Classical guitar virtuoso teams up with Melbourne’s hottest string quartet in a display of passion and style for which they are both renowned. Schaupp and the Flinders do the composers proud, the well-judged tonal and timbral balance as much as the cleanly expressive interpretations ensuring that, frozen/suspended as they are, these performances will withstand repeated listenings. --Limelight Magazine
“…lovely performances from a cellist who combines a winningly smooth cantabile with a focused light tone and incisive rhythmic precision. The Basle Chamber Orchestra gives support which is handsomely coloured and stylishly clean-lined… making them a good match for their soloist and helping to create a happy overall impression of talented young artists having fun together and avoiding the routine.” --Gramophone Magazine, March 2010
The Argentinean cellist Sol Gabetta devotes her new recording to concertos from the Viennese Classical period. Joined by the Chamber Orchestra of Basel, she has coupled Haydn’s famous C major Concerto with two rarities, one by Haydn's contemporary Leopold Hofmann and the other by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Whereas Hofmann's concerto is an original work, the other concerto is an arrangement of Mozart's Oboe Concerto K314 by the Hungarian-American conductor Georg Szell.
As Mozart left us not a single composition for solo cello, Szell collaborated with Mozart researcher Alfred Einstein to create a solo piece. However, Szell took the Andante from the Violin Concerto K470 for the slow movement.
Sol Gabetta's recording, on the other hand, includes a version of the Oboe Concerto's Andante specially prepared by the harpsichordist and pianist of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, Sergio Ciomei. Hofmann was a highly regarded composer in his day, considered the equal of Haydn and Gluck. His Cello Concerto in D Major is roughly contemporary with the C major Concerto by Haydn which also appears on this disc.
“Many concertos are attributed to Haydn but these three are undisputedly authentic. The keyboard part in No 4 falls in a narrow compass; Andreas Staier introduces variety by ornamenting the slow movement and decorating fermatas in all movements. His embellishments are very good indeed, even if he is ornate in places. (If you dislike ornament, you should choose the Andsnes, who sticks to the letter and does so most artistically.) A rarity is No 6 for violin and keyboard, its outer movements the least interesting with sequential passages. The emotive slow movement (mostly a conversation between the two soloists) redeems matters and gives Gottfried von der Goltz a chance to show his mettle as a sensitive violinist.
In the finest work, No 11, the orchestral exposition is an ideal Vivace, the first theme lilting over repeated quavers generating the right degree of forward tension, and the bass line given its full due, oboes and horns colouring the texture tellingly. A similar degree of perception, with Staier's contribution equally telling, is heard throughout. The recording is expertly balanced and tonally truthful. An outstanding disc.” --Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
“this disc continually surprises and delights. Faultless.” --The Independent on Sunday, 16 January 2005 *****
“Andreas Staier has established himself as one of the foremost solo exponents of the baroque repertoire, here matching Haydn himself for musical wit, wisdom and joie de vivre.” --The Observer, 16 January 2005
“Reiss is a properly pert Despina (Cosi) and an affecting Susanna...Her attention to detail in the recitative is scrupulous...Reiss's diamond bright coloratura is a mighty weapon...All told, this is a beguiling combination of top-drawer musicianship and fresh ideas about opera in Enlightenment Vienna.” --BBC Music Magazine, January 2012 *****
“What a stimulating assemblage of arias, and in intelligent, standard-setting performances...Unexpected insights arrives at every turn...Reiss makes [Salieri and Cimarosa] feel like worthy companions, always looking to find their specific character and never falling into soubrette cuteness...My favourite moment is how wonderstruck her Susanna sounds while absorbing the beauties of the night in the Act 4 Figaro aria.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2011
“Reiss has an agile, bell-bright, fluty timbre that's well suited to the soubrette and coloratura repertoire here. She's best in the showy numbers - the glittering roulades of the Mozart concert aria 'Ah se in ciel' and Salieri's 'Tremo bell'idol mio' are bright and fresh. She also displays a lovely line in the short, sweet 'Quando la rosa'” Classic FM Magazine, December 2011 ***
'Turovsky and his Montréal players have proved in several previous releases that they are an excellent and responsive band… fifty-two tracks in all, and an intriguing and enjoyable disc. --BBC Music Magazine
'The performances by I Musici de Montréal and Yuli Turovsky are unfailingly stylish and perceptive… Heard as a whole or (preferably) in part, this is a collection that gives considerable pleasure.' --Gramophone Magazine
“nothing, either in expression or tone, is ever forced. It helps that [Bavouzet's] modern grand (maker unspecified) has a relatively crisp lower register, and that the recorded sound rightly achieves spaciousness and intimacy...a wonderfully promising series.” --BBC Music Magazine, April 2010 ****
“Clarity of line is paramount in this music and that is what Bavouzet delivers: he views the sonatas with sobriety but by no means dispassionately...Discreet ornamentation adds allure to music that offers both majesty and sweetness, and ranges from the grand gesture to Haydn's trademark high jinks” --Gramophone Magazine, May 2010
“This first release in a long-term series offers four sonatas, dispatched with scintillating brightness and many ornamental trills...It’s impossible not to be impressed...by the panache of No 39 in D or the grand carnival of the relatively lengthy No 31 in A-flat.” --The Times, 12th March 2010
“however extensive his survey turns out to be, the results should be well worth hearing...Though he exploits all the tonal possibilities of the modern concert grand, Bavouzet also makes full use of the latest ideas on performance practice...It's the best kind of historically alert piano playing.” --The Guardian, 25th March 2010 ****
“The scherzando middle movement of the C sharp minor sonata (No 49) made me want to dance around the room to Bavouzet’s joyous playing. Unadulterated bliss.” --Sunday Times, 28th March 2010 *****
“[Haydn's sonatas] still have a Baroque feel which Bavouzet doesn’t seek to play down, and he conveys Haydn’s impish spirit with the utmost clarity.” --The Telegraph, 26th March 2010 ****
“The French pianist renowned for Debussy has now turned his attention to Haydn, and the results are effervescent and dazzling” --The Observer, 4th April 2010
“This beautifully recorded disc promises well for another classic Bavouzet set to complement his Debussy recordings.” --Classic FM Magazine, April 2010
“Bavouzet is perhaps the ideal pianist for Haydn: his clarity of touch, quickness of wit and sensitivity to different soundworlds make him an empathetic interpreter...[he] makes the most of the contrasts between the pieces...The pianist is very much alive to their unfailingly fresh invention, delivering it all apparently effortlessly and without exceeding the necessary 18th-century parameters on the modern grand piano” --Classic FM Magazine, June 2011 ****
“Bavouzet more than holds his own and, time and again, seems to offer a fresh ear to these sonatas, as if this is as much his great adventure as ours.” --Gramophone Magazine
“These performances sound natural, appropriate and in perfect structural and expressive proportion...They are the work of an insightful musician of profound culture and wide interests, whose intellectual and emotional identification with Haydn is unreserved, and whose playing, beautifully captured in technical terms, is a delight to listen to.” --International Record Review, April 2011
“In the second volume of his complete Haydn cycle [Bavouzet] shines particularly in sonatas 48 and 50, the sprightliest on the CD, both with lovely reflective slow movements. Bavouzet offers the crispest of trills, a sprinkling of the fantastic, and a tender heart.” --The Times, 16th April 2011 ****
“His playing in this second installment is quite as exemplary in touch, phrasing, characterisation and continuity, while the recorded sound is again intimate yet unconstricted...Bavouzet brings a fizzing vivacity to the first movement of Sonata No. 48 in C...And in the solemn neo-baroque central movement of No. 50 in D (c.1778), his control of sonority and voicing of inner parts has a measured grandeur that is quite marvellous.” --BBC Music Magazine, May 2011 ****
´"This disc is a pleasure on several accounts. First, because it contains appealing and appropriate repertoire: Haydn's long-lost Cello Concerto in C, discovered in 1961; the delightful Cello Concerto in D; [...] and the ever-popular Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Cello, Oboe and Bassoon. Second, cellist Steven Isserlis's playing is alert, sensitive, and joyous." --Highbeam.com
"Brautigam's instrument sounds particularly well-chosen for this music. It has a quick action and a wide dynamic range that makes the fast movements really sparkle, but it also allows sufficient legato to project the slow movements with an aptly singing tone. It's worth pointing out in this respect that three of the four middle movements (Concertos Nos. 2-4) are Adagio or slower, and Brautigam shapes them with remarkable taste and finesse. This disc constitutes a terrific adjunct to the complete sonata cycle. Truly, we are spoiled for choice. Fabulous!" --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com
Sheer delight!
Only the D Major, Hob.XVIII/11 has been known to me for many decades (Wanda Landowska's irresistible verve on harpsichord) but this brings the newer historical knowledge to bear, marvelously realized by Brautigam and Mortensen, with the expert period instrument group Concerto Copenhagen. Balance is perfectly natural, the fortepiano a little quiet for even a small period orchestra, as is so inevitably in live performance too. The slow movement is duly affecting between the fast Vivace and sparkling Rondo all'Ungarese.
The other authentic keyboard concertos of Haydn here (the rest of the twenty-one of them were for organ and often played during Mass - not so austere as in northern Germany!) are unaccountably overlooked. Haydn did not play them himself and the notes writer speculates that he did not seek to compete with Mozart in that area. --Peter Grahame Woolf, Classicalnet
