ALBUM OF THE WEEK
BRAHMS, SCHUMANN, ALBERT DIETRICH
Music for Violin and Piano
Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov
Harmonia Mundi HMC902219
The “FAE Sonata” — the initials stand for Frei Aber Einsam (free but lonely), the motto of the great violinist Joseph Joachim, friend of both Schumann and Brahms — is more often written about than heard: a composite work by these composers and Schumann’s pupil, Dietrich (1829-1908), which they presented to Joachim in 1853, inviting him to guess which of them had composed each movement. (He did, correctly.) The complete collaborative sonata is a rarity — Dietrich’s workmanlike opening allegro and even Schumann’s late intermezzo and finale pale beside Brahms’s brilliant scherzo. Schumann’s Three Romances, Op 94, show that composer nearer to his best, but it’s Faust and Melnikov’s impassioned, hyper-musical accounts of the Opp 100 and 108 Brahms sonatas, among his greatest late masterpieces, that make this disc an unmissable sequel to their earlier recordings of the First Sonata (Op 78) with the Horn Trio. After their outstanding set of the Beethoven sonatas, this disc confirms them as an ideally matched duo at the height of their powers. HC
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HAYDN
Symphonies Nos 31, 70 AND 101
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, cond Robin Ticciati
Linn CKD500
Ticciati’s decision to programme three symphonies in D major from different stages of Haydn’s career is a clever and attractive one. Of his 104 numbered works in the genre, there is scarcely a dud, but these are all gems: No 31 comes from the so-called Sturm und Drang period (1760s), No 70 was written to mark the rebuilding of the burnt-down Eszterhaza Opera House (1778), while No 101 is the genial “Clock”, from his masterly London set. The SCO revel in the brio, dash and pathos of this life-enhancing music. HC
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WAGNER
Tannhauser Overture et al
Concertgebouw Orchestra, cond Pierre Monteux
Testament SBT21507 (2 CDs)
Monteux was a famous interpreter of Berlioz and Brahms, but on the evidence of this 1963 Holland Festival concert, he was also a supreme Wagner conductor. Beginning with an electrifying Tannhäuser overture, followed by a richly expressive Siegfried Idyll, and ending with the Immolation scene (the soprano Birgit Nilsson in fabulous voice), the performances are glorious. Above all, the 88-year-old Monteux delivers an incandescent Tristan prelude, spacious but with a rare fidelity to the 6/8 pulse. DC
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HAHN, SZYMANOWSKI
Works for Violin and Piano
Tasmin Waley-Cohen, Huw Watkins
Signum Classics SIGCD432
This juxtaposition of composers who, though near contemporaries, seem rather far apart stylistically is curiously compelling. After the dramatic and sumptuous intensities of Szymanowski’s D minor Sonata, Op 9, Hahn’s Romance in A follows like an emotional mood-cleanser — all is now lightness and wistfulness. That there’s an underlying unity of seriousness is shown by the third, deeply touching Modéré movement of Hahn’s C major Sonata. His Nocturne in E flat leads back to Szymanowski and his Nocturne and Tarantella, Op 28. Waley-Cohen’s playing is radiant and soaring, and Watkins’s pianism a model, as always, of sensitivity. PD
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LOYSET COMPERE
Magnificat, Motets and Chansons
Orlando Consort
Hyperion CDA68069
Franco-Flemish by birth, but influenced by time in Italy during the 1470s, Compère is esteemed as the originator of the integrated composing style cultivated by his great successor Josquin. The Orlando Consort — just four male singers — deliver with poise a Magnificat composed in Milan and a varied sequence of effective French chansons, ending with the lovely motet (a mere attribution) O bone Jesu. SP
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