Susan Varley

Listening to the music on this two-disc set, you may wonder why the chamber works of Swedish Romantic composer Franz Berwald are not more frequently recorded. It can't be because of his themes, which are strong, sweet, and distinctive; or because of his harmonies, which are powerful, rich, and cogent; or because of his forms, which are innovative, inventive, and indestructible. The only possible reason for this music's neglect is that there's only so much room in the world for great music, and unfortunately, Berwald, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Dvorák have apparently already occupied all the space allocated to chamber music of the Romantic period. Still, anyone listening to the music on this two-disc set will have to wonder if there's not enough room for Berwald, too.

A virtuoso pianist, Ferdinand Ries began composing piano sonatas at a time when the genre was undergoing significant changes from the models of Haydn and Mozart to new developments by Clementi, Beethoven and Hummel. Ries also pre-figures Schubert’s poignant harmonic language, Mendelssohn’s expressive sweetness and Chopin’s brilliant figurations, notably in The Dream. Opening with a stately polonaise in rondo form, Ries’s C major Sonata concludes with a thrilling perpetuum mobile finale. In his only named sonata, The Unfortunate, the influence of Beethoven’s Pathétique is apparent.

Up until recently, it has pretty much been the job of the excellent German record company, cpo, to provide the interested collector with recordings of music by Ferdinand Ries (1784–1838). Susan Kagan, a Fanfare contributor herself, has been furthering the cause on the Naxos label, though, and the present disc is the second volume of a projected series of the composer’s piano sonatas and sonatinas.

Susan Kagan, intrigued by Ries’s Op. 1 piano sonatas went on to record all 14 of his solo piano sonatas and sonatinas, gaining critical acclaim for her eloquent advocacy of these unfairly neglected yet often substantial works. Bridging the divide between the Classical style of Haydn and Mozart and the Romantic impulses of Schubert, Chopin and Mendelssohn, with a healthy dose of Beethoven often in evidence…

During the Meiji Restoration (1868-1912) a broad diffusion of Western music flowed into Japan, first in the form of military band music and. later, Protestant hymns. By 1900, recitals of piano, violin and song were quite popular. Composers like Prokofiev, and performers such as Heifetz, Kreisler and Segovia also encouraged this musical direction, which strongly followed German Romanticism and French Impressionism. The new Western repertoire found a place with the traditional Japanese music, hdgaku, and as the two traditions came in contact, a new and unique form of music emerged. One of the most fascinating developments in Japanese music was the introduction of new instruments in the south of Japan, and their metamorphosis as they migrated north via Kyoto and Tokyo. Several composers on this disc have focused on natural themes, with water being a favourite and obvious choice. The works have been chosen to give a sampling of the diversity of Japanese music, from the beautiful, traditional folk-songs to the complex and challenging multi-movement works, many of which evoke the traditional instruments, namely shakuhachi and koto.

This six-CD set is sure to be of interest to fans of Susan Graham, the phenomenally successful American mezzo-soprano. The recordings, with the exception of just a few tracks from the 1990s, were made between 2000 and 2005, and they reveal Graham in her prime. Five of the discs had previously been released, but one is made up of selections from a variety of sources, including complete opera recordings. The set demonstrates Graham's versatility, both stylistically in the many types of music she sings and in the emotional spectrum that the songs and arias encompass. .

Here's an excellent Shostakovich chamber program, combining music from different phases of the composer's career as well as introducing two fairly unusual works in combination with a great masterwork, the Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67. This work, written in 1944 as the tide had begun to turn against Hitler's armies in Russia, is perhaps the definitive musical response to the horrors of the Second World War. Its final movement, evoking klezmer music gradually overtaken by darkness, is almost unbearably moving.