French Cello Concertos (CD review)

Saint-Saens, Lalo, Milhaud, Offenbach, Massenet. Hee-Young Lim, cello; Scott Yoo, London Symphony Orchestra. Sony Classical S80425C.

Her current recording, "French Cello Concertos," is the debut album for Korean cellist Hee-Young Lim, who has made quite a name for herself in the past few years. Not only has she won major international competitions, she is Principal Solo Cellist of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the first Korean cello professor at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She tours as a soloist and recitalist and performs with the world's leading orchestras. It's no wonder, then, that so big and prestigious a record label as Sony Classical wanted to promote her first release.

Supported by conductor Scott Yoo and the London Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Lim performs five well-known cello pieces by French composers: Saint-Saens, Lalo, Milhaud, Offenbach, and Massenet. Not that there is exactly a surplus of cello concertos to play, though. The poor cello, a descendent of the bass violin, didn't find a serious place for itself until well into the Baroque period, and even then it held a limited position. Bach wrote his six cello suites, of course; later Haydn wrote a couple of cello concertos and Beethoven a few cello sonatas. Yet it wasn't until the later Romantic period that the cello began to flourish, with Schumann, Dvorak, and Brahms writing concertos for it. Then, the twentieth century saw a greater blossoming of material for the instrument. Anyway, the major attraction here, Saint-Saens's cello concerto, came somewhat late in the Romantic era, 1872, by which time the cello had firmly established itself as a commonly accepted part of the orchestral picture.

So, the first thing up is the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in A by Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921). Written in one continuous movement split into three separate sections with interrelated ideas, Saint-Saens's concerto was unconventional for its time. Nevertheless, it became a favorite of cellists and composers everywhere, some of them like Rachmaninov and Shostakovich declaring it the greatest of all cello concertos.

Hee-Young Lim

The concerto keeps the solo instrument in the foreground almost the whole time, and Ms. Lim takes advantage of this situation with playing of steadfast command. Yet unlike so many other soloists, she never tries to dominate the music with the force of her personality. The musical lines are always clean and direct, the passion expressed through the score itself, not her own virtuosity. This is not to say she isn't a marvel to listen to; she is an accomplished musician and the concerto's finale is an amazing whirlwind of notes. But she is also a delicate, introspective musician, and much of her talent is in the nuances of her playing. In other words, while there are more bravura performances you can find, there are none more sensitively committed.

Next, and maybe equally famous, is the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in d minor by Edouard Lalo (1823-92), which he wrote in 1876. He arranged it in a more traditional style than Saint-Saens did his concerto a few years earlier, and perhaps because of its strong hints of Spanish flamenco music, it gets its fair share of performances and recordings. Ms. Lim takes the first two movements at a slightly more leisurely pace than one often hears, and it adds a sweet tone that complements the nature of this Spanish-influenced French music. It's an elegant reading, full of operatic color and character in its first two movements and a whole lot of zest in its final moments.

After that we find the Cello Concerto No. 1 by Darius Milhaud (1892-1974). Written in 1934, its more modern and jazz-inflected disposition is notably different from that of the more Romantic Saint-Saens and Lalo pieces. Milhaud's work relies less on pure melody and more on displays of seemingly indiscriminate mood swings from lyrical tenderness to somber reflection to a nearly cheerful giddiness. The oddness of the music continues despite a lovely opening stretch that Ms. Lim makes the most of before Milhaud starts going in all directions at once. Give Ms. Lim credit for holding the work together so well and having it come through so engagingly.

Following the three concertos, we get two shorter pieces: Les larmes de Jacqueline ("The Tears of Jacqueline") by Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) and the familiar "Meditation" from the opera Thais by Jules Massenet (1842-1912). They are the icing on the cake and bring the program to a satisfying end.

Producer Michael Fine and engineer Jin Choi recorded the music at Abbey Road Studios, London in July 2018. And what a pleasure it is to hear the London Symphony back recording at Abbey Road, the scene of so many of their previous successes. As I said earlier, the cello is in the forefront of the musical activity, which is, I suppose, the way it ought to be. In any case, the sound is precise, well defined, solid, and robust. The cello carries plenty of weight and makes a firm impression on the ear. The orchestra is almost secondary, but it, too, sounds splendid, with clean detailing, strong dynamics, and a realistic sense of presence. In fact, the sound of the LSO reminded me a lot of the sound of their EMI recordings of the late Sixties and Seventies, and that is high praise, indeed.

JJP

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

Above and Beyond (CD review)

Music for Wind Band. Gerard Schwarz, "The President's Own" United States Marine Band. Naxos 8.573121.

Even though the musical sound of a wind band may be an acquired taste, when it's presented as well as Maestro Gerard Schwarz and "The President's Own" United States Marine Band offer it here, it's kind of hard to resist. Of course, it may help when most of the composers involved wrote the music directly for a wind band, yet that doesn't interfere with our enjoyment of several famous transcriptions and arrangements we find here in the music of Creston, Copland, Schwarz, Grainger, Rands, Barber, and Offenbach.

First, a word about the artists: American conductor Gerard Schwarz most folks probably recognize as the longtime Music Director of the Seattle Symphony (1985-2011). He has earned numerous awards over the years, made over a hundred record albums, and currently works with several all-star orchestras. The U.S. Marine Band, known as "The President's Own," is the oldest military band in the country, tracing its formation back to an act of Congress in 1798. They are also one of the best wind bands in the country. Or in the world, for that matter.

Now, a word about the only drawback in the recording: the sound. Naxos chose to record the album live in concert. Not a good idea. More about that in a moment.

It's the music that matters, and whether you like wind-band presentations or not, you'd have to admit that Schwarz and company do up these numbers proud. We start with the Celebration Overture, a 1955 work written for wind band by American composer Paul Creston (1906-1985). I liked Schwarz's insistence that the piece sound both rhythmic and melodious and not just loud, as some marching bands might play it. The piece has some sweet inner beauty (the middle section particularly), which Schwarz captures nicely.

Next, it's Emblems by Aaron Copland (1900-1990), a work the American composer wrote in 1964 on commission for the College Band Directors National Association. One hears a brief quotation from the hymn "Amazing Grace" in the piece, a pleasing touch. Otherwise, it's a pretty simple, straightforward work, one that Copland said wouldn't "overstrain the technical abilities" of young musicians. It's pleasant enough music in a modern vein, and Schwarz carries it off with seemingly a minimum of effort. The band plays well for him.

After that is a piece by the conductor himself, Above and Beyond, written in 2012 especially for the Marine Band. Schwarz wanted to write something "slow and expressive," as he puts it, a real adagio for winds that he knew the Marine Band could pull off. While I personally found it a bit on the dull side, even when it gets rambunctious toward the end, there's no denying its expressive and atmospheric moods. And who can doubt that Schwarz plays his own music as well as anyone?

Then we get the longest work on the program, Frederick Fennell's edition of Australian-born composer and pianist Percy Grainger's Lincolnshire Posy, a fifteen-minute piece in six movements that the composer wrote for the American Bandmasters Association in 1937. The Grainger work is the centerpiece of the program for good reason. It's very good, indeed. Based on folk songs Grainger collected, these "musical wildflowers" as he described them are wonderfully infectious, charming, jaunty, melancholic, and tuneful by turns, and Maestro Schwarz appears to take great affection in them. His manner with the band is gentle and persuasive, making the pieces as touching as I've heard them.

Gerard Schwarz

Following the Grainger piece is Ceremonial by English composer Bernard Rands (b. 1934). It's rather dark and forbidding compared to the other music on the disc, yet it possesses a captivating, pulsating vigor that Schwarz realizes quite well. Even though I had never heard the work before, I can see how some conductors might allow its repetitions to get monotonous. Schwarz never does.

Then it's on to Medea's Dance of Vengeance and Commando March by American Samuel Barber (1910-1981). Both of Barber's works are enjoyable, particularly the first one from his ballet. You might not think music transcribed for band could be as gentle in places as this is, and Schwarz effectively plays up the dramatic aspects as well, creating more than sufficient excitement.

The program concludes fittingly with the Marines' Hymn, arranged by Donald Hunsberger and based on a tune, interestingly, by Jacques Offenbach. Here, the audience, generally reticent in their applause, finally come a little more alive, clapping along a tad more enthusiastically throughout the brief piece.

Maj. Jason K. Fettig produced and MGySgt. Karl J. Jackson engineered and edited the album, which they recorded in concert at The Music Center at Strathmore, Bethesda, Maryland in March 2012. It's in the nature of wind-band music that the sound is going to be somewhat deep and mellow, but here it's not quite so. In order to minimize audience noise, the engineers recorded it fairly close, making the winds sound clearer but drier than we usually hear them. Still, there seems a veil over the sonics, and I would have liked a dash more hall ambience; but it doesn't happen. Dynamics are fairly wide, with decent impact, while frequency extremes appear limited. Triangles and other percussion seem relatively weak and the deep bass a little disappointing.

Ah, and then there is the audience, of which one is always aware despite the close miking. Then, too, they clap in a curiously lackadaisical manner at the end of each selection but the last. Although I know a lot of home listeners enjoy live recordings and the sound of an audience around them, I find it intrusive and distracting.

JJP

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

Offenbach: Gaite Parisienne (CD review)

Also, Waldteufel: Waltzes. Manuel Rosenthal; Willi Boskovsky; Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra. EMI 7243 5 85066 2.

It might be the best seven or eight bucks you spent in a long time. This budget issue from EMI has the distinction of being not only authoritative but spectacularly well recorded. What more could you want for your hard-earned dollar?

In 1938 Manuel Rosenthal pieced together a little ballet from some of the most familiar bits of Jacques Offenbach’s operas La Vie pariesienne, La belle Helene, Orpheus in the Underworld, The Tales of Hoffmann, and others. Rosenthal died in 2003, just short of his 100th birthday, but in his lifetime he managed to record his Gaite Parisienne at least three times, the last one for Naxos when he was in his nineties. Anyway, the recording we have here was one the conductor/arranger made with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic in 1976 when he was a mere stripling in his seventies.

When I first came to the recording on vinyl, I was happily living with my old Fiedler RCA Living Stereo LP from the mid Fifties (now remastered by both RCA and JVC). Frankly, it took me a while to warm up to Rosenthal’s version, but because it sounded so good I gave it repeated listens and it grew on me. Unlike Fiedler, who takes the piece very briskly as a concert work and turns it into a joyously infectious occasion, Rosenthal plays his ballet as a ballet, as a work for dancers actually to negotiate. As such, it does not have the characteristic bounce and sheer adrenaline rush of Fiedler’s more lively account. But Rosenthal’s taking his time does produce some beautiful detail and refinement that is hard to resist, and by the time he comes to the climactic “Can-Cans,” he’s moving along at a pretty good clip. What’s more, his recording is still demonstration worthy, with an amazing bass drum and some incredibly quick transients.

Equally as pleasant, the disc includes four of Emile Waldteufel’s most popular waltzes--Espana, Les Patineurs, Estudiantina, and Acclamations--with Willi Boskovsky conducting the same Monte Carlo Orchestra and also recorded in 1976. If there is any small hesitation about the absolute quality of the Offenbach, there is none whatsoever about the Waldteufel. These are some of the best recordings of the four waltzes ever committed to disc, and the sound appears even better spread out (for reasons unknown) than the Offenbach. If you already have a Gaite Parisienne, that’s OK. This one will make a nice complement to it; and what do you have to lose for the paltry price of experimenting?

JJP