Mendelssohn Orchestral Works (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3 in A minor ‘Scottish’, Op. 56, MWV N18; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op. 61, MWV M13 (excerpts) – No. 1: Scherzo (after Act 1); No. 7: Nocturne (after Act III); No. 9: Wedding March (after Act IV). Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Sergiu Comissiona, conductor. VOX VOX-VX-NX-3046CD

Mendelssohn: The Hebrides in D major ‘Fingal’s Cave’ Op. 26, MWV P7; Symphony No. 4 in A major ‘Italian’, Op. 90, MWV N16; Symphony No. 5 in D major ‘Reformation’, Op. 107, MWV N15. Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Sergiu Comissiona, conductor. VOX VOX-VX-NX-3047CD

 

Many of our readers of a certain age are no doubt familiar with Vox, a budget label that produced some real musical treasures over the years. An example from my own experience is the day back in the mid-1970s when I was strolling through a Sears department store one afternoon and came across an aisle display that featured the newly released 4-LP Vox Box of Ravel’s orchestral music featuring Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting the Minnesota Orchestra. I was at the time back in college on the G.I. Bill after serving 4½ years in the Army, with a wife, two kids, a pair of Bose 901s, a rapidly expanding passion for classical music, and a tight budget. When I saw that this box was on sale for something like seven bucks – well, that settled it, I just had to have it. It sounded pretty darn good through the 901s (purchased in Germany with my reenlistment bonus) when I got home, and I found the music of Monsieur Ravel to be utterly captivating. Even though Vox was a budget label, the sound quality on some of their releases could be excellent (the main drawback was the often substandard quality of their vinyl pressings), and this Ravel set, which was recorded by Elite Recordings (engineer Marc Aubort and producer Joanna Nickrenz), had beguiling sound. Those performances and recordings still hold up as you can see from reviews of digital releases from the Ravel set, such as a review from our own John Puccio that you can read here, or an article at the PS Audio website that provides some insight into the recording process, which you can find here. 

Appearing on the back cover of these new “Vox Audiophile Edition” releases is a highlighted statement affirming that “The Elite recordings for VOX by the legendary producers Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz are considered by audiophiles to be amongst the finest sounding examples of orchestral recordings.” For this series of reissues from the Vox catalog, the folks at Naxos have been pulling some of those tapes out from the vaults and carefully preparing these CDs for release, the end product of their labors being what they describe as “new192 kHz / 24-bit ultra high definition transcriptions of the original Elite Recordings analogue master tapes.” We have previously reviewed several releases in this “Audiophile Edition” series originally recorded by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and found them to be excellent, so we were eager to audition these recordings from Baltimore. We have in our collection numerous fine recordings by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under the baton of David Zinman on the Telarc and Argo labels, so we know how good they can sound.

Of course we ought not consider only sound without stopping first to reflect on the most important component of these releases: the music. In these unsettling times, with disturbing developments assaulting our senses and emotions from week to week, day to day, seemingly hour to hour on particularly bad days, how comforting it can be to listen to the music of Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847). Mendelssohn was a master of melody; however, by that I do not mean to imply that his music is merely a succession of pretty tunes. It has substance, it has grace, it has style. The late conductor Sergiu Comissiona (1928-2005), who was born in Romania, emigrated to Israel, then later became an American citizen, enjoyed a successful 16-year term at the helm of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, building them into a first-class musical outfit. When you combine the attractive music of Mendelssohn, the solid musicianship of Comissiona and his orchestra, and the excellent sonics provided by the team of Aubort and Nickrenz (transferred to CD by the Naxos engineers), the end result is a pair of CDs capable of making the world seem a better place.

British Piano Quintets (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

Percy Godfrey: Piano Quintet, Op. 16; Ivor Hodgson: Piano Quintet; Richard Walthew: “Phantasy” Quintet; John McCabe: Sam Variations. I Muscanti; Peter Donohoe, piano. SOMM Recordings SOMMCD 0707

 

Exploring little-known repertoire is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s fun to discover new favorites and see what has been unfairly neglected. On the other hand, if you’re honest with yourself, you’re forced to admit that many works probably merit relative obscurity. Many others stand little chance of escaping it, merit notwithstanding. And you can’t tell which is which until you roll up your sleeves and do the hard work of lifting each proverbial stone, one at a time, to see what’s under it. I’d be lying if I said that doing so doesn’t feel tedious at times. As always when I review such repertoire, I listened to each work on this recording more times than I probably would have if I weren’t reviewing it. The majority are quite nice, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I shed my mortal coil without ever having revisited them. There is just so much to discover, and so many legitimate favorites to return to. How much time do we have for this stuff anyway?

I’ll start with the one I enjoyed most: Percy Godfrey’s Piano Quintet, Op. 16. Robert Matthew-Walker’s liner notes tell us that today this composer’s music is “almost entirely forgotten.” No kidding. I don’t even see a Wikipedia article for him. British music is one of my musicological concentrations, and I don’t remember ever having heard of Godfrey until encountering this recording. Am I going to become a Godfrey crusader after getting to know his piano quintet? No, but it is well crafted and has some fetching thematic ideas. I particularly like the scherzo and finale. We have some very pleasant music here that is highly unlikely to change your life. I don’t know what else to say about it.

Richard Walthew, however, does have a Wikipedia article to his name. It shows that he was an exact contemporary of Ralph Vaughan Williams and likewise produced a “Phantasy” Quintet dedicated to chamber music aficionado William Wilson Cobbett. Beyond that, the similarities diminish. Walthew’s quintet is scored for piano and strings rather than just strings, and it can boast nothing like RVW’s unmistakable voice. Instead, we have a one-movement work showing a hefty debt to Brahms. There are some lovely passages, no question, but nothing distinguished.

Of the remaining two quintets, I liked one a little and the other not at all. Ivor Hodgson’s Piano Quintet is in four movements, each of which is named after a different Derbyshire location (three inns and a more general setting). The liner note descriptions of these settings do help the listener enjoy (or at least appreciate) the music more. But even without them, the mixture of postwar modernism and popular/humorous elements is mildly engaging. I make special mention of the non-inn movement, “Moonlight over Mount Famine,” a beautiful passage that may just increase my likelihood of revisiting this disc.

 

I’m afraid I have nothing enthusiastic to say about John McCabe’s Sam Variations. The tune upon which it is based, a theme song by the same composer for a short-lived 1970s television program, is the closest I have heard McCabe come to writing something catchy. It’s a pity we don’t really encounter it more fully (to echo the liner notes) in these variations, which revert to his usual tendency toward the prickly and angular. But I know now for a fact that there are John McCabe Fans out there, and they should probably buy this recording for these variations alone.

The problem is, the other composers represented here don’t seem to have similar followings. Moreover, I am not certain that the music offered will help create them. So, I don’t know who else to recommend this recording to. British music fans? Chamber music fans? The general classical music lover? Sure. I guess I’ll just advise that you listen before you invest. After all, there are lots of stones to look under.

Recent Releases No. 76 (CD Reviews)

by Karl Nehring

Ravel: Complete Works for Solo Piano. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, piano. CHANDOS CHAN 20287(2)

 

Sometime back in the day I owned Bavouzet’s previous recording of the complete Ravel solo piano music; come to think of it, I almost certainly still own it, hidden away somewhere in the stacks of CDs that I have lazily enough allowed to pile up on shelves in the corner of my listening room. No, I can’t imagine that I would ever have gotten rid of it, so it is probably somewhere in one of those piles along with my other favorite recordings of the Ravel piano works, those of Abbey Simon and Vlado Perlemuter. (A favorite release that I can find is one I recently reviewed [you can read that review here], that by Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho on DG.) Surprisingly enough, when I did a search of the Classical Candor archives for reviews of recordings by Bavouzet, expecting to find several – a few solo piano recordings, maybe some concertos – I found only one, and on that one, he is not even the featured performer; rather, he is the pianist on Manuel de Falla’s Nights in the Garder of Spain (you can see that review here). This new recording by Bavouzet is clearly a labor of love, the pianist returning to the music of Ravel two decades after his earlier recording, bringing with him a deeper appreciation for the music of the great French master. The generous CD booklet contains not only extensive notes on the music by eminent English musicologist Hugh Macdonald, but also an essay by Bavouzet in which he marvels at how Ravel, who was far from a virtuoso pianist himself, “was capable of inventing the most magical pianistic effects without being able to try them out himself?” But Bavouzet is able to produce Ravel’s magical pianistic effects, and the Chandos engineering team has done a fine job of recording them. This has become my new favorite Ravel piano set. Highly recommended!

 

Anna Lapwood: Firedove. (1) The Bells of Nidaros Cathedral; (2) Alan Manken: The Bells of Notre Dame (fromThe Hunchback of Notre Dame); (3) Hans Zimmer: Time (from Inception); (4) Flight – Introduction; (5) Rachel Portman: Flight; (6) Olivia Bell: Limina Luminis; (7) Julie Cooper: Firedove; (8) Ivo Antognini: Come to Me; (9) Bob Dylan: Make You Feel My Love; (10) Robbie Williams & Guy Chambers: Angels; (11) Ola Gjeilo: Northern Lights; (12) Poppy Ackroyd: Murmurations; (13) Louis Vierne: Naïades; (14) Hania Rani: Glass; (15) Maurice Duruflé: Prélude et Fugue sur le Nom D’Alain Op. 7. Anna Lapwood, organ and conductor; Jess Gillam, saxophone (4, 5); The Chapel Choir of Pembroke Choir, Cambridge (7, 8, 9); Elena Urioste, violin (7); Molly Hord, organ (9); Maryam Giraud, soloist (9). Sony Classical 19802809272

 

Anna Lapwood MBE (b. 1995) is skilled not only as an organist, but as a conductor and broadcaster as well. In 2021, for example, she appeared at the BBC Proms both as a presenter for BBC Television and as soloist in the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony. In 2016, when she was just 21, she was appointed Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, where in 2018 she established the Pembroke College Girls’ Choir for girls aged 11 to 18. She has become a notable ambassador for classical music through her outreach on social media (she became known worldwide as “the TikTok organist”), her midnight sessions at the Royal Albert Hall (where she is currently the Resident Organist), and her numerous concerts and personal appearances. The first release we reviewed that featured Anna Lapwood (b. 1995) on organ was Christopher Tin’s To Shiver the Sky, a spectacular-sounding production for multiple choirs, organ, and orchestra (you can find that review here). At that time we were beginning to become aware of her talents both as an organist and as a choir conductor through her Twitter (now X) account; there she posted about working on an arrangement of Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, which would go on to become the centerpiece of her first solo album, Images, which was released in 2021 on the Signum Classics label (you can read our review here). In 2023, she signed with Sony Classical and released her second feature album, Luna (you can read that review here).

Now she is here with a new album, which she characterizes as “an explosion of emotion, bringing together all the different strands of my musical world, from organ to choral, and from classical to pop, all seen through the lens of this remarkable instrument.” The “remarkable instrument” to which she refers is the organ at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway. The centerfold picture in the CD booklet shows Lapwood seated at the keyboard of this imposing instrument, which was built in 1930. With 129 stops and more than 9,600 pipes, it is one of the largest organs in northern Europe. From the sound of the cathedral bells that open the album, the choir, the plaintive saxophone, and of course the magnificent organ itself, the album unfolds a full spectrum of sound from the intimate to the grand. Remarkably, despite the varied nature of the program, Lapwood’s musical vision comes through as consistent and compelling. Whether playing the organ on Hans Zimmer’s Time or leading the choir in Bob Dylan’s Make You Feel My Love, she is able to draw us into the music, make us share in her reverence for the sheer wonder of melody and harmony. This sense of reverence is especially evident in her transcription for organ of Ola Gjeilo’s transcendent choral work, Northern Lights, a subtle wonder. With notes on the music by Lapwood herself and superb engineering by veterans Mike Hatch and Jakob Handel, Firedove earns an enthusiastic recommendation.

La Mer – French Works for Piano Trio (CD Review)

 by Karl Nehring

Saint Saëns: Trio No. 2, Op. 92; Mel [Mélanie Hélène Domange, née] Bonis: Soir-Matin, Op. 76; Debussy (arranged by Sally Beamish): La Mer. Neave Trio (Anna Williams, violin; Mikhail Veselov, cello; Eri Nakamura, piano). CHANDOS CHAN 20337

It was about a year ago that we last reviewed a release by the Neave Trio, A Room of Her Own, which featured works by women composers who have been largely overlooked by classical music fans (you can read that review here). On this latest release, the ensemble, whose members originate from the USA, Russia, and Japan, present music both familiar and unfamiliar by French composers both familiar and unfamiliar. The album starts off with a relatively familiar work by a highly familiar French composer, the second of the two piano trios by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921). Although La Mer gets title billing for the CD, it is this five-movement work, lasting nearly 33 minutes, that is the longest of the three compositions featured on the program. Comprising three briefer inner movements contained between two longer outer movements, this is a work grand in scale, but with its five movements offering a range of musical textures and colors to keep listeners engaged. 

Next up is the delightful Soir-Matin (“Evening-Morning”) by a composer whom I suspect will be as unfamiliar to most readers as she was to me, Mel Bonis (1858-1937). She was encouraged as a teenager by Franck and was a fellow student with Debussy at the Paris Conservatoire. Following the dramatic finale of the Saint Saëns, the lighter, more transparent sound and atmosphere created by Bonis serves as a pleasant contrast, a sonic and emotional palette cleanser of sorts, bound to bring a smile. Hearing this brief piece by this previously unknown composer may well whet your appetite – as it did mine – to hear more.

 

Then on to the featured work, a familiar composition for orchestra presented in an unfamiliar way – by a piano trio. Interestingly enough, this is not the first time we have reviewed recordings of well-known orchestral compositions performed by piano trios. Back in 2022, we reviewed a recording of Symphonies Nos. 2 & 5 by Beethoven by the all-star trio of Kavakos, Ma, and Ax, a release for which we could not work up much enthusiasm (you can find that review here). However, we found their later release of a trio arrangement of Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony to be an utter delight (you can read that review here). Perhaps the reason the “Pastoral” reduction seemed to work so much better is that the symphony is so essentially tuneful that reducing the instrumental forces in some respects increases rather than reduces the tuneful appeal of the music. But what about La Mer, where the melodies are less defined and the overall musical colors more hazy? What we end up with in this trio arrangement comes across as an X-ray view of the body of the beast. It is fascinating to listen to, it offers insight into the structure of La Mer, and it can stand on its own as a piano trio. 

The CD booklet offers informative liner notes, and the engineering is first-class. The Neave Trio has once again delivered a release well worth seeking out in every respect, from the originality of the program to the excellence of the playing and production. Enthusiastically recommended!