CD Review (The Straits Times, August 2017)

BEACH / CHAMINADE / HOWELL

Piano Concertos

DANNY DRIVER, Piano

BBC Scottish Symphony / Rebecca Miller

Hyperion 68130 / *****

It has taken 70 volumes of Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concertos series to arrive at the first piano concertos composed by women. Surprisingly too, that these are neither by Clara Schumann nor Fanny Mendelssohn. 

Very rarely heard but perhaps the best-known is American Amy Beach's Piano Concerto in C sharp minor (1899), a sprawling 35-minute canvas in four movements. It combines the bravura of Liszt, mellifluousness of Grieg, dramatics and sentimentality that would later define Hollywood film music to stunning effect.

French pianist-composer Cecile Chaminade’s salon pieces are occasionally heard but the Concertstuck (Concert Piece) in C sharp minor (1888) is very different, with a striking opening strongly reminiscent of Wagner's Flying Dutchman Overture. 

The most obscure work is the Piano Concerto in D minor (1923) by the Brit Dorothy Howell, who premiered it at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts. It is more a single-movement tone poem with piano obbligato which does not outlast its welcome.

It was unfortunate that Hyperion did not engage a woman pianist for these three sizzlers, but young English pianist Danny Driver is superb, while brilliantly partnered by Californian Rebecca Miller at the helm. Anyone who thinks that women composers are any less than their male counterparts will be in for a rude shock or pleasant surprise, most likely both.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, July 2012)

CHISHOLM Piano Concertos

DANNY DRIVER, Piano

BBC Scottish Symphony / Rory MacDonald

Hyperion 67880 / ****1/2

Some works of music are destined not to be performed often, or at all, simply because the technical demands are too great for performers and perceived limited appeal for audiences. This fate has befallen the two piano concertos of Erik Chisholm (1904-1965), the well travelled Scottish composer-conductor and ethno-musicologist, who was from 1945 to 1946 the conductor of the Entertainment for National Service Associations (ENSA) Orchestra in Singapore, the first group to be called the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Lasting well over half-an-hour each, these very interesting works explore exotic musical scales and idioms, supported by highly colourful orchestration.

Piano Concerto No.1 (1932-38) carries the title Piobaireachd, which is Scottish for music played on highland bagpipes. The use of bassoon and oboe creates the effect of drones over which the piano cuts through swathes of dense textures. Superficially it resembles Bartok’s popular Third Piano Concerto and even predates it. Receiving a recorded premiere is the even more fascinating Piano Concerto No.2, called the Hindustani because it makes use of the raga form in its three movements. Experts on Indian music have themselves vouched for its authenticity. Young British pianist Danny Driver is a most convincing and fearless of soloists, and these rarities are well worth more than several listens.

THE DECCA SOUND
Decca 478 2826 (50 CDs) / *****


Following the example of Deutsche Grammophon’s mega-box sets, the British Decca label’s own 50-disc retrospective is a tribute not only to its artists but the recording crew and engineers, to which it owes the fabled “Decca Sound”. There is a long essay in praise of names like Arthur Haddy, John Culshaw and Christopher Raeburn. But what of the music itself? 

First listen to the orchestral blockbusters, pride of place going to Sir Georg Solti’s Wagner Ring Cycle highlights with the Vienna Philharmonic and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the Chicago Symphony. Then check out Lorin Maazel and The Cleveland Orchestra in Respighi and Rimsky-Korsakov for sheer aural opulence. Despite their age, the sound is in the demonstration bracket.

Decca, which prides itself as the “Opera label”, devotes three discs to its late star tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who appears in the 1990 Three Tenors Concert, Puccini’s Turandot highlights, and in a Lincoln Centre concert with Dame Joan Sutherland. Decca’s long-serving pianists Vladimir Ashkenazy (playing Rachmaninov), Alicia de Larrocha (Granados and Falla), Pascal Roge (Saint-Saëns) and Andras Schiff (Bach) are also honoured. 

The most recent recording sees young Dutch violin sensation Janine Jensen ingeniously coupling violin concertos by Beethoven and Britten. Whether one randomly dips into the set, or listens alphabetically from Ansermet (Falla’s Three Cornered Hat and Debussy Images) to the Wiener Oktett (Mendelsohn’s String Octet and Beethoven’s Septet), there is much to enjoy in these golden oldies.

This set retails at $149.90 (working out at just under $3 per disc) at HMV.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, February 2012)

BEETHOVEN Sonatas
ALICE SARA OTT, Piano
Deutsche Grammophone 477 9291 / ****1/2

After scaling the heights of Liszt, Chopin and Tchaikovsky in her earlier recordings, the young German-Japanese pianist settles down for some more serious Beethoven. Her choice of the two C major Sonatas is an astute one. These relatively youthful works are interpretively less taxing yet provide ample opportunity for virtuoso display. She opts for a lighter and more humourous touch, veering away from the barnstorming Beethoven who made his name as a smasher of keyboards.

The four movements of the earlier Op.2 No.3 Sonata come across as fresh as a spring breeze, while the later Op.53 “Waldstein” Sonata brims with vim and vigour. An ultra-smooth delivery of the finale culminates with octave glissandi that are deliberately misaligned so as to sound like a chiming carillon – a liberty taken with startling effect. Also included is the sublime Andante Favori, originally a rejected slow movement of the Waldstein, and the sparkling Rondo a Capriccio, popularly known as the Rage Over A Lost Penny. The prodigious Ott is clearly in cruise control for all these performances.

DALE Piano Sonata in D minor
BOWEN Miniature Suite
DANNY DRIVER, Piano
Hyperion 67827 / ****1/2

Quick, name an early 20th century piano sonata cast in D minor that is almost as long as Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. Rachmaninov’s rarely performed First Sonata comes to mind, but in this case, the composer is Englishman Benjamin Dale (1885-1943). He was a classmate in London’s Royal Academy of Music of Arnold Bax and York Bowen, both of whom also wrote notable music for piano. Dale’s 42-minute long Sonata (1902), dedicated to Bowen, is not for the impatient at heart, as its profusion of ideas takes time to unravel, through an unusual combination of Lisztian technique and salon music ideas.

The heart of this rambling score lies in a central Theme and Variations, as masterly as any crafted by Tchaikovsky. Its Adagio maestoso variation reminds one of Rachmaninov, flanked by two scherzo-like fast numbers which underlie Dale’s facility and eclecticism. 

Two shorter works – Prunella and Night Fancies – lend an Elgarian feel to the creative output. Bowen’s Miniature Suite (1904), dedicated to Dale in return, is concise by contrast, its three varied movements filled with charm and wit. Young British pianist Danny Driver (left) is a most elegant and persuasive advocate, rendering this album a singular pleasure.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, September 2011)

BALAKIREV Piano Music
DANNY DRIVER, Piano
Hyperion 67806 / *****

Piano virtuosos and fanciers will always be grateful to Russian nationalist composer Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) for his Islamey oriental fantasy, one of the repertory’s most daunting showpieces. This recital reveals a fuller picture of Balakirev’s output which includes a Sonata in B flat minor in four movements. Unusually it begins with a fugue, so artfully disguised that its academic origins become obscured. A mazurka and nocturne-like Intermezzo then gives way to a coruscating finale with Islamey-like flashes of brilliance, but it surprisingly closes on a quiet note. Is this a sublime or fatally flawed resolution? Young British pianist Danny Driver’s elegant touch persuades the listener it’s the former.

Balakirev was a devotee of Chopin and his shorter pieces owe that debt of influence, with a selection of Mazurkas, a Nocturne, Waltz and Scherzo also included. He does not slavishly ape the Pole’s manner but instead weaves in his own home-spun Russian stylings. This is most evident in his famous transcription of Mikhail Glinka’s The Lark, a folksong so wondrously embellished as to be almost an original work. Here is a vista of the much-vaunted Russian piano tradition that deserves to be better known.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, October 2010)

YORK BOWEN Piano Sonatas
DANNY DRIVER, Piano
Hyperion 67751/2 (2CDs)
****1/2

The London-born pianist-composer York Bowen (1884-1961) has been hailed as “The English Rachmaninov”. This moniker, while convenient and attractive, is unfair to both composers just because both were unapologetic Romantics who shunned modern trends while living well into the last century. Bowen’s summer sunshine and typically British humour is a world apart from Rachmaninov’s morose, wintry gloom. His six piano sonatas, eclectic and virtuosic, offer enjoyable listening. The first three sonatas (receiving first performances here) bear influences from the Norwegian Edvard Grieg, and driven by the dramatic note-spinning of Tchaikovsky.

Bowen comes more into his own in the latter three sonatas, where similarities with Rachmaninov become more apparent. Flowing melody, crashing chords and ecstatic climaxes are Bowen’s forte, with brilliant coruscating finales that recall his most famous piano work bar none, the Toccata Op.155. The young British pianist Danny Driver makes the best possible cases for these underrated works, which deserve to be heard.

LEONCAVALLO La Nuit De Mai
Songs & Piano Pieces
PLACIDO DOMINGO, Tenor
Deutsche Grammophon 477 6633
****1/2

Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919) is best known for his one-act hit opera I Pagliacci. His other operas, including a La Bohème which at one time rivalled Puccini’s, are far less well-known. His symphonic poem for tenor and orchestra La nuit de Mai (May Night) is a positive rarity.

This rambling 40 minute work, based on poetry by Alfred de Musset, is a dialogue between a poet and his muse in 12 movements. The great Spanish tenor Placido Domingo sings the poet, answered by the Muse voiced by long stretches of Verdi-like orchestral music. Despite pushing 70, his voice is as youthful as ever, bringing vitality to a piece that could easily have floundered on its own weighty ambitions. The Bologna Communal Theatre Orchestra led by Alberto Veronesi provided splendid support.

In addition, Domingo sings five very short but attractive songs in French and Italian, ably accompanied by Lang Lang in his final recording for DG. The Chinese phenom has two short solos, Barcarola Veneziana and Valse Mignonne, very slight and inconsequential stuff, touched with his patented charm. A curiosity but recommended for the curious voice-lover in all of us.