THE CHOPIN ALBUM
LANG LANG, Piano
Sony Classical
88725449132 / *****
After the success of his all-Liszt album, Lang
Lang’s attention to Frédéric Chopin’s piano music is no less keen or sincere.
Where a certain degree of self-indulgence is tolerated and even encouraged in
Liszt, Chopin is far less amenable to manipulation and vulgar heart-on-sleeve
display. Here, the 30-year-old Chinese wunderkind treads a fine line and comes
off with much credit. In the Twelve Études
Op.25, the technical becomes secondary to the poetry. How Lang floats a
seamless singing line in the Aeolian Harp
(No.1) or weaves melody through the filigree and bluster of the E minor (No.5)
and B minor (No.10) studies are admirable. Needless to say, the finger-twisters
that are the Study in Triplets (No.6)
and Winter Wind (No.11) hold no
terrors for him.
His true skill is in building the music up to a
crucial point, and delivering the coup de
grace by milking the climax with a pique of dynamic licence or outsized
sonority. By playing up these moments unseen in the notated score, he relives
an art last practised and preached by the master magician that was Vladimir
Horowitz. This album also includes the Andante
Spianato & Grande Polonaise Op.22, three Nocturnes, Waltz Brillante
Op.18 and the humble Minute Waltz.
Each comes with the grace, poise and respect that they deserve. Even from the
hands of the maverick that is Lang Lang, that is true advocacy for you.
BLOCH Schelomo / Voice
in the Wilderness
NATALIE CLEIN, Violin
BBC Scottish Symphony /
Ilan Volkov
Hyperion 67910 / ****1/2
If one has enjoyed the music in those epic
biblical movies of the last century, mostly starring Charlton Heston, chances
are one will also respond to the works of the composer who influenced that
genre. The Swiss-American Ernest Bloch (1880-1959) also wrote much secular
music, but he will be best remembered for the works that reflect his Jewish
heritage. The best known is Schelomo,
the 1916 Hebraic rhapsody on the life of Kong Solomon, scored with the cello as
his incarnation. The triumphs, trials and tribulations are indelibly captured
in the instrument’s deep and wide emotional reach, but its abiding message is
to be found in Solomon’s Ecclesiastes,
“All is vanity”.
Its companion is the six-movement Voice In The Wilderness (1936), a more
diffuse work that carries the same burden of toil and torment, always a Judaist
trait of the generations. Far lighter in mood are the three Hassidic-related
movements of From Jewish Life (1924),
orchestrated by Christopher Palmer. Completing this gorgeously performed
anthology by young British cellist Natalie Clein is Max Bruch’s popular Kol Nidrei. It uses several genuine
synagogue chants to sympathetic effect, remarkably so because Bruch was not
Jewish himself. Essential listening.
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