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             


 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

alternatively
CD: Crotchet AmazonUK AmazonUS


West of the Sun - Music of the Americas
Ernesto NAZARETH (1863-1934)
Vem cá, Branquinha [2:46]
Louis Moreau GOTTSCHALK (1829-1869)
Suis-moi! Caprice (1861) [3:03]
Astor PIAZZOLLA (1921-1992)
Flora’s Game, Milonga prelude (1987) [6:46]
Alberto GINASTERA (1916-1983)
Sonata No.1 (1952) [13:38]
Heitor VILLA-LOBOS (1887-1959)
Chôros No.5, Alma Brasileira (1925) [4:31]
Amy BEACH (1867-1944)
Fire-flies Op.15 (1892) [3:04]
Margaret BONDS (1913-1972)
Troubled Water (1967) [5:21]
William BOLCOM (b.1938)
Nine New Bagatelles (2006) [9:23]
Samuel BARBER (1910-1981)
Piano Sonata Op.26 (1949) [18:31]
Joel Fan (piano)
rec. Skywalker Sound, Marin County, California, October 2008
REFERENCE RECORDINGS RR-119 [67:17]
Experience Classicsonline

Ebullient and zesty. Doubtless there other more critically congenial ways to describe this wide-ranging disc of Americana, North and South - though the North doesn’t go above 60 00 N, 95 00 W so we must forego Canadian pianistic pleasures.

The programme has been chosen to reflect some of Fan’s strengths which include a decidedly natural sounding approach to such as Nazareth and Gottschalk, composers too good to be shuffled off into ‘genre corner’ and too engaging to be confined to single composer specialist recitals. Here they take their rightful, spicy and dance based place in the pantheon of things, and fortunately they have a laudable exponent. Nazareth’s Vem cá, Branquinha may not breach the three minute mark but it’s played with vivacious and charismatic brio and gets things off to a decidedly snappy start. Gottscalk’s Suis-moi! Caprice of 1861 reveals his brand of Chopin-translated drama to perfection.

Piazzolla could hardly fail to make the cut and Flora’s Game - Milonga prelude certainly ranges widely, running the gamut of melancholia to exhilaration with all the avidity of a sweaty night in the barrios. Of more lasting and obviously central stamp however is Ginastera’s 1952 sonata, a four movement opus of commanding virtuosity and volatile profile. This is something Fan latches onto, right from the opening Allegro marcato and the grip doesn’t lessen - neither in the darting rapidity of the Presto Misterioso nor in the fugitively elusive waters of the Adagio. Come the finale and the dynamic toccata is back on track again, full of tension, full of drive.

It’s pleasing to have the melancholic but rhythmically charged performance of Villa-Lobos’s Chôros No.5, Alma Brasileira where Fan’s chording in the B section is ultra romantic. So too the virtuosic thirds exemplified in Amy Beach’s little study, Fire-flies. Margaret Bonds’ Troubled Water is an inventively spun Spiritual whilst Bolcom’s Nine New Bagatelles are the most recent things here, written in 2006. All are necessarily brief though not aphoristic and range from the limpid and refined (No.4 - excellent reduced dynamics from Fan here) to the more pile driving moments of, for instance, the second. Fan ends with another major piano sonata, Barber’s. An obvious comparison rests with John Browning’s performance, now on Nimbus NI2528, rather more perhaps than titans such as Horowitz and Wild. Fan is decidedly more linear than Browning and his playing certainly lacks nothing in dynamism. The highlight of his performance, probably, is the slow movement which he vests with delicate limpidity, suggestive refinement and burgeoning drama - an all-round performance of real standing in fact.

With recorded sound of the highest class and engaging notes, what’s not to like about this effervescent release?

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

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.