Melnikov

The patron saint of neglected instruments, Hindemith composed more than 30 sonatas for very diverse resources – including, unusually, such instruments as the bass tuba and double bass. Among the more obscure combinations is the Sonata for Althorn and Piano, which opens this arresting new disc, and stands out further for including a spoken dialogue between the two players (here, Teunis van der Zwart and Alexander Melnikov) at the start of its finale. Sonata-starved trombonists also value Hindemith’s contribution to their repertoire, but as Gérard Costes shows, this is not merely Gebrauchsmusik (utility music), useful only to performers themselves. Played with blazing tone by Jeroen Berwaerts, the Trumpet Sonata emerges with particular brilliance. These three brass sonatas generally come across with more subtlety than on the well-known recordings by Glenn Gould and friends. Anchoring this new project, Alexander Melnikov is a superbly thoughtful and questing pianist.

In nearly every respect this is outstanding. The Rondo brillant and the Fantasie, both written for the virtuoso duo of Karl von Bocklet and Josef Slawik, can sound as if Schubert were striving for a brilliant, flashy style, foreign to his nature. Both are in places uncomfortable to play (when first published, the Fantasie’s violin part was simplified), but you would never guess this from Faust’s and Melnikov’s performance; they both nonchalantly toss off any problem passages as though child’s play. The Fantasie’s finale and the Rondo brillant are irresistibly lively and spirited, and this duo’s technical finesse extends to more poetic episodes – Melnikov’s tremolo at the start of the Fantasie shimmers delicately, while the filigree passagework in the last of the variations that form the Fantasie’s centrepiece have a delightful poise and sense of ease.

Alexander Melnikov’s recent, excellent set of the Shostakovich 24 Preludes and Fugues (currently nominated for the BBC Music Magazine Awards) demonstrated eloquently that he was no slavish follower of performing tradition. This new disc of Brahms’s earliest surviving piano works shows his questing musicality in another way. In an absorbing booklet essay on Brahms’s pianos and pianism, Melnikov cites the copious (and contradictory) evidence of how Brahms played, and what pianos he used and favoured. Brahms’s partiality for Steinways and Streichers is well attested, as is his admiration for Bösendorfer’s instruments, and Melnikov has opted here for an 1875 Bösendorfer even though, as he comments, it is ‘notoriously difficult to play and to regulate’, shortcomings ‘compensated by the beauty and nobility of its sound’. Those qualities, along with immediacy of attack, agile articulation and individuation of registers, are admirably well caught in this recording: no matter that none of these works were played on such an instrument when they were new. Melnikov shows himself a formidable Brahmsian, and the piano’s ‘nobility’ is best displayed in the surging grandeur he brings to the finale of the C major and the intensely sensitive readings of both sonatas’ variation-form slow movements.

Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov present the third volume in their complete set of sonatas on period instruments. Their playing, showing “great elegance and utter rigour,” is distinguished by “a tender and delicate expressiveness served by exceptionally subtle nuances” (Classica).

"I have composed a big sonata and variations for four hands, and the latter have met with a specially good reception here, but I do not entirely trust Hungarian taste, and I shall leave it to you and to the Viennese to decide their true merit" So wrote Franz Schubert in 1824, evoking the popular 19th-century genre for 4-hands piano that publishers were always pestering him to write for. In his brief life Schubert devoted 32 compositions to this form and the least of these pieces, be it a ländler, polonaise or march, radiates with all of his finesse and sensitivity

With this new volume, Alexandre Melnikov has chosen to delve into three distinct periods of the composer’s career, ranging from the dazzling though seldom-heard No. 4 to the magisterial No. 9. In between those two, the sonata no. 7 once again evokes the troubled atmosphere characteristic of the three so-called ‘war sonatas’. Sviatoslav Richter claimed to have learned the piece in a mere four days.

Teunis van der Zwart and Alexander Melnikov have chosen to pay tribute to Giovanni Punto, now unknown to most music lovers, even though he truly established the cor basse (horn focused on the low register) by devoting no less than sixteen concertos to it! It was he who inspired Beethoven's famous Sonata op.17; the pieces by Danzi and Ries also bear the mark of his legacy. This recording provides an opportunity to discover the unique sound of this instrument in four emblematic works.

The harmonia mundi label's ongoing series of recordings marking the centenary of the death of Claude Debussy continues with this fascinating album of chamber works. On it, violinist Isabelle Faust has brought together an all-star team of musicians including cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, violist Antoine Tamestit, flutist Magali Mosnier, harpist Xavier de Maistre and pianists Alexander Melnikov, Javier Perianes, and Tanguy de Williencourt. Three sonatas are the focal point here, with accompanied works for cello and violin complemented by the glorious Sonata for flute, Viola and Harp. The remainder of the program features a colorful selection of piano works from the composer's late period.

Teunis van der Zwart and Alexander Melnikov have chosen to pay tribute to Giovanni Punto, now unknown to most music lovers, even though he truly established the cor basse (horn focused on the low register) by devoting no less than sixteen concertos to it. It was he who inspired Beethoven's famous Sonata op.17; the pieces by Danzi and Ries also bear the mark of his legacy. This recording provides an opportunity to discover the unique sound of this instrument in four emblematic works.