Angela Hewitt FRANZ LISZT Piano Sonata - Dante Sonata - Petrarch Sonnets

Elegant and immaculate in both musicianship and platform wardrobe, the pianist Angela Hewitt doesn't immediately rush to mind when considering the wild music of Liszt. Well-ordered Bach is more her cup of tea. She's equally a natural in the piquant French delights of Ravel and Debussy. Yet here she is, with an album of Liszt, Liszt and Liszt.

The first paragraph in her programme note doesn't exactly bode well: 'After hearing the Liszt Sonata as a teenager, I came away thinking what an awful piece it was. It just seemed a vehicle for banging the piano.' That's my point: I can't even imagine Hewitt banging a door, still less a concert grand. She thinks differently now, or so she says she calls this big B minor sonata masterful and thrilling. Yet probably a secret residue of teenage distaste remains: she certainly stays determinedly fastidious throughout the work's fortissimo thunder or the Dante fantasy's mad ride to hell  …

Even if her approach sometimes rubs against the music's grain, the poise and clarity of her textures and phrasings still brings major pleasures. She elucidates the B minor sonata's structural subtleties and balances its boarding power with scintillating details like the silver arpeggios circling round the second subject about nine minutes in. In the three Petrarch sonnets, the kaleidoscope of emotions is exquisitely traced. If only she could enjoy Liszt's flamboyance more: I'd almost buy this album for the piano's numerous dying notes, reverberating long and exquisitely toward the end of time. (Geoff Brown /The Times)

Rolf Lislevand NUOVE MUSICHE

Is it fair for baroque to sound so sensual? An elegiac soprano voice wafts above an instrumental piece by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger. Flamenco rhythms underpin a passacaglia. Then suddenly we hear the typical harmonies and ornaments of Celtic folk music. Is that how this music really sounded in Italy in the early 1600s? Of course not. But what the Norwegian lutenist and guitarist Rolf Lislevand and his six colleagues bring off on Nuove musiche, their début album for ECM, has all the earmarks of a manifesto. Their vibrant and literally unheard-of readings of early baroque music from Italy are meant to grab the listener directly, as if it really were 'new music'.
'For years people tried to play early music as closely as possible to the way it was played at its time of origin', Lislevand explains 'But that's a philosophical self-contradiction. The first question is whether it's possible at all to replicate the performance of a musician who lived centuries ago. As far as I'm concerned, reconstruction is not really interesting at all. Do we really want to act as if we hadn't heard any music between 1600 and the present day? I think that would be dishonest. With this recording we say goodbye once and for all to early music's authenticity creed.'
This doesn't mean that anything goes - on the contrary. Lislevand, who learned his craft at the famous Schola Cantorum in Basle, has been professor of lute and historical performance practice at Trossingen Musikhochschule since 1993. He has turned out many prize-winning recordings, some of them with his Kapsberger Ensemble, which forms the core of the musicians on Nuove Musiche. He avidly scrutinises every available scrap of information on what he plays and how to play it properly. But those are only the preconditions for a convincing performance. After all, one vital element in baroque music was improvisation: 'Pieces were played to meet the needs of the moment', Professor Lislevand points out. 'To play strictly according to the notes on the page would be tantamount to lying, for the scores were written in a sort of shorthand. They presuppose a good deal of knowledge and self-assurance from the player.'
Take the percussion instruments, for instance. We know they were used, but nobody around 1600 bothered to write down the parts. So we have no way of knowing for sure how they were used. Did they only serve as timekeepers, or was their timbre exploited as well? Lislevand has very strong views on the subject: 'The idea that it wasn't until today that we could freely express our feelings is not only naive but arrogant. Personally I believe that the people of the 17th century were much richer and more self-aware than we assume today.' It is only natural, then, that the percussionist Pedro Estevan offers a huge range of expressive sounds and rhythms on Nuove musiche.
Lislevand searches for points of contact between the 400-year-old pieces on this recording (by Kapsberger, Pellegrini, Piccinini and others) and the musical horizons of today's performers. Usually the starting point is the passacaglia, a set of increasingly dramatic variations on an unchanging bass pattern. Passacaglias formed the core repertoire of the lute and guitar books of the 17th century. 'They thrive on chromaticism, harsh dissonances and offbeat rhythms. If the composers tried to get these effects, then we have every right to go even further. My idea is simply to develop and elaborate things already there in the material. Arianna Savall's melody really does come from the Kapsberger toccata itself. Everything there that smacks of echoes from current popular music is already contained in the pieces. I just coax it out.' (ECM Records)

GIYA KANCHELI Diplipito

“If you can imagine a flower that makes its way through asphalt, that’s exactly what you find in my compositions. In my works I’m always trying to get the flower through the asphalt.”
Giya Kancheli

The present disc features premiere recordings made – as has been the case with all of Kancheli’s ECM recordings – with the participation of the composer. “Valse Boston”, written in 1996, bears two dedications, one to its conductor and pianist Dennis Russell Davies, the other to the composer’s wife (“with whom I have never danced”). If Kancheli has made a point of avoiding the dancefloor he has created a piece that moves uniquely, if not in ¾ time, and makes sometimes devastating use of the abrupt dynamic contrasts that have become almost a trademark. Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich in the liner notes:

“The metaphor of ‘dancing’ should be interpreted less as a profound than as an ironic comment – but it is also an allusion to the vast distance that separates Kancheli’s music from the apotheosis or demonic fury of the dance. The Boston Waltz is generally associated with the louche, slightly faded realm of urbane entertainment; for Kancheli this is at most a ‘distant echo’ buried beneath the rubble of the ages.” Kancheli has, however, said that he was inspired, in writing this piece, by the visual image of Davies conducting this piece from the piano stool, half standing, gesturing with a free arm or nods of the head while playing; this was also a dance of sorts. Jungheinrich: “Three-quarter time is never used as the vehicle, elixir and essence of dance-like energy. What does occur at the beginning is a slow triplet movement; but instead of introducing spirited movement, the consistently gentle sonorities retain a heavy, clinging, glutinous quality. The first violins seem to want to counter the persistent, grinding slowness of the tempo with their own abandoned song, a mercurial line in the highest register.”

Davies and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra have included “Valse Boston” in their touring programmes on both sides of the Atlantic. The Chicago Tribune wrote, “Don't let the innocuous title fool you: Giya Kancheli's ‘Valse Boston’ is a powder keg of a piece. It is a secular prayer veering between extremes of dynamics, tempo and mood. One moment the piano is goading the strings to produce angry, stabbing dissonances. The next moment, it is quieting the orchestra with tiny fragments of waltz-time, deceptively merry. Nobody conjures troubled landscapes in sound like Kancheli. He has given us a bleak, very Eastern view of modern existence, but the effect is cleansing.”

“Diplipito, written in 1997, is named for the little, high-tuned Georgian drums – in the range of the darbouka or the bongos – that are frequently used to accompany dancing. And the percussive syllables that Kancheli gives to American countertenor Derek Lee Ragin are a kind of concrete poetry inspired by the drum’s rhythm patterns. Giya Kancheli was greatly impressed by Ragin in 1999 when he sang the world première of the composer’s “And farewell goes out sighing”, alongside Gidon Kremer with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Kurt Masur and the countertenor was an essential choice for the recording of “Diplipito”, where he is partnered with Thomas Demenga. Ragin makes his New Series debut here while Demenga has been a mainstay of the label since its inauguration.

Jungheinrich: “The vocal part in ‘Diplipito’ finds an equal partner in the solo cello. The orchestra rarely play tutti, there are no winds or brass at all, and the guitar, piano and percussion come in individually, functioning alternately as solo and secondary presences. The terse, tentative figures in the cello contrast with the cluster-like chords typifying the piano line. For long stretches, the sonic space is chromatically measured – often in small, careful interval steps…. The mood of tranquillity, even latent immobility, that dominates the first half of the piece is suspended by the entry of a vigorous ornamental figure on the guitar (which is immediately picked up by the cello), followed by several explosive fortissimo passages. The soft murmur of a bongo rhythm increases the restlessness. This is the preparation for the final phase, the disembodiment of sonic materiality.”  (ECM Records)

Kavakos / Chailly / Gewandhausorchester BRAHMS Violin Concerto - Hungarian Dances BARTÓK Rhapsodies

To hear Leonidas Kavakos play the Brahms Violin Concerto is to be newly apprised of the work’s reputed difficulties. Not that Kavakos struggles with the solo part—far from it. But he presents the myriad double-stops, compound-chords, and wide leaps with such clarity and vividness that your ear is drawn to these effects more than usual. Yet for all this, Kavakos’ rendition is a thoroughly musical one, fully cognizant of Brahms’ structure and overall symphonic plan. Riccardo Chailly’s cleanly articulated, tersely-romantic accompaniment makes an apt foil for his soloist, as do the clear textures and lean string sound he evokes from the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

That Kavakos would choose the warhorse Joachim cadenza at first seems at odds with his interpretive stance, but his fresh approach proves otherwise. By sculpting each phrase so inventively, Kavakos rivets your attention and at times gives the impression that he’s improvising. In the songful slow movement (which showcases beautiful playing by the Leipzig winds) Kavakos soothes without sounding saccharine, while the finale crackles with life, thanks in part to the violinist inserting a bit of gypsy flair into the famous “Hungarian” tune.

This Hungarian flavor, albeit of a more rustic variety, carries over to Bartók’s Rhapsodies for violin and piano, which Kavakos and pianist Péter Nagy dispatch with jaunty bravura and folksy style. These same characteristics lend the more cosmopolitan Brahms Hungarian Dances a certain authenticity that the orchestral versions lack.

The recording places the orchestra slightly to the rear in the acoustic, but produces a satisfying full sound in louder passages (although the violin is oddly more prominent when playing with the orchestra than with just the piano). This is a fine modern Brahms Violin Concerto that can hold its own in a crowded catalog. (Victor Carr Jr)

Riccardo Chailly / Gewandhausorchester BRAHMS Serenades

Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra take another significant step in an extraordinary musical journey with the release of the two Brahms Serenades. The Serenades have been unjustly neglected and are rarely heard in concert, making them perfect repertoire for Chailly’s enquiring mind. Widely respected as a conductor with a “rare talent for transforming music ripe for rediscovery” (Gramophone), his reading of the Serenades fits with his philosophy that “all music must aspire to be ‘new music’ again”. The recording follows Chailly’s multi-award-winning sets of the Brahms and Beethoven symphonies.

Chailly’s radical approach to the symphonies produced a recording of “trademark clarity” according to Gramophone, which made the set its “Record of the Year 2014”. It also won aBBC Music Magazine Award, the jury commenting: “Chailly combines fiery athleticism with the warmly blended tonalities of the wonderful Leipzig orchestra. The results tingle with immediacy and a pulsating sense of momentum.” Now Chailly brings the same questing spirit to the Serenades. The release highlights the importance of this repertoire in Brahms’s evolution as a composer and orchestrator, making a significant statement and allowing the Serenades to emerge from the shadow of the symphonies. Newly reassessed as substantial masterworks in their own right, they show Brahms in an unexpected light: the Op. 11 offering “a brightness, waggishness and humour that would later become rare in Brahms,” in the words of musicologist Peter Korfmacher, while the Op. 16 Serenade is exotically scored for just wind and lower strings, creating a sense of pleasant shade rather than darkness. With playing that is multifaceted, multi-coloured light and delicate. “The double-bass jokes can generate their wit, the music swings, and the colours glow,” says Chailly.

With his extraordinary attention to detail and keen ear for musical nuance, Riccardo Chailly really gets to the heart of this richly rewarding music. This is the first Decca recording of these works since István Kertész recorded them in 1968. It is a worthy successor to another great Brahmsian and a historic recording which will bring new life to concert-hall rarities that are ripe for rediscovery.

“For an orchestra as steeped in the Austro-German tradition as the Gewandhaus is, playing Brahms has always been part of its raison d’être. But Chailly brings a different perspective: as with Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Mahler, his approach is both mindful of the performing traditions and critical of them in the best, most constructive way. His Brahms is neither massive nor self-consciously sculpted, but still totally coherent.” (The Guardian)

Sokolov THE SALZBURG RECITAL

Good news for pianophiles everywhere that Grigory Sokolov has, as DG put it, now signed an exclusive contract. This is of course not taking him into the studio or anything as workaday as that. No, he has allowed them to release a live recital from the 2008 Salzburg Festival. But let’s not knock that: it’s difficult to imagine just how much negotiation that must have taken. Comparisons are irrelevant (except perhaps with himself): this is Sokolov we’re talking about. But in this cult of celebrity, his very aversion to the notion has turned him into one – a bit like Glenn Gould in an earlier era.

Of course, all of this would be beside the point if he didn’t produce the goods. It’s an overused word, but he is inimitable. His Chopin Preludes, for example, have no time for the notion of a freely Romantic melodic line being kept in check by a Classical accompaniment. Sokolov’s reading as a whole is remarkably consistent with that of his live 1990 recital released on Opus 111. In both, he begins unhurriedly, as if the music were gently rousing itself into life. But whereas in less imaginative hands the results could seem mannered or overly drawn out, here it’s mesmerising. In the Sixth Prelude, for instance, the upward curling arpeggio has a rare poignancy, while the Tenth glistens but also has an unexpected hesitancy about it. In No 13, the glorious melody of the middle section is given with a freedom that would simply not work in a lesser musician; while in the infamous ‘Raindrop’, Sokolov replaces the constant dripping with a shifting pulse that has a real urgency, albeit an unconventional one. No 19 is a particular highlight, its delicacy quite heart-stopping. He ends as he began, with a tempo for No 24 that has gravitas (not to be confused with heaviness), the effect granitic, magisterial.

The Mozart is treasurable too, though – of course – you have to take it on its own terms. What he does with the slow movement of K280, for instance, gives it a kind of operatic reach and breadth, though never does it lapse into histrionics. And in the finale he brings out the main theme’s stuttering quality superbly, lending the music not just a mercurial quality but a dramatic one too. His delight in the chewy harmonies of the opening movement of K332 is palpable, his phrasing iridescent in its range.

The Salzburg audience (who are generally reasonably silent except for the tumultuous applause) were lucky enough to get six encores. The Scriabin Poèmes are more than usually clear descendants of Chopin in Sokolov’s hands and the filigree is out of this world. By contrast, Rameau’s Les Sauvages is unexpectedly playful and whimsical, and we end with a clear-sighted Bach chorale prelude that is all the more moving for its apparent simplicity. As Sokolov says in the booklet: ‘I play only what I want to play at the current moment.’ Perhaps that’s what gives this set such integrity. (Gramophone)

Thord Svedlund / Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra WEINBERG Chamber Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4

Mieczysław Weinberg’s time would certainly seem to be now. Advocacy plays a big part in that, of course, and recent champions such as the young German violinist Linus Roth – whose recordings of the Violin Concerto and sonatas (Challenge Classics, 9/13, 7/14) have really whetted appetites – can really bring about a sea change in interest. This latest release of late chamber symphonies (and be advised the numbering belies the presence of 21 earlier symphonies) further adds to the fascination, and such is the emotional and highly personal nature of Weinberg’s musical language that it’s nigh on impossible not to be drawn into his confidence.

The opening Lento of Symphony No 3 for string orchestra, which is in turn directly derived from his String Quartet No 5 (these pieces not only evolve from earlier works but thrive on self-quotation from elsewhere in his oeuvre), is entitled ‘Melody’ and that is precisely what you get – an unvarnished unison in search of harmony and development (very Bartókian), both of which it finds before emerging once more as the purest ‘confessional’. In the boisterous and explosive second movement it’s as if both Britten and Shostakovich have morphed into a dynamic and wilful alliance. Weinberg undoubtedly gets his immediacy and nose for atmosphere from Shostakovich (his self-confessed idol – and there was mutual admiration) but he is his own man and full of surprises. A boldness and directness prevails and he clearly relishes the gamesmanship of composition – like the freewheeling Andantino finale of this piece.

The Fourth opens with a great example of what makes Weinberg’s themes so individual: a ‘Chorale’ borrowed from his opera The Portrait, it’s a total ‘earworm’. But suddenly there is an obbligato clarinet among the strings and with it a multitude of Klezmer associations. That clarinet enjoys a wild ride in the second-movement Allegro molto, and again the rug is pulled from beneath us at the close when solo violin and cello are given quite unexpected monologues like afterthoughts on what has passed. An aching folksiness pervades the slow movement and a triangle offers two single shafts of light at the beginning and very end (a tiny touch of genius) of a final movement which seems to have been composed in the playing of it.

The Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra under Thord Svedlund make an excellent case for these intriguing pieces and Chandos brings them to us with vivid immediacy. Weinberg is coming in from the cold. (Gramophone)