September 2010


Best Of 2010 Blue Note Music Awards
As Chosen By Music Editor Wayne Donnelly
And The Music review Staff At Enjoy the Music.com
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Ludwig von Beethoven: String Quartets: "The Harp," "Serioso." Tokyo String Quartet.
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These outstanding performances of two middle period quartets brilliantly recorded on SACD would be a highlight of any year. The Tokyo String Quartet has played these works many times but here they emerge fresher than ever. The ensemble, as you would expect from the Tokyo, is superhuman, but now it serves to characterize the music in a way those less technically perfect simply cannot achieve. That is virtuosity at its best, when it is fully at the service of the music and not an end in itself. The Tokyo has always had refinement and accuracy in their corner, but sometimes passion was held on a leash and greater musical satisfaction could be found elsewhere. Now the surface sheen is combined with panache and a greater depth of understanding that propels the Tokyo into the very first rank alongside the Hungarian Quartet mono recordings of the fifties. -- Phil Gold 

Ludwig van Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas. Paul Lewis, Piano. (10 CDs)
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Lewis tends to take structure as his primary goal, typically creating a well organized, organically progressing rendition of each sonata. As a result, some of the most famous — e.g. the "Apassionata" — receive somewhat sober interpretations. But Lewis frequently illuminates less celebrated pieces with truly original insights. Harmonia Mundi's piano sound is excellent. The "compleat” Beethoven collector will find enough new pleasures in this set to add it to whatever previous versions are already owned.  -- Wayne Donnelly 

Johannes Brahms: Symphony No 1, Variations on a Theme by Haydn.  Budapest Festival Orchestra, Conductor Ivan Fischer.
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This studio recording brings all the excitement of a live performance. Fischer sweeps the field by combining sweep, majesty and attention to detail in a coherent vision that would have Brahms smiling. This being my first exposure to both conductor and orchestra, I am now hungry for more. The icing on the cake is the superb recording quality, a delight on the Redbook layer, demonstration quality on SACD.  -- Phil Gold

"Britten's Orchestra" Benjamin Britten: The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra; Sinfonia da Requiem; Four Sea Interludes & Passacaglia from Peter Grimes.
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The three works presented here, all from Britten's early career (1940-1946), brilliantly demonstrate the composer's mastery of orchestral idiom.  The Young Person's Guide (a.k.a. Variations and Fugue on Themes by Purcell) is Britten's best-known work. Sinfonia da Requiem  is, unfortunately, not nearly so well known. Its economical three-movement structure, memorable themes and powerful orchestration are most impressive, and the work deserves to be programmed far more often than it is. The Four Sea Interludes and Passacaglia from Britten's great opera Peter Grimes are now well established as concert fare independent of the opera. Conductor Michael Stern integrates the Passacaglia into the Sea Interludes, placing it just before the closing "Storm" movement. That arrangement works quite well, especially in this captivating performance. Altogether, the combination of perceptive interpretation, committed playing from the orchestra, and demo-quality sonics makes this exciting disc my favorite orchestral release of the past year. Breakung news: I just received a new release of this program in SACD. More, please!  -- Wayne Donnelly

Anton Bruckner
Symphony No. 8 in C minor. Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Berlin Philharmonic.
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This live recording from 1984 is the most important historical release that I reviewed over the past year. Though Giulini made two other recordings of this symphony (a studio recording with the Vienna Philharmonic and a live performance with the Philharmonia, both from around the same time), this Testament release is definitely the one to have. There never was (and probably will never be) a better Bruckner conductor than Giulini, and there remains no greater Bruckner orchestra than the Berlin. This recording vividly captures what transpired when the two joined forces on a very memorable night in February. The rapture and intensity of this performance brings Furtwangler to mind. The sound, though not state of the art, is good enough to accurately and vividly communicate the heart-rending goings-on. -- Max Westler

Antonin Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B minor, op. 104; Symphonic Variations, op. 78. Peter Wispelwey, cello; Ivan Fischer conducting the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
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Antonin Dvorak: Symphony No. 7 in D minor; Suite in A ("American"). Ivan Fischer conducting the Budapest Festival Orchestra.
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Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (“Titan”); Manfred Honeck conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
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This is the best orchestral performance I reviewed over the past year. It certainly had stiff competition from Micheal Tilson Thomas’ glorious “Symphony of a Thousand,” but in the end, Honeck won out because his interpretation is alert, committed, and intense, and faithfully represents every mood and emotion Mahler asks for. In addition, the sound on this Exton SACD disc is startlingly realistic, easily of demonstration quality, and maybe the greatest recording of a Mahler Symphony I’ve ever heard.  As a combination of performance, interpretation, and sound engineering, this recording can’t be beat. -- Max Westler

Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante, K.364; Haydn: Violin Concerti. Rachel Podger, violin, Pavlo Beznosiuk, viola, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
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Rachel Podger plays with such directness and attention to the long line that these familiar works seem fresh and exhilarating. She receives excellent support from Pavlo Beznosiuk and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, who play without benefit of conductor. This period instrument recording has the soloists playing gut stringed Stradivari in the Mozart, while Podger switches to a Pesarinius violin for the two Haydn concerti. Period instruments do not have to sound thin, astringent or bass light, and this recording shows how glorious and full blooded a fine period instrument ensemble can be. The recording quality is first rate on both layers of this Hybrid disc. -- Phil Gold

Sergei Prokofiev: Complete Sonatas for Piano; Sarcasms Op. 17. Anne-Marie McDermott, piano.
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My choice for the best instrumental disc is Anne-Marie McDermott’s account of the complete Prokofiev sonatas. McDermott has the technical power to play these notoriously difficult works, but it’s her ability to put us in touch with the full range of moods one finds in this music—their percussive violence, infernal energy, hallucinatory calms and swells—that deeply impresses. Magnificent sound here too. In the end, McDermott suggests that Prokofiev’s complete sonatas are every bit as revealing as his Symphonies. If you love the music of Prokofiev, this set is required listening. -Max Westler

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3, Rhapsody On a Theme Of Paganini.

Denis Matsuev, piano; Valery Gergiev conducting the Mariinsky Orchestra. Mariinsky 505
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Matsuev charges into the Concerto in a fearless, take-no-prisoners style, relishing the virtuosic writing.  He relaxes a bit in the second movement, adding lyricism to the fireworks that dominate the two outer movements. He finds more poetry in the Rhapsody, where Matsuev shows tender phrasing, ravishing tonal color and dazzling dynamic scaling that make this one of the finest interpretations I know -- and a worthy competitor to my previous favorite by another Russian phenom, Dmitri Alexeev, with Yuri Temirkanov conducting the St. Petersburg Philharmonic on RCA.

Whatever one's feelings about Matsuev, what makes this release virtually a necessity for fans of the composer is the extraordinary contribution of Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra. Only the aforementioned St. Petersburg Philharmonic can seriously challenge the Mariinsky for supremacy in the Russian repertoire. In the Concerto, Gergiev surrounds the soloist with such subtle phrasing, surprising insights and heartbreakingly beautiful orchestral sound that all criticism -- by me, at least -- is swept away. Same goes for the Rhapsody, in spades. I have never heard either work conducted better. The two-channel SACD sound is superb. -Wayne Donnelly

Robert Schumann: String Quartet in A major, Op. 41 No. 3; Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44. Marc-André Hamelin, piano; Takács Quartet.
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What a wonderful treat for lovers of Romantic chamber music! The Piano Quintet's combination of dramatic intensity and lyrical beauty has never been more effectively realized than in this marvelous collaboration between Marc-Andre Hamelin and the Takacs Quartet. Hamelin has a sure command of the mid-19th-Century Romantic idiom, and the Takacs' warm, expressive playing is ideal for this music. These artists' collaboration in the Quintet sounds as if they had been playing together forever, so naturally convincing is their command of tempi and phrasing. -- Wayne Donnelly

Dmitri Shostakovich: The Nose. Soloists, Chorus and Symphony of the Mariinsky Opera; Valery Gergiev, conductor.
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This is a staggeringly brilliant performance of Shostakovich’s wildly experimental first opera, with the full forces of the Mariinsky Opera, including its superb orchestra, under its director, Valery Gergiev. Based on Gogol’s satirical and what modern readers call surreal short story about a civil servant who misplaces his nose, only to see it disguised as a higher-up government bureaucrat walking into a church, The Nose features a huge cast, with outstanding soloists and chorus, dazzling orchestral effects (including an all-percussion interlude), and startling changes of mood. Surely no conductor today knows the score as well as Gergiev, and the Mariinsky’s own label offers sound that pinpoints every strange instrumental detail and characterful voice with realism and powerful presence. -- Joe Milicia

Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F Major, Opus 10; Symphony No. 15 in A Major, Opus 141. Valery Gergiev conducting the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater.
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Valery Gergiev has established himself as today's preeminent interpreter of this repertoire.  Gergiev finds more light and shade in the First than most competitors. The orchestra's extraordinary instrumental color and whiplash attack brilliantly illuminate the conductor's insights.

This 15th Symphony keeps me coming back to this disc. I always found the 15th intriguing but elusive. When it was published in the early 1970s, I recall much commentary about the quotations from Rossini's William Tell Overture, mostly citing the composer's penchant for playfulness, and suggestions that he was going back to music he loved as a youth. There is something to that, but those notions fall far short of truly understanding the composer's intent. In his booklet essay, Leonid Gakkel suggests that the multiple Tell quotations, interspersed through a very quiet, sober exposition, symbolize the reversion to popular banality that Shostakovich struggled against throughout his career. That interpretation makes sense, especially given the uncelebratory irony of the symphony as a whole. And the 15th contains many references to earlier music: Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky, Glinka, and the composer's earlier works.

It was brilliant programming to pair the first and last efforts by Russia's greatest symphonist. This disc is essential to any fan of the composer or the genre. The recorded sound is sensational.  -- Wayne Donnelly

Homage. James Ehnes, violin, Eduard Laurel, piano. Onyx 4038
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This album is in a class by itself, essential listening for any violin aficionado. Canadian virtuoso James (Jimmy) Ehnes explores the superb collection of violins and violas collected by David Fulton of Seattle, Washington. Music is chosen to show off each instrument’s particular strengths. But this is no academic exercise. The music  chosen, from De Falla, Elgar, Cyril Scott, Dinicu, Ravel, Wieniawski, Sibelius, Moszkowski, Kreisler, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams, Arthur Benjamin and Felicien David is very fine and the playing simply staggering. To cap it off, Ehnes plays the same test piece on each of the nine violins so we can see how they compare, and performs a similar exercise for the three violas. The set includes a DVD where you can watch the performances with commentary from Ehnes and wonderful photography to document the full beauty of each instrument. Just buy it!  -- Phil Gold

Hommage à Chopin. Piano pieces by Balakirev, Bendel, Berkeley, Busoni, Godard, Godowsky, Grieg, Honegger, Leschetizky, Mompou, Napravnik, Tchaikovsky, and Villa-Lobos. Jonathan Plowright, piano.
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To celebrate Chopin’s 200^th birthday, British pianist Jonathan Plowright and the Hyperion label have offered a delightful collection of pieces from the 1860s to the 1950s that pay tribute to the Polish master by quoting him or imitating his style. Thirteen composers from Grieg and Tchaikovsky to Honegger and Villa-Lobos (along with several less famous but still worthy names) offer nocturnes, mazurkas, waltzes and variations on Chopin tunes, refreshing in their variety, and superbly performed in state-of-the-art sound by Plowright, who is in turn lyrical and flinty, dreamy and swaggering, monumental and theatrical, as the occasion calls for it. -- Joe Milicia

West Of The Sun: Music Of The Americas

Selections by Ernesto Nazareth, Louis Moreau Gottshalk, Astor Piazzola, Alberto Ginastera, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Amy Marcy Beach, Margaret Bonds, William Bolcom and Samuel Barber. Joel Fan, piano.
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Joel Fan is not a pianist who will crash concert halls and wreak havoc with his pianistic virtuosity. But few pianists so successfully promote and communicate music that falls outside the normal classical music canon: a task perhaps more important than bringing down the house. West of the Sun attempts to lure listeners away from staples like Chopin and Brahms. Some listeners may respond more to Astor Piazzola or Margaret Bonds than to Mozart; perhaps you are one of them. A project such as this takes courage to sell, prepare and execute; Joel Fan has done a fantastic job here. And tomorrow, if you hear music from a more obscure composer, ask yourself, “Have I given this composer as much time as I would give Mozart?” Perhaps West of the Sun will give you an opportunity to begin expanding your musical horizons. -- Evan Shinners