MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Buy through MusicWeb for £12.49 postage paid World-wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

 

Poets from the East
Alexander SCRIABIN (1872-1915)
Preludes Op.11 (1888-1896) [31:19]
Ma SHUI-LONG (b.1939)
A Sketch of the Rainy Harbour (1969) [8:10]
Dobrinka TABAKOVA (b.1980)
Nocturne [2:29]
Modétudes (c.1999) [9:10]
Leonid DESYATNIKOV (b.1955)
Echoes from the Theatre
From Kashchey's Life [2:14]
Jamais (Elegy) [3:47]
Rondeau-chase [1:38]
In Honour of Dickens (Waltz) [5:07]
Nocturne (from the film Giselle Mania) [3:42]
Credit Titles (from the film Evenings near Moscow) (1994) [3:56]
Evelyn Chang (piano)
rec. St George's, Bristol, September 2008
AVIE AV 2168 [72:19]

Experience Classicsonline



This finely engineered disc, recorded in St George's, Bristol - increasingly a venue of choice for recitals - presents a rather intriguing programme fuelled by inter-relations, reflections and colouristic associations. At its centre stands the Scriabin Op.11 Preludes, synaesthetically bound to other works, principally that by Ma Shui-Long, but by association, at least, with much here. Russia, Taiwan and Bulgaria are the geographical points around which another element of the programme revolves and it all makes for wide ranging listening.

One should start with the works that exert the strongest gravitational pull, those powerful Preludes, written over a dozen or so years toward the end of the nineteenth century. Evelyn Chang proves a dextrous guide to the repertoire, fluid and athletic in the G major, colour-strong in the agitato of the F sharp minor, and tempo-perfect in the B minor [No.6]. There is considerable subtlety in this playing and a strong sense of the music's volatility and purposeful drama. It's only when one turns to such as Sofronitzky that we can note the vertical sense of characterisation that he brings to bear and which few have ever even attempted to match. His cussedness illuminates the B minor that, with the elemental chordal power that he brings to bear, lifts his performance into the stratosphere of Scriabin playing. So finely though she plays it, in the E major his brushstrokes produce piano painting of trance-like allure and in the case of the F major [No.23], well though she dispatches it, it does rather lack the fervid, torrid drama of the best performances.

Ma Shui-Long is a Taiwanese composer and painter and he wrote A Sketch of the Rainy Harbour in 1969. It's cast in four, very brief movements. He makes great pianistic play of 'strong' and 'soft' rain allowing delicate impressionistic tracery and more florid outbursts and dolorous bass repetitions. This evocative little narrative involves a culminatory Temple 'wind and percussion' ensemble blazing away - vivacious and strongly chordal.

Dobrinka Tabakova's Modétudes explores the Modes. She's another composer who colour associates music. In a compact nine minutes this Plovdiv-born young composer takes in an array of moods and impressions. The Dorian mode has minimalist elements but it's far too active and vibrant to be pigeon-holed in this way. The Lydian is warm and lyric whilst the Ionian sports some ice-marble treble The Locrian is march-like and powerful, and the Mixolydian exuberant. Engaging studies, splendidly realised. Her Nocturne, recorded here, is part of a forthcoming Concerto for piano and chamber ensemble written for this soloist - and it's a 'brief meditation'.

Finally there is the suite from Echoes from the Theatre by Leonid Desyatnikov, rather hard to describe but essentially filmic. There is wan lyricism in the first extract but a more active and slow moving tristesse in Jamais. The highlight is probably the Keystone Kops hi-jinks of Rondeau-chase but there's romantic urgency in In Honour of Dickens and a Chopin-derived Nocturne from the film Giselle Mania.

It's certainly an intriguing programme, not easy to classify, but finely presented and performed.

Jonathan Woolf
 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index