Italian Concertos

“Her playing is breathtaking, first in the bubbling fluency of Vivaldi violin concerto allegros...while her fluent technique elicits some exhilarating tempos. No less arresting is her creamy tone in slow movements...Listening to it is nothing short of a life-enhancing experience.” --BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 *****

“This is above all a disc of virtuoso brilliance, with the soloist performing her pyrotechnics with consummate ease; her tone is bright and open yet possessing a creamy timbre throughout the range...Each of the concertos here presents something to delight the ear.” --International Record Review, May 2011

“Balsom takes the first movement [of the Vivaldi] at such a lick that it's over before you know it; but the clarity and precision of her articulation make it an exhilarating experience...Her orchestrated version of an Albinoni violin sonata is notable for some nimble playing in the first Allegro.” --Classic FM Magazine, December 2010 ****

“suave, characterful performances...Wistfulness and exuberance combined come to the fore in the Cimarosa, while Balsom's clear, focused tone irradiates Albinoni's less exciting Oboe Concerto in B flat with a warmth and intensity that is carried over into the penultimate work on the disc, Tartini's D major Trumpet Concerto” --Gramophone Magazine, December 2010

Saint-Saëns: Music for Violin and Orchestra

“played with that tremendous flair and brilliance that accentuates the frothy aspects of the music” --The Strad

“The First Concerto plus popular display pieces played with panache and spontaneity.” --BBC Music Magazine

Pleyel: Symphonies

Poor Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831): his reputation isn't half what it used to be. At one time the pupil – and then the London rival – of Franz Joseph Haydn, he was thought to be superior to his mentor by no less a figure than Robert Schumann. Pleyel once was the human symbol of everything balanced and moderate in symphonic music. Even on Cape Cod (Nantucket, to be exact), a Pleyel Society was founded "to purify the taste of the public." Today, his name is recognized for the Parisian concert hall to which it is attached (the Salle Pleyel), and for the pianos that he (and later, his son) had manufactured under the family name, beginning in 1807. 

Another nugget worth retaining is Pleyel's invention of the miniature score – an innovation associated with the publishing house he founded in the mid-1790s. How did Pleyel have the time for all of this "extracurricular" activity? He did it in the style of Rossini or Sibelius, by giving up composing for about the last thirty years of his life.

Pleyel was alive during Beethoven's entire lifetime, almost all of Mozart's lifetime, and for much of Haydn's lifetime. It is not a surprise, then, that echoes and pre-echoes of all three composers – with all of the charm but without much of the genius – can be heard in his work. Thematically, the finale of the Symphony in D (1785) anticipates the parallel movement of Mozart's Symphony #39, written just three years later. (cpo's annotator compares this same movement to the finale of Beethoven's First Symphony – also a valid comparison.) The opening of the Symphonie Concertante (1802-05) sounds like a forgotten Mozart piano concerto, and in fact, there are some thematic similarities between this music and the finale of Mozart's Piano Concerto #21. In the finale, however, Pleyel does something that Mozart never did: he has his soloists break out into a good Irish jig – a souvenir of his time in London a decade before? Some of the same spirit informs the Haydnesque opening of the 6ème Symphonie Périodique, which Pleyel wrote in 1788. (Bert Hagels's otherwise excellent annotations do not explain why this symphony is "périodique.")

I enjoyed a disc of music by Beethoven's pupil Ferdinand Ries with these same performers (CPO 999716-2), and the good impression made there is preserved here: this is warm-blooded, stylistically appropriate, and – most important – excitedly communicative playing. The Zürich Chamber Orchestra is a modern instruments ensemble with a full but transparent sound. I can't imagine anyone bettering them and conductor/artistic director Howard Griffiths soon. Pleyel's music might not be earth-shattering, but it deserves the first-class treatment that it receives here. --Copyright © 2002, Raymond Tuttle. classical.net

La Casa del Diavolo

The last movement of Gluck's ballet Don Juan (1761), which the composer recycled 13 years later in Orphée et Eurydice, evidently made a deep impression on Mozart: the D minor tonality and the octave drops of the Commendatore's music in Don Giovanni show the extent of his indebtedness. Less well known is the symphony by Boccherini from which this recording takes its name. Here we have not only the same tonality but a chaconne which is a parody (in the technical sense) 'representing Hell and written in imitation of the one by Mr Gluck in his Stone Guest'.

Gluck and Boccherini are the bookends of a fascinating survey of music written between the 1740s and '80s to which the word 'Sensibility' can be applied. One exemplar of this style was CPE Bach: the symphony recorded here is full of passionate outbursts and swooning appoggiaturas. Similarly, the harpsichord concerto by his elder brother, Wilhelm Friedemann, contrasts fierce tuttis with gentle solos in the first movement and in the Andante, while the finale is a Prestissimo with whirlwind triplets for the soloist.

The concerto by Locatelli comprises a sequence of mostly short movements reflecting the emotions of Ariadne, abandoned on Naxos by Theseus. In his booklet-note, Giovanni Antonini provides a convincing descriptive programme (and oddly seems to imply that Bacchus and Dionysus were different gods). Locatelli uses recitative, echo effects and dramatic pauses to convey Ariadne's plight.

The performances can't be faulted: Antonini gets all the fire and fury of the music out of his players without being afraid of relaxing where appropriate. The only drawback is the excessively wide dynamic range, which forces you to choose between near-inaudibility in the soft passages and unneighbourly fortissimo in the loud ones. Heaven knows where you would find this unfashionably mixed programme in a record shop; but seek it out and you will be well rewarded. --Richard Lawrence, Gramophone

Michael Haydn: Symphonies

Joseph Haydn's younger brother Michael has earned less fame. His earlier career followed that of his brother, as a chorister and then earning a living from music as best he could in Vienna. He became Kapellmeister in 1757 to the Bishop of Grosswardein and in 1762 moved to Salzburg, home of the Mozart family, serving there as Konzertmeister to the ruling Archbishop and to his successor, while earning a not inconsiderable reputation beyond the confines of his position. His pupils included Weber and the composer-publisher Diabelli, while his influence on Mozart cannot be discounted.

Church Music

Like his elder brother, Michael Haydn wrote music of all kinds. One of the most interesting of his liturgical works is the Requiem he wrote on the death of his first Salzburg patron, Archbishop Sigismond, in 1771.

Orchestral Music

Michael Haydn wrote a number of symphonies and concertos. His Trumpet Concerto of 1764 is a useful repertoire item for soloists, but other orchestral works are heard less frequently.

Chamber Music

Michael Haydn's instrumental music, in addition to a number of divertimenti, includes a dozen attractive string quartets.

Verhulst: Symphony in E minor, Overtures

'This disc is a winner on every point, and the sumptuous harmonies, memorable melodies, and exceptional advocacy combine to make this not only an aural work of art, but also a leading candidate for my Want List.' --Fanfare

'This is enjoyable and cultivated music and is persuasively performed here, the Residentie Orchestra responging eagerly to Matthias Bamerts clear-sighted direction and ear for detail. The recording is excellent, as is Leo Samamas extensive booklet note. One wants now to explore Chandos previous issue of Verhulst, his Mass setting, Op. 20.' --Gramophone

Several major Dutch cities have a Johannes Verhulst Street or Verhulst Square. Nevertheless, very few of their inhabitants realise the importance of the composer and conductor who reigned over Dutch musical life for some forty years.

Verhulst was a protégée of Mendelssohn’s and became musical director of Leipzig’s popular Euterpe concerts. The success of his compositions led to a knighthood from King Willem II and the position of Director of the Royal Music. Other prestigious directorships followed. His influence was tremendous: he familiarised Dutch audiences with the works of Schumann, Gade and Brahms; he had a great affinity for the music of Beethoven, setting a new standard for its performance; his international reputation was confirmed with an honorary membership, together with Liszt, Berlioz and Gade, awarded by London’s Royal Philharmonic Society.

As the years went on, however, his supreme rule met with increasing resistance, chiefly because his interests in programme-building extended little beyond the idioms of Mendelssohn and Schumann. He categorically refused to perform the works of Berlioz, Liszt, and his greatest bugbear, Richard Wagner. Both press and public protested more and more vociferously. In 1886 he was dismissed from his post as director of the music society Diligentia. Soon he withdrew from public life altogether, a bitter man.

Verhulst’s growing conservatism as a musical leader had a detrimental effect on the public’s appreciation of his own compositions, most of which he wrote before the age of thirty-five. In fact, it doomed his works to almost total obscurity for they have rarely been heard since his death. It is hoped that the present recording will go some way towards correcting this injustice.

Romantic Flute Concertos

Wind instruments have for long been of particular importance to French composers. Romantic Flute Concertos includes works by Fauré, Ravel, Saint-Säens, and the less familiar Jules Mouquet, with the piccolo polka Le merle blanc by Damaré, following a unique original edition for full orchestra discovered by Marc Grauwels in the cellars of the Brussels Music Library. The collection opens with a Concertante by Mendelssohn's friend, the virtuoso pianist Moscheles, succeeded by a Concertino, and early work of Donizetti.

Romantic Flute Concertos

France and the flute are inseparably associated. The connection is nothing new, but one with clear historical roots. It was at the beginning of the eighteenth Century that nearly all instruments began to undergo rapid technical development. This set in train an evolution that was to continue well into the next century, the technical changes leading to a marked increase in expressive potential. Instrumental music naturally underwent a similar development.

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