Chamber
CD and Other Review

Review: Mozart: Piano Trios (Rautio Piano Trio)

This is the debut release from the Rautio Piano Trio, and it’s an assured debut indeed. They perform three of Mozart’s Piano Trios (he only managed to write six, more’s the pity), the Trio in B Flat K502, the Trio in E, K542, and the Trio in G, K564. Mozart wrote these trios over the course of several years, during which time he also wrote The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. It might be me being tempted to hear things Mozart never intended, but I feel as though the breezily conversational writing of these trios is indebted to his operatic writing. There’s plenty of cheerful Mozartian melodic lines passing around the ensemble that can’t help but bring a smile to one’s face. These trios were composed specifically for Mozart himself to perform in Viennese concerts. Being well aware of the monetary potential in creating music that could sell, you can almost imagine Mozart composing with one eye on the audience as the movements unfold. The trios are filled with an almost palpable sense of delight in the way the music twists and turns. Pianist Jan Rautio performs… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…

December 7, 2016
Chamber
CD and Other Review

Review: Harmonische Freude (Austral Harmony)

This disc brings together an unlikely but convincing combination of instruments in a trio consisting of the organ, baroque oboe and baroque trumpet. The reasoning that Austral Harmony gives for this is rather interesting. A contemporary of Bach’s named Georg Friedrich Kauffmann apparently suggested in some of his chorale preludes that an oboe or “other agreeable instrument” (trumpet, in this case) could play alongside the organ so as to give the impression that an organ stop was being used. I rather like his amiably cheerful descriptions of his own pieces given in the liner notes: “the oboes have been used in such a way here, which should be announced as good news”. Good news indeed for fans of Baroque wind and brass! What you get is a recital focusing on the oboe and organ (with appearances from trumpeter Simon Desbruslais on a respectable six tracks) with music from JS Bach and his contemporaries. There’s actually significantly more by the “other” composers than there is by Bach, but they’re in a similar style, so if you like Bach, you’ll like the other composers here, too. I particularly enjoyed… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a…

December 2, 2016
Chamber
CD and Other Review

Review: Prokofiev: Works for Violin and Piano (Franziska Pietsch)

It is the earthy directness of violinist Franziska Pietsch’s sound, over Detlev Eisinger’s sepulchral piano, that captures the ear of the listener in this disc from Audite. Prokofiev likened a passage in the first movement of his First Violin Sonata to “wind sweeping across a cemetery” and Pietsch and Eisinger perfectly conjure this darkness, their spacious tempo giving the movement a sense of deep loneliness that periodically swells into pained longing. There is a gritty violence to the jagged Allegro brusco and the third movement is searingly plaintive. The intimate recording captures every detail of Pietsch’s resonant pizzicatos in the outer movements and the finale bristles with folk-energy, receding into quiet lyricism. The Second Violin Sonata – originally composed for flute but arranged for violin at David Oistrakh’s prompting – is almost pastoral. Composed during Prokofiev’s sojourn in the Ural Mountains during World War II, a jagged motif whose rhythm echoes the Morse Code “V for Victory” that accompanied the BBC’s broadcasts recalls the ongoing violence. The motif – three dots and a dash – sends aural sparks flying from Pietsch’s violin and there’s a quirky bounce to her Scherzo. Pietsch and Eisinger interweave soulfully in the Andante and… Continue reading…

December 2, 2016
Chamber
CD and Other Review

Review: Glow: Jaakko Kuusisto

Jaakko Kuusisto is one of those ‘triple threat’ musicians. Accomplished as a violinist, conductor and composer, he has received numerous accolades in his native Finland and around the world. His recordings have mostly featured him as performer or conductor, however this most recent release focuses on the Finnish maestro’s chamber works, performed by a catalogue of exemplary Finnish musos, including Kuusisto himself. Much of the music adopts a language evocative of the early 20th century. Play III sounds like a lost Bartók string quartet, while Valo for piano and violin makes extensive (crossing into exhausted) use of the whole-tone scale in its harmonic and melodic progressions – a favourite device of the so-called musical ‘impressionists’. An ornamented transfiguration of the opening bassoon solo in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring becomes an effective source of material for much of Loisto, also for piano and violin. Play III is a bold opening to the disc. The rich, robust sound of quartet Meta4 sets a strong tone on an album featuring expert musicianship from all featured performers. Kuusisto’s own performances in the two works for violin with piano, and in the central… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…

December 2, 2016