Instrumental
CD and Other Review

Review: Smetana: Czech Dances & On the seashore

Any release by American pianist Garrick Ohlsson is guaranteed to delight and this new one of Smetana’s Czech Dances Books Nos 1 and 2 does not disappoint. Ohlsson is at home with these charming works, meeting their virtuosic challenges with aplomb.Smetana wanted to do for the Czech polka what Chopin did for the Polish mazurka and the four works which open the album show that his aim to “idealise” the form and push the boundaries succeeded admirably. As one of today’s leading Chopin interpreters Ohlsson is on top form here. Smetana lived his final years in a gamekeeper’s lodge where he befriended an amateur fiddler who showed him Bohemian and Moravian folk tunes and dances.The resulting 10 pieces may not have had the success of Dvorˇák’s dances but they were greatly admired. Slepicka (The Little Hen), is probably the best known of them. Oves (Oats) is a gentle piece while Medved (The Bear) has all the lumbering quality of Mussorgsky’s oxen in Pictures from an Exhibition.The Little Onion, an unpromising title perhaps, is full of lyrical appeal and Dupák, a stamping dance, is terrific fun. Hulán (The lancer) is full of longing and Obkrocak, a stepping dance, recalls the tune……

October 13, 2016
Instrumental
CD and Other Review

Review: Fantasías (Rupert Boyd)

I suspect for many guitarists it’s tempting to stay within well-known repertoire. What a good thing we have performers like Rupert Boyd to perform the less commonly heard works! Although Boyd’s liner notes suggest the album is built around several Fantasias, it feels to me more like an album of whatever he wanted to record. I think this is a good thing – it’s all clearly repertoire that he’s passionate about. There’s plenty to delight listeners. An early highlight is Australian composer Phillip Houghton’s titanic God of the Northern Forest and evocative (but oddly titled) Kinkachoo, I Love You, where Boyd proves a fine match for the meticulously detailed colourings and shadings of Houghton’s dreamlike music. Other unusual pieces include Byron Yasui’s charming Fantasy on a Hawaiian Lullabye, as well as rare sightings like Luigi Legnani, represented by the flashy Fantasia, Op. 19. It’s terrific to see such a varied recital, though it’s sometimes a little jarring switching from one piece to the next. Moving from a John Dowland Renaissance Fantasia of 1610 to Leo Brouwer’s Bartók-esque Tres Apuntes (Three Sketches) was a head-scratcher, though both were performed with verve. A fine, well-recorded disc overall, with music to delight… Continue reading…

October 13, 2016
Instrumental
CD and Other Review

Review: James Brawn In Recital, Volume 2

This double-CD set is a collection of favourite encores, comprised of well-loved piano pieces that are recorded infrequently today, and hardly ever performed all together. The programme includes two of Scarlatti’s most popular sonatas, K380 in E Major and K159 in C Major, La Cacchia, five Bach Preludes (including the popular No 1 of “the 48” in C Major), Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca, Beethoven’s Für Elise, Schubert’s Moment Musicale No 3 in F Minor, several Chopin Etudes and two Preludes (including No 15, the Raindrop), and music by Liszt, Brahms, Grieg, Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, finishing with Gershwin’s own arrangement of I Got Rhythm. The performances? They are impressive in their precision and polish. The clarity and evenness of James Brawn’s playing is a major asset in the early works – such as the Bach D Major Prelude with its moto perpetuo semiquavers – and a piece like Chopin’s Black Keys Etude holds no terrors for him. His approach is less suited to the C Sharp Minor Prelude of Rachmaninov, where a minimum of Romantic ebb and flow makes it either refreshingly straightforward or lacking in personality, depending on your point of view. Similarly, Brawn goes for clarity… Continue reading Get…

October 13, 2016