CATOIRE / SHERWOOD Piano
Concertos
HIROAKI TAKENOUCHI,
Piano
Royal Scottish National
Orchestra
Dutton 7287 / ****1/2
This is a World Premiere recording of two
Romantic piano concertos one is unlikely to hear in a live performance anywhere
or anytime soon. It is a pity since both works have much overflowing lyricism,
sparkling pianism and musical substance to offer. Although Russian composer of
French descent Georgy Catoire (1861-1926) was a closer contemporary of Arensky
and Glazunov, his Piano Concerto in A
flat major (1909) is more aligned to the aesthetics of Rachmaninov and the
early Scriabin. Parts even sound like the dramatic overwrought scores of those 1930s and 40s British movies,
which allow for much wallowing in lush harmonies.
German-born composer Percy Sherwood (1866-1939)
of English ancestry is even more obscure. His Second Piano Concerto in E flat major (1932-33) is anachronistic
for its date of composition, Schumannesque gestures and Lisztian opulence in
the age of aggressive modernism and atonalism. Both concertos play over the
half-hour mark, typical for works of this genre to fit standard concert
programmes. Performed with ardent advocacy and rare relish by the London-based
Japanese pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi and Scotland
BRITISH CLARINET
CONCERTOS
MICHAEL COLLINS,
Clarinet
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Chandos 10739 / *****
This
new release by British clarinettist Michael Collins introduces three clarinet
concertos that deserve to be in the standard concert repertoire, alongside
Mozart’s indestructible classic. Charles Villiers Stanford’s Concerto Op.80 (1902) was originally
conceived for the German Richard Mühfield, who had earlier premiered Brahms’s late
Clarinet Sonatas and Quintet. The style is unequivocally
Romantic, with long-breathed melodies that linger on ever so inviting and a
vigorous finale reminiscent of Brahms and Bruch. Ironically, there is even a
theme introduced by the brass that sounds positively Wagnerian.
Gerald
Finzi’s Concerto (1948-49), the most
substantial work, has claims to be one of the great 20th century
clarinet concertos, even if its influences are also strongly Romantic. The
three movements are the summation of the art itself; passion and drama in the
first, romance for the central Adagio,
with humour and wit lighting up the Rondo finale.
Malcolm
Arnold’s Concerto No.2 (1974) is an
unusually eclectic one, written for jazz great Benny Goodman and playing for
only 16 minutes. Its first movement cadenza supplied by Richard Rodney Bennett
includes quotes from Beethoven’s Fur
Elise and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue,
while the 2-minute-long finale is a Joplinesque dance entitled The Pre-Goodman Rag. Collins’s committed
advocacy and virtuosity make these works mandatory listening for all wind
enthusiasts.
DVORAK
Cello Concerto
BRAHMS
Academic Festival Overture
LI-WEI
QIN, Cello
Decca 889
8529 / *****
Perhaps
the greatest performance in Singapore of Antonin Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor took place on 10 February 2012 at the Esplanade Concert Hall. This is
the live recording from that concert, one that highlights not just the
virtuosity of Chinese-Australian cellist Li-Wei Qin but also how well the
Singapore Symphony Orchestra led by Lan Shui responds as a sympathetic and
sensitive accompanist. Very often one is drawn to the quality of the orchestral
playing, especially the marvellous woodwind and brass contributions. These rapt
moments complement Qin’s gorgeous tone and long-breathed passages on his 1780
J.B.Guadagnini cello.
A
most apt encore was Dvorak’s Silent Woods
(known in Czech as Klid), a short
but breathtakingly lyrical piece for cello and orchestra transcribed from the
suite for piano duet From The Bohemian
Forest. Also from the same concert was Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture, no mean makeweight that brings together
a collection of student songs, closing with the rowdy paean to drink Gaudeamus Igitur. Applause from the
concert has been edited out and the audience is remarkably silent, a
considerable feat in itself. This disc represents excellence all around.
BOOK IT:
LI-WEI QIN Cello Recital
with BERNARD LANSKEY, Piano
Music at an Exhibition Series
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