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


alternatively AmazonUK   AmazonUS

 

 

Max BRUCH (1838-1920)
Eight Pieces, Op. 83 (1910) [36:10]
Vincent d'INDY (1851-1931)
Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano, Op. 29 (1888) [35:53]
Amici Ensemble
rec. Humbercrest United Church, Toronto, May 2003 and February 2004
NAXOS 8.557347 [72:03] 

 


The coupling is imaginative, with d'Indy's post-Wagnerian idiom nicely setting off Bruch's smaller-scaled, Brahmsian lyricism. But it's disconcerting to realize, after the fact, that Bruch's Eight Pieces, grounded in German tradition, appeared some twenty years later than the intrepid, "advanced"-sounding d'Indy Trio! 

The Bruch set has turned up on disc from time to time, usually performed by relatively obscure ensembles; they've sounded agreeable, but small-scaled and inconsequential. But the members of the Toronto-based Amici Ensemble - clarinetist Joaquin Valdepeñas, cellist David Hetherington, and pianist Patricia Parr - consider the music afresh, finding in it a hitherto unsuspected scope for expression and nuance. At the start of the opening Andante, Parr's bleak voicing of the yearning gestures foreshadows Expressionism; a few bars later, the cello's aspiring theme points the way to Elgar! The playing is not flawless - Hetherington's pianos lack the sense of tonal reserve that his fortes imply, and he and Valdepeñas can't agree on tuning in their occasional unisons. But in the Amici's hands (and lungs), these pieces prove to be works of genuine musical substance, small-scaled or not. 

As you might expect, it's the comparatively longer (five or six minutes), more elaborate pieces that stick in the memory. I was especially taken with the Andante con moto (No. 3), which alternates the cello's rhapsodic flourishes (think Liszt) with a soaring clarinet theme in sustained notes, sensitively colored by Valdepeñas. The Rümanische Melodie (No. 5) grows nicely impassioned; the concluding Moderato (No. 8), ruminative and lyrical, most nearly recalls the Brahms prototype. But there's also the brief Allegro agitato (No. 4), which maintains a headlong momentum even in its lyric episodes, and the Allegro vivace (No. 7), a nimble, toe-tapping scherzo.

As its gravely eloquent opening subject - a recurring motto, as it turns out - attests, the d'Indy Trio, cast in four full-fledged sonata form movements, is a completely different sort of piece. Its fluid writing, especially for the piano, is very "French." So, too, are the ambiguous chromatic sidesteps and unstable seventh chords of its harmonic language, and its unifying cyclic elements. Fortunately, the composer avoids the hothouse atmosphere that the idiom usually suggests, or evokes - even in its most expressive passages, the music always maintains a degree of poise.

The first movement (Overture: Modéré) runs some fourteen minutes - longer than any two of Bruch's pieces together! - yet the musical argument is cogent, the development of the themes expansive and logical. The second movement (Divertissement: Vif et animé), a scintillating scherzo decked out with piano runs (think Saint-Saëns), offers the cello, pizzicato, to reinforce the piano, a rare use in chamber music of a primarily orchestral effect. At the start of the succeeding Chant élégiaque, the clarinet intones a broad melody in pensive syncopations; the cello picks up the forward impulse, and the writing grows increasingly impassioned, leading to an ardent climax by cello and clarinet (in octaves rather than in unison, thus conveniently avoiding the previously cited tuning hazard). The Animé finale is buoyant, with the motto theme imaginatively repackaged on its return. Here, too, the Amici's performance is most persuasive. 

The engineering is ideal for this sort of project - you don't notice it, yet everything sounds beautiful. There's plenty to enjoy here, and at minimal cost, besides. 

Stephen Francis Vasta 

See also reviews by Jonathan Woolf and Christopher Fifield 

 

 


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

 

 

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.