Rameau: Pieces de Clavecin (1706 and 1724). Gilbert Rowland, harpsichord – Naxos 8.553047 (75 minutes).
The great French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) is considered by some as the father of today’s swinging sounds, but throughout his colourful career he excelled at many types of music, not least in opera and keyboard pieces.
The seventh of 11 children of an organist, Jean-Philippe showed promise at a very early age, and by the time he was 19 he was already temporary organist at Avignon Cathedral. By 1706, he was in Paris, where he published his first book of harpsichord works. In 1709 he went back to Dijon, his hometown, where he succeeded his father as organist at Notre-Dame.
In 1726, Rameau published a thesis on a system of harmony based on acoustic theory that is still the accepted conventional system.
By 1733 his interests started shifting, and for the next 27 years, opera became his main obsession. Works such as Hippolyte et Aricie, Les Indes Galantes and Les Paladins were hugely successful, and even today, these spectacular stage works are mounted regularly.
This issue focuses on the harpsichord pieces that Rameau composed early in his career, and although the style is strongly reminiscent of the period, there are many daring innovations, especially on the mechanical use of the fingers and the introduction of a suite consisting of dance movements and genre pieces rather than a more formal dance-suite arrangement.
Scottish harpsichordist Gilbert Rowland is an engaging interpreter of this virtuosic yet translucent music, and his technical mastery deserves admiration. Top-drawer sound and informative notes complete a disc full of attractive, if rather specialised, pieces which keyboard enthusiasts should not miss.
Liszt: Piano Transcriptions of Beethoven’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. Konstantin Scherbakov, piano – Naxos 8.557170 (72 minutes).
With Liszt’s birth bicentenary celebrations now in full swing, it would be apt to focus on one of his most fascinating artistic achievements – that of transcribing other composers’ works for the solo piano.
This is what critic Heinrich Adami had to say after attending one of Liszt’s mesmerising concerts on November 21, 1839: “The first piece that Liszt played in his first concert was the last three movements of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. The transcription for the piano of this great and complicated piece was a task as daring as it was difficult; it was not to be only a brilliant concert piece, but much more than that, a work without arbitrary additions or omissions reproduced with artistic fidelity and scrupulousness according to its spirit and its innermost being.”
With such a vivid description, one is left in no doubt as to Liszt’s amazing transcribing ability, let alone his absolute genius as composer and performer. Throughout his long career, he was of great service to many composers, but his reverence for Beethoven was boundless, and his piano versions of all nine symphonies are maybe one of his landmark accomplishments.
This disc includes the Fourth and Sixth (Pastoral), and Liszt’s monumental reproductions of the originals are not only accurate and technically precise, but also marvellously symphonic both in structure and sonority. This issue should not only be a vehicle of curiosity and exploration, but also a departure point on the discovery of this simply fascinating genre.
The Best of Operetta: Ingrid Kertesi and Zsuzsa Csouka, sopranos; Janos Berkes, tenor; Hungarian Operetta Orchestra conducted by Laszlo Kovacs – Naxos 8.550943 (64 minutes).
This third volume in the excellent ongoing Naxos series dedicated to operetta focuses mainly on works by Johann Strauss Jnr and other composers who carried the tradition of this Viennese speciality well into the 20th century.
This CD kicks off with the overture to Die Fledermaus, Strauss’s big hit from 1874, and continues in a delectable vein till the very end. Compositions by the ‘Waltz King’ abound, and of the 15 tracks, no fewer than five are dedicated to excerpts from Die Fledermaus and one from A Night in Venice.
The rest of the programme is spread out between five of the most popular composers of the genre. There are three highly enjoyable numbers from Emmerich Kalman’s Countess Maritza, while Carl Zeller, one of Strauss’s contemporaries, is represented by the aria Twenty like my father from The Birdcatcher, his most successful stage work.
Franz Lehar’s show-stopper The Merry Widow will remain the most performed piece of this master of melody, but it is with Love, Heaven on Earth from Paganini that he leaves his imprint on this collation.
The prolific Robert Stolz wrote for both theatre and cinema. His 2,000 songs represent the mainstay of his career, but he also has a number of operettas to his name. This recording includes samples of these two facets with two songs and an excerpt each from The Magician of Bohemia and The Favourite.
Kovacs and his Hungarian forces manifest their love for this music with sparkling and witty performances and the programme never outstays its duration.
These CDs were made available for review by D’Amato Record Shop of 98/99 St John Street, Valletta.