ENCORES
ALFRED CORTOT, Piano
Sceptics who wonder about why French-Swiss
pianist Alfred Cortot (1877-1962) was considered of the piano’s greats need
only sample this disc of 78 rpm recordings he made for the Victor Talking
Machine Company in 1925 and 1926. The title “Encores” is misleading because of
the limitations of the recorded medium, which dictated a maximum of four plus
minutes per side. That would explain the presence of half a performance of
Chopin’s First Ballade from 1925, the
first half having mysteriously gone missing from posterity. A 1926 complete
performance of the same work reveals his majesty and command.
Cortot the virtuosic showman is never in doubt
when one listens to his takes on Weber’s vertiginous Invitation to the Dance or Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies No.2 (with his own fancy cadenza ad libitum) and No.11
and a seemingly effortless Rigoletto
Paraphrase. The occasional wrong notes, caught in the white heat of
performance are more than tolerable. For more subtle pleasures, his own
transcription of Brahms’s Lullaby,
the Schubert-Liszt Litany, Chopin’s Aeolian Harp Étude, Berceuse and a most elegant Waltz
in C sharp minor (Op.64 No.2). Here is mandatory listening for all serious
students of the piano.
THE SILVER VIOLIN
NICOLA BENEDETTI, Violin
Decca 478 3529 / *****
The Silver Violin is an anthology from the Golden Age of
music for the silver screen, a bygone era when there was little or no
distinction between serious composers and movie composers. This is best
personified in the character of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), the
Viennese Jewish child prodigy composer whose emigration to American saved his
career and life from the Nazi Holocaust. His gorgeously lyrical Violin Concerto, premiered by Jascha
Heifetz, recycles music from four feature films, including Another Dawn and The Prince
And The Pauper. It rightfully takes its place among the 20th
century’s most popular concertos. From the same pen come Pierrot’s Dance-Song and Marietta’s
Song from the opera Die Tote Stadt
(The Dead City), arias which sound
just as beautiful on the violin.
Young
British violinist Nicola Benedetti performs these with sumptuous beauty, her
selections leaning more towards Eastern Europe , which tend to be melancholic and wistful in temperament.
Shostakovich offers three haunting tracks, from films The Gadfly and The
Counterplan. Even American John Williams’s Main Theme from Schindler’s
List falls within this aesthete. The inspired choice is the inclusion of
Mahler’s early but dark single-movement Piano
Quartet. Mahler died just before movies became in vogue, but this music has
earned its place in the 2010 psychological thriller Shutter
Island
BOOK IT:
NICOLA BENEDETTI plays Korngold’s Violin Concerto with the Singapore
conducted by Neeme Järvi
1 & 2
February 2013
Esplanade Concert Hall at 7.30 pm
Tickets available at SISTIC
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