough, and the Davidsbundlertanze not dazzling enough. Oh sure, there is a notable difference between Florestan and Eusebius, but it’s not enough. His Kreisleriana is very good, and may improve in my estimation over time, but here there is better to be had, too.

Among the more obscure, or at least lesser recorded works, there are some nice pieces and some forgettable ones. The two sets of Paganini Etudes are enjoyable if not too profound, as are the Pedalfugel Etudes. The Op 5 Impromptus and Op 4 Intermezzi are good early works, worth the occasional spin. A real rarity is the Geistervariationen uber den letzten Gedanken, which Demus apparently helped discover and publish in 1973, and it is a good work, if not a sublime masterpiece. And if I probably will not be playing the entire Album fur die Jungend or the three late sonatas for children, I am glad to have them. There are some other pieces that I have not listed here, some relatively know and some not, but for all you devout Schumann fans out there, they are worth hearing.

Altogether, this box makes a most welcome edition to my collection. It contains a few great performances, a boatload of good ones, and obscurities worth hearing. Not a critical purchase, perhaps, but if you can find it cheap, think about it. As to specific volumes in the set, volumes 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10 are the best bets to give a good idea of the virtues of the whole set.

So impressed was I with the disc of Ivry Gitlis in modern violin concertos that I decided to hunt down the only other readily available recordings by him. So I picked up the two-disc, $10 set on Vox of Gitlis playing some standard repertoire concertos. The set includes the Tchaikovsky, Bruch First, Sibelius, Mendelssohn, and Bartok Second, with Bartok’s Solo Violin Sonata thrown in for good measure. All were recorded in the mid-50s

What a set! I’m not about to write that these are the best available recordings of any of these concertos, but they are all superb. Yes, Gitlis does take some liberties, and his playing is, um, idiosyncratic at times, but some of the music making is of the highest order. The Sibelius, Mendelssohn, and Bartok all come off extremely well, save for the strangely weak coda in the third movement of the Bartok. Gitlis possesses a commanding technique and he just dashes through the finale of the Mendelssohn with an ease that makes the music all the more appealing. He can play through the thickest passages of any work wonderfully. His strengths are equally as apparent in the Tchaikovsky and Bruch, but since I am not really a fan of those works, even his playing does not make me want to listen to them frequently. The only relative letdown is the solo sonata by Bartok. Gitlis allows himself excessive leeway. I’m all for artists bending the music to their will – hey, I love most of Ivo Pogorelich’s recordings – but this one does not really work. I’ll probably listen again just to try to hear it from a different perspective.

In contrast to the other Gitlis disc, the orchestral playing is accomplished in every case. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the Vienna Symphony Orchestra is the band. And in the Bruch, Sibelius, and Bartok, Jascha Horenstein is the maestro at the podium, so the support is fine. The sound quality is generally very good for its time, though in a couple places it sounds as though the set was remastered from LP. No matter, this is a wonderful set, well worth the outlay.

Why didn’t Gitlis record more? What a loss. (He still performs though, having done some chamber concerts with Martha Argerich recently.)

What? Tchaikovsky in Todd's Buried Musical Treasures? That has to be a slap in the face of truly neglected composers!

However, today I realised how buried in non-recordedness two of P.I.T.'s most succesful (in purely musical terms) works are: the Souvenir de Florence (op 70) and the Serenade in C (op. 48). I have a recording by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe on DG (1993) which isn't mentioned in any catalogue, and there is a Naxos recording by the Vienna Chamber Orchestra (1991) which may still be available, and after that it gets very hard.

The Souvenir de Florence was originally written for string sextet (the Borodin quartet has recorded it twice, with Rostropovich as the extra cello), but actually it works much better as a little symphony for string orchestra. The score is literally chock-a-bloc with gorgeous melodies.

The Serenade from 1880 is perhaps the first completely satisfying piece P.I.T. composed (or does the Violin Concerto come first?). The Elégie third mvt is to die for - particularly if you've ever seen the Balanchine ballet created on the Serenade: one woman lies supine in the moonlight, overwhelmed by melancholy perhaps, a guy slowly moves in while the other woman keeps her hand over his eyes. He's going to have to choose between the two women, even though he's blinded by the moonlight.

One of the sad things of Tchaikovsky's reputation is his symphonies and piano pieces are not nearly as good as his ballet works (The Sleeping Beauty, as a piece of Gesamtkunst is on the same level as Wagner's best) - yet we're somehow used to judge a composer by his piano works or symphonies, thanks to LvB and the Germanophile tradition. The sonata form never suited P.I.T. very well, and, yes, he gets carried away by pathos occasionally (as in the sixth symphony). But in these pieces he attains a joli elegance he associated with Mozart and / or the French 18th century.

I'd recommend the Naxos recording (not for being better than the other one, but for being plain available).

Herman

quote:

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Originally posted by herm:

The Sleeping Beauty, as a piece of Gesamtkunst is on the same level as Wagner's best

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Ahem . . .

Yes, Todd, 't is a fact. I've been listening to that score for many many years; got a bunch of books on my shelf - there aren't as many as books on Wagner, but that's mostly because Tchaikovsky was no anti-semite, just plain gay. Oh, and of course T. was not part of the high German tradition.

However, let's get back to the musical treasures that are buried.

Herman

quote:

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Originally posted by herm:

Yes, Todd, 't is a fact.

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Hrumph!

Gilels For the Piano

Among my Paris haul is a Ermitage disc (ERM 163-2) with a Locarno recital by Emil Gilels, not too long before his death. It's a recording from Italian-swiss radio, October 1984.

The recital features a bunch of Scarlatti Sonatas, Debussy's Pour le Piano and, after the intermission, Schumann's Symphonic Etudes, which I'd rather not discuss as Gilels is clearly not up to the task - the finale sounds like a traffic jam of wrong notes.

The Scarlatti Sonatas are beautiful though, and especially the Debussy is great. The Sarabande has ever been a favorite piece of mine - one of those pieces I picked out as a teenager from my mother's record collection - and Gilels gives it hitherto unknown depths. It's slow, 5:16, while most performances clock in at 4:30 max, and the little chorale melody in the middle has a dry muted solemn way I've not heard before. Too bad it looks like this disc isn't very available.

BTW Gilels used to be my main man for the Brahms Concertos (again because of my parent's record collection). However I listened to the 1958 recording with Rubinstein and the RCA orchestra with Josef Krips this weekend, and, man, it rocks. Interestingly the orchestra is sensational, too, with wonderful brass and celli.

Herman