Darlings of the Muses
Brahms: Symphony No. 1; Gabriela Montero: Improvisations; C Schumann: Piano Concerto;
R Schumann: Symphony
No. 1 ‘Spring’
Gabriela Montero (piano); Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra/ Alexander Shelley
Analekta AN 288778 119:11 mins (2 discs) You can blame Robert Schumann for that title: ‘Darling of the Muses’ was (in rough translation) what he termed the youthful Johannes Brahms, who arrived on his doorstep one autumn day in 1853. The rest is history. Alexander Shelley has assembled music by those composers and Clara Schumann, a triumvirate whose impact on the music of their time was simply immeasurable.
Against Brahms and Robert Schumann’s first symphonies,
Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto might seem at a disadvantage, since it was written when its composer was a virtuoso prodigy celebrated throughout Europe, yet still only 13-16 years old. Gabriela Montero makes the most excellent of cases for it. Her playing is free-spirited, fire-centred and uninhibitedly expressive, with a sense of rhetoric and flexibility that suggests the Romantic era itself: you can almost see the young Clara mesmerising audiences across Europe.
The recording also includes Montero in her legendary
improvisation mode: these inspired and extremely touching examples find her exploring pianistic tapestries and melodic outlines derived from the soundworld of Clara Schumann.
As for the symphonies, Shelley wields a taut baton, presenting textures that are slender yet not too wispy, filled with spirited rhythms but sensibly measured tempos. Recorded sound quality could at times benefit from more clarity. There are, too, a few moments of questionable tone from certain parts of the orchestra. But as a concept album the whole adds up to a super assemblage, with Montero a shining star at its centre. Jessica Duchen
PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★
Harpsichord Concertos, Vol. 1: No. 1 in D minor, BWV 1052; No. 2 in E, BWV 1053; No. 5 in F minor, BWV 1056; No. 8 in D minor, BWV 1059 (completed Masato Suzuki)
Bach Collegium Japan/masato Suzuki (harpsichord)
BIS BIS-2401 (CD/SACD) 65:48 mins This disc is the first of a projected complete survey of Bach’s concertos for harpsichord and strings. Most of them are the composer’s own arrangements, at Leipzig, of earlier works which he probably prepared for his sons and pupils to play at the collegium musicum concerts of which he was director during the 1730s and early 1740s. As well as the great D minor Concerto, the first volume contains those in F minor and E major, and a new reconstruction by Masato Suzuki of another D minor piece which has survived only as a ninebar fragment. Taking as his starting point the introductory sinfonia of Bach’s cantata, Geist und Seele wird verwirret (BWV 35), whose opening bars are almost identical to the fragment, Suzuki has created a work whose remaining two movements are developed from an aria and a second sinfonia belonging to the same cantata. All these concertos, in fact, contain music to be found elsewhere among Bach’s cantatas.
Soloist Suzuki, with the lively and responsive partnership of the Bach Collegium Japan provide invigorating performances.
Their playing of the faster outer movements pulsates with energy, a feature that is especially rewarding in the D minor Concerto, BWV 1052. The solo sections are of a virtuosic character, sometimes bringing to mind the violin bariolage of the presumed earlier instrumentation. But, while these brilliant flanking movements sparkle, the melancholy, centrally-placed Adagio seemed to me deficient in poetry. The reconstructed D minor Concerto with its prominent oboe writing fares well. Masamitsu San’nomiya is an expressive oboist, and his eloquent dialogue with Suzuki is pleasing. Nicholas Anderson PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★