DISCOVERING A LEGEND BEHIND THE FRUIT AND VEG

Although nowadays the process of acquiring records is, largely because of the internet, a good deal easier than it used to be, fond memories of past discoveries – found on a market stall here, or in an old record shop tucked away there – haunt the memory like toys from childhood. By way of an example, I recall a regular weekend bus trip (258) between Watford (where my wife and I lived at the time) to Harrow. Somewhere along the approach to Harrow there was a parade of shops, one selling fruit’n’veg.  For me the main draw wasn’t so much the food as unexpected bins of lps filling the shop’s dusty back yard (was I their only customer? It seemed so!), mostly pop but with a single bin devoted to classical. I recall everything I bought there, for example, Otmar Suitner conducting Reger on RCA and a couple of HMV lps featuring the Georges Cziffra, one devoted to Beethoven variations, the other to madcap virtuoso showpieces (both now reissued in Warner Classics’ handsome Cziffra: Complete Studio Recordings 1956-1986, 41cds, 9029672924, c£118.00)

Once back home in our attic flat (we’re talking well over 50 years ago when we were newly-weds), I rushed to my modest hi-fi system to sample what I’d bought. The Beethoven, fine, much what I’d expected, brilliant reportage of ingenious ‘variations on a theme’. As to the showpieces lp, I was flummoxed. Being a Horowitz fan, and therefore used to teasing rubato, phrases that toyed with simultaneous perspectives, featherlight runs and thunderous climaxes, always with a musical end view, Cziffra’s racehorse antics, with his unbelievable finger velocity but to no obvious musical ends (a Brahms Hungarian Dance proved especially perplexing) left me cold. So that was that, a few Liszt Hungarian Rhapsodies and a couple of Philips lps excepted (heard much later, and all included in this set) – until I recently discovered Warners’ Complete Studio Recordings, and then I realised how wrong I’d been.

I’ll cite just a handful of telling examples where Cziffra the virtuoso bows to Cziffra the musician. First and foremost, the piece that for me encapsulates musical Romanticism’s chromatic heart, Liszt’s ‘Aux cyprès de la Villa d’Este, Threnody No. 1’ (from Annés de pèlerinage, book 3), secure Brendel territory (still is of course) but where Cziffra reacts to every aching modulation as if it were of his own making. This is truly profound playing. The same CD contains an electrifying account of Liszt’s Dante Sonata, a piece that in so many cases hangs – rather than generates – fire. Here a driving nervous energy will keep you poised on the edge of your seat. Chopin’s First Concerto under Manuel Rosenthal is limpid, poetic and relatively relaxed, Cziffra’s finger work crystal clear. The same CD (17) includes the version of the Andante Spianato et Grande polonaise brillante with orchestra, the gentle Andante perhaps the best example of Cziffra in Chopin ‘Nocturne’ mode, the Polonaise played with a winning lilt. Cziffra’s son, György Jr,  was a professional conductor and participated in several concerts and recordings with his father (commercial orchestra-only recordings including Debussy and Brahms-Schoenberg, and Concertos with his father are included in the set). However, his promising career was tragically cut short by his death while still in his late thirties in an apartment fire. Cziffra, who was devastated by his loss, never again performed or recorded with an orchestra, and some critics have opined that the severe emotional blow affected his playing quality. Speaking personally, I don’t sense that being the case.

Mozart’s A minor Sonata K.310, features a wonderful performance of its central Andante cantabile played by Cziffra with a bewitching sense of stillness. Better still, on the same CD (21), is Beethoven’s Sonata No.22 in F major (various Beethoven sonatas are scattered throughout the set), the ‘Tempo di minuetto’ alternating soft, warmly shaded chords (especially telling in the bass register) with a dramatic staccato. Cziffra’s way with Schumann was a revelation, the Toccata (CD 25), played swiftly and multifariously coloured (such spot-on articulation), a riot of contrasts, likewise the Symphonic Studies (including the posthumous studies), from the mellow statement of the opening theme, then on to the flexibly handled first variation, the easeful brilliance of the third and so forth. Two versions of Carnaval are no less remarkable, while the Eighth Novelette (rather like Papillons, in style and length) finds Cziffra indulging the music’s innate sense of fantasy.

So much more, Baroque miniatures, a couple of Schubert Impromptus, the F minor another highlight though I rather baulked at ten more Brahms Hungarian Dances that followed, senselessly overworked (at least to these ears). Other transcriptions (on Johann Strauss and Romanian themes in particular) work much better. Cziffra, who was born into a poor Romani family and in wartime was imprisoned by Russian partisans (he had been sent to the Russian front) was shy and reserved.  But he was also brave. After attempting to escape Hungary in 1950, he was again imprisoned and subject to hard labour between 1950–1953. Cziffra frequently performed with a large leather wristband (frequently seen in photographs) to support the ligaments of his wrist, which were damaged after he was forced to carry 130 pounds of concrete up six flights of stairs during his two years in a labor camp. In 1956, he successfully escaped with his wife and son to Vienna, where he was warmly received.

Listening to Cziffra storm through Liszt’s Grand Galop Chromatique is like witnessing the soundtrack to those tempestuous years. Do consider buying this set. Georges Cziffra was a good deal more than a pianistic athlete and the depth of his musical responses is on offer here time and again. A wonderful and often humbling collection.

An unmissable collection on Warner Classics

LISZT TO START WITH

I think it’s fair to say that Liszt’s only piano sonata virtually defines the genre for the Romantic era. For me, recordings-wise, Clifford Curzon (Decca) offered an unforgettably thoughtful first port of call, then Horowitz’s dashing and technically dazzling 1932 HMV recording was reissued as a ‘Great Recording of the Century’, and that was it – until I discovered Alfred Cortot’s version, the work’s first-ever recording, set down in 1929. Here at last was the Wagnerian sweep that I’d heard in my head and heart but never experienced either or on disc or ‘live’: Cortot seemed to embrace the entire work as a single gesture, with never a rest that lacked musical meaning or a misplaced nuance. In a phrase, Cortot’s Liszt B minor was – and for me still is (in spite of such giants as Barère, Gilels and Richter) – the greatest ever recorded. But then Cortot as a young man was an ardent Wagnerian who conducted the Paris première of Götterdämmerung. That was in 1902 whereas in 1905 he formed a trio with violinist Jacques Thibaud and cellist Pablo Casals that soon established itself as the leading piano trio of its era. The entire run of their recordings – Haydn, Beethoven (the ‘Archduke’), Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann – is included in the newly reissued Alfred Cortot Anniversary Edition (40 cds, previously on EMI but now on Warner Classics 5054197471940, c£90.00) which, in the celestial realms of great piano collections must take its place alongside Rachmaninoff’s, except that, happily, there’s a lot more of it.

PRÉLUDES BEYOND COMPARE

Like his Beethovenian contemporary Artur Schnabel, Cortot didn’t prioritise digital accuracy. Where other pianists were squeaky-clean he might stumble, sometimes in the least demanding passages. His mind was obviously elsewhere, a location accessible by invitation only, and fortunately for us we’re on the guest list. Wherever Cortot forged his emotionally exhausting lightning tour through Chopin’s Op.28 Préludes (four times represented, from the 1920s to the 1950s) took unrest as a given. Cortot reveals Chopin’s breathless confessional as a single, whistle-stop journey, from aching melancholy (E minor), to the songful B minor, the grandly assertive E major, the galloping G sharp minor, the stormy E flat minor, a storm that threatens at the centre of the otherwise peaceful D flat major Prélude (popularly known as the ‘Raindrop’), a passage where interestingly on his 1926 and 1942 versions (but on in 1933) Cortot adds a rolling bass embellishment as if to suggest retreating thunder. The lightning B flat minor Prélude proves that when in the mood Cortot could go like the clappers (this must be among the fastest – and, in general, the most accurate – renditions ever recorded, specifically in 1933). The F minor and G minor Préludes cast a threatening spell, the C minor, pious nobility, while the closing D minor seems to recap everything that has gone before, albeit without much in the way of hope for the future. At least that’s Cortot’s slant on the piece.

SONATAS TO SAVOUR WALTZING IN STYLE

The 1933 account of the Second (‘Funeral March’) Sonata may lack Horowitz’s overcast sense of melodrama (specifically in 1950, RCA) but the windblown finale works wonderfully well. Cortot’s way with the B minor Sonata (best in 1933) is like the Préludes a masterly lesson in how to employ rubato, how to chart the rise and fall of a phrase or calculate an effective diminuendo. The Largo must surely be among Chopin’s greatest single movements and Cortot’s handling of the diminuendo from 5:21 is magical. The Fourteen ‘standard’ Waltzes (the 1934 set) were my own introduction to Cortot’s art some 60 years ago and I was mesmerized, as I was again today when listening to them yet again. The brilliant E flat leaps energetically, the C sharp minor alternaties a delectable lilt with excitable swirling interludes and the F minor can’t quite escape the melancholy that sits at its heart. Cortot is alive to these and many other aspects of this wonderful music.

BUTTERFLIES AND MORE

Cortot’s love of Chopin was possibly equalled only by his love of Schumann. Both composers are healthily represented in the Edition, again in multiple versions, but only one of Schumann’s Op. 2, Papillons (1935), written when he was 21. I shan’t attempt a detailed resumé of these dozen ‘butterflies’ save to say that Cortot chases from one to the next while capturing their very different colours and moods, much as he does for Chopin’s Préludes. Davidündlertänze is another favourite, in spite of the smudges that stain the third section ‘mit humour’. The pay-off is the delightful ‘envoi’ that closes the work, handled by Cortot with disarming charm. Beyond Schumann comes a sequence of Schubert Ländler equalled in my experience only by Ignacy Friedman (though the specific selection isn’t the same). Returning to Liszt, Cortot’s account of St. Francis Walking on the Water is truly inspirational (only Claudio Arrau comes close as part of a live recital) and if Bach’s Organ Concerto No. 5 in D minor after Vivaldi opens as if it’s escaped from Bartók’s rather less amiable-sounding suite Out of Doors, the central Sicilienne is a perfect example of Cortot’s singing tone. Then, beyond a warming Purcell sequence, we hear the perfect three-minute ‘demo’ of Cortot’s art ‘Des Abends’ from Schumann’s Fantasiestücke, Op. 12 (recorded in 1937). That’s on Disc 16, track 30. There’s some memorable Debussy to relish too, including the First book of Préludes and Children’s Corner – Cortot’s approach so much more playful than his equally distinctive German contemporary Walter Gieseking. Then there’s Ravel (a wonderful Sonatine), Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieueses, Weber’s Second Sonata, a complete set of Bach Brandenburg Concertos directed by Cortot who also offers a memorably Gallic account of the Fifth Concerto’s first movement cadenza, duo sonatas with Jacques Thibaud and numerous shorter pieces.

WORDS, MUSIC AND CORTOT TEACHING

And the rest? Debussy songs with Maggie Teyte that once heard remain definitive benchmarks for all time. Has anyone captured the sensuality of ‘Le chevelure’ from Chansons de Bilitis as comprehensively as do Teyte and Cortot? If they have I’m unaware of the recording. As to Schumann’s Dichterliebe although there’s a rather beautiful (and officially unissued) post-War recording by Cortot and Gérard Souzay, the 1936 78s with baritone Charles Panzéra (unfortunately the year of recording has slipped off the jacket copy) shares laurels with the great Danish tenor Aksel Schiøtz and Gerald Moore (Danacord) as being among the most moving versions you’re ever likely to hear. Beethoven sonatas (Nos. 8, 14, 23, 25, 26, and 27) make an appearance at the end of the set in recordings taped between 1958 and 1960, lecture performances where listening to Cortot’s lilting voice is virtually as enjoyable as hearing him play (which he does rather well for much of the time as it happens). The very last track is a speech in memoriam Dinu Lipatti.

COMPARING EDITIONS

Needless to say I cannot recommend this set highly enough but how does the Warner presentation differ from its 2012 predecessor on EMI? Certainly the superb transfers – effected by Art and Son Studio – are, so far as I can tell, exactly the same, and I can’t offer higher praise than that. So is François Anselmini’s excellent booklet note (which doesn’t fight shy of dealing with some tricky wartime political issues). What has changed is that the new box is far sturdier than the old and the actual disc information has been transferred from the booklet to the rear of each card cd dust jacket. EMI offered the same information in a thicker book but the actual CDs were slipped into plain wrappers, which made locating a disc more difficult if your discs had somehow fallen out of order. I think the newer presentation is in general superior.

HEIRS AND MEMORIES

Did Cortot have any heirs? To be honest, I don’t think so. Samson François came close and Benjamin Grosvenor is on a similar wavelength but he’s still young and we’ll have to see where his career – and artistic development – take him. Otherwise Cortot’s unique brand of musicianship did not survive his death on the 5th June 1962, except via recordings.

In closing there are two musicians who shared my love of the musical past who I feel prompted to remember. The first is my late, dear friend John de Grey who was at our wedding almost 52 years ago, and who had himself briefly studied with Cortot. The other is Menahem Pressler, lost to us more recently but whose wisdom on all matters pianistic would certainly have been stimulated by this wonderful set. How I’d love to have shared it with him. But we still have the records which, being so potently expressive, evoke memories more powerful than mere words can equal. Thank goodness that they do.

Berky’s Bruckner Archive

Among the most dazzling discographies in existence is John F. Berky’s Bruckner site ABRUCKNER.COM (the discography specifically is at https://www.abruckner.com/discography1/) where every known recording of a work by Bruckner – ‘live’ or ‘studio’ – including every edition of every symphony, is listed in detail, whether or not readily available. My first reaction when visiting the site (specifically to check out Sergiu Celibidache’s Bruckner recordings, of which there are dozens) was ‘I give up’. Surveying this territory thoroughly would take more than a single lifetime and that would mean banishing the presence of a thousand or more great musical works that lay outside the Bruckner remit. So I now use it only to check facts ….. and for that it’s an invaluable resource.

Enter Gerd Schaller with the 1874 Fourth Symphony

With the composer’s 200^th birthday due to fall in 2024 more than one conductor is rising to the challenge of recording all the symphonies in all the versions including intermediate variants. One such braveheart is Gerd Schaller, who studied music at the Würzburg College of Music and medicine at the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and whose Bruckner project is well on the way to completion (an intermediary 20-cd set is out on Hänssler Profil cPH22007, £57.50) but the latest single CD highlights the 1874 version of the Fourth Symphony, a world very different to the ones we’ve known under the likes of Böhm, Karajan, Furtwängler, Knappertsbusch, Wand and so forth.

Imagine spending your life at a favourite outdoor haunt, seduced by familiar flora and fauna, by the width of the sky space, the local sounds and smells and the people you love best. You nod off then wake up and to your amazement everything has changed, the flowers have been transplanted, so have the trees, faces are only vaguely familiar, voices too and the blue skies are now threatened by distant storm clouds.

You rub your eyes but it’s no good, this new version of reality is here to stay. Musically, this means a plethora of details have also changed, including added counterpoint and countersubjects, revised orchestration, and fresh themes sprouting among the thickets. It’s a weird but wonderful new terrain, especially the third movement scherzo which trades the familiar bumpety-tump of the 1878/1880 version with its hunting calls for a lone, shofar-like horn that seems to be in league with those clouds, summoning inclement weather from the far distance. Interestingly it fits the finale far more appropriately than does the rewrite and the finale itself is also significantly different.

I much prefer this edition and Schaller’s version gives is to you straight, with no frills, no longueurs or attempts to temper the landscape, no AstroTurf to make the ground more comfortable; this is not a comfortable place to be in. The Philharmonie Festiva (which Schaller founded), recorded live (with considerable realism), offers a dedicated, well played,  unselfconscious performance without mannerism, a reading that suits Bruckner’s musical honesty ‘to a T’.  (Bruckner Symphony No. 4 [1874 version], Philharmonie Festiva, Gerd Schaller, Hänssler Profil PH22010, c£13.50).

The Fifth Symphony from the organ loft

Schaller is also a first-rate organist and his organ arrangements of Bruckner’s Ninth and Fifth Symphonies suggest a new listening location, less a cathedral than sunny grasses outside while the Cathedral doors are flung open, the organ is playing full blast and mountain ranges dominate the distant skyline. Not being an organist myself I can’t say quite how Schaller achieves the immense range of colour and dynamics on offer here, but I’d advise the curious to beam up 7:09 into the massive finale (23:06) where one of the Fifth Symphony’s principal themes thunders out as if Zeus himself had visited the human fold. Beyond that, and especially in the closing pages, the music inhabits elevated realms and although, inevitably, the loss of subtler orchestral textures will register with those who know the orchestral original especially well, tempi are never sluggish and the overall impression is mightily impressive (Bruckner Symphony No. 5 arranged for organ – world première recording – Gerd Schaller playing the organ at former Cistercian Abbey, Ebrach, Franconia, Germany. Hänssler Profil PH23014, rec. 2022, c£21.00)

Klemperer: The Warner Classics Remastered Edition, 95 cds (Warner Classics 5419725704, c£175.00, released June 2^nd)

Ernest Ansermet: The Stereo Years (Decca 4851583, 88 cds, c£199.00)

SOME GREAT RECORDINGS THAT THOSE OF US ‘OF A CERTAIN AGE’ GREW UP WITH

If you were raised towards maturity in the late nineteen fifties/early sixties and you loved ‘classical’ music, the miracle of stereo sound was intoxicating. Aside from spectacularly cinematic lp series such as Mercury Living Presence and RCA Living Stereo there were skilfully if rather less system-flattering productions by Decca (specifically from Geneva) and Columbia (at the Kingsway Hall in London) focusing on the artistry of two significant and hugely experienced conductors, Ernest Ansermet and Otto Klemperer. Both are currently being celebrated with sizeable boxed sets (details quoted above), in the main using state-of-the-art digital transfers, EMI employing the skills of Art and Son Studio, Annecy, for what appear to be complete sonic overhauls since their last CD incarnations. In the case of Ansermet, I’d imagine that Decca have called on (excellent) transfers already issued by Australian Decca.  

CONDUCTORS AS ‘CHARACTERS’

Concerning these vintage titans, how might we speak of disparities and similarities? Early on in his career Klemperer had converted from Judaism to Catholicism.  He remained a practising Roman Catholic until 1967, when he left the faith and returned ‘home’ so to speak. Religious issues aside, his intellectual and philosophical remit was substantial. Wieland Wagner once summed Klemperer up with the words ‘Classical Greece, Jewish tradition, medieval Christendom, German Romanticism, the realism of our own time, make Klemperer the conductor a unique artistic phenomenon.’ He was also stoical in the face of mental and physical hardships and as a way of escaping these and other impediments was an habitual repertoire adventurer.

In his pre-War years with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, despite box-office constraints, Klemperer successfully introduced his public to rarely heard works by Mahler, Bruckner and Stravinsky. He also programmed music from the tripartite oratorio Gurrelieder by his neighbour Arnold Schoenberg, who complained that he did not perform his works more often. Schoenberg good-naturedly brushed off this rejection and, as Klemperer always aspired to compose as well as to conduct, gave him composition lessons.

The fiercely anti-atonalist mathematics professor and founder of the Suisse Romande Orchestra Ernest Ansermet (who also composed) wouldn’t have been too enamoured with the idea that Klemperer was being tutored by Schoenberg, even though the various Klemperer works included in Warner’s box have a securely tonal base (try the lovely Brucknerian opening moments of the adagio from his Fourth Symphony on Warners’ bonus disc). As far as Ansermet was concerned employing twelve-tone techniques was a ‘Jewish’ idea (as espoused in his book, Les fondements de la musique dans la conscience humaine (1961)), a notion that calls in part on the phenomenologist philosopher Husserl (who, incidentally, was born a Jew) for support. ‘…. [The] Jew ‘suffers from thoughts doubly misformed [sic],’ writes Ansermet, ‘ ….thus making him ‘suitable for the handling of money’, and sums up with the damnable statement that the ‘historic creation of Western music’ would have developed just as well ‘without the Jew’. Mahler-lovers please note.

Racist ideas worthy of Wagner? Yes and no, ‘no’ ultimately you might say, considering Ansermet conducted and recorded such Jewish composers as Mendelssohn, Dukas, Bloch and Offenbach, had at least two Jewish concertmasters (Lorand Fenyvès and Michel Schwalbé) and collaborated with numerous Jewish soloists (Stern, Menuhin [playing Berg’s Violin Concerto, please note], Ellen Ballon, Arthur Rubinstein, Julius Katchen, George London, Zara Nelsova and so forth). Still, given the current climate I think it’s important to face these idiocies and their inherent contradictions whenever they arise, just to prove how little they mean. What worries me most is that Ansermet expressed them so late in life and at a time when the world was still reeling from revelations brought about by the liberated Concentration Camps. Shameful really.

CONTRASTING AND COMPARING

Still, for our purposes the music is the thing. How did these two very different characters stack up in musical terms, and were they similar in any ways? To the latter question the answer is a very positive yes. Neither conductor tended to hurry or had any truck with cosmeticizing music, polishing surfaces a-la-Herbert von Karajan and occasionally Carlo Maria Giulini. They were honest brokers, Ansermet in terms of balancing his less-than-pristine Suisse Romande forces, Klemperer in the way he organised the orchestral choirs of his vastly superior Philharmonia (later New Philharmonia) Orchestra, especially the spatially divided violin desks, which indulge in banter from left to right and back again. This stereo information benefits a work like Mahler’s Ninth – which Klemperer conducts with sovereign command – like night time spotlights on a football pitch. Producer Suvi Raj Grubb oversees an unusually rich sound frame, especially strong at the bass end of the spectrum.

The more interventionist Walter Legge could occasionally tiptoe one – maybe even two – steps too far, as he often did with Herbert von Karajan whose Philharmonia/Legge recordings so often resemble a perfectly kept saloon car with a faceless driver (the tail wagging the dog? A lamentably ‘molto legato’ Sibelius 2 for example). But with Klemperer the producer is always at the conductor’s service; for instance, Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony where in the closing saltarello the spirited playing is also exquisitely detailed, those violins darting to and fro like sylphs at dead of night. Legge has his place – and his skills – yes, but Klemperer is most definitely in charge.

Key Stravinsky works turn up in both sets. Pétrouchka emerges as his pathetic though occasionally manic self under Ansermet whereas on Warners it’s Klemperer who sounds – and please forgive me for writing this, but it’s true – who sounds ‘pathetic’ with playing that is lugubrious and slack. The two Pulcinella Suites offer significant differences in mood and colour, Ansermet’s the more overtly balletic of the two, Klemperer’s more classical rendition deliciously pointed and rhythmically firm. In the Symphony in Three Movements Ansermet sounds as if he could have benefitted from an extra rehearsal or two. Klemperer is better, especially towards the end of the first movement.

Both sets include Bach Suites, Nos. 2 and 3 with Ansermet (who also recorded five cantatas) but with Klemperer all four Suites were recorded twice, the 1954 mono set remarkable for its liveliness, precision and rhythmic attack. I’m reminded of an earlier Warners set of the same works, recorded pre-war by the Adolf Busch Chamber Players. The stereo set is also very good, but not as good. And there are the symphonies of Beethoven and Brahms. Both conductors turn in impressive Chorals, Klemperer most especially ‘live’ at the Royal Festival Hall, a two-mic back-up in case he was unable to complete the studio recording, which he did though the live recording is the more impressive performance by far. Both sets include alternative versions of individual symphonies, Ansermet in Nos. 1 & 8, Klemperer in Nos. 3, 5 and 7.

Klemperer also offers us an exciting pre-war Berlin set of Brahms 1 (one of a handful of featured recordings from the period) but his Philharmonia recordings still hold sway; aside from the sound, they’re so much better played. Bruckner is represented by Symphonies Nos. 4-9, the Fifth and Sixth holding their ground to this day. And if you want to experience a wry Klemperer half-smile, try his cockeyed Merry Waltz (Johann Strauss meets Charlie Chaplin) or the drily cynical world of Weil’s Threepenny Opera Suite.

Ansermet’s Debussy and Ravel recordings are mostly magical, his Schumann Second one of the best to be had (Klemperer recorded his version just a little too late in the day) his Delibes, Tchaikovsky and Glazunov ballets, very much the work of an experienced theatre conductor. They have charm, style and irresistible panache. Both conductors offer us finely detailed accounts of various Wagner orchestral excerpts (Klemperer is more generous in his selections than Ansermet and those dialoguing violin desks are especially effective in Tristan und Isolde’s ‘Prelude und Liebestod’). And that’s barely scratching the surface of what’s on offer.

IF YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE

Just so that you know the excellent vintage recordings commentator Jon Tolansky offers well-prepared sound documentaries and notes for both sets. If you want to peruse a complete list of each box’s contents consult Presto Classical’s website at https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products One or two faults on the Ansermet set that surfaced early on are I’m told being put right. Just so that you know the faults are as follows: instead of including versions of Debussy’s La mer from 1957 and 1964, as promised, we’re offered the 1957 version twice. For some purchasers Disc 37 will therefore need replacing. Also, there is a certain amount of unacceptable distortion towards the close of Brahms’s German Requiem which means a replacement copy of disc 20 too.  The address to email for replacement copies is mk.customerservices@umusic.com (for UK customers only – all international customers should go back to their point of contact and request a copy through them). My only gripe so far regarding the Klemperer set is that the version of Handel’s Concerto grosso Op. 6 No. 4 is the original, not, as stated, ‘arr. Schoenberg’ which in case you’re interested is Op. 6 No. 7 (a ‘live’ Klemperer recording of this [for me] grotesque ‘Schoenberg Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra after Handel’, is available as a download on Archiphon ARC-WU180-81).

As a final sign-off I’d say that although both collections feature memorably rich ingredients, and both are certainly well worth owning, viewed as a whole Klemperer’s achievement is set at a higher artistic level. In most cases, back in the day, although Ansermet provided us with musically rewarding first ports of call, better versions were yet to come later (except maybe in the cases of some Stravinsky and the major Romantic ballets). There’s nothing in his discography that quite compares with Klemperer’s Mahler 9, ‘live’ Beethoven 9 or those magisterial early recordings of the great Mozart symphonies. Buy both if you can, but if you can’t, I’d opt for Klemperer first.

The deadly calm that opens Miloslav Kabeláč’s 25-minute passacaglia-like Mystery of Time (Supraphon SU 4312-2, c£14.50) does not bode well, the constant heartbeat at the start of the piece soon quickening, Kabeláč’s instrumentation like a concerto for orchestra that follows on the heals of Honegger, Shostakovich, Lutoslawski and (especially) Hartmann – possibly the nearest points of reference for this magnificent music – time’s mystery anything but consoling.

The tension mounts layer on layer until towards the end the bass drum punctuates musical sentences and the work retreats to a soulful whimper, albeit in an ambiguous major key.  Kabeláč ‘s intention was to escape the grip of an authoritarian regime by looking up to the star-studded sky (he was fascinated by space and the cosmos generally). Like so many Czechs of the period (his dates are 1908-1979) he had known the evils of authoritarianism from both the right and the left, his Jewish pianist wife presenting him with an impossible quandary during the Nazi era: either divorce her or face expulsion from his job at Prague Radio. Needless to say, being a man of principle, he chose the latter option. And yes, his music was banned.

Marko Ivanovic conducts the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra with some distinction as part of an all-Kabeláč programme that also includes Hamlet Improvisations (marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth), Reflections and Metamorphoses II, composed just a few weeks before Kabeláč’s death. If you want an immediate sampling of Mystery of Time you can watch Jacub Hrusa conduct the piece on  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgeYpx-azF0

I cannot recommend this Supraphon CD highly enough, but I should also point you in the direction of the same artists performing Kabelác’s highly impressive cycle of eight symphonies (SU 4202 2, 4 cds, c£33.75), the Fifth of which, ‘Drammatica’ – a large-scale wordless vocalise for soprano (here Pavla Vykopalová) and orchestra – music that Kabeláč viewed as the opposite to his Mystery of Time, looking into her/his heart rather than up among the stars. There are parts of this 1960 score that anticipate a now-popular masterpiece composed sixteen years hence, Górecki’s Third Symphony. I’d suggest you sample either the third or fourth movements.

The 7^th Symphony, using texts from the Gospel of St John and The book of Revelation employs a reciter (here Lukás Hlavica) alongside the orchestra whereas the last symphony of all (words again taken from the Bible) is scored for soprano, mixed choir, percussion and organ. Britten is a possible prompt this time but maybe the best place to sample in the first place, symphonies-wise, is the ostinato-style finale of the First, music that heats then cools, always thinking while driving (though always with eyes on the road). I’d definitely call this the greatest Czech symphony cycle after Martinu and a must-have acquisition for anyone interested in 20^th century orchestral music.

Following Kristallnacht the German-born pianist Menahem Pressler and his immediate family, who were Jewish, fled Nazi Germany, initially to Italy, and then to Palestine. Pressler’s grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins all died in concentration camps. And yet in spite of that unspeakable tragedy I think it’s fair to say that remembering people who have passed prompts a special flush of warmth if you can remember them with humour. In the case of Pressler, who has died at the age of 99, the event was a luncheon in honour of the Beaux Arts Trio, which was founded on 1955. Those present included violinist Isidore Cohen, the cellists Bernard Greenhouse and Peter Wiley (who had just taken over from Greenhouse) and Menahem himself. We were chatting about advertising and I quoted the current HMV retail add that promoted a picture of Beethoven wearing a set of headphones, the top of the page bearing the fabled (apocryphal) Beethoven quote ‘In Heaven I shall Hear ….’ (Beethoven speaking to Goethe in 1812 apparently). At the bottom of the page, the somewhat glib but funny punchline ran ‘ …. But you don’t have to wait that long – visit HMV!’ I shall never forget Menahem’s reaction (he ROARED). Some years later I spent a wonderful afternoon with him and his delightful manager, the equally wonderful Annabelle Weidenfeld. Anecdotes were plentiful including the occasion when Menahem sought advice from the legendary pianist Artur Schnabel. ‘What do you want to play?’ Schnabel asked. ‘Debussy,’ replied Pressler. ‘Debussy?’ waved Schnabel as if the music was hardly worth bothering about. Although a formidable solo pianist early on (his LPs for MGM are highly rated and many, many years later he made a CD of Debussy’s music), it’s as the Beaux Arts’ musical bedrock that he will be most fondly remembered. Those records (reissued some years ago as 60 cds in a box) are true benchmarks, much as the contemporaneous recordings by the Amadeus Quartet. How lucky we are to have them as reference points, with Menahem Pressler as a guiding light for the Trio. God rest him.

Ondine’s most recent release featuring pianist Peter Jablonski also happens to be the best possible calling card for the highly gifted Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) (it’s on ODE 1427-2, £11.50). The opening Overture (1943) is an exact contemporary of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra (which Bacewicz wouldn’t yet have heard because the Bartók wasn’t actually premièred until the following year) and starts very much in the manner of the Concerto’s thrilling finale. The highly personably Piano Concerto (1949) should be far better known, its finale reminiscent of Martinu and Schmitt’s electrifying Tragédie de Salomé (‘Danse des éclairs’) whereas in the first movement Poulenc seems a credible point of reference.

Bacewicz really comes into her own with her Concerto for two pianos and orchestra of 1966 (this is its first digital recording, the excellent pianist Elisabeth Brauß being Jablonski’s duo partner for the occasion), with its darting clusters. Form is another a priority with her, delicacy too; she knows how to structure a piece, follow her intuition without being swamped by disparate ideas. But it’s her sound world that most seduces, brightly coloured busyness that brooks no compromise, and is never pushed off course.

The very idea of a Music for Strings, Trumpets and Percussion (1958) suggests echoes of Bartók and Frank Martin but although reminiscent of a style of writing dating back to the 1930s and 40s it casts its own spell. The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Nicholas Collon offer the soloists support that is both highly dramatic and, where needs be, sensitive to even the subtlest nuances (which are plentiful throughout all four works).

The recordings are superb, and the disc is also very well annotated. An earlier Jablonski disc of solo piano music by Bacewicz is out on ODE1399-2, c£12.75, and that too is to be much recommended. 

A sense of play is an uppermost priority in Lukás Vondrácek’s set of Rachmaninoff piano concertos + the Paganini Rhapsody with the Prague Symphony Orchestra under Tomás Brauner (Supraphon SU43232, 2 cds, c£18.50). Always a good point to wade in is the First Concerto’s last movement with its constant shifts from frenetic activity to poetic reflection, where Vondrácek, Brauner and the Prague players achieve excitement without breathlessness, and sentiment without sentimentality. As to the Fourth Concerto Vondrácek confesses (in the context of an excellent booklet interview) that for him ‘it does have a few empty, almost meaningless passages, yet they suddenly give way to beauty, unexpected, out of the blue.’ His approach certainly chimes with this ‘burst of sunlight’ idea. The finale suggests an accompanied Etude Tableau and again, Vondrácek’s playing (of the revised version), swift, motor-driven but never brickly. In the Paganini Rhapsody Vondrácek and Brauner play catch-up, one anticipating or jumping ahead of the other, which is very much the nature of the piece, but only really works if the players are up to it. Here they are.

The Second Concerto opens broadly, Vondrácek ushering in the orchestra with maximum grandeur before firing off in anticipation of the second subject, which he plays most poetically. The Third wafts in with cool assurance, then bubbles excitedly as if bound for wider waters (which of course it is), Vondrácek coaxing a maximum of expressive charm from the slower music though nothing we hear quite anticipates the breadth and drama of the big cadenza (an option not often taken, not even nowadays). In Vondrácek’s hands the confessional Adagio ‘Intermezzo’ asks as many questions as it answers. It’s as if you’re sitting in on the recreative process, your mind fast wired to that of the pianist. Once past most of the virtuoso acrobatics, the finale gradually takes on a level of melancholy that suggests that Vondrácek is living the music from the inside. How wonderful the sudden envoi at 9:15, just a few simple slow chords that just about say it all, an unforgettably poignant moment.

Thirty-six is still very young. Give him another thirty years and Lukás Vondrácek will probe even deeper into scores that he loves and that we should love more than we do. He inspires not only our admiration but our respect, and I’d place his playing of these mighty works alongside performances by Giltburg, Pletnev and others. The excellent recordings have plenty of presence.  

If there’s one thing you can always expect with Haydn, it’s the unexpected. No matter how many times you hear one of the major quartets, trios, piano sonatas or symphonies, the thrill of the new always lies in wait. Of course, nothing will quite work if the interpreters fail either to pull their weight or lose it (depending on the work in question) which is part of what makes Paavo Järvi’s Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen ‘London’ Symphony cycle such an enticing prospect. First up are the ‘Clock’ and ‘Drumroll’ symphonies (Sony Music/RCA  19658 80741 2), the ‘Creation’-like adagio that opens the former – time passing, perhaps? – falling away for the breeziest of allegros. Timps with hard sticks, spatially separated violin desks and gossamer textures keep the music airborne but come the Andante and time starts to race ahead of itself. Not without reason, mind: at 2:25 the clock’s movement leaps tellingly to life, Järvi and his Bremen players illuminating every busy strand of counterpoint (the woodwinds make a particularly impressive showing). At 4:35 a brief rest signals a darkening of tone, again marked by Järvi as meaningful. But what’s most impressive here is the trio, already striking because as written the flute and accompaniment aren’t on speaking terms – the strings refuse to budge harmony-wise, another unexpected twist – but here Järvi, aside from cueing a gentle easing of the pulse, has his flautist trace a subtle accelerando across the theme. Also note the lightly brushed strings and the duet between flute and bassoon.  From 6:57 into its Andante ‘The Drum Roll’’s celebratory tone marks a striking contrast with the movement’s sombre opening: the closing minute or so is pure genius and Järvi makes a beeline for the music’s inherent drama. Try also the curlicuing clarinet-led trio to the Menuet (at 2:05), so elegant, and much aided by refined playing. Järvi is an honest broker who in pursuit of the musical truth doesn’t take leave of his imagination. I’m already itching for the next disc in the series. Very strongly recommended.

Well, actually, it is. When I was young 75 seemed ancient and now, today, that I’ve reached this minor milestone, I can happily claim that although I still feel 19 ‘in my head’ (as the saying goes) the knowledge that I’m well and truly into senior citizenship offers me a weirdly comforting perspective. Yes, I’ve had my blind spots, misunderstood and been misunderstood, squandered love unwisely and been reckless, but I have also hit a few bullseyes. The first and most important is my wife Georgie, a diamond by my side for well over 51 years, always loving, caring, supportive, stimulating, mentally adventurous – as much on my behalf as on her own – and good fun. And my daughters Cessy and Vicky, now in their forties, but truly lovely people who I can always rely on for mutual companionship. And my gorgeous granddaughter Elizabeth, now in her first year at school. The joy I feel whenever I think of her – not to mention whenever I see her – is beyond the reach of words.

There are my brothers of course, Jonny and Jez, warmly considerate and full of humour, their daughters too, not forgetting my dear youngest brother Andrew who died a couple of years ago at the age of 59. Although occasionally troubled by demons we had some wonderful times together. Then there are various aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews and my son-in-law Iain.  And friends? Plenty. Tully, Karen, Lana, Mike, Nigel, Jon, Eric, Trevor and Charles Beldom (both deceased) and many more. And there are of course my constant numinous companions, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Ruskin, Whitman, Sontag, Buber, Emily Dickinson, Blake, Joseph Roth, Wallace Stevens, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Bartók, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Delius, Elgar, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Schumann and countless others.

And lastly there are my much-valued readers and, until a few years ago, listeners, who invariably keep (or kept) in touch, sharing opinions on music and other topics, mostly with affection and intense interest. I owe you all a debt of gratitude and hope that I’ll be around a little while longer to share more of what’s worth sharing.

Love,

Rob

Being the grandson of Ukrainian immigrants myself I can well understand Parnassus’s cover notice for their album ‘Great Musicians of Ukraine – Special Charity Album’ (PACD96087, £8.75) regarding “musicians largely forgotten outside Ukraine, and musicians very well-known – but not properly remembered as Ukrainian.” In fact, it wasn’t until after I’d made three trips to Russia, and the finer facts of Vladimir Putin’s intentions became clear, that I thought of myself as a maternal grandson of Ukrainians (Kyiv and Odessa) rather than a proud inheritor of Russian culture and all it entails, especially regarding music. But you live and learn, and this marvellous disc of historic recordings – please note that the income after costs will all go to the Ukrainian people’s charity: https://www.razomforukraine.org/ – celebrates one of the greatest musical traditions in existence. Alto are the distributors, and as the release date is May 5^th you can always order in advance from http://www.prestomusic.com.

Contents-wise the 25-track programme closes with soprano Klavdya (Claudia) Novikova singing ‘I can’t refrain from laughing’ which sounds for all the world like it could be called ‘The Laughing Policewoman’. I don’t think I’ve laughed out loud more heartily in response to a song for years, and I didn’t understand a word of what she was singing about. Other vocal tracks include the area’s greatest bass after Chaliapin, Mark Reizen, singing the powerful aria ‘When I am weakened by the years’ from Taras Bulba by the Romantic Ukrainian composer, pianist, conductor and ethnomusicologist Mykola Lysenko (not to be confused with Trofim Lysenko whose ideas and practices contributed to the famines that killed millions of Soviet people). To open the programme Lysenko’s granddaughter Ryda plays a very Scriabinesque Intermezzo.

Other pianists include the Felix Blumenfeld-pupil Simon Barère who shows miraculous dexterity in Scriabin’s Etude for piano left hand while Benno Moiseiwitsch rows sombrely in time with Anton Rubinstein’s Barcarolle, sombrely that is until the arrival of a jaunty middle section. Prokofiev selections are played by the composer himself (Suggestion diabolique, a stunning performance), Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels. Cellist Gregor Piatigorsky demonstrates his characteristically vibrant tone in ‘Masques’ from Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet ballet and I’d never realised what a seductive player Boris Kroyt (later of the Budapest Quartet) was in his relative youth. We hear him in 1922 playing a Chopin Nocturne with piano. Other Ukrainian violinists represented are David Oistrakh and Nathan Milstein.

So much more to relish, many of the tracks vocal, the most memorable being a duet from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette featuring one of the last century’s most haunting voices, the tenor Ivan Kozlovsky heard in duet with the sweet-tone soprano Antonina Nezhdanova accompanied in 1939 by her husband the well-known composer-conductor-pianist Nikolai Golovanov.  

Other duets and solos focusing on more rarely heard singers are hardly less appealing but I must mention the disc’s single stereo item, a Ukrainian song (sung in Ukrainian) ‘Chernoe more moe’ featuring the father of the pianist Vladimir Feltsman, Oscar, touching and oh! so musical. And to close that classic Twenties’ musical depiction of whirring machines by Mossolov, Iron Foundry, built on pounding ostinati working in tandem to create the sound of a factory. The recording we hear – surely the work’s first – is a real thriller, very well transferred and featuring Orchestre Symphonique de Paris under Julius Ehrlich (of the State Opera, Leningrad).

So all in all a remarkable collection, essential listening for anyone interested in significant performances from the last century.