Beethoven: Triple Concerto (XRCD review)

David Oistrakh, violin; Mstislav Rostropovich, cello; Sviatoslav Richter, piano; Herbert von Karajan, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Hi-Q HIQXRCD6.

Sometimes, maybe once in a decade, maybe once in a lifetime, a confluence of great solo artists, a great conductor, and a great orchestra produces a genuinely instant classic. Such was the case when violinist David Oistrakh, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and pianist Sviatoslav Richter performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in 1969 with Maestro Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic. It’s hard to imagine this performance of the Triple Concerto ever being topped, given of the sheer magnitude of the talent involved. What’s more, it continues to be one of the best-recorded versions of the music you’ll find, and this Hi-Q XRCD release remastered and manufactured by JVC makes it just that much better.

Although Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C major for piano, violin, cello and orchestra, Op. 56 (1804), never impressed critics as much as his violin and piano concertos did, concertgoers have long enjoyed it for its delicious melodies and memorable tunes, especially its soaring first movement and sweet Largo. In an impassioned reading from three of the twentieth-century’s greatest musicians and one of its most-celebrated conductors, the piece couldn’t fail. The music is, as you probably know, actually a kind of orchestrated chamber trio, a sinfonia concertante where the several instruments oppose the orchestra and each other, a style that had passed out of vogue by Beethoven’s time but one into which Beethoven injected new life.

The Berlin Philharmonic sounds, as always, magnificent, and Karajan avoids glamorizing or over-romanticizing the score. When the cello, the violin, and then the piano make their entrance in the first movement, we can see immediately this going to be a gentle, relaxed Triple Concerto, with no want of beauty or expression. The performance is responsive and spacious, yet we can still appreciate the full force of the great orchestra making itself known, reminding us that no matter how easygoing the interpretation may be, it’s still an interpretation on the grandest scale. You’re not going to get this kind of sound from a chamber ensemble or a period-instruments group.

As to the soloists, remarkably, they play as though they had worked together for years. None of the three men attempts to upstage the others, and their instruments complement one another perfectly, almost producing three variations of the same instrument (or four if you count the orchestra, which also blends in flawlessly). Naturally, the cello most often takes the lead, yet Rostropovich never actually dominates; it’s a genuinely shared experience.

The second-movement Largo is as meltingly beautiful as any you’ll hear, big and bold yet brief, hushed, and to the point. The fluidity of the playing seems almost magical. This movement flows seamlessly into the finale, which is as lively, rhythmic, and graceful as you could want. It’s a recording that at the end you want to stand up and applaud, even cheer, it’s that good.

In terms of sound, you would expect it to be good or JVC would not have remastered and manufactured it, EMI would not have licensed it to Resonance Recordings, and Hi-Q would not be distributing it. Although it still won’t satisfy the needs of every audiophile, it does, indeed, sound good. It sounded good in its original EMI form, and it sounds good newly remastered.

EMI producer Peter Andry and audio engineer Allen Stagg made the recording at Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin, in 1969. They captured a wide dynamic range, so wide, in fact, that the opening passage may tempt you to turn up the gain. Don’t. The volume soon rises startlingly, along with some solid transient impact. Instrument separation is excellent, transparency in the somewhat robustly thick midrange is nevertheless quite good, and depth and air are more than adequate.

Obviously, I compared the new  Hi-Q/JVC XRCD24/K2 24-bit super-analog remaster to EMI’s own remastering in their mid-priced “Great Recordings of the Century” series. Switching out the two discs between separate CD players (Sony and Yamaha), matching their volume, and playing them simultaneously for instant comparisons, I found in each instance that the Hi-Q disc sounded a touch warmer and smoother, while also being a bit more crisply detailed, tauter, and better focused. While the differences were not, however, as dramatic as I’ve heard on some other XRCD’s, on good playback equipment the differences are at least a noticeable improvement. Then, too, Hi-Q/JVC package the disc in a slick, attractive Digipak container with bound inner note pages.

The question, of course, is whether the Hi-Q disc is worth its considerably higher asking price. Is it really that much better than the regular EMI release? It is, after all, the very same performance you can buy much cheaper on EMI, and no amount of sonic improvement is going to change that. What’s more, the EMI disc adds the Brahms Double Concerto for good measure, making it an even greater value. No, anyone interested in spending over a dollar per minute on the Hi-Q disc has to own playback equipment worthy of doing it justice and, of course, really has to like the Beethoven piece to begin with. Then, like everything in life, one has to weigh the merits of the product. If you want the very best and are willing (and able) to pay for it, you go for the best. If you are a person of more modest means or with a modest playback system, you may want to stick with the regular EMI product, which is still plenty good.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Antheil: Symphony No. 3 “American” (CD review)

Tom Sawyer; Hot-Time Dance; McKonkey’s Ferry; Capital of the World. Hugh Wolff, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. CPO 777 040-2.

In the 1940’s a survey indicated that the four American composers whose works orchestras most often performed at the time were George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and George Antheil. Remarkable, considering that now, some seventy years on, the first three composers are still immensely popular and the fourth, Antheil, is practically unknown.

American composer George Antheil (1900-1959) was a self-proclaimed “Bad Boy of Music” (the title of his 1945 autobiography) in the 1920’s, going forth to Europe to set the world on fire in the manner of his hero, Igor Stravinsky. There was a difference, of course: Stravinsky wrote music that backed up his revolutionary convictions. Antheil’s music, on the other hand, sounds more like the Hollywood film scores he eventually wrote to earn him and his family money.

Antheil’s Third Symphony (1939) carries the subtitle “American,” and while it is certainly quite American in its themes and reflections on American life, it is hardly a “symphony” at all. It is more like a series of tone poems, each section a description of a different part of the country. I found a lot of it noisy and not a little of it derivative, despite Maestro Hugh Wolff and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony’s best efforts to the contrary. Nevertheless, there is also much to entertain one here, and Wolff’s refined yet lively interpretation seems beyond dispute. I doubt that many other conductors could have pulled it off as well as Wolff does. The performance is expansive, stimulating, and certainly colorful.

The shorter works on the disc find names aptly suited to their content: “Tom Sawyer,” “Hot-Time Dance,” “McKonkey’s Ferry,” and named for a Hemingway short story, “Capital of the World.” The latter, a suite from his ballet, is for me the best thing in the present collection, vibrant and characterful, which Wolff fills with vitality rather than mere notes.

Also among the best things about the disc are its sound and its informational booklet. The CPO engineers do a fine job capturing the clear, open, lively sound of an orchestra going full bore, with wide dynamic contrasts, strong bass, clean highs, and a reasonably transparent midrange. The accompanying booklet note contains an extensive biographical essay on the composer by musicologist and author Eckhardt van den Hoogen. The essay’s only drawback is that it’s presented in three languages, and in order to fit all of it into one little booklet, the typeface is so small you almost need a magnifying glass to read it.

I hope now that Hugh Wolff and his Frankfurt players have finished up their project with Antheil’s symphonic works, they will tackle some of the man’s lighter (and possibly better) pieces, the ones he composed for film: things like The Plainsman, Union Pacific, The Buccaneer, Along the Oregon Trail, Tokyo Joe, and The Pride and the Passion.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP

Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 5 “Emperor” (CD review)

Christoph Eschenbach, piano; Hans Werner Henze, London Symphony Orchestra; Seiji Ozawa, Boston Symphony Orchestra. Brilliant Classics 94602.

As of this writing, it was forty-odd years ago that “young” Christoph Eschenbach recorded the two Beethoven piano concertos that Brilliant Classics have re-released on the present disc. They were fine performances in their day, and they remain fine performances today. Like Master Beethoven’s works, things of beauty are joys forever.

Although I can’t recall much about Eschenbach’s recording of the Third Piano Concerto (I may never have heard it before now), I have fond memories of his Fifth. I used to own it on Deutsche Grammophon back in the old LP days but never got around to replacing it on CD. Still, it maintained a high place in my collection for many years, so it’s good to have it back where it belongs. Eschenbach combines brilliant technique and careful thought in equal measure to produce what remains one of the best “Emperor” Concerto recordings you can find.

As you probably know, Beethoven (1770-1827) composed his Piano Concerto No. 5 in E Flat, Op. 73, “Emperor,” in 1809, premiering it in 1811 and dedicating it to the Archduke Rudolf, his patron and student at the time. It would be Beethoven’s final piano concerto, and it would go on to become one of the man’s most-popular pieces of music. However, the work’s epithet, “Emperor,” was not of Beethoven’s doing. In fact, he might not have liked it, given his disillusionment with the Emperor Napoleon. It was most likely Beethoven’s publisher who nicknamed the piece “Emperor” or possibly the fact that Beethoven premiered it in Vienna at a celebration of the Austrian Emperor's birthday. Who knows.

Anyway, any rendition of the “Emperor” must provide a big, bold, imposing opening Allegro, and Eschenbach does just that, the whole performance full of youthful energy, virtuosity, and daring skill. That first movement is as grand as you’d want. Yet Eschenbach offers much poetry; energetic, to be sure, but lyrical as well. Maestro Ozawa keeps the tempos brisk, yet they are never fast or rushed. So both the piano playing and the orchestral accompaniment are in accord, being enthusiastic and entirely within the Romantic tradition. The interpretation is never fierce, while always maintaining that belligerent attitude the composer was famous for.

Eschenbach and Ozawa take the slow movement even slower than usual, reinforcing the romanticism of the piece. Certainly, Eschenbach captures the melancholy of the music as well as anyone ever has. Then the team produce a rousingly heroic finale to cap off a wholly satisfying reading, which never wanders off into extrovert showmanship for its own sake.

Interestingly, DG released this recording of the Fifth Piano Concerto the same year Decca released their own version with Ashkenazy, Solti, and the Chicago Symphony, which tended to overshadow Eschenbach and company. Both recordings are in the same class, though, with Decca’s sound slightly more transparent, if a tad more hard-edged. Interestingly, too, both Eschenbach and Ashkenazy went on to successful conducting careers along with their piano playing.

The accompanying work, the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 (which opens the program), is not as successful under Eschenbach, Maestro Hans Henze, and the London Symphony Orchestra, although DG’s more-robust recorded sound might make it seem so. It’s not a matter of tempos so much--these are moderate--but contrasts and emphases. In any case, it’s at least a distinctive interpretation, the performers more than willing to stamp the music with the force of their own wills. I’m not sure, though, that it’s all that playful, imaginative, or charming as it is lyrically expressive. Henze seems more intent simply on making us like the music than in allowing us to like it.

DG originally recorded the Fifth Piano Concerto in 1973 at Symphony Hall, Boston, and the Third Piano Concerto in 1971 at Fairfield Hall, Croydon, London. The Fifth seems a little closer than I remembered, yet it’s also a little clearer. I recall the LP sounding somewhat soft and reverberant. So the transfer engineers appear to have cleaned things up a bit. The orchestra could stretch deeper behind the soloist, too; it’s pretty much in the same plane. That aside, the sound comes across naturally enough, warm, a trifle dark, with a strong dynamic presence. The disc also displays a realistic piano sound, crisply articulated.

While in the Third Concerto we find the LSO a bit more clearly recorded than the Boston Symphony, we also find a small, bright edge. Again we get little depth to the image but a very wide stereo spread and an even more forward piano sound than in Boston.

To hear a brief excerpt from this album, click here:

JJP