Bach; Brahms: Out of Later Years Vol. 1

Advantages: Mutter's eloquence and sensitivity in older recording are enhanced here.
Disadvantages: None at all!

...-Hungarian violin prodigy to modify the piece as necessary. (Brahms himself did not play the violin). Joaquim did so, and the piece finally premiered on January 1, 1879--to a confused and rather hostile reception (not unlike what would later greet the Tchaikovsky violin concerto). Pianist Hans von Bulow described it as a concerto not ‘for the violin’, but ‘against it’! Brahms tweaked it further until the piece finally saw publication months after its premiere. With such shaky beginnings, it might have been hard to imagine the work becoming one of the most beloved in the violin repertoire today. To be quite frank, the concerto did almost nothing for me at first. None of the musical themes appealed to me, buried as they were in the work’s complexity. It was hard to follow the melodic line, which was obscured by frequent shifts in rhythm and tempo. In fact... Read review

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Advantages: Two outstanding peices of chamber music for an unusual combination of instruments
Disadvantages: On the surface quite contrasting works, listener must be openminded

...The work of Ligeti has been at the forefront of Western avant-garde since his escape from the oppressive communist regime of Hungary in 1956, and he is widely appreciated as one of the most outstanding contemporary composers. The Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano because it was born out of a three-year period of illness and writer's block after the completion of Le Grand Macabre in which time he laboured over a piano concerto but completed only two short harpsichord pieces (Continuum and Hungarian Rock), yet the result in 1982 was the Trio, one of the finest and most complex pieces written so far. His career up to this point had included such sucesses as his Requiem, Atmosphères and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film 2001. Tiring of his own cluster-textural techniques and the avant-garde, Ligeti refreshed his compositional... Read review

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Advantages: Light, clear, could be played over and again
Disadvantages: Perhaps lacks a bit of magic or sparkle

...If I was to think of performers I would choose to play my favourite pieces of music, then I would not readily think of the Oregon Bach Festival Chamber Orchestra. But a friend of mine who played in the orchestra tipped me off that this was a good one. So I got hold of the CD, opened a bottle of red and sat back with an open mind. Surprise surprise, it's good. Enthusiastic playing for sure, with plenty of joie de vivre. The typical American attention to detail slightly grates with my British sense of spontaneity, but the flawless phrasing, breathing (and no doubt bowing too) and dynamics work in the overall performances because of the lack of indulgence in the tempi. Bach can all too easily sound like a mathematical exercise written out in notes, but there is a lightness and deftness of touch here in the conducting that lifts this out... Read review

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