Oct 26, 2014

Dances for Piano and Orchestra (HDCD review)

Joel Fan, piano; Christophe Chagnard, Northwest Sinfonietta. Reference Recordings RR-134. 

Sometimes I wonder how classical music fans manage to keep all the performers straight. I mean, I see monthly release sheets from every distributor of classical discs in the country, and I listen to five or six new recordings a week. Yet even I can't keep track of who is recording what or who the stars are. For example, when I received the present album from Reference Recording, I saw the name "Joel Fan" in big letters at the top. I had no idea if he was the composer or the soloist for the disc. I had to read the booklet to figure out that he is a talented young American pianist who has worked with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Project as well as debuting a few years ago on another Reference Recordings album.

Anyway, on the current disc, Mr. Fan joins Maestro Christophe Chagnard and the Northwest Sinfonietta in a series of seven short dance numbers for piano and orchestra by composers Pierne, Herrera, Chopin, Saint-Saens, Weber, Gottschalk, and Cadman. Fan plays with considerable precision, the Northwest Sinfonietta lend him excellent support, and Reference Recordings produces its usual outstanding sound.

According to Mr. Fan's Web site, he "is a graduate of Harvard College, received a Masters degree from Peabody Conservatory as a student of Leon Fleisher, and is now a Steinway artist. He is one of the most dynamic and accomplished musicians performing before the public today. He is consistently acclaimed for his recitals, recordings, and appearances with orchestras throughout the world. His concerts attract a wide range of audiences, as he has eagerly embraced traditional piano literature as well as an eclectic range of repertoire, including new music commissioned especially for him, world music, and his own transcriptions. Mr. Fan's engaging personality, technical assurance, lyricism, and sheer musicality win over audiences wherever he performs. As a recording artist, Mr. Fan scored two consecutive Billboard Top 10 Debuts with his solo CDs, World Keys and West of the Sun." Well, so much for my not recognizing his name.

First up on the program is the Fantaisie-Ballet by French composer, conductor, and organist Gabriel Pierne (1863-1937). This work came early in Pierne's career, when he was only twenty-one, and Fan and company well demonstrate its youthful vigor and Romantic flair. The soloist captures its light, elegant moments nicely and then fills it out with a grand and exciting virtuosity.

Next is Vals Capricho by Mexican concert pianist and composer Ricardo Castro Herrera (1864-1907). The "Caprice Waltz" is another virtuosic piece, and Fan again demonstrates his dexterity in playing with seemingly ten fingers on each hand. Yet it is also a surprisingly delicate piece of music, with a wonderfully lilting rhythm that Fan and the Sinfonietta express as perfectly as one could imagine.

After that is Krakowiak in F Major by Polish composer and virtuoso pianist Frederic Chopin (1810-1849). This "Grand Concerto Rondo" Chopin based on the style of a familiar dance in the Krakow area, and Fan and company handle it with a charming grace and refinement, with just a touch of twinkle.

Joel Fan
The fourth item is Valse-Caprice in A-flat Major "Wedding Cake" by French composer, organist, conductor, and pianist Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921). The work is quite popular so you'll find a lot of pianists have recorded it, but Fan does it up as well as anybody, smoothly articulate and cheerfully pulsating.

The fifth selection is Polonaise Brillante, a solo piano piece by German composer, conductor, pianist, and critic Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) and later orchestrated by Franz Liszt. Typical of Liszt, the piece is full of bravura showmanship and heroic landscapes, which Fan executes with an unerring command.

The penultimate number is the Grand Tarantelle by American composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), reconstructed by Hershy Kay. Critics often credit Gottschalk as a precursor of ragtime, itself a precursor of jazz. This work, however, is energetically rhythmic in the manner of an Italian tarantella. It's dance tune swirls and whirls, with Fan hardly stopping to catch his breath. It's quite a lot of fun.

Finally, we get Dark Dancers of the Mardi Gras, a "Fantasy for Orchestra with Piano," by American composer Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881-1946). His music is probably the most unique on the album, partly Romantic, partly modern, partly Joplin, partly Gershwin, and mostly descriptive, it is melodious, ambitious, and vivid. Fan, Chagnard, and the Northwest players appear to be having a great time with it, and the piece ends the program on a splendidly grand, celebratory note.

Producers Marina A. Ledin, Victor Ledin, and Marcia Gordon Martin and engineer Keith O. Johnson made the recording at Lagerquist Concert Hall, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington in August 2013. As always with an album engineered by "Professor" Johnson, we get above all a realistic presentation. We don't always get the most transparent recording in terms of ultimate or absolute clarity, but we do get a lifelike ambiance, a truthful sense of orchestral depth and dimensionality, a pleasant hall resonance, a quick transient response, a broad frequency range (lows through the floor, highs shimmering endlessly), wide dynamics, strong impact, and plenty of air and space around the instruments. The piano itself appears well placed in regard to the orchestra, neither too far out front nor too hidden away but part and parcel of the overall sonic picture. The recording sounds most natural all the way around.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:


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Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For nearly 30 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2024 Honda CRV Sport L Hybrid, I stream music from my phone through its adequate but hardly outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through a Roku Streambar Pro system (soundbar plus four surround speakers and a 10" sealed subwoofer) that has surprisingly nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence and reasonable price. Finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker and a pair of Google Pro Earbuds for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technologies that enable us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa