A String Quartet Christmas (CD review)

Arturo Delmoni and friends. ArkivMusic Listen LSTN 50001 (3-disc set).

Ho, ho, ho. It's that time of year again to love your neighbor, spread good cheer, and buy another Christmas album. I've never understood the latter concept. Each and every Christmas, every record company on earth releases one or more new albums of seasonal music, and all of it seems to sell. Do people go out and buy Christmas music to play once or twice during the holiday season and then lose or throw away that they have to go out and buy even more such discs the next year? I mean, over time people must collect hundreds of Christmas albums, which they tuck away somewhere around the house, never to play again. Seems a waste, particularly if it's music you know people are only going to listen to at certain times of the year.

Anyway, if you must have a new Christmas album, it might as well be one you can hang onto year after year, playing again and again. Or one you can enjoy all year 'round. My wife, for instance, is partial to A Charlie Brown Christmas, which she plays just about any time. With this in mind, you could do worse than A String Quartet Christmas, a three-CD set that producer John Marks originally released on his own label as three separate albums in the late Nineties.

The quartet of the title varies in instrumentation, with two violins, viola, and cello on the first volume, and violins, viola, cello, harp, and organ rotating in and out on the second and third volumes. The idea is to remind listeners of the old, largely nineteenth-century tradition of friends and family gathering together and playing Christmas tunes on whatever instruments they had at hand, with everyone joining in on the vocals. Well, there are no vocals here, but there's nothing stopping you from singing along.

Violinist Arturo Delmoni leads the players in a well-rounded collection of favorite Christmas music: popular, secular, spiritual, and classical. Volume one contains twenty-four selections, mostly of the popular variety--"Joy to the World," "The First Noel," "Deck the Halls," that kind of thing; volume two, with twenty-two selections, is more esoteric and classical--"The Shepherd's Farewell," "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," "Cherry Tree Carol"; and volume three, with twenty-two selections, is more ecclesiastical--"While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks," "Angels' Carol," "Sleep of the Infant Jesus." The performers include Delmoni on violin; Alexander Romanul, violin; Nina Bodnar, violin; Danielle Maddon, violin; Katherine Murdock, viola; Natasha Lipkina, viola; Ellen DePasquale, viola; Nathaniel Rosen, cello; Rafael Figueroa, cello; Emily Mitchell, harp; and Timothy Smith, organ.

Delmoni's playing style is lively yet warm. In the slower melodies, like "The First Noel" and "Away in a Manger," the performers display an affectionate sensitivity for the music, which seldom strays too far into sentimentality. The additions of a harp in some selections in volumes two and three and an organ in volume three bring an added note of harmony and fullness to the proceedings. Then, too, an unaccompanied harp in six selections on volume three is most affecting.

The sound is fairly close and favors the violin in the first volume especially. The rest of the instruments spread out nicely across the speakers, and the sonics project a broad, smooth response. Although the sound is a tad too soft and plush for my taste, it's well suited to this type of music and probably exactly what most listeners want. The third volume seems to me the best recorded, with an extra dash of transparency to the sound.

JJP

Paganini: Violin Concerto (CD review)

Also, Tchaikovsky: Serenade melancolique; Valse-Scherzo. Midori, violin; Leonard Slatkin, London Symphony Orchestra. Newton Classics 8802028.

You remember Midori, the young teenage violinist whose exceptional skills made such a name for her. Yeah, well, that was over two decades ago. Amazing how time flies by.  Now, Newton Classics has re-released one of the recordings that made her famous, from 1987 the Paganini Violin Concerto, and we can marvel once again at her command of the instrument. Of course, in the past twenty years about 800 other child prodigies have come and gone, and, indeed, one may wonder what's become of Midori Goto. Fortunately, her Web site (http://www.gotomidori.com) indicates she is alive and well and continues to perform up a storm all over the world.

Anyway, what we've got here is a work that matches her talents. Italian violinist, guitarist, and composer Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840) wrote his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D, Op. 6, between 1815 and 1818 (the exact date remains unclear), largely as a showpiece for his own virtuosic prowess, so it's filled with a wealth of showy details that have dazzled audiences over the years. There has been some question about the principal tonality of the piece as well as the instrumentation, the composer having apparently written the solo and orchestral parts in different keys, with varying orchestral support, resulting in what appeared to listeners of his day as musical legerdemain. Midori plays the more-commonly accepted arrangement of the work.

Leonard Slatkin and the London Symphony adopt a quick-paced gait for the introduction, all the better, perhaps, to highlight Midori's often blazing technique. Yet for all her sparkling fluency, she is a sensitive interpreter, and it is the lighter, more-lilting sections of the score that she illuminates best.  OK, so the cadenza seems to go on forever; it's a minor quibble. There is a subtle and appropriate melancholy that underlines Midori's playing of the Adagio, and the concluding Rondo has almost all the bouncy good cheer it demands.

Of the accompanying works, the booklet notes remind us that although Tchaikovsky only concerned himself with solo violin music for a short time during the 1870's, he left us with several fine examples of the genre. He wrote the Serenade melancolique in 1875 for the violinist Leopold Auer. It's a brief, slow piece that Midori plays with a passionate longing. The final work on the disc is the Valse-Scherzo, as much a showpiece as the Paganini, again demonstrating what Midori can do with a violin.

Recorded by Philips in May of 1987, the sound is nicely open and full, with a splendid ambient bloom on all the instruments. The recording tends slightly to emphasize the left and right sections of the orchestra, it's true, yet it's not enough to distract one's attention. When the violin enters, it appears properly centered, and we tend to understand why the audio engineers decided to divide the orchestra somewhat behind her. The violin itself is well balanced with the sound of the other instruments and displays a brilliant, natural shimmer. While the engineers could have captured a little more dynamic range and a deeper bass, the sound is realistic enough to please most listeners.

I have to admit I still enjoy the Paganini recordings of Michael Rabin (EMI), Itzhak Perlman (EMI), and Hilary Hahn (DG) best for their greater dash and sparkle, but there is certainly a place for this reissue of Midori's account in any fan's collection.

JJP

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 (HDCD review)

Hermann Scherchen, Vienna State Opera Orchestra. HDTT HDCD214.

If German conductor Hermann Scherchen (1891-1966) isn't as familiar a name to American audiences nowadays as so many other European musicians are, it's possibly because he didn't do a lot of recordings for major record companies, most of his output coming in the later part of his life for the Westminster label (such as this Beethoven disc). However, there can be no doubt he was an influential conductor of the twentieth century, his having championed a number of now-celebrated composers, like Alban Berg, Gustav Mahler, Max Reger, Richard Strauss, Edgard Varese, Anton Webern, and others. He apparently had quite a wide range of music in his repertoire, too, from the classics to the modernists, so it's good to have a few of his performances represented in the CD catalogue in such good sound as this one.

Beethoven originally wrote his Symphony No. 3 "Eroica" in honor of Napoleon Bonaparte, whom the composer greatly admired. However, just before Beethoven premiered the piece in 1805, he learned that Bonaparte had declared himself "Emperor," corrupting the ideals of the French Revolution, and he removed the man's name from the manuscript, inscribing it, instead, "to celebrate the memory of a great man." Whatever, the Third marked a turning point in Beethoven's artistic output, and to an extent in the world's symphonic output, with its daring length, range, and emotional commitment.

Scherchen's realization of the symphony is one of the more controversial in the catalogue. He surely isn't afraid to emphasize the symphony's passions. Indeed, he begins by taking Beethoven at his word, the opening movement proceeding in maybe the quickest tempo ever recorded, making it not only more energetic than most of the competition but more stimulating as well. It's all the more remarkable for Scherchen's having recorded it in 1958, at a time when most conductors were following long-held traditions of slow, measured beats. Scherchen's tempos are more along the lines of Roger Norrington's in his period-instruments recording and possibly in keeping with Beethoven's own tempo markings (which some critics still question). You'll find no sentimentalizing here; Scherchen is all business, more intent on drumming up "Heroic" excitement than in romanticizing the piece in any way. Thus, the opening Allegro really does come "with brio," with vigor and vivacity as Beethoven indicates, and plenty of it, like Napoleon charging through Europe (or a bull in a china shop).

 After the rhythmic thrust of the first movement comes the slow section, the funeral march, which in some conductors' hands can be deadly dull and bring the whole affair to a standstill. Not here. Although Scherchen maintains the steady forward pace of a funeral procession, it comes with none of the solemn overtones of a dirge. In fact, it becomes more highly dramatic and invigorating as it goes along, again drumming up controversy in the process.

Beethoven's Scherzo is brief and to the point, and so is Scherchen. The music bursts forth, and I mean that literally, with abandon and creates quite a joyous celebration. Then, the Finale sweeps in triumphantly, capping off a most-exhilarating interpretation. OK, so the orchestra sometimes has trouble keeping up with the zesty speeds the conductor adopts, but it's a good ensemble and manages well enough.

Admittedly, some listeners will find Scherchen's approach to this music too rushed or too rigid (at least one critic called the interpretation "mad"), but it makes a fine contrast to other notable and more conventional recordings. For comparison, try Klemperer (EM), Barbirolli (EMI), Bohm (DG), Bernstein (Sony), Karajan (DG), Zinman (Arte Nova), Herreweghe (PentaTone), Walter (Sony), and the like.

As far as the sound goes, HDTT (High Definition Tape Transfers) took this performance from a Westminster LP recorded in Vienna in 1958. The sonics display excellent clarity, body, and definition, with a wide stereo spread and ample dynamics. Indeed, the sound belies the recording's age by surpassing almost anything produced today. While the orchestral depth may not be quite as pronounced as I would have liked, the overall transparency and transient impact more than make up for it. Thanks to some judicious noise reduction, there is just the faintest degree of background hiss noticeable, hardly objectionable in any way.

No, I wouldn't suggest Scherchen's reading of the Third Symphony as a first choice in this material. It's a wonderful, wacky, wild ride, to be sure, but it's too problematic and too frenetic for easy listening. Still, no Beethoven fan should miss it, if only because it might just be closer than most other renditions to what Beethoven really had in mind.

For further information on the various formats, configurations, and prices of HDTT products, you can visit their Web site at http://www.highdeftapetransfers.com/storefront.php.

JJP