Reviews of classical CDs

Sinding: Suite, Op. 10; Waltzes, Op. 59 and other music for violin and piano. Henning Kragge-rud, violin, Christian Ihle Hadland, piano – Naxos 8.572254 (57 minutes).

Only second to Grieg in his native Norway, Christian Sinding was born on August 11, 1856 at Kongsberg. The youngest of five children, Christian had to endure hardship from the outset. When he was two the family moved to Lillehammer, but after his father’s early death, his mother moved with her children to Kristiania (as Oslo was then known).

In 1867 the composer started school at the local Cathedral Institution, but he soon neglected his studies, and when he was 16 he took a job at the Hals Brothers’ piano factory. In 1874 he moved to Leipzig to further his musical studies, which were eventually cemented in 1882 on his return to Munich. In 1886 he returned to Leipzig where he made his first breakthrough with his Piano Quintet, Op. 5. The performers were none other than the legendary Adolf Brodsky Quartet with Ferruccio Busoni at the piano.

Sinding was an important figure in his time, and he was made an honorary member of the Königliche Akademie der Kunst in Berlin in 1909. Indeed only he and Puccini out of ten foreign composers were accorded this accolade.

Sinding composed a copious amount of immediately appealing and romantic works that are extremely well crafted and full of warmth and charm. The Rustle of Spring is certainly one of the most performed of his pieces, and remains a perennial favourite with pianists and violinists alike.

Towards the end of his life and even after, Sinding’s reputation in Norway suffered through his supposed collaboration with the occupying Nazi regime, but a recent biography has done much to restore his position as one of Norway’s leading composers.

Violinist Henning Kraggerud, playing a richly sonorous 1744 Guarnieri del Gesù, and budding pianist Christian Ihle Hadland perform this music with total dedication and their all embracing desire for vivid aural effect is commendable from start to finish.

A refreshing disc, highlighting some very attractive off-the-beaten track pieces that deserve greater appreciation.

Tarrega: 17 Guitar Pieces. Mats Bergstrom, guitar – Naxos 8.572365 (62 minutes).

Francisco Tarrega, the most influential 19th century Spanish guitar virtuoso, was born in Villareal on November 21, 1852. He received early training in piano and guitar, but his precocious talent soon overshadowed his teachers’ abilities, and by the time of his adolescence he was performing in local establishments.

A lifelong affliction was his permanently damaged eyesight, the result of a severe eye infection when he was a child. Another important event in Tarrega’s life, this time on the positive side, was his marriage to Maria Rizo in December 1881. In the follow-ing years she bore him four children, of whom only two reached adulthood.

During the 1880s the composer’s fame increased, and the number of young guitarists wishing to benefit from his teaching grew considerably. His success on the concert platform also en-abled the Tarrega family to find a permanent home in Barcelona.

As Tarrega’s fame grew, so did his generosity. He never charged his students any fees, and as time went by, he seemed to be getting genuinely uninterested in material gain. His concert programmes usually included one or two of his pieces, but above all arrangements of works by the great masters in addition to popular opera tunes.

During the 1890s, despite his eye condition and ill health, he embarked on several tours that took him to Paris, London and Monte Carlo with resounding success. A tour to Italy in 1903 also turned out to be a happy event, and his fame was by now almost legendary. However, in 1905 his health started to deteriorate, and the next four years were punctuated by illness and two strokes, the second of which in early December 1909, left him totally paralysed. He died on the 15th of that month aged only 57.

Tarrega was not only the greatest guitar composer of his generation, but also an overtly generous man, whose kind heart was his greatest attribute. His catalogue comprises some 100 original pieces and over 200 arrangements and transcriptions, but this issue focuses mainly on his pieces which are full of technical brilliance and catchy tunes. Indeed the main melody in Gran Vals must be one of the most frequently heard tunes of our time, being the ring tone for Nokia mobile phones.

Swedish guitarist Mats Berg-strom executes these fragile gems with exceptional lucidity and intelligence, and his naturally gifted virtuosity is never allowed to dampen the delicate textures of this translucent music. A must for all guitar enthusiasts.

Graupner: Partitas for Harpsichord in A, C Minor and F Minor; Chaconne in A. Naoko Akutagawa, harpsichord – Naxos 8.570459 (59 minutes).

Born in Kirchberg, Saxony, in 1683, two years before J.S. Bach, Johann Christoph Graupner was regarded as one of the foremost composers of his time. Indeed, Bach was considered a mediocrity whenever comparisons arose.

Graupner’s talent as a choirboy was recognised early on, and he became a choir student at St Thomas under Kuhnan for eight years until 1704. He soon took over the directorship of the Collegium Musicum where he renewed his friendship with Telemann, but in 1706 the composer fled Leipzig as a war refugee, breaking off his law studies, and went to Hamburg, where his period of residence overlapped with Handel’s last weeks at the Gansemarkt opera. It was at this house that Graupner’s meteoric rise began in 1707, first as harpsichordist then as composer of operas, of which he wrote five.

In 1712 Graupner was appointed Kapellmeister at Darmstadt, remaining there until his death in 1760. Sadly his last years, like Bach’s, were overshadowed by blindness, but unlike the great master, he is almost completely forgotten.

Graupner’s partitas are stylistically more elaborate than Handel’s due to the likelihood of their later composition. Whereas Handel seldom ventures beyond the Italian idiom of Corelli, Pasquini and Alessandro Scarlatti, Graupner is able to assimilate the later French and Italian schools, particularly the Venetian concerto style. The standard order of dances is completely ignored, and the then current German idea of ‘a mixed style’ is realised to an almost chaotic degree.

This is music that today seems tame and shorn of any emotional element, but repeated hearings will reveal a composer full of imagination and grandeur of conception who was ahead of his time.

The superb Chaconne in A is perhaps the most flamboyant and exciting of all the many keyboard works of the genre, and is a prime example of Graupner’s wonderful gift to create so much rhythmic vigour from just one instrument.

Japanese harpsichordist Naoko Akutagawa performs this charming repertoire with great panache while bringing a vast dynamic and tonal palette to bear on its more subtle aspects. A beguiling disc, full of silky sounds and mercurial writing that should win Graupner many new admirers.

These CDs were made available for review by D’Amato Record Shop of 98/99 St John Street, Valletta.