CD Reviews (The Straits Times, June 2016)

EIGES Piano Music

JONATHAN POWELL, Piano

Toccata Classics 0215 / ****1/2

If one is familiar with the piano music of Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Medtner, the works of their contemporary Konstantin Eiges (1875-1950) would prove equally appealing. Born of Jewish ancestry in Ukraine, he studied both medicine and music, but devoted his life to music education. 

This first ever recording of Eiges' piano music by British pianist Jonathan Powell reveals a style common to Russian composers of the late Romantic era, stretching from the more traditional Glazunov and Liadov to the rising iconoclast Prokofiev.

Eiges acquits himself as a perfect miniaturist in the Skazki (Fairy Tales), Preludes and Poems, forms frequented by his more famous colleagues. Scriabin's febrile and volatile sensibilities, Rachmaninov's lyricism and passion, and Medtner's economy and development of simple motifs are all present. 

In the two more extended single-movement Sonatas-Poems, a heady union of Scriabin and Medtner is the result. More traditional are the Theme And Variations and Cuckoo, a short piece based on the familiar birdcall. Powell is a most persuasive advocate whose understated virtuosity and razor-keen reflexes are wholly in the service of this underrated and unjustifiably neglected music.

MY TRIBUTE TO YEHUDI MENUHIN

DANIEL HOPE, Violin et al

Deutsche Grammophon 479 5305 / ****1/2

This year marks the centenary of the birth of the great violinist and musical statesman Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999). British violinist Daniel Hope was a student, and whose mother served as Lord Menuhin's manager for many years. 

This touching tribute to his “music grandfather” includes music closely associated with Menuhin as well as pieces which teacher-and-student worked on together. It was Menuhin who gave the first performance of Mendelssohn's very early Violin Concerto in D minor, a work of Mozartian charm and simplicity which Hope plays with much sympathy and wide-eyed directness.

In Vivaldi's Concerto For 2 Violins in A minor and a selection of Bartok Duos, Hope is partnered by Simos Papanas and Daniel Lozakovitj, where he takes on the Menuhin mantle as mentor. Although Menuhin was unlikely to have known or heard the short pieces by Steve Reich, Hans Werner Henze, John Tavener, Jo Knumann or Bechara El-Khoury, the cosmopolitanism of the selection reflected his ethos and worldview. 

There is much poignancy to the last piece, Ravel's Kaddisch, a Jewish song of mourning which Hope performed in the very last concert Menuhin conducted, which made for a most moving tribute.       

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2014)

ESCAPE TO PARADISE

DANIEL HOPE, Violin

Royal Stockholm Philharmonic 

Alexander Shelley, Conductor

Deutsche Grammophon 479 2954 

*****

It has been said that the Second World War and rise of Nazism during the 1930s helped fuel the Hollywood film music industry. Persecution of European Jewry meant that many talented composers from Austria, Germany and Central Europe fled to the free world of America where they settled to compose and teach. This album by British violinist Daniel Hope celebrates the exodus and legacy of composers like Erich Korngold, Miklos Rozsa, Franz Waxman and others who helped define the romantic Hollywood sound we know and love.

The central work is Korngold’s well-loved Violin Concerto, which recycles music from four movies including The Prince And The Pauper. Hope’s sweet tone and broad sweep is a winner from start to finish. The Hungarian Rozsa is represented by themes from Ben Hur, El Cid and Spellbound, while the Italian Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco makes an entry with his popular Sea Murmurs. The latter was the teacher of John Williams, whose Theme from Schindler’s List has become ubiquitous in film-themed anthologies.

The raspy-voiced Sting makes a cameo in The Secret Marriage, which is an adaptation Hanns Eisler’s An Den Kleine Radioapparat (To A Portable Radio), a number from his Hollywood Songbook. The collection closes with an unaccompanied violin meditation on Herman Hupfeld’s Everybody’s Welcome, now better known as As Time Goes By from Casablanca. This album in a word: delicious.

NEW YEAR’S CONCERT 2014

Vienna Philharmonic 

DANIEL BARENBOIM, Conductor

Sony Classical 88883792272 (2CDs) 

****1/2

Every conductor who leads the Vienna Philharmonic’s legendary New Year Concerts tries to leave his mark on the proceedings by means of astute programming of works that best reflects his preferences and personal “credo”. In Daniel Barenboim’s second run on the podium, his work with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (which he co-founded with the late Edward Said in Palestine) was referenced. A number of works were broad hints on peace and reconciliation like Joseph Strauss’s Friedenspalmen (Palms Of Peace) and Johann Strauss the Younger’s Seid Umschlungen, Millionen (Receive My Embrace, Ye Millions), the latter being a quote from Schiller’s Ode To Joy. Also included was Johann’s Stormy In Love And Dance, a fast polka and the pseudo-Middle Eastern chanting in his Egyptian March. 

There is also a not-so-veiled tribute to his wife Elena in Eduard Strauss’s Helenen-Quadrille which recycles melodies from Offenbach’s operetta La Belle Helene. Biases aside, there is much to enjoy in favourites like Tales From The Vienna Woods and first performances of the Moonlight Interlude from Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio and the Pizzicato from Delibes’s Sylvia. As usual, the Blue Danube Waltz and Johann Strauss’s the Elder’s Radetzky March closes the proceedings, which no good Neujahrskonzert at the Goldener Saal of the Wiener Singverein can do without. Wallow and enjoy!

BOOK IT:

NEW YEAR’S EVE CONCERT

The Philharmonic Orchestra 

conducted by Lim Yau

School of the Arts Concert Hall

10 pm, Wednesday 31 December 2014

Tickets available at SISTIC   

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, June 2013)

ALEXIS WEISSENBERG

The Champagne Pianist

EMI Classics 679086 2 (10 CDs) / *****

This handsome box-set provides a timely reassessment of the recorded legacy of legendary Bulgarian-born pianist Alexis Weissenberg (1929-2011). He had suffered bad press during his later years, accused of an overly objective and unemotional view of the classics. This could not be further from the truth. 

The popular piano concertos, Tchaikovsky’s No.1 and Rachmaninov’s No.2 (timed at 40 minutes and 38 minutes respectively), take on an unusually expansive scale, despite having the usually business-like Herbert von Karajan at the helm. These do not sound sluggish or cautious in the least. Likewise in Rachmaninov’s No.3 with Leonard Bernstein, its staggering 47 minutes begin very leisurely but rightly builds up a head of steam by the time the 1^st movement’s cadenza is reached.

This cross-section of Weissenberg’s oeuvre shows him at his most eclectic. His own freely improvised cadenzas for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.21 make very interesting listening. His view of both Chopin concertos is unsentimental, and Brahms No.1 comes across as mightily stolid. These are contrasted by a flashy Prokofiev No.3, and a penchant for syncopated idioms, with Ravel’s G major Concerto and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and I Got Rhythm Variations in full tilt. 

His disc of Bach transcriptions, with a view to monumentality rather than authenticity, is excellent.  The encore album of assorted short pieces is also enjoyable, closing with his teacher Pancho Vladigerov’s jazzy Improvisation. His unique insights – urbane with a touch of the eccentric – are unlikely to be repeated.  

SPHERES

DANIEL HOPE, Violin

Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin

Deutsche Grammophon 479 0571 / ****

This concept album by British violinist Daniel Hope is founded on “music of the spheres”, the harmony of the worlds that transcends time, place and universes. He ponders: is there music beyond our insignificant existence, and what is the sound of the cosmos? All this nebulousness is translated into 75 minutes of still, quiet, serene and tonal music, easy listening for the ultimate chill out.

The usual suspects are here, including J.S.Bach (his Prelude in E minor) and Arvo Part (the ubiquitous Fratres). Whatever one thinks of the soppiness of Ludovico Einaudi (I Giorni and Passaggio) or Karl Jenkins (Benedictus from The Armed Man), they certainly could write tunes to save their lives. Also throw in some minimalists – Philip Glass (Echorus, a homage to the humanity of Yehudi Menuhin) and Michael Nyman (Trysting Fields from the Peter Greenaway movie Drowning By Numbers) into the mix.

Sound bites from younger composers like Lera Auerbach, Elena Kats-Chernin, Max Richter, Gabriel Prokofiev (Sergei’s grandson), Alex Baranowski, Aleksei Igudesman and Karsten Gundermann, touched with New Age sensitivities and here you have it all. Hope plays with much sensitivity and beauty. That the best music comes from Fauré’s choral piece Cantique de Jean Racine says it all; the whole seems less than the sum of its parts.