Stuffing Your Classical Stocking.(Bach: Brandenburg Concertos)(James Ehnes: Homage)(Sound recording review)

• Published in: Queen's quarterly Vol. 116; no. 4; pp. 606 - 615
• Main Author: Deacon, Tom
• Format: Journal Article Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kingston Queen's Quarterly 22.12.2009
• Subjects: Classical music; Debretzeni, Kati; Diminutives and augmentatives; Gardiner, John Eliot; Intonation; Music; Musical recordings; Rhythm; Sound recording reviews; Sound recordings; Stops; Teachers; Tone; Wang, Yuja
• ISSN: 0033-6041

VOLUME II of [Marc- Andr]é Hamelin's ongoing discovery of the joys of Haydn's piano music would grace the collection of any lover of this composer's music. Haydn has unfortunately lived in the shadow of his famous pupil, Ludwig van Beethoven. There is no question that Beethoven outdoes his teacher in a sonata shootout. Beethoven's 32 sonatas are for the most part bona fide masterpieces of the piano literature. Haydn's 60-odd sonatas hardly qualify uniformly as masterpieces, but many are, of course, and some come very close, particularly when they are played with the superb finish, rhythmic verve, and pianistic colour Marc-André Hamelin brings to them. [Ida Haendel] was always a violinist with a big sound that was in total contrast to her diminutive physical stature. She always loved the big concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Bruch, and Sibelius. Early in her career, in the 1940s and 1950s, she recorded most of this repertoire for British Decca and EMl. In recent years Stewart Brown at Testament Records has lovingly restored these recordings to the catalogue. He has also approached the BBC for some "live" performances by Ida Haendel, and here we have the results of his first efforts: recordings of the Elgar and Sibelius violin concertos recorded "live": the Elgar at the Royal Festival Hall in February of 1984, the Sibelius at the Royal Albert HaII in September of 1993. Haendel had recorded the sumptuous Elgar concerto in the 1970s for EMI with Sir Adrian Boult, actually his last recording session. That version is very fine and still available from Testament, but this "live" performance is another beast altogether. Haendel fills the RFH with the enormous, voluptuous tone of her Stradivarius. One has the impression that when she wants more tone, she simply opens a few stops on her own personal pipe organ! Moreover, her intonation in this fiendish work is flawless throughout, with the music moving forward but never sounding driven. With this artist the rhythm seems to drive the phrasing and the phrasing the rhythm in a symbiosis rarely heard in the concert hall today. Finally, and most importantly, Ida Haendel captures to perfection that bittersweet world of Edwardian nobility and sentiment of Elgar's music without ever veering into pomposity or sentimentality.