CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2010)

LISZT Transcendental Études

ALICE SARA OTT, Piano

Deutsche Grammophon 477 8362

*****

Deutsche Grammophon may have lost Lang Lang and Li Yundi as exclusive artists, but the German recording label has unveiled Yuja Wang and now Alice Sara Ott, a 19-year-old keyboard sensation of German and Japanese parentage. For DG’s first complete recording of Liszt’s terrifying twelve Transcendental Etudes in many decades, she displays fire-breathing virtuosity and power to equal degree, with musical sensibilities to match.

These miniature tone poems tax the pianist to the utmost of range and endurance. The legend of Mazeppa - a wild horse-ride through the steppes – is driven with frightening intensity, while the delicate Feux Follets (Will-o’-the-wisp) display a gossamer lightness that dazzles and enchants. In the slower and more meditative pieces, Paysage (Landscape), La Ricordanza (Remembrances) and Harmonies Du Soir (Evening Harmonies), her sense of poetry and emotional depth are uncanny for someone this young. And rarely has the final study, Chasse-neige (Snow Drift), been dispatched with such spine-chilling control. If this review sounds O-T-T (over-the-top), do not just take my word for it. Listen to Ott for yourself, and be amazed.

SCHÖNBRUNN Summer Night Concert 2009

Vienna Philharmonic / DANIEL BARENBOIM

Deutsche Grammophon 476 347 5

***1/2

This is the summertime counterpart to Vienna’s annual New Year’s Day concert, held at the Habsburg royal palace grounds of Schönbrunn. There is nothing more familiar than Mozart’s G Major Serenade, better known as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Without pretence to authenticity, this “big band” version sounds fresh and unmannered. Less satisfying is Spanish nationalist Manuel de Falla’s piano concerto Nights In The Gardens Of Spain, where Barenboim conducts from the keyboard. Despite his virtuosity, the orchestra sounds out of sympathy with the idiom; instead of full-blooded atmosphere one feels sluggishness.

Mussorgsky’s Night On Bald Mountain in its original version is diffuse in ideas, heavy in brass and percussion. However the sheer raucousness makes Rimsky-Korsakov’s slick orchestration sound tame in comparison. Light music closes the evening, with Argentine Mariano Mores’ tango The Arabesque and the obligatory Johann Strauss. Enjoyable nonetheless.

STRAVINSKY Violin Works
ANTHONY MARWOOD, Violin
THOMAS ADES, Piano
Hyperion 67723 (2CDs)
****

The complete music for violin and piano by the iconic Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) is encapsulated within a slender 88 minutes. The only work that was originally written for this medium, the Duo Concertant, is a neoclassical suite of five dances including two Eclogues (a pastorale) and concluding with the Dithyrambe, an impassioned hymn sung in honour of Dionysus. The other major works are the transcriptions of music by Pergolesi (later to become his Suite Italienne) and Divertimento, more dance music adapted from ballets Pulcinella and The Fairy’s Kiss.

Filling up this enjoyable double-CD (priced as one disc) are various recycled odds and ends, including the droll Tango, an arrangement of the French national anthem La Marseillaise, and yet more ballet movements. The most familiar of these are the heel-kicking Russian Dance from Petrushka and the Lullaby from The Firebird. The duo of Anthony Marwood and Thomas Ades (the latter a renowned composer) give winning performances that are idiomatic and vibrant. Stravinsky does not usually come this light!

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, January 2009)

TCHEREPNIN
Symphonies / Piano Concertos
NORIKO OGAWA, Piano
Singapore Symphony / LAN SHUI
BIS 1717/18 (4 CDs) / Rating *****

Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) may be said to be the first truly cosmopolitan composer. Born in Tsarist Russia, he lived for varying periods in Paris, the Caucasus, China and Japan before settling in America. He was married to a Chinese pianist, and his music suitably reflects his eclecticism, encompassing late Romanticism, Stravinsky’s iconoclasm and neoclassicism, popular idioms, tinged with a modernist outlook and generous helpings of Orientalism. The ten major works in this budget boxset (retailing at under $30) include four symphonies and six piano concertos. The shorter pieces include Magna Mater, Symphonic March, Symphonic Prayer, and Festmusik (a 4-movement suite from opera The Wedding of Sobeide).

Arguably the best among these are the Chinese influenced works – the Third Symphony and Fourth Piano Concerto, subtitled “Fantaisie”. The latter’s movements have descriptive titles – Eastern Chamber Dream portraying Wu Song’s vanquishing of the killer tiger, royal concubine Yan Kuei Fei’s Sacrifice, and the rondo-like Road To Yunnan – and are so accessible as to make one wonder why it isn’t more regularly heard or performed. Pianist Noriko Ogawa is the fearless and swashbuckling soloist in these highly demanding concertos, while SSO in its first project with BIS (dating from 1999) performs with total conviction. Lan Shui and our national orchestra have the field to themselves, and are unlikely to be challenged in this repertoire for decades to come.

STRAVINSKY Symphonies
Berlin Philharmonic / SIR SIMON RATTLE
EMI Classics 2076300
Rating ****1/2

The three symphonies by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) on this disc date from the 1930s and 40s, and are in his neo-classical style of composition. Gone are the lush sounds of his early ballets, in its place one finds sparer and astringent textures, and complex contrapuntal set pieces. The music nevertheless retains Stravinsky’s love of syncopation and the idea of multiple rhythms going on simultaneously. 

The best known is the choral Symphony of Psalms (1930), which finds the Berlin Broadcasting Chorus hale and hearty of voice, alternating reverence with exuberance. The orchestra is the undoubted star throughout, driving the kinetically charged music, especially the outer thirds of the Symphony in Three Movements (1942-45), and making the underrated Symphony in C (1940) sound like a true masterpiece. These “live” performances are well worth catching.

NEW YEAR’S CONCERT 2008
Vienna Philharmonic
GEORGES PRETRE
Deutsche Grammophon 478 0034
Rating ****1/2

There is a French angle to this quintessential Viennese event helmed by veteran conductor Georges Pretre, the first-ever Frenchmen to direct its proceedings. No French composers here but the Strauss waltz family’s French-themed works. Johann the Younger’s Napoleon March opens the festivities with pomp; his father’s Paris Waltz and Versailles Gallop adding to the merriment, with the former slyly quoting La Marseillaise, then outlawed in Austria. The Orpheus-Quadrille is a potpourri of melodies from Jacques Offenbach’s hit operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, which begins and ends inevitably with the ubiquitous cancan. 

Not everything is French, as the son and father try their hands in a Russian March and Chinese Gallop, although one will be hard pressed to tell one from the other! The usual favourites Emperor Waltz, Tritsch Tratsch Polka, Blue Danube Waltz and Radetzky March give a familiar ring and rousing close. Happy New Year!