100 PIANO MASTERPIECES by Harmonia Mundi

 

100 PIANO MASTERPIECES

The Best of Classical Music

Harmonia Mundi

HMX 2908990.95 / 6 CDs

This is a compilation box I like. All classical music, and none of the tedious and vacuous New Age, minimalist, “easy listening” dross for spa resorts that passes as classics. Harmonia Mundi has done a fair job by cramming 100 tracks onto six discs. Some of these are very short, movements or bits excerpted from longer works, but there are some quite substantial pieces which are played complete. The discs are chronologically arranged, from Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) to William Bolcom (born 1938, still living) and performed by the French label’s roster of seriously good artists.

Not enough Paul Lewis heard here

The Baroque period is limited to a single track, Scarlatti’s Sonata K.492 (played by Korean Cliburn laureate Joyce Yang), understandably because Harmonia Mundi mostly involves period instruments in baroque music, and no harpsichord music has been included. So, no J.S.Bach or Handel to be heard here. Disc 1 has Haydn and Mozart sonata movements (from Alain Planes and Georges Pludermacher) and the late Brigitte Engerer playing Fur Elise. HM star pianist Paul Lewis is heard in Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (first and third movements only) and the Andante cantabile from the Pathetique Sonata. The sole curiosity is the Storm movement from Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony (transcribed by Liszt) played by Michel Dalberto. Interesting but hardly essential.

Michel Dalberto in Beethoven-Liszt

Alain Planes and Alexandre Tharaud
get the most tracks in all.

Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann occupy Disc 2. Instead of Lewis, Planes contributes single movements from a Schubert Sonata (D.625) and the Wanderer Fantasy, an Impromptu and a Moment Musicaux (No.3, of course). Alexandre Tharaud and Zhu Xiao-Mei perform the first movement from Schubert’s Divertissement a la Hongroise. Spanish phenom Javier Perianes gives a dextrous account of Mendelssohn’s Rondo capriccioso and two Songs Without Words. Very short Schumann movements, 8 minutes in total, come from 1997 Cliburn winner Jon Nakamatsu, Beatrice Rana and Engerer.

Jon Nakamatsu and Javier Perianes

The entirety of Disc 3, all 16 tracks, is devoted to Chopin. There are five Waltzes and three Preludes performed by Perianes and Tharaud. All three Nocturnes from Op.9 are heard complete by Engerer, a nice uninterrupted sequence. There are also complete performances of the Barcarolle (Perianes), Fantaisie-Impromptu (Olga Kern) and best of all, Polonaise-Fantasy Op.61 from Cedric Tiberghien. A rather satisfying 79 minutes.

Frederic Chiu and Cedric Tiberghien

More of the Romantics occupy Disc 4, including Liszt, Brahms, Chabrier and Janacek. Nakamatsu gets 17 minutes to play Liszt’s Impromptu (Nocturne), Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 and the transcription of Schumann’s Fruhlingsnacht. Frederic Chiu plays the Tarantella from Venezia e Napoli while Paul Lewis is heard in the central seven minutes of the Sonata in B minor. 

Great Russians:
Alexander Melnikov and Olga Kern

Brahms is shared by Tiberghien (two Hungarian Dances and a Ballade) and Alexander Melnikov (the first movement of Sonata No.2). HM would be remiss for missing out on 11 minutes of Chabrier (played by Planes). Thankfully, Janacek’s Sonata 1.X.1905 is heard in its entirety, followed by a movement from On The Overgrown Path (Planes). Kern plays Rachmaninov’s transcription of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee.

More great Slavs:
Nikolai Lugansky and Vadym Kholodenko

Disc 5 dwells on the French Impressionists and late Romantics. Debussy gets representation from Nikolai Lugansky (Deux Arabesques and Clair de lune) and Planes (Jardins sous la pluie and a posthumous Image). All the Ravel tracks come from Tharaud’s excellent integrale, including Jeux d’eau, Pavane pour un infante defunte, Un barque sur l’ocean, Ondine and the Prelude from Le Tombeau de Couperin. Sandwiched in between are Satie shorts (Tharaud), Scriabin Preludes (Vadym Kholodenko) and Rachmaninov Preludes (Lugansky). Particularly delightful is Rachmaninov’s Italian Polka from Brigitte Engerer and Oleg Maisenberg.

Frank Braley's Gershwin is excellent

The final disc is all 20th-century. Short pieces by Falla, Mompou, Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich are represented by the likes of Perianes, Planes, Melnikov and Chiu. American composers get the final say here too. Frank Braley gives a fine solo accounts of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, The Man I Love and Jasbo Brown Blues (from Porgy and Bess). The most contemporary piece is William Bolcom’s Graceful Ghost Rag (dating 1970) from Michael Sheppard. 

Michael Sheppard is totally
idiomatic in William Bolcom's rag

Here is a fine, no nonsense compilation box of piano performances that is well worth sampling or listening right through. Retailing at super budget-price, there is little or no cause for regret.

PEACEFUL PIANO MOODS from Deutsche Grammophon

 

PEACEFUL PIANO MOODS

Deutsche Grammophon

486 0288 9 / 4 CDs

I am not one for compilation CDs, simply because they tend to be brainless and clueless when it comes to programming choices, something like Singapore’s so-called classical radio station. These usually pander to the lowest common denominator, and the listener is left none the wiser. One of the worst compilations involved Universal Music and Popular Bookstore years ago, when one thought they should know better.

Peaceful Piano Moods is a four-disc compilation of quiet mood music, solo piano selections supposed to soothe the soul and calm the nerves. It comes from the vast back catalogue of Deutsche Grammophon and some newer recordings issued not in albums but for streaming and downloads but including here. There are 103 tracks in total, of which 59 (57.3%) are actually classical music, from J.S.Bach to John Cage. At worst, these represent musical wallpaper, best heard as muzak or elevator music in lounges too cheap to hire an actual pianist. At best, there are individual tracks by some of classical music’s greatest artists to enjoy, but all submerged within swathes of sound.

The four discs are named according to the times of day, Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night, and the pieces chosen more or less (usually less) conform to this. In another classification, the music is sub-themed The Eternal Piano (presumably the classics), The Infinite Piano (minimalist music, who knows?) and The Celluloid Piano (music from the movies). There are more tracks than I care to name that belong to the mind-numbing New Age, minimalist, quasi-spiritual, spa-friendly categories which can easily be generated by AI (artificial intelligence) nowadays, and are pretty much easily forgotten and thus disposable.

Lilya Zilberstein & Vikingur Olafsson

So what are the classical tracks worth listening to? Disc 1 (Morning) has two selections by Russian pianist Lilya Zilberstein who is excellent in Brahms’ Intermezzo in E flat major (Op.117 No.1) and Rachmaninov’s Prelude in G major (Op.32 No.5). Icelandic phenom Vikingur Olafsson’s transcription of Rameau’s Entree de Polymnie from Les Boreades called The Arts and The Hours is worth listening to, equal to the great baroque transcriptions of Busoni and Kempff. The great French duo of Katia & Marielle Labeque contributes the Berceuse from Gabriel Faure’s Dolly Suite. Just to name drop, there are also tracks from Martha Argerich (Schumann’s Traumerei), Daniel Barenboim (Liszt’s Consolation No.3), the late Tamas Vasary (Debussy’s Arabesque No.1) and Alfred Brendel (just one variation from Beethoven’s Eroica Variations)

The Kontarskys also perform
a few of Brahms' Waltzes Op.39

Disc 2 (Afternoon) has the box’s longest track in Debussy’s Prelude a l’apres-midi dun faune in its two-piano guise from the German duo of Alfons and Aloys Kontarsky. Another duo is Mary Howe’s arrangement of Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze, played by Lucas and Arthur Jusson. There are almost 9 minutes of Gershwin, Someone To Watch Over Me from Andre Previn and Love Walked In from Chinese pianist Moye Chen. Mozart’s most famous sonata movement, in C major (from K.545) is heard from Maria Joao Pires, no less. A surprise is to hear Beethoven’s little Minuet in G (a popular children’s piece) from Mikhail Pletnev. Shorts by classical piano’s hotshot youngsters – Yuja Wang, Behzod Abduraimov, Alice Sarah Ott, Seong-Jin Cho and Jan Lisiecki – may also be found here. A particular favourite of mine is Sergei Babayan playing Rachmaninov’s Lilacs. Clearly the best disc of the four.

Andrei Gavrilov gets the most
playing time of all the pianists.

Disc 3 (Evening) includes many Russian and Slavic pianists of distinction. Care to name them? What about Andrei Gavrilov (Grieg’s Summer Evening, Schubert’s Impromptu in G flat major and the Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations), Lazar Berman (Rachmaninov’s Moment Musicaux No.5), Anatol Ugorsky (Beethoven’s Fur Elise and Chopin’s Largo in E flat), Ivo Pogorelich (Scarlatti’s Sonata “Pastorale” K.9 and one of Mussorgsky’s Promenades from Pictures at an Exhibition) and Zoltan Kocsis (Debussy’s Page d’Album). The best tracks are Shura Cherkassky playing the Saint-Saens-Godowsky The Swan and Martha Argerich and Nicolas Economou in Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

We should have had more Chopin Nocturnes
from Maria Joao Pires!

Disc 4 (Night) begins promisingly but ends in disappointment. A disc that opens with Maria Joao Pires playing Chopin’s C sharp minor Nocturne (Lento con grande espressione) and Yuja Wang playing the Gluck-Sgambati Dance of the Blessed Spirits should never include mindless slop that passes as mood music by Max Richter, unless one is in dire need of a tranquiliser. Elsewhere, Francesco Tristano plays John Cage’s In A Landscape and Alice Sara Ott plays Grieg’s Solveig’s Song.

Francesco Tristano
in a landscape (sans gravity).

Va-va-voom Van-Ahn

There are world premiere recordings by Chad Lawson and Van-Ahn Nguyen, with the Australian-Vietnamese pianist playing film music tracks including from The Sound of Music, Sense and Sensibility, The English Patient and Missing. All very charming. One personal rant: I cannot tolerate artists who graffitise classical pieces by adding ambient sounds and noise, throw in a few string textures and claim these to be personal treatments of music they love. There are two such tracks (by pianists I shall not name) that have degraded Chopin and Satie. How very pretentious.

All in all, at budget price, one can find gems among the dross. If this helps you sleep better, Peaceful Piano Moods certainly beats paying a doctor to prescribe you sleeping pills. And probably a lot cheaper too.

PIANO LESSONS on DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON / CHRISTOPH ESCHENBACH / Review

 

PIANO LESSONS

CHRISTOPH ESCHENBACH, Piano

Deutsche Grammophon 483 9846 (16 CDs)

Did you once dread going for piano lessons, without having practised your set pieces over the past week? Did you remember lugging along that thickest of piano books, the Schirmer Sonatina Album and having to remember what you last played? Oh, those were the days, but little did you know all that slogging would eventually lead to that moment at a children’s concert, hogging the spotlight playing on the school piano, getting eliminated at some piano competition, or charming and amusing your friends at some soiree much later in life.

That ubiquitous yellow album
every piano student of a certain age lugs around.

This box-set assembled by Deutsche Grammophon brings back all those memories, and the names of composers you once thought were gods but have more or less been forgotten. And there is no better guide that the former child prodigy and now highly-respected conductor the German Christoph Eschenbach, in recordings he made in the 1960s and 70s.

Christoph Eschenbach as a very young pianist.

Ferdinand Beyer, not Porsche!

The first disc is devoted to the German Ferdinand Beyer (1803-1863), whose Vorschule im Klavierspiel (Pre-School in Piano Playing, Op.101) is a primer of basic keyboard technique. Most of the 63 very short and simple pieces are in C major (no sharps or flats) and G major (only F sharp), and built upon the interval of the third and triads. Master these, remove Beyer and slap on some 20th century minimalist name (Glass or Einaudi will do), and you are ready to make millions.

Czerny was Beethoven's student,
and Liszt's teacher. Great pedigree.

There is some perverse pleasure to be had listening to two discs of Carl Czerny (1791-1857) in 30 Etudes de mechanisme (Op.849) and The School of Velocity (Op.299), where mind-numbing note-spinning has been raised to a fine art. Note also those insanely high opus numbers (does the man even sleep?) More significantly, he had been the teacher of the child Franz Liszt, whose Study in Twelve Exercises (S.136) from 1826 strongly bore Czerny’s imprints. These would eventually become transformed into his 12 Transcendental Etudes (S.139).

The German Friedrich Burgmuller (1806-1874) was a contemporary of Robert Schumann, and his 25 Etudes faciles et progressives (Easy and Progressive Studies, Op.100) are far more charming than their titles suggest. These are more than a challenge for Schumann’s Album for the Young, which have unfortunately not been included in this collection, with the sole exception of The Merry Peasant (Op.68 No.10).

Whoever knew Friedrich Kuhlau
was blind in one eye?

Then we come to the Danish composer Friedrich Kuhlau (1786-1832), whose sonatinas for children have been lumped together with those of Italian composer Muzio Clementi (1752-1832). These are highly effective primers for beginners of the piano, and can sound impressive in the right hands. I have personally heard these in the Thailand Steinway Youth Competition and can attest for their didactic quality.

Muzio Clementi, after whom
Clementi new town was named.
Nah, that was his grandson!

The immortal J.S.Bach

Now we get to the composers whom posterity had deemed their greatness, and deservedly so. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Two Part Inventions (BWV.772-786) and Three Part Inventions or Sinfonias (BWV.787-801) are perfect for those learning polyphonic playing for the first time. These can still be challenging for adult performers. Six Little Preludes (BWV.933-938) and selected dances from the French and English Suites have also been included. Three selections from the Anna Magdalena Notebook have now been identified to be by Christian Petzold (1677-1733) – that ubiquitous Minuet in G – and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788). Odds and ends from Jan Ladislav Dussek (1760-1812) and Anton Diabelli (1781-1858) have also been included.

C.P.E.Bach, like father like son.

So that's what Christian Petzold looked like!

Haydn wrote some 62 piano sonatas, at last count.

From Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), there are eight sonatas, increasing in degrees of complexity. The C major (Hob.XVI:35) built on the C major triad falls within the hands of a talented ten-year-old, while the D major (Hob.XVI:37) was well-known enough to be spoofed by Shostakovich in his First Piano Concerto. The E minor, G major and E flat major sonatas (Hob.XVI:34, 40 and 49) are in the remit of adults, and do get heard occasionally in international piano competitions.

It is said that the sonatas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) are “too easy for amateurs but too difficult for professionals”. How true that is. Nine sonatas are represented including the C major Sonata Facile (K.545), obviously, but from there the learning curve becomes far steeper. The A major (K.331), famous for its opening Theme and Variations and Rondo alla Turca (Turkish March) is by no means simple. The sonatas in A minor, B flat major and F major (K.310, 333 and 533) were famously in the recorded repertory of Dinu Lipatti, Vladimir Horowitz and Emil Gilels respectively.

There is a single sonata disc of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) that is rightly the territory for proficient young people. This contains the Op.49 pair (my first introduction to Beethoven sonatas), Op.14 pair (not so easy) and the delightful Op.79. The two short Sonatinas in G and F major belong to children. Besides being popular and famous, the Pathetique (Op.13) and Moonlight (Op.27 No.2) actually demand an advanced technique. The same would apply to the F minor (Op.2 No.1) and A flat major (Op.26 “Funeral March”) sonatas.

The set is completed by eight books of Felix Mendelssohn’s (1809-1847) Songs Without Words, each comprising six pieces of varying degrees of difficulty. The Venetian Boat Songs and several of the slower numbers are simple enough, but Mendelssohn was a keyboard virtuoso himself and his Hunting Song (Op.19 No.3) and Spinning Song (Op.67 No.4, also known as The Bee’s Wedding) are concert hall material – just ask Jorge Bolet and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Christoph Eschenbach plays for
Herbert von Karajan.

A slightly older Christoph Eschenbach.

This is a splendid set of piano pieces, lovingly performed by Christoph Eschenbach, which should engage for many hours the budding piano player, young and not so young.

THE SINGAPORE COLLECTION: ALEXANDER TCHEREPNIN THE SYMPHONIES & PIANO CONCERTOS / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

ALEXANDER TCHEREPNIN

The Symphonies & Piano Concertos

Noriko Ogawa, Piano

Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Lan Shui

BIS 1717/18 (4 CDs)

TT: 4 hrs 34’09”

Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) may be said to have been the first truly cosmopolitan composer. Born to a musical and artistic family in Tsarist Saint Petersberg, his father was the composer, pianist and conductor Nikolai Tcherepnin (1873-1945), whose claim to fame was having taught composition to the young Sergei Prokofiev (who in turn dedicated his First Piano Concerto to him).

He lived for varying periods in Paris, the Caucasus, China and Japan before settling in America. He was married to the Chinese pianist Lee Hsien Ming (no relation to the Singapore Lees), and his music suitably reflected an eclecticism which encompassed late Romanticism, Stravinsky’s iconoclasm and neoclassicism, popular idioms such as jazz, tinged with a 1920s modernist outlook and generous helpings of Orientalism. He was a modernist in all senses but yet never embraced atonalism or the vagaries of the avant-garde.

The recordings were originally issued singly,
and this was the first instalment.

The ten major works in this box-set (4 discs at the cost of 2) are four symphonies and six piano concertos. The symphonies date from 1927 to 1959 while the piano concertos from 1918 to 1965, suggesting a wide range of styles gestated over extended periods of time and covering multiple geographical localities. The shorter pieces include Magna Mater, Symphonic March, Symphonic Prayer, and Festmusik (a 4-movement suite from opera The Wedding of Sobeide).

The second disc to be released.

The four symphonies are heard in the first two discs, sandwiching the Fifth and Sixth Piano Concertos. For a taste of his iconoclasm, sample the riotous second movement (Vivace) of the First Symphony (1927), entirely scored for percussion. Its influence by Le Sacre du Printemps also effected the same response – a demonstration for which the police were called. For today’s ears, the idiom is rather palatable, no more modern than the likes of Milhaud, Prokofiev or John Williams.

Arguably the best-known among these are the Chinese influenced works – the Third Symphony (1952) and Fourth Piano Concerto (1947), subtitled Fantaisie. Chinoiserie is rife in the Chinese Symphony, as much as in Stravinsky’s Le Chant du Rossignol, but there is much lyricism in its Adagio slow movement. The concerto, which appears as the last item of the fourth disc, is more programmatic with movements having descriptive titles. The first is Eastern Chamber Dream, portraying Wu Song’s legendary vanquishing of the killer tiger. Tang dynasty royal concubine Yan Kuei Fei’s Sacrifice is the subject of the central slow movement, while the pentatonic rondo-like Road To Yunnan closes the work on a high. These are so accessible as to make one wonder why this concerto isn’t more regularly heard or performed.

Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa
is highly attuned to Tcherepnin's musical idiom.

The first two piano concertos are in a single movement (bringing to mind Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev’s First) while the third is in two movements. The last three concertos are in the traditional three movements where the idiom is closer to Prokofiev. Pianist Noriko Ogawa is the fearless and swashbuckling soloist in these technically highly demanding works. The six concertos may be heard in chronological sequence on two discs issued on the Brilliant Classics label (9232), something which pianophiles may opt for. There was an earlier cycle by British pianist Murray McLachlan with the orchestra of Chetham’s School, issued on two Olympia discs in the mid-1990s, which is good but SSO provides superior orchestral support.

If you want just the piano concertos,
here's the budget double-CD set to get.

This project was the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s first collaboration with the Swedish BIS label, with recordings dating from 1999 to 2002. The first of its recorded symphonic cycles, the orchestra performs with finesse and total conviction. Now in the Twenty-twenties, Lan Shui and our national orchestra still has the field to themselves, and are unlikely to be challenged in this repertoire for decades to come. Classics Today.com’s Dave Hurwitz also agrees on this count too!

THE SINGAPORE COLLECTION: RACHMANINOV SYMPHONIES & ORCHESTRAL MUSIC / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Review

 

RACHMANINOV

SYMPHONIES AND ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Lan Shui

BIS 2512 / 4 CDs TT: 5 hrs 6’11”

This is the first review of a series which I will refer to as “The Singapore Collection”, devoted to classical recordings by Singapore artists and artistic groups. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) is the obvious starting point, having a tradition of making records from the early-1980s under its founding music director Choo Hoey. With Lan Shui’s tenure from 1997, the SSO began making big strides in its partnership with the independent (not any more) Swedish label BIS. Then came a multitude of well-received and critically acclaimed discs of a variety of repertoire, both mainstream and off the beaten path.

This Rachmaninov box-set is a culmination of the orchestra’s penchant for Russian repertoire, incorporating the three symphonies and complete orchestral music (excepting those with chorus and voices, such as The Bells). The symphonies were recorded first, dating as far back as 2008. These were originally issued as single discs, some coupled with concerto performances by Russian pianist Yevgeny Sudbin (Piano Concerto No.1 and Paganini Rhapsody), not included here.

The set opens with the First Symphony in D minor (Op.13), discarded by Rachmaninov after its disastrous premiere in 1897, but pieced together after the Second World War. It remains one of his boldest creations, and gets a very lively and trenchant performance befitting the early promise. The Symphonic Movement in D minor (1891), also referred to as his Youth Symphony, belies an obvious depth of influence to Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninov’s first tone poem, Prince Rostislav, dates from the same year and was inspired by a ballad by Aleksey Tolstoy (second cousin of Leo). This early style looks forward to his better-known tone poems The Rock and Isle of the Dead, and deserves listening.

Probably the weakest performance of the set was the Second Symphony in E minor (Op.27), which was the first to be recorded. It is still rather good although suffering from a surfeit of portamenti in all its movements, rendering it somewhat sickly sentimental. Ma Yue is the eloquently plain-singing clarinettist in the Adagio. Nonetheless, it held together well enough for SSO to programme it in its BBC Proms debut in 2014. The fill-up is Rachmaninov’s own transcription of Vocalise (Op.34 No.14), where portamenti are fine when sentimentality is key.

SSO at the BBC Proms, 2014.

Coming from Rachmaninov’s late period and years of exile in America was his Third Symphony in A minor (Op.44) and Symphonic Dances (Op.45), his last work before passing in Beverly Hills. Both receive fine performances despite the former’s final movement which is unusually short-winded and soon runs out of ideas. The latter supplies an appropriate response to his (discarded, so he thought) First Symphony, it first movement subject which once sounded defiant now returns as retiring and resigned. As a whole, this disc (recorded in 2011 and 2014) represented the mature SSO at a new high, an advance over on the previous few years.

The fourth and final disc has the most recent recordings (from 2012 to 2015), including tone poems The Rock (recorded last and arguably the finest in the set), Isle of the Dead, Capriccio Bohemien (a surprisingly effective showpiece in the slow-fast schema of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies), and the early but derivative Scherzo in D minor (1887), composed as a 14-year-old. Also included are four orchestral excerpts (Introduction, Intermezzo and Dances) from Rachmaninov’s first opera Aleko (1893) and a true rarity, the Prelude to The Miserly Knight (1904).

Lan Shui's work with the SSO
will never be forgotten.

There are famous recorded cycles of this repertoire, notably from the London Symphony Orchestra under Andre Previn (on EMI, now Warner), St Petersburg Philharmonic with Mariss Jansons (also EMI / Warner) and those vintage Melodiya recordings by Evgeny Svetlanov, but none is as complete as this survey. The much-vaunted BIS recorded sound lives up to the hype. This set is a source of Singaporean pride, and rightly so.