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Notes of an Amateur: Brentanos Play Schubert ‘Live.’ Peter Boyer. Wolpe, Sessions. Joan Tower.


Schubert Quintet LIve!  A Live Recording of the Schubert's cello quintet by the Brentano Quartet with Michael Kammen. Azica Records. ACD 17304.  Whenever I forget what suavity is, I listen to the Brentano Quartet to remind myself. The Brentanos employ suavity to evoke the 'classic' quality of Mozart, Beethoven, and here, Schubert. They are not... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Violinist Gidon Kremer, Cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand, and Ibragimova's Bach Concertos.


New Seasons. Gidon Kremer. Glass, Pärt, Kanchelli, Unabeyashi. Kremerata Baltica. Deutsche Gramophone. DG 4794817. Violinist Gidon Kremer is a musical phenomenon most of us have come to admire and even love. His energetic and (at least to my ears) near vibrato-less sound brings a vigorous directness to everything he plays from Bach to Glass. In... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Podger’s Biber, Gli Incogniti’s Vivaldi, Brahms; Schumann by Faust; Melnikov, Eric Nathan.


Rosary Sonatas. Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Rachel Podger, violin. David Miller, theorbo and arch lute; Marcin Swiatkiewicz, harpsichord, organ; Jonathan Manson, viola da gamba, cello. Channel Classics SACD. CCSSA 37315. Biber's (1644-1704) searching, expressly mystical meditations on the Christian story from the annunciation through the nativity to the crucifixion and resurrection and on to... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Mullova's Prokofiev, Eighth Blackbird, Schnittke for Cello, and Pacifica's Ornstein.


Prokofiev. Viktoria Mullova. [Violin Concerto No. 2; Sonata for Two Violins, Solo Violin Sonata]. Viktoria Mullova, violin. Frankfort Radio Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi, conductor. Onyx 4142. (live recordings). I am predisposed to like any recording by violinists, Jennifer Koh, Vadim Guzman, Rachel Podger, Gidon Kremer, Alina Ibagimova, and Viktoria Mullova and am seldom disappointed. The... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur - Nelsons’ Shostakovich 10 with the B.S.O.; Bach’s Cello Suites by Higham and Kuijken; Stacey Garrop’s String Quartet No. 4.


Shostakovich, 'Under Stalin's Shadow.' Symphony No. 10. Andris Nelsons. Boston Symphony Orchestra. Deutsche Gramophone DG 479-5059. I bought this album out of loyalty to my 'local' orchestra under their new leader. Nothing was at stake as I had already married Petrenko's terrific Shostakovich cycle on Naxos, but I'll admit to some hopes. And then the... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Bach, Vasks, and more Bach.


Helen Callus [viola]. Luc Beauséour [harpsichord] Bach - Krebs - Abel. Analekta. AN2 9879. There are reasons not to buy this album of Bach (and Krebs and Abel) cello sonatas. If you don't like your Bach played direct and frontal—and on a viola, which cuts the music less slack than a viola de gamba or... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Bartok and Erickson.


Bartok. Sonatas for Violin Nos. 1 and 2; Sonata for Solo Violin. Barnabás Kelemen, violin; Zoltán Kocsis, piano. Hungaroton HSACD 32515. SACD. How do you like your Bartok? Do you like Bartok? It took me several years to persuade a good fellow graduate student (who knew a lot about music) to believe me when I... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Jennifer Koh's Bach, Ibragimova's Ysaÿe, and Scelsi.


Jennifer Koh, Bach and Beyond 2. Solo Violin Sonatas by Bach, Bartok, and Saariaho. Jennifer Koh, violin. Çedille 90000-154. Nobody plays Bach better than Jennifer Koh. As I've written before, I heard her play the Partita No. 2 live in Amherst College's Buckley Recital Hall several years ago and at the time it felt as... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Sort of Shostakovich, Seither, and Penderecki.


Dmitri Shostakovich, arranged Rudolph Barshai. Chamber Symphonies. The Dmitri Ensemble, Graham Ross. Harmonia Mundi HMU 907634. These are three of Shostakovich's string quartets arranged for chamber orchestra by a student, friend, and close associate of the composer. Only one of them, the arrangement of Quartet No. 8, has gotten much attention before now. I have... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Buxtehude, CPE Bach, pianist Wu Han


Dieterich Buxtehude. Complete Vocal Works, 10 volumes (17 CD's). Ton Koopman. Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Chorus. Challenge Classics. In my long, lost youth, while dating one of three lovely young roommates in the magical Sixties of Cambridge, Massachusetts (all of us in our early twenties), one of the other two announced to us that her... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Petrenko plays Elgar 1; Ibragimova's Chiaroscuro Quartet Play Mozart and Mendelssohn; Music @Menlo 'Live' for 2014


Elgar, Symphony No. 1. Cockaigne Overture. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko. Onyx. ONYX4145. Why listen to Elgar? Unless you're British and feel the need for some nostalgic cultural reinforcement? Elgar? Pomp and Circumstance? Though I'll confess to some pleasant moments with the composer'sCello Concerto, I didn't come to this recording for Elgar. I came for Petrenko—the young... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Schumann, Vivaldi, Silvestrov, and Bruckner


Robert Schumann, Violin Concerto; Piano Trio No. 3. Isabelle Faust, violin; Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello; Alexander Melnikov, piano. Harmonia Mundi. HMC 902196. CD & DVD. At some point in record collectors' lives they find themselves looking for musicians as much as for music. I have all of the Schumann I 'need'—but when I saw these three... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Schubert, Gubaidulina, Shostakovich.


Schubert, Winterreise. Matthias Goerne, baritone. Christoph Eschenbach, piano. Schubert Edition, No. 9. Harmonia Mundi. HMC 902107. Schubert's Winterreise can bring to mind Haydn's Seven Last Words (for string quarter or chamber orchestra), another hour plus long work focussing essentially on one mood, desolation. The challenge is how to sustain musical interest for that long without... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Rachel Podger, Margaret Brouwer, Galina Ustvolskaya, Carter Pann.


Perla Barocca. Early Italian Masterpieces. Rachel Podger, violin. Harpsichord, organ, and therobo accompaniment. Channel Classics. CCSA 36014. CD/SACD. After the rich, close harmonies of the renaissance and before the fastidious counterpoint of the baroque, there was...early baroque? I write often in this column about the fascinations of transitions in the arts. We glibly describe them... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Harbison, Couperin, Jonathan Harvey, and Cindy McTee.


John Harbison, String Trio; Four Songs of Solitude [for solo violin]; Songs Americans Love to Sing [flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano]. Members of Camerata Pacifica. Harmonia Mundi HMC 907619. Much in the spirit of Bach's Musical Offering, American composer John Harbison's (1938) String Trio (2013) does not give itself up easily. It shares the... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Zemetsov, Viola; Pacifica Quartet and Anthony McGill Play Mozart and Brahms Clarinet Quintets; Finnissy's String Quartets; Music of the European Renaissance.


Dana Zemetsov, Enigma. Works of Solo Viola. [Kreisler, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Kugel, Penderecki, JS Bach] Channel Classics CCSSA 35714.  We come to recital CD's for the musician or for music we are unlikely to hear anywhere else. In this case, there is also the instrument—a viola, a peculiar instrument when on its own rather than as... Read More »


Notes of an Amateur: Ibragimova's Prokofiev; Lera Auerbach... and friends.


Prokofiev, Violin Sonatas. Five Melodies. Alina Ibragimova, violin; Steven Osborne, piano. Hyperion CDA 67514. I am reported in an ad on the Hyperion website for a new Ibragimova recording as saying that "when you're listening to Ibragimova, she is the only possible way to go." Is this true of her new Prokofiev CD? My favorite... Read More »


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