CD Reviews (The Straits Times, December 2013)

CHAUSSON Concert / String Quartet

JENNIFER PIKE, Violin

TOM POSTER, Piano

Doric String Quartet

Chandos 10754 / *****

Ernest Chausson (1855-1899) would have become a major composer of the late Romantic French school had he not gotten in a bicycle accident that claimed his rather short life. Left unfinished in three movements was his String Quartet in C minor, completed by fellow composer Vincent d’Indy. Both were students of Cesar Franck, who in turn worshipped Wagner, and the music shares the master’s austerity and economy of themes. There is also a Beethovenian intensity that makes the music sound more Germanic than French.

Chausson’s most performed work after the popular Poeme for violin is arguably the Concert for violin, piano and string quartet (1889-91). Note the spelling of the piece, as it was not designated a concerto. Instead the term harks back to the concerts royaux (royal concerts) of the French baroque age, music for various instrumental ensembles as an entertainment. Its four movements play almost like a symphony in 40 minutes (Franck’s Symphony in D minor comes to mind at certain points), with strong thematic cohesion, orchestral effects and gestures. These most satisfying performances come from the cream of young musical Britons, for whom instrumental virtuosity is merely a tool of expression, and which comes as naturally as breathing. Highly recommended.

SCHUBERT String Quintet

SCHOENBERG Verklarte Nacht

JANINE JANSEN, Violin et al

Decca 478 3551 / *****

It is a sign of the times where a performer’s name is set in far larger letters than those of composers. The glamorous young Dutch violinist Janine Jansen will probably sell more records than either Arnold Schoenberg or Franz Schubert, even if she is one artist among six, or that is what the executives of the Decca label think. Thankfully, she is in good company as her fellow musicians violinist Boris Brovtsyn, violists Maxim Rysanov and Amihai Grosz, and cellists Torleif Thedeen and Jens Peter Maintz work extremely well as a unit in this generous chamber disc which plays for over 83 minutes.

Schoenberg’s most popular work Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night) is heard in its original string sextet version. Inspired by Richard Dehmel’s poem about a couple’s midnight stroll and transcendent love (with the revelation that the baby she is carrying is not his), the music transforms from agitation and trepidation to a blissful calm, which is exactly what the performers convey by capturing the febrile mood so vividly. Schubert’s late Quintet in C major is a surprisingly upbeat work from a dying man, and the players spare no effort in bringing out every ounce of pathos (the rapt slow movement in particular) and congeniality everywhere else. Here is chamber music at its finest and most joyous.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, June 2012)

THE LISZT PROJECT

PIERRE-LAURENT AIMARD, Piano

Deutsche Grammophon  477 9439 (2 CDs)  
*****

This anthology is a timely tribute to the visionary genius of Franz Liszt (1811-1886), the pianist-composer and arch-virtuoso often maligned for the flashy showboating, vulgar compositional conflations and womanising excesses of his youth. The mature Liszt was however an innovator. His greatest piano work, the Sonata in B minor, cast in a single movement and structured upon development and metamorphosis of themes, sets the precedent for future compositions. French virtuoso Pierre-Laurent Aimard astutely programmes Alban Berg’s Sonata Op.1, also in B minor but further stretches the limits of tonality, and Scriabin’s mysterious, tumultuous Ninth Sonata as logical extensions of this thought.

 

 

Liszt’s later works from the 1880s are terse and forbidding. La Lugubre Gondola, Nuages gris (Grey Clouds), and Unstern! Sinistre (Unlucky Star) sound as if they came from the 20^th century. The second disc displays Liszt’s influence on future generations. His Fountains Of Villa D’Este predicts Ravel’s splashy Jeux d’eau, while Saint Francis’ Sermon to the Birds lends inspiration to Messiaen’s Le traquet stapazin (from Catalogue Of Birds) and Marco Stroppa’s Tangata Manu (Bird Man). Aimard’s technique, amply demonstrated in the popular Vallee d’Obermann, and dedication to the cause give this superbly crafted programme a stamp of authority.     

         

KORNGOLD

String Sextet / Piano Quintet

Doric String Quartet

Chandos 10707 / ****1/2

The Viennese composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) is better remembered these days for his film scores to Hollywood blockbusters such as The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk. Earlier he was a child prodigy composer whose prowess was spoken in awe, comparable with the likes of the young Mozart and Mendelssohn. These chamber works are the products of a highly assured technique and complete mastery of classical forms. Here, the atonality of the Second Viennese School is shunned for old world opulence, much in the manner of Richard Strauss and Mahler.

 

 

The Piano Quintet of 1922 is filled with soaring melodies, the slow second movement being a wonderful set of variations on one of Korngold’s own Songs Of Farewell,   Mond, so gehst du wieder auf (Moon, Thou Riseth Again), one of his most memorable. Kathryn Stott is the powerful yet nimble pianist who partners the young and dynamic Doric Quartet from Britain. Two further string players join in the earlier String Sextet (1916), where Brahms is the obvious inspiration, although the chromaticisms of Schoenberg’s early Transfigured Night is hinted at. The concentrated nature of the music may not be easy on first acquaintance, but repeat listens will reap dividends, further rewarded by the highly committed playing. Warmly recommended.