CD Reviews (The Straits Times, May 2015)

BRAHMS Works for Solo Piano Vols.2 & 3

BARRY DOUGLAS, Piano

Chandos 10757 & 10833 / ****1/2

The renowned Irish pianist Barry Douglas' survey of the complete solo piano music of Johannes Brahms continues with the schema of short pieces juxtaposed with a major work. The German composer's three piano sonatas are large-scaled early works, wrought from a hot-headed and less than subtle barnstorming young Turk, who was still under the thrall of Beethoven. His Second Sonata in F sharp minor (Op.2), the main work of Volume 3, suffers from a surfeit of rhetoric with themes that do not seem to build to any sustained statement. Much better is the Third Sonata in F minor (Op.5), which concludes Volume 2, where thematic unity within its five movements makes up for its sprawling 37 minutes.

The shorter pieces which open both discs are judiciously chosen and well sequenced. Volume 2 contains three Ballades (from Op.10 and Op.118), which are totally varied in mood and style. Volume 3 opens with 16 Waltzes (Op.39), performed with elegance belying their humble length and origin. This is followed by the underrated and rarely heard Theme And Variations in D minor, a masterly transcription of the second movement from Brahms' String Sextet No.1. Both also contain a selection of Intermezzos, the preferred description of his later pieces, which are true gems. Douglas is a most persuasive interpreter, a true Brahmsian who will not disappoint.

MONIUSZKO Overtures

Warsaw Philharmonic / ANTONI WIT

Naxos 8.572716 / ****1/2

Stanislaw Moniuszko (1819-1892) has been regarded as the most prominent Polish composer between  Frederic Chopin and Karol Szymanowski. Like his famous compatriots, his music was also strongly nationalistic, as Poland valiantly fought off political and military advances of neighbouring Russia. Moniuszko was best known for his stage works, including operas and operettas, from which this all-orchestral selection draws. This well-filled disc however opens with Bajka (The Fairy Tale), composed in 1848, a stand-alone fantasy that unfolds dramatically like a Liszt symphonic poem or Dvorak overture.

Among the operatic overtures, there are some memorable melodies in Halka (1848, by far his best known opera), Paria (1869, considered a flop because the music was considered “not Indian enough”), The  Raftsman (1858) and The Countess (1859), which are substantial works. Much of the music in overtures like Verbum Mobile (1860), Jawnuta (1860), The New Don Quixote (1841) and The Hetman's Mistress (1854) is light and bubbly, in the manner of Suppe, Offenbach and Smetana, who were Moniuszko's close contemporaries. The Grammy Award winning team of the Warsaw Philharmonic and Antoni Wit give lively and ebullient performances that are unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, September 2012)

BRAHMS Piano Works Vol.1

BARRY DOUGLAS, Piano

Chandos 10716 / *****

The Irish pianist Barry Douglas was awarded first prize at the 1986 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition, having performed the First Piano Concerto by Johannes Brahms. His affinity for the German composer continues with this, the first instalment in a cycle of Brahms’s complete solo piano music. Instead of performing complete sets of his short pieces as they were published, Douglas’s selections are piecemeal in approach. This works well because he is able to vary the mood and colour with each succeeding piece, beginning with scorching virtuosity in the  Rhapsody in B minor (Op.79 No.1) and then moving into intimate vistas of the late Intermezzos, which in turn are separated by the more volatile and excitable Capriccios (three from Op.116). 

Douglas is fully attuned to Brahms’s big gestures and ever-shifting undercurrents of brooding disquiet. These accounts are probing, sometimes intense and even beautiful (the Ballade in B major, Op.10 No.4), but never superficial or flashy for its own sake. The concession for full-blown virtuosity finally arrives in the much earlier Variations And Fugue On A Theme By Handel (Op.24) where all stops are pulled. Each short variation is imaginatively shaped and the overall effect is kaleidoscopic, with an exciting build-up to the valedictory final fugue. Volume 2 will be keenly awaited.      

BRITISH CLARINET SONATAS

MICHAEL COLLINS, Clarinet

MICHAEL MCHALE, Piano

Chandos 10704 / *****

Many composers write their clarinet works with certain favourite virtuosos in mind. Mozart had Anton Stadler while Brahms’s muse was Richard Mühlfeld. British composers have Charles Draper and his student Frederick Thurston to thank, and this anthology is the fruit of their collaborations. The earliest music is the Sonata (1911) by Irishman Charles Villiers Stanford, which is heavily influenced by Brahms’s two late clarinet sonatas. The autumnal Romantic style of the German master is unmistakeable. Arnold Bax’s Sonata (1934) is more impressionistic, and like his tone poems on Celtic lore is very rhapsodic in character.

John Ireland’s evocative Fantasy-Sonata (1943), cast in the slow-fast form, is much in the same vein. Also included are the brief Pastorale (1913-14) by Arthur Bliss and the latest work, Herbert Howells’s Sonata (1947). Lyricism and mellowness of tone again rule in this two-movement work which is both mellifluous and memorable. Britain’s most celebrated clarinettist Michael Collins is in top form for these recordings, combining sensitivity and a wealth of nuances with an undeniable virtuosity. The fact that Collins’s teacher was Thea King, Thurston’s student and widow, also lends the performances some historical significance and a touch of authenticity.