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• Release Date: 2010
• Label: Marco Polo
• Number of discs: 9
• Composer: Joachim Raff 
• Performer: Urs Schneider, Samuel Friedmann 
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Naxos appear to have followed the lead of Tudor and produced a box set bringing together all 11 symphonies and some of the smaller orchestral works. As well as the symphonies, the "set" feature two of the Shakespeare Preludes: Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet, the Concert, Jubilee, Dame Kobold and Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott Overtures and the Fest-Marsch. The recordings are superb. From the first symphony to the last, this neglected romantic repertoire is very well presented here. Urs Schneider and the Slovak State Philharmonic along with Samuel Friedmann and the Rhenish Philharmonic are brilliant. They offer very dynamic performances and the sound recording by Marco Polo is a pure delight. Raff's orchestral writing will remind you mainly of Mendelssohn, but his own musical personality is very present. The last 4 symphonies refers to the 4 seasons with all the panache and orchestral pageantry one would expect from a romantic composer. This boxed set offers many hours of elegant, well written and well recorded romantic symphonic works.

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• Release Date: 04/11/1988
• Label: Deutsche Grammophon
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Franz Schubert
• Performer: Claudio Abbado
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This is a magical performance. Recording it live seems to have been a good decision. There is real electricity throughout, while the recorded sound is beautifully full and well balanced. As such, it seems rather incredible that it took as long as it did for large-scale works of Schubert's like this Mass to become seriously well-known, a revelation made all the more apparent by listening to this live recording from November 1986 by the Vienna State Opera Chorus and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, under long-time Viennese favorite Claudio Abbado. Featuring five world-class vocal soloists (Marjana Lipovsek; Jerry Hadley; Karita Mattila; Jorge Antonio Pita; Robert Holl) and recorded at Vienna's famed Singverein, the performance on hand shows not only how great a composer Schubert was, but the potential that would have been shown to the world had he not passed on at such an early age. Abbado has a particularly fine feel for the sound of the choral passages. His chorus sings with superlative balances, and their overall sound is warm--if not especially luscious. There is a fine feeling of momentum throughout the performance. At close to an hour in length, it is an immense work on the spiritual level of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis.

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• Release Date: 04/26/2000
• Label: Calliope
• Number of discs: 2
• Composer: Frédéric Chopin
• Performer: Michèle Boegner
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Calliope has done everyone who loves the beautiful Chopin Nocturnes a genuine favor in recording Ms.Boegner with the Pleyel piano! First, the performances are flawless, gracious,and thoughtfully played. Obviously this performer knows the heart of Chopin; to me she certainly wears her heart on her sleeve with the gorgeous nocturnes. I can think of no one that plays these better than Boegner. Second, the mechanism and soundboard of the Pleyel piano is far less resonant than the modern Steinway and Boesendorfer pianos. As a result, the line of the music can flow out more clearly and inner voices are heard far better. If you have never heard this music with this vintage piano, you certainly owe it to yourself to hear it!

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• Release Date: 11/18/2008
• Label: Naive
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Gabriel Fauré
• Performer: Laurence Equilbey
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The choral and instrumental parts for Gabriel Fauré's original 1893 version of the "Requiem, Op. 48," were discovered in 1969, and a score was assembled from them and published in 1994. Since then, this edition has been finding admirers, such as Laurence Equilbey and her hand-picked choir Accentus, who perform the "Requiem" with members of the Orchestre National de France on this 2008 Naïve release. The impact of the work is still quite strong and imposing in this chamber version, even when compared with performances of the full orchestral score of 1901, and it helps that the recording is full, deep, and vibrant, so textures are substantial and tone colors are rich, without giving the slightest impression that any forces are lacking. The choir of roughly 30 voices is as full as it needs to be, since Fauré's intimate choral writing is translucent and best suited to a group around this size, and though it is best known as an a cappella ensemble, Accentus seems quite comfortable surrounded by the small body of strings, brass, timpani, harp, and organ. Soprano Sandrine Piau and baritone Stéphane Degout are the featured vocal soloists, and their singing is appropriately subdued, reverent, and free of affectation. Also featured is violinist Luc Héry, whose sweetly decorous solo in the Sanctus is one of the high points of the performance. The increasingly popular choice of the soaring "Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11," as filler is made here, and though this lyrical piece is much less compelling than the "Requiem," Equilbey and her musicians -- augmented with woodwinds and more strings -- give it a polished presentation, and it closes out the album with a warm, radiant glow. Highly recommended. ~ Blair Sanderson

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• Release Date: April 26, 2011
• Label: Timpani Records
• Number of discs: 2
• Composer: George Onslow 
• Performer: Ensembles Initium & Contraste
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Onslow is a composer who is being rediscovered thanks to an increasing number  of recordings devoted to him. Having previously existed only in dispersed order, all the works are brought together here in a double digipak. This also provides the opportunity to discover a young wind ensemble (Ensemble Initium), made up from soloists from major orchestras. This is their first recording for Timpani and it will not be their last.

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• Release Date: 09/05/1994
• Label: Decca
• Number of discs: 2
• Composer: Igor Stravinsky
• Performer: Ernest Ansermet
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Ernest Ansermet's authority in the music of Stravinsky was unsurpassed: he had a close working relationship with the composer for a quarter of a century and was involved in the original productions of a number of his most significant works including The Firebird, The Rite of Spring, Petrushka, The Soldier's Tale, The Song of the Nightingale and Pulcinella. Ansermet's recordings, which were both meticulous and inspired, were the ones to have even after Stravinsky himself took up the baton.

These are very early stereo recordings that were considered state of the art both artistically and sonically right through the LP era. Because The Firebird recording dates from 1955, Petrushka and Rite of Spring date from 1957, and Les Noces from 1961, one might think that the sound cannot compete with today's recording technology; however, that would be an inaccurate conclusion to draw. Decca's recordings were atmospheric but detailed, and pleasingly warm and rich, characteristics that have been maintained on these cd transfers.

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• Release Date: 03/27/2007
• Label: CPO
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Carl Davidoff
• Performer: Wenn-Sinn Yang
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All five of nineteenth century Russian-Latvian cellist and composer Carl Davidoff's cello concerti are important and valuable concert works for the cello, and you'd never know that to the extent they have been recorded. The Concerto No. 2 in A minor has fared the best at four recordings, whereas Concerto No. 1 in B minor enjoys its second recording in this fine CPO performance by Wen-Sinn Yang and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra under Terje Mikkelsen. This recording of the first two fits the bill and is a superb outing for cellist Wenn-Sinn Yang. CPO's Carl Davidoff: Cello Concertos 1& 2 is filled out with a familiar cello warhorse, Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op. 33, which makes perfect sense; although Davidoff did not premiere it, he was the dedicatee of Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien. Tchaikovsky's Variations, and his concerto writing as a whole, bears a strong similarity to Davidoff's approach to concerti in terms of thematic development and the use of certain kinds of transitional devices. That is one reason the neglect of these works is so unfathomable; they hit the highpoints of high romantic style, are melodious and serious, and give the cellist plenty of virtuosic stuff to show off with. Yang certainly does the job; his playing is fleet, yet fluid, and his dedication to this music shows.

This really should be your first choice for these two Davidoff concerti. This is an excellent disc that should be sought out with urgency by devotees of the cello.

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• Release Date: 11/08/2005
• Label: Tudor Records
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Joseph Joachim Raff
• Performer: Michaela Paetsch Neftel
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This welcome CD fills a void in bringing us most of Raff's music for violin and orchestra - the major exceptions being the Suite and the early Konzertstück "Die Liebesfee". Three of the four pieces are unfamiliar and the two concertos are major works in Raff's oeuvre. So, for any Raff enthusiast this is an essential buy almost irrespective of the quality of the performances - luckily Tudor has found artists who are able to make a good case for these unfamiliar works. Overall Michaela Paetsch Neftel's playing is difficult to fault, though a display of some genuine emotion and warmth to complement the technical skill would be welcome. Hans von Stadlmair and his Bambergers provide well judged support throughout. The recording quality is generally good, if a little booming in the climaxes. The balance slightly favours the soloist but not excessively so. All in all an essential addition to any Raffianer's collection.

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• Release Date: 02/14/2006
• Label: Tudor Records
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Joseph Joachim Raff
• Performer: Peter Aronsky, Basel Radio Symphony Orchestra
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The one movement Ode is a compact affair written in 1857. It’s deliciously verdant, with finely and characteristically eventful scoring. The first violin figure with which it begins is captivating in its freshness. The piano slides in quietly, even speculatively, without fuss certainly. It is however full of lyrical sentiment, responding to the ensuing solo cello lied with dapple and filigree. Raff assuredly mines some Lisztian rhetoric from time to time but he is always affable, balancing the urge for virtuosity with Mendelssohnian warmth. His wind melodies are pleasing, and there’s a proud and strong conclusion. Michael Ponti recorded this with the Westphalian Symphony and Richard Kapp on Vox, a performance I’ve yet to hear, but this more up-to-date effort sees Peter Aronsky and Jost Meier collaborating with verve and sensitivity.
It’s a touch surprising that Raff wrote only one full-scale concerto for the piano. Of the two works in this disc the Piano Concerto of 1873 should be the more imposing. For one thing it’s the product of his maturity, and for another it’s twice as long as the Ode. It was premiered by no less a figure than von Bülow with the composer himself conducting, and was apparently extremely popular. The piano pitches straight in, but soon embraces warm filigree and a Chopinesque ethos. The writing for the piano is fluent, a touch decorative. The orchestration however is, to my ears, bafflingly modest. The Lisztian charge in the opening movement, with its cascading piano, is certainly arresting, and the virtuosic flourishes to end the movement are undeniably effective. But the roulades of the second movement are dainty and pretty and there’s not overmuch textual interplay between piano and orchestra; the Field-Chopin influence is strong but without quite their purposeful quality. The skittish Mendelssohnisms of the finale bring the Concerto to an enjoyable conclusion.

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• Release Date: 03/30/2010
• Label: Tudor Records
• Number of discs: 9
• Composer: Joseph Joachim Raff
• Performer: Hans Stadlmair, Bamberger Symphoniker
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Many of Raff’s orchestral works have been recorded and both the Swiss company Tudor and a decade before that Marco Polo (now fitfully migrating to Naxos) have made major inroads into the Raff discography. We may know Raff's name for a variety of one-off reasons. Some will recall his winsome piece for piano and orchestra La Fileuse. His Kavatina op. 85 no. 3 kept his name alive when it seemed that all his work would fall away to dust, pulping and landfill. Others may remember that Bernard Herrmann's taste for engaging rarities ran to recording Raff's Fifth Symphony Lenore - the Fuselli Gothic cover of the Unicorn LP will probably come to mind. Then again others, especially Lisztians, will remember that Liszt left the task of orchestrating his tone poems to Raff. Perhaps a few will know of the Candide Vox LP of the Third Symphony Der Wald.
Tudor, over a period of three years, recorded the eleven symphonies with a single orchestra and conductor and at a single venue. In this they were pioneers; the earlier project by Marco Polo used a mix of orchestras, conductors and venues. The financial support of Stiftung Dr Robert und Lina Thyll-Dürr was crucial to Tudor’s admirable and needful enterprise. Nor have Tudor stopped there. The Zürich-based company’s catalogue is laced with CDs of Raff’s concertos, other tone poems, violin sonatas and string quartets. The present well designed and space-saving box has the nine discs each in a hard card sleeve designed to match the individual CDs and setting out full track contents on the reverse. As for the program notes, these are in a 127 page booklet in German, English and French. No need to fiddle around with a CD-ROM.

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• Release Date: 06/14/2011
• Label: Harmonia Mundi
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Performer: Paul Lewis
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Published in June 1823 and dedicated to Antonie Brentano, the 33 Variations op.120 were described by Diabelli himself as ‘a great and important masterpiece, worthy to be ranked with the imperishable creations of the old Classics [and to occupy] a place beside Sebastian Bach's famous masterpieces of the same type'. And indeed, like the Kantor de Leipzig, Beethoven revolutionized the  genre – but, paradoxically, by taking it into the unexpected regions of the bagatelle. On this eagerly anticipated release, Paul Lewis, protégé of Alfred Brendel, brings his sharp intellect and remarkable technique to bear on this towering masterwork of the period.

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• Release Date: 05/05/2009
• Label: Nonesuch
• Number of discs: 3
• Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
• Performer: Richard Goode, Iván Fischer
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The Budapest orchestra under Fischer plays with a brio that suits these Beethoven concertos so very well. Richard Goode’s playing here conforms perfectly with Fischer’s approach, and these two consummate musicians with matched orchestra bring us the five Beethoven concertos in an un-matched manner. In all three movements of each of the five concertos, inner part-writing is  clearly discernable and never unbalanced. Richard Goode’s keyboard technique and the tonal quality he draws forth from his instrument are astonishing, but technique never overwhelms the music. Here, the music leads the pianist, not the other way around. Best of all is Goode’s phrase shaping, which causes the music virtually to speak. Iván Fischer is a conductor in the Central European tradition with a contemporary outlook. He does not schlep the music, but moves it along and imbues it with innigster Empfindung where appropriate. If you don’t own this three-CD set, your understanding of the Beethoven piano concertos is incomplete.

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• Release Date: 06/28/2011
• Label: BR Klassik
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Witold Lutoslawski,  Karol Szymanowski, A.Tchaikovskiy
• Performer: Mariss Jansons
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Three works that are very close to his heart were brought together by Mariss Jansons for this new CD release. Karol Szymanowski’s Third Symphony, which, in addition to gigantic orchestral forces, also calls for a chorus and a tenor soloist, depicts a fantastic sound painting of an idealized Near East, including the setting of a 13th century Persian text. Witold Lutoslawski blends Slavic local color into his 1954 Concerto for Orchestra, has a reference to Béla Bartók in the title, but it is marked by a musical approach all his own, one that reaches all the  way into the avant-garde period despite its immediate accessibility. Alexander Tchaikovsky, born in 1946, may be the namesake of a giant of the Russian romantic era, although they are not related to one another in any way. His Symphony No. 4 is a musical appeal for peace. The work, written in 2005 on commission from Yuri Bashmet comprises sound-painting choral passages and a significant solo part for the viola. 

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• Release Date: March 24, 2009
• Label: Arte Nova
• Number of discs: 2
• Composer: Felix Mendelssohn
• Performer: Matthias Kirschnereit 
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Kirschnereit is his own man when it comes to Mendelssohn and the piano. Typically, players emphasize the lyrical-romantic axis when playing Mendelssohn. The risk of focusing on that axis is mainly that Mendelssohn in his piano music can come off, sounding far too much like a German middle class, drawing room composer, with musical colors more often pastel than not, musical effects much more genteel than not. Kirschnereit knows enough to phrase those melodies with singing verve. However, he also adds punch. He prefers not to peddle any more than he has to, so his playing comes through with enormous clarity. These talents serve Mendelssohn as well as they have already served in that Arte Nova released complete set of Mozart piano concertos. Beyond the first two concertos, the additional lure of this set will be the reconstructed piano concerto in E minor, and the early student work for piano and string orchestra. That earlier music is just fine, though perhaps not as forcefully characterized as Mendelssohn's later music of large reputation. You can compare this early concerto with the contemporary Mendelssohn string symphonies, if you want to get a sense of their position in the composer's development. The reconstructed piano concerto is new, unfamiliar. Scholar Larry Todd edited two movements from extant Mendelssohn sketches and drafts, which were mostly complete. The composer broke off working on this, his pending third piano concerto, to write the entirely memorable Violin Concerto in E minor. Then he never quite got back to finishing up those drafts. The most controversial aspect of this reconstruction may be the editor's decision to use the final movement of the famous violin concerto, transcribed for keyboard solo with band, as the concluding movement. To my ears, it all sounds fine, true to the composer's style. Five stars, recommended.

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• Release Date: 04/05/2011
• Label: Virgin Classics
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: CPE Bach
• Performer: Truls Otterbech Mork
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Cellist Truls Mørk's profound sensitivity to musical style is again evident as he and Les Violons du Roy, under the direction of Bernard Labadie, bring modern instruments and 18th century sensibilities to the cello concertos of Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach (third son of Johann Sebastian) in performances that give us `the best of both worlds.' Truls Mørk is a cellist with a deep understanding of style -- Romantic, Modern, Classical or Baroque. This is proven by his Virgin Classics catalogue, which extends from J.S. Bach through Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Dvorák, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Rachmaninov to Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Britten, and Dutilleux. The `empfindsamer stil,' or `sensitive style,' in 18th century music was exemplified by Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach (1714-1788). His music was venerated by Mozart, who proclaimed that "he is the father, we are the children." CPE Bach's musical expressivity and innovative approach to form exercised an important influence on both Haydn and Beethoven. Mørk, like the Québec-based ensemble Les Violons du Roy under the direction of Bernard Labadie, combines an acute awareness of 18th century practice with mastery of an instrument configured for the demands of modern music-making. These are performances that embody `the best of both worlds,' as do Mørk's recordings of the J.S. Bach Solo Cello Suites, released in 2005. 

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• Release Date: 05/03/2011
• Label: Decca
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Respighi, Suk, Chausson,  Ralph Vaughan Williams
• Performer: Julia Fischer
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Julia Fischer follows her extraordinary Grammy-nominated recording of the Paganini Caprices with a contrasting album - a lyrical and poetic set of impressionistic works for violin and orchestra.

Comprising four substantial pieces, this unique program is headed by Suk’s virtuosic Fantasy, a mini-concerto that is now justifiably finding its way into the concert repertoire. It is accompanied by two well-known tone poems – the elegant Poème by Chausson and the English pastoral The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams. The album is completed by Respighi’s Poema autunnale (of which there is only one other recording in the catalog), making the program truly multinational.

For this recording, Julia Fischer is joined by her long-term colleague on the podium, Yakov Kreizberg, directing his own orchestra, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra. 

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• Release Date: February 8, 1994
• Label: Erato
• Number of discs: 2
• Composer: Leo Delibes
• Performer: Kent Nagano
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The story of Coppélia explores a young man's passion for a beautiful girl who turns out to be a mechanical doll, exploring a popular mythological theme of creating a being who is more perfect and tantalizing than any human counterpart. There is definitely more to the score of Coppélia than what first meets the eye.  Kent Nagano brings out many of these subtleties in his consistent reading of Delibes' most loved ballet. His tempi are very convincing, and the playing of the Orchestre de l'Opera de Lyon is first class. No. 14, the music for the Automata, is given virtuosic treatment. Listen to that flute playing!

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• Release Date: 10/25/2010
• Label: Virgin Classics
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Niccolò Jommelli
• Performer: Il Seminario musicale
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Jomelli, regarded by many of his contemporaries as the greatest opera composer of the century, sets the lamentations in a dramatic and religio-operatic style as a duet between two high voices. Gérard Lesne receives higher billing than Véronique Gens on the cover of the CD, but they both sing exquisitely well – too well, perhaps, for the music to be regarded in the light of a meditation on the Passion, but that’s the way that Jommelli writes it. Listen to tracks 27-30: at first you would hardly believe that what you hear is a setting of a lament that the heathen have entered the sanctuary of the temple (tr.27). The mood changes dramatically on track 28, in which the speaker concludes that his sufferings have  made him vile. After a happily skipping setting of the letter Lamed (tr.29), the most famous words from this chapter receive an appropriately affective treatment: O vos omnes qui transitis per viam – O all you that pass by the way, attend and see if there be any sorrow like my sorrow (tr.30) – words repeated on Good Friday in the Improperia or Reproaches. One would hardly know that one was not listening to opera. It’s all very affective, in the same way that Jommelli’s music for Armida Abbandonata is.

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• Release Date: 10/25/1990
• Label: Telarc
• Number of discs: 2
• Composer: Giuseppe Verdi
• Performer: Robert Shaw, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
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It may seem surprising to recommend a Verdi Requiem conducted by Robert Shaw over all those listed above, directed by world-famous conductors, but that is what I intend doing for any number of reasons. But I ought to begin by telling those younger readers about Shaw. He was in his earlier days in charge of the eponymous Robert Shaw Chorale, from 1948 to 1966. Before that he was asked by Toscanini to prepare the chorus for his recordings with the NBC Symphony. Since 1967 he was Music Director in Atlanta where, as earlier records have shown, he has done sterling work but nothing quite to equal this  set. With the credentials listed above, it is hardly surprising to hear him follow Toscanini's example in matters of tempo and orchestral clarity in this work or to find that he inspires his chorus to achieve such great things. Although the single parts of this performance are all admirable, the sum of them is what makes it so enjoyable. I don't think any of the other sets on CD has choral singing to equal this one. 

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• Release Date: 03/16/1993
• Label: Deutsche Grammophon
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Carl Maria von Weber
• Performer: Charles Neidich, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
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"If you want these concertos on modern instruments, Charles Neidlich meets every need. His tone is beautiful, his phrasing warmly musical..." (The Penguin Guide)

Charles Neidich has gained worldwide recognition as one of the most mesmerizing virtuosos on his instrument. With a tone of hypnotic beauty and a dazzling technique, Mr. Neidich has received unanimous accolades from critics and fellow musicians both in the United States and abroad; but it is his musical intelligence in scores as diverse as Mozart and Elliott Carter that have earned for Mr. Neidich a unique place among clarinetists.  In the words of The New Yorker, "He's an artist of uncommon merit—a master of his instrument and, beyond that, an interpreter who keeps listeners hanging on each phrase."

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• Release Date: 03/13/2001
• Label: Decca
• Number of discs: 2
• Composer: Charles Ives
• Performer: Zubin Mehta,  Sir Neville Marriner,  Christoph von Dohnányi
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Decca's Ives orchestral music set makes for an attractive and inexpensive way to collect these startlingly original works. Zubin Mehta's recording of Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 had its first CD appearance last year on the Eloquence label, and with this latest issue collectors finally will be able to buy these vibrant and colorful (notwithstanding the large cut in the First Symphony's finale) Los Angeles Philharmonic performances in Los Angeles--and other U.S. cities. (What a concept!) Neville Marriner turns in a surprisingly sympathetic performance of Ives' Third, and if it lacks the passionate advocacy of Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, Marriner and his Academy succeed in bringing an almost classical clarity to this sometimes densely textured work.

Long a champion of "difficult" 20th century music, Christoph von Dohnányi leads powerful performances of Ives' Fourth Symphony and Orchestral Sets 1 & 2. Dohnányi penetrates the music's multi-layered textures with laser-beam precision, aided immeasurably by the Cleveland Orchestra's legendary clear balances and stunning virtuosity. Decca's sound is vivid throughout the collection, but is particularly impactful in the digital Cleveland recordings, which did not stay in the catalog very long after their original release. So, grab them now, before they vanish faster than the abrupt ending of the Fourth Symphony's second movement.--Victor Carr Jr

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• Release Date: September 24, 2002
• Label: Hungaroton
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: Haydn, JG & A Albrechtsberger
• Performer: Szabo, Deri, Zovathi
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Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, theorist, organist, and prolific composer. As a choirboy he learned counterpoint, figured bass, and organ from the local Augustinians. After study at Melk Abbey (from 1749) and at the Jesuit seminary in Vienna (1754), he was employed as organist at Raab in 1755, at Maria Taferl (from 1757), and at Melk (1759-65). In 1791 he became assistant Kapellmeister at St. Stephen's in Vienna; in 1793 he succeeded Leopold Hofmann as Kapellmeister, a post he held until his death. 

A master of counterpoint and of the organ, he is perhaps best known as Beethoven's teacher; his advocacy of strict contrapuntal style exerted a strong influence on the fusion of strict and gallant styles that characterizes much music of the Viennese classical period. Among his compositions are 300 sacred works, including oratorios and cantatas, and more than 450 instrumental pieces, including symphonies, chamber sonatas, divertimentos, and organ fugues.

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• Release Date: 07/27/2010
• Label: Hungaroton
• Number of discs: 1
• Composer: JG Albrechtsberger
• Performer: Savaria Baroque Orchestra
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Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (3 February 1736 – 7 March 1809) was an Austrian musician who was born at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna. He originally studied music at Melk Abbey and philosophy at a Benedictine seminary in Vienna and became one of the most learned and skillful contrapuntists of his age. Albrechtsberger's earliest classmates included Michael Haydn and Franz Joseph Aumann. After being employed as organist at Raab in 1755 and Maria Taferl in 1757, he was appointed Thurnermeister back at Melk Abbey. In 1772 he was appointed organist to the court of Vienna, and in 1792 Kapellmeister of St. Stephen's Cathedral. His fame as a theorist attracted to him in the Austrian capital a large number of pupils, some of whom afterwards became eminent musicians. Among these were Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles, Josef Weigl (1766–1846), Ludwig-Wilhelm Tepper de Ferguson (1768-after 1824), Antonio Casimir Cartellieri, and Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven had arrived in Vienna in 1792 to study with Joseph Haydn but quickly became infuriated when his work was not being given attention or corrected. Haydn recommended his friend Albrechtsberger, with whom Beethoven then studied harmony and counterpoint. On completion of his studies, the young student noted, "Patience, diligence, persistence, and sincerity will lead to success," which reflects upon Albrechtsberger's own compositional philosophies.

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• Release Date: 01/18/1994
• Label: Philips Duo
• Number of discs: 2
• Composer: Johannes Brahms
• Performer: Wolfgang Sawallisch
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Wolfgang Sawallisch, active as a conductor since 1947 he is now - at the age of 86 - very much an elder statesman of music and something of a legend in Philadelphia, with whose fine orchestra he spent his autumn years from 1993 to 2003. More to the point he is actually one of the twentieth century's supreme interpreters of Schumann, Bruckner and Richard Strauss, in many ways comparable to Günter Wand, whose sense for musical truth he always shared. Oddly enough his recordings of the Brahms symphonies (this one, and the one he made for EMI from 1989 to 1991 as well) have never been awarded any serious attention, an oversight I hereby hasten to remedy.

Though always performing in the shadow of their cousins in the "Philharmonic" the Vienna Symphony is a fine orchestra, and in these inspired performances Sawallisch literally has every man jack playing fit to bleed from the cuticles. Though tempi are never rushed there is an intensity to every movement of these masterpieces that I have rarely encountered before or since, and the finale of the E minor symphony in particular takes us to dramatic heights that I think would have made even Furtwängler proud. The same is very much true for the finale of the D major symphony - played perfectly "molto ben marcato", and rivaled only by Takashi Asahina in his live recording, made when he was almost 90! - which rips open the indolence of that often rather leisurely pastoral work, letting fresh air sweep through every room.

The sound of these Philips re-mastering is very good and though the recording, true to its origins in the early 60's, is fairly closely recorded, is never too much. The various instrument sections are remarkably well defined.

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• Release Date: August 10, 1993
• Label: Philips
• Number of discs: 2
• Composer: Johannes Brahms
• Performer: Beaux Arts Trio, Arthur Grumiaux
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Brahms's chamber music has become a growing source of delight for me, and I'm increasingly coming to see it as his greatest achievement. He did everything, from string sextets to clarinet sonatas, and it was with his chamber music that he truly relaxed and let his gift for lyricism roam free. If his symphonic works were driven by the need to come to terms with and transcend Beethoven, then his chamber music has Schubert's expansive generosity.

These trios are a great introduction, since they are drawn from every stage of Brahms's career. The Beaux Arts Trio offer definitive proof that it's best to go for an established ensemble rather than the superstar collaborations that record companies dream up to try and up their sales figures. There's an instinctive dialogue going on between these three veterans, and Brahms's two later piano trios are exquisitely done. Their approach is relaxed, with none of the reversion to manic keyboard hammering that seems to characterize many interpretations of Brahms's piano trios/quartets/ quintet. Brahms wrote his chamber pieces for clarinet toward the end of his life, and the Beaux Art Trio's interpretation is appropriately, wistfully autumnal. Like Brahms's other clarinet music, this piece is very special, and this is the most appealing interpretation I've heard. As for the horn trio, which isn't done by the Beaux Arts Trio, but features an ensemble led by Arthur Grumiaux, they just don't play music this way anymore.--C.Smith

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