Leonidas Kavakos & Yuja Wang BRAHMS The Violin Sonatas

Leonidas Kavakos and Yuja Wang here give a hearty, if rather cold, performance of Brahms’ much-loved violin sonatas. Wang has proven her virtuoso skills with her previous recital CDs, but this is the first recording she’s made of chamber music. It’s concerning, then, that this release feels a little like star players working well together, but not connecting as deeply as befits the repertoire.

 More could be made of many of the most ethereal moments in the music (some of them seem to pass without notice), and there’s an almost palpable sense of relief from the players when the big tunes kick in. Take, for example, the piano’s turn at the theme partway through the first movement of the Violin Sonata in G, accompanied by a delicate pizzicato violin. In other recordings, this return to the theme is a hushed and delicate remembrance, almost magical in its simplicity. Here, it’s merely pretty. 

Similar issues arise in the other sonatas. The A Major’s grazioso third movement sounds wooden, with none of the grace and lightness of touch that, for example, Arthur Grumiaux and György Sebo˝k give it. This is very heavy Brahms, then, played solidly and weightily. Kavakos and Wang fare better in Brahms’ more intense moments, with plenty of muscle in the C Minor scherzo from the collaborative F.A.E. Sonata. The disc is closed with a rather anticlimactic arrangement of the famous Wiegenlied, played serviceably. (Paul Ballam-Cross)

Pumeza VOICE OF HOPE

Matshikiza's career would have been unthinkable two decades ago. Today, she is part of a new generation of black South African opera singers. Small and self-contained, she cuts a glamorous figure, not least on the cover of Voice of Hope, her debut recording for Decca. With its mix of Mozart and Puccini arias, smartly orchestrated Xhosa, Swahili and Zulu songs, and the anthem she performed to an audience of a billion in the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony last week, the album is aimed squarely at a crossover audience.

Matshikiza is pragmatic about the mix, pointing out that if she can bring "something a little bit different" to the market, why not? But she is frank about the technical challenges of finding a way of singing that is "not quite operatic", and pulls a face recalling the difficulty of working on the album while also preparing for the role of Nanetta in Verdi's Falstaff for Stuttgart Opera.

The pure, wistful voice that Matshikiza used to sing Freedom Come All Ye in Glasgow is about a quarter the size of her Puccini voice. On the album, her sound in the arias is opulent, glowing. She is reticent about her long-term ambitions, but it's difficult to imagine her following in the crossover footsteps of, say, Katherine Jenkins or Russell Watson. As to Thula Baba, Pata, Pata and the other African songs on the disc, there's both a nod to the chic fusion of jazz and calypso that was Miriam Makeba's signature style in the early 60s – and a sting behind the smile. In Iya Gaduza, an unemployed man paces alone in his house while his wife works for a white family. Even Freedom Come All Ye, written the year of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, contains a reference to Nyanga, one of the townships where Matshikiza grew up. 

At the centre of the album is South African composer Kevin Volans's Umzi Watsha. Volans met the soprano when she sang in an opera he wrote for Cape Town's Handspring Puppet Theatre (the company behind War Horse's puppets). He urged Matshikiza to audition for the British conservatoires, paying her air fare. Her first stop in London was the Royal College of Music, where she was immediately offered a full scholarship. The Royal Opera House's young artists scheme followed, with roles in The Minotaur, Don Carlo and Hänsel und Gretel. The decision to take things slowly was hers: "I don't understand what the hurry is. I want to sing as best as possible. It doesn't matter when or to whom." At Covent Garden, observation was as vital a part of the learning experience as performance and coaching. Its music director Antonio Pappano remains her model of the ideal, collaborative singers' conductor: "Talking to the soloists, he would say, 'What do you want to do here? I'll follow you', and only then would he suggest what he thinks. When you are a singer that gives you so much security, so much energy." (theguardian.com)

Franco Fagioli / Alessandro De Marchi / Academia Montis Regalis PORPORA Arias

Porpora (1686 - 1768) wrote operas from 1708 up until 1747 and was revising them until at least 1760 but it is with his works in the 1720's such as Meride e Selinunte (1726) that he came to prominence as part of the new Neapolitan style. The selection here includes Ezio, Semiramide riconosciuta, Didone abbandonata, Meride e Selinunte from the 1720's, Polifemo from 1735 and Carlo il Calvo from the same decade. Il verbo in carne is in fact an oratorios written for Christmas 1748 for Dresden.
Porpora taught two of the finest singers of his age, Farinelli and Cafarelli. Fagioli has explored arias by Porpora and others written for Cafarelli on his previous disc. Here, he includes two arias written for Farinelli from Polifemo which was written for London as a rival to Handel. As might be expected from a distinguished teacher, Porpora knows how to write for the voice and to show it off to its best advantage. The arias here often have a largeness of scale and can last up to eight minutes (with the aria from the cantata Vulcano lasting nearly 10). But that does not imply simplicity of scale, within these structures Porpora includes an astonishing number of notes and Fagioli copes superbly. The arias are all in the mezzo-soprano range and need Fagioli's style of high counter-tenor singing. But they also need his incredible facility with singing complex passage-work at high speed.
The results are breathtaking. Fagioli makes a very particular sound. He has a vibrato warmed voice with a soft-grained timbre, but he can move it with alarming dexterity. The more bravura items such as the opening Set tu la reggi al volo from Ezio or Gia si desta la tempesa from Didone abbandonata are done in a supremely bravura manner with style and expressivity. Listen and marvel. Often Porpora throws in trumpets and drums, and the orchestra contributes to the overall dazzling virtuoso sound.
In the slower items, Fagioli brings a shapely poise to the music. When writing the gentler pieces Porpora's style veers towards the galant, rendered stylishly by Fagioli, De Marchi and his ensemble. But the slower pieces are never simple, Porpora still includes a remarkable number of notes, and the vocal lines are often quite wandering.
Throughout Fagioli is accompanied with bravura and style by De Marchi and the Academia Montis Regalis who acquit themselves with no less virtuosity.
The CD booklet includes an article giving background to Porpora's career, with full texts and translations, but you will struggle to discover when and where each aria was first performed and by whom.
With a recital disc like this, you are never quite certain how representative of the composer's style these arias are. There are no simple pieces here, the sort of arias like Handel's Verdi prati which puzzled his Italian singers and required fits of temper from the composer to persuade them to sing. But the disc does give the lie to the idea of Porpora writing generic arias which are suitable for anything. There is some profoundly expressive music here, in stunning performances, and I now look forward to a complete opera by Porpora. In the mean time, we have this disc from Fagioli. Listen and marvel! (Robert Hugill)

Giuliano Carmignola / Concerto Köln BACH Violin Concertos

Giuliano Carmignola, we’re informed on the back of this CD’s case, ‘seeks to cast fresh light upon these much-loved masterpieces by imbuing them with all the joyfulness of his Venetian sound’. You could say this is as much a warning as it is a USP: if you like your Bach monumental and solemn, Carmingnola’s folky exuberance and springy bow may feel like too much of his personality foisted on the music. But with an open mind, it’s impossible not to enjoy this disc. It achieves exactly what it proudly sets out to, eagerly assisted by the twinkle-toed Concerto Köln.

It includes the two ubiquitous violin concertos (A minor and E major), the double concerto in D minor (with Carmignola well matched by Mayumi Hirasaki, stepping up from within the ensemble), plus two convincing new reconstructions of concertos which, though probably originally written for violin, survive only in harpsichord concerto versions (the G minor BWV 1056 and D minor BWV 1052). At over 70 minutes of music, it goes a fair way towards justifying its premium price.

If it is the fast movements which show off Carmignola’s pizzazz, he also has plenty of sweetly lyrical qualities to bring in the Largos and Adagios – the merest smidge of vibrato at the ends of long notes, everything else achieved by subtle phrase shaping and that nimble bowing arm. (Kimon Daltas, editor of Classical Music magazine)

Julia Fischer & Martin Helmchen FRANZ SCHUBERT Complete Works for Violin and Piano

In this recording, Julia Fischer and Martin Helmchen skilfully reveal what can be achieved when Schubert's violin and piano duos are given the right treatment: a wonderful piece of music, expertly performed. The release uniquely features Fischer as a pianist in Fantasia for Piano Duet D. 940. She had previously performed as a pianist in concert, but this was her recording debut.

We asked them a few questions about their successful collaboration and their connection to Schubert.

What was it like to work together?

Martin: It is always both an enormous privilege and great fun to work with Julia, and I think most of our colleagues (and even conductors) would agree that you've learned a lot after every concert or rehearsal with her. And of course, a long-term collaboration like ours is something very valuable, because you get to grow together.

Julia: Martin and I met a very long time ago and we have played and enjoyed numerous projects together. What I admire most about Martin is his modesty and pure passion. If you want to repeat something 100 times, he will still agree to do it and probably ask for the 101st time. On tour that quality brings the real enjoyment to a partnership, you never get into routine, but you always keep looking for other options, other solutions for musical problems. The same way of working applies to recording together. We are still on a journey: the cd is not the final result. It only shows where we were in that moment in our interpretation of Schubert.

What was it like for both of you to have Julia also playing the piano for this recording?

Martin: Absolutely natural! I don't understand how it's possible to play a second instrument at such a high level… I personally have got a lot of troubles with one already!

Julia: Annoying for Martin I guess!! But I am grateful for the opportunity, he taught me fingerings and gave me technical tips.

What does it mean to you to play Schubert's sonatas?

Martin: Schubert is one of the composers I personally feel the closest to. The pieces for violin and piano are not amongst his better known works, and that is another thing that is a particular joy for me - exploring and presenting the lesser known masterworks.

Julia: Somebody said "Schubert in his last pieces touched the border between human and God. Afraid that the composer might cross, God finished Schubert'slife". That's how I feel when entering the C major Fantasy.

Is there anything you wish you had done differently in the recording?

Martin: I must admit I tend to forget the "crimes of the past" quite quickly. A recording is always a momentary document, so I don't think about that topic too much.

Julia: Yes. But it's not in any way frustrating. Simply put, I continuously think about the pieces and I naturally play them a little differently every time. (PENTATONE, Monday 15 September 2014)

Lise de la Salle SCHUMANN

"I’ve always listened to a lot of Schumann. He fascinated me when I was a little girl of six or seven. I’ve always been attracted by the manic side of him, his very individual ‘touch’, and I’ve always loved surrendering myself to his music. I feel very close to it. But although Schumann is one of the composers I get most out of, I waited a long time before I played him ‘seriously’... I think I didn’t want to risk being disappointed by myself. I couldn’t bring myself to imagine that everything I had dreamt about this music might not take shape exactly as I wanted. So I waited until I was completely ready, and that moment came a few years ago. The Fantasie was the apotheosis of those dreams of mine. So I built this programme around it. As for the Kinderszenen, I often played the piece Der Dichter spricht as an encore; I think it’s extraordinarily evocative, yet without any trace of technical demonstration – the power it packs into just a few notes is deeply moving to me. In a recording, I especially like to take the listener by the hand and set out to show him or her the greatest possible number of things. I always try to find a trajectory in my programmes. That’s what we have on this disc: beginning with the Fantasie as my starting-point, I double back to the very start of Schumann’s career with the Abegg Variations, then I follow the course of the short pieces, very varied in atmosphere, that make up the Kinderszenen. A musical journey needs those contrasts, and Schumann draws the essence of emotion from them." (Lise de la Salle)

“Her selection is sufficiently individual to make comparison a marginal issue, and so too is her playing, which once more displays a distinctive personal eloquence...For Clara Schumann the Fantasie was beyond wonder. Such unbridled joy is reflected in de la Salle's bold and impassioned response.” (Gramophone)

Sergey & Lusine Khachatryan BRAHMS Sonatas

When I listen to Khachatryan (b. 1985), I’m reminded of another young, award-winning violinist of approximately the same age, this one Russian, Ilya Gringolts (b. 1982). The reminder, however, is one of contrasts rather than of similarities. You see, I also have Gringolts’s recording of the Sibelius Concerto with Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, made not long after Khachatryan made his recording of the piece with Emmanuel Krivine and the Sinfonia Varsovia, and the differences are stark. Both violinists are virtuosos of the first order, nowadays something that almost goes without saying. But Gringolts belongs to what I call the “slash and burn” school of playing, which is to say that sheer beauty of sound is not infrequently sacrificed on the altar of go-for-broke risk-taking and the coarsening of tone that inevitably comes with the hard-driving performance approach.
That said, I’m fully aware that preferences in manners and styles of playing are largely a matter of taste, and so it’s with that in mind that I count Sergey Khachatryan a violinist much more to my personal liking than Gringolts. From the very opening strains of Brahms’s G-Major Sonata, I hear in Khachatryan not just a violinist with impeccable technique and radiant tone, but an artist of high intelligence and a musician of the highest ethical sensibilities. To no small degree, his Brahms reminds me of David Oistrakh’s, with Gina Bauer in the First Sonata and with Richter in the Second and Third sonatas.
Nothing is exaggerated, overstated, or pressed. No gratuitous portamentos interrupt the smooth flow of the lines. Only the natural ebb and flow of Brahms’s phrases, with which Khachatryan and sister Lusine rise and fall in sublime unanimity, are made manifest in these gorgeous readings. Just listen to the transcendent beauty of the second theme in the first movement of the G-Major Sonata, to how it expands to embrace an exalted state of ecstasy. In one breath, this has gone from being just another recording of Brahms’s violin sonatas to my absolute favorite, surpassing in wonder and glory even the Stefan Jackiw and Max Levison version on Sony whose virtues I extolled in 34:4.
Everything I’ve said and then some applies to the Khachatryans’ readings of the A-Major and D-Minor sonatas as well. Listen to and be gripped by the terrifying tale Brahms tells in the last movement of the D-Minor Sonata. Never have the parallels to the first movement of Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata been clearer. But for me, what makes Sergey’s performance so transfixing is that he delivers Brahms’s uncharacteristic outburst of spite and spleen with nary a scrape or scratch of the bow. How much sharper is the cut from a scalpel than from a blunt blade.
Even if you have half-a-dozen or more recordings of these sonatas on your shelf, shift them around, throw one out, do whatever you have to do to make room for this one; it’s truly special. (FANFARE: Jerry Dubins)