Decca推出35CDs芭蕾舞曲音樂輯Ballet Masterpieces

基本上是以澳洲籍指揮家Richard Bonyage為主，再穿插Ansermet、Maazel與Dorati等人錄音作品的集結，從柴可夫斯基三大芭蕾舞曲到史特拉汶斯基春之祭通通囊括其中，大都曾經出現在盒裝或Double Decca等低價系列；這套錄音完全體現Decca作為發燒級錄音大廠的光輝歷史，多出自Kenneth Wikinson與James Lock大師手筆，再配合上通俗好聽的音樂，是筆者強力推薦C/P值破表的年度最抵買大部頭套裝CD！

99元的企鵝指南必備盤：柴可夫斯基第一號交響曲

金革代理的倒店貨，正常價位時，很可能要買卻買不到，或者看不上眼，因為好版本實在多如過江之鯽，不過，看在五折的份上，就為了企鵝指南那把鑰匙，試試看囉！

Telarc低價位海頓交響曲：Everybody's Haydn

Charles Mackerras爵士指揮Scottish Chamber Orchestra在90年代的名演，兩張CD不到NT＄300。

發燒片：DePreist指揮倫敦交響樂團演出馬勒第五號交響曲

三年前舊片終於隨著Naxos代理權移轉而出現在本地唱片行架上。

Classicstoday網站創辦人David Hurwitz給的評價並不高，第一句話是這麼寫的：
This is the sort of performance you'd probably enjoy if you heard it live, but it's also one that really didn't need to be preserved on disc.

既然這樣，挾著錄音相當不錯，不妨就當作是花台幣200元聽一場現場馬勒第五吧！

法國人聽古典音樂會的平均年齡是.........32歲！

法國古樂指揮 Emmanuelle Haim

這是專欄作家Norman Lebrecht引述自旅居巴黎指揮家Gary Brain的說法，來源則是法國政府一項調查結果；另外讓人振奮的數字還有，古典音樂聽眾以每年30﹪速度持續成長，而法國古典CD銷售量佔整個CD市場的9﹪，再加上 Natalie Dessay、Emmanuelle Haim或Philippe Jaroussky等古典音樂界明星頻頻在主流媒體露臉，這些都是其他歐美國家遠遠無法相提並論的。

簡單舉個例子，說明國家領導人有時候還是會帶動整個國家的藝文表演走向的！美國第一夫人Michelle Obama訪問倫敦時，帶著孩子前去觀賞的表演是好萊塢出口貨百老匯音樂劇《獅子王》，而法國第一夫人Carla Bruni-Sarkozy則不僅品味不凡且勇於自我挑戰，她選擇觀賞的是現代舞，乃至於最好是（但不一定）由法國歌唱家領銜主演的嚴肅歌劇...

Marin Alsop提早與 Baltimore Symphony Orchestra 續約

美國女指揮家Marin Alsop於2007年9月接掌巴爾的摩交響樂團時，該團的平均上座率約59﹪，接任的第一樂季便提升到72﹪，讓當初不看好的人不得不都乖乖閉上嘴吧。因此，在任期第二樂季尚未結束前，樂團當局便迫不及待在6月初宣布和Marin Alsop簽訂續任合約至2015年。

除了票房之外，一個樂團有沒有安排海外巡迴演出與錄音，往往是其能見度與影響力的最重要兩項指標，尤其，兩者往往互為因果，因為唯有灌錄商業發行錄音，海外的聽眾才有機會見證樂團的實力，而海外巡迴演出則可以有效刺激CD銷售數字；跟上一任音樂總監俄國籍指揮Yuri Temirkanov （任期2000-2006）沒有留下任何一張CD錄音相較，Marin Alsop至少已經有所突破，銷售成績不惡的德弗札克第九號交響曲錄音是第一彈，8月則將發行其恩師伯恩斯坦作品彌撒曲（Mass）雙CD，再接下去則可能是馬勒的交響曲錄音....

沒聽過女性指揮家棒下的馬勒？讓我們一起期待吧！

訃告：Sir Edward Downes（1924~2009）

Sir Edward Downes

Sir Edward Downes, who died with his wife Joan on July 10 aged 85, was regarded as the pre-eminent British conductor of Verdi, though he enjoyed an almost equal standing with the Russian repertoire, particularly Prokofiev and Shostakovich.

Verdi was his great passion. He was not only a superb interpreter of his work, he also rescued several lesser known operas, such as Stiffelio and I Masnadieri, from obscurity, helping to prepare scholarly new editions and introducing the music to modern audiences. The idea of staging all 28 of Verdi's operas at the Royal Opera House in the run-up to the 2001 centenary of the composer's death was Downes's, and he admitted that one of his few regrets was that he had only managed to conduct 25 of them – a sentiment that characterised both his enthusiasm for the composer and his capacity for work.

Though Downes had a lower public profile than many of his colleagues, he was revered by orchestras (he was also, for many years, principal conductor of the BBC Philharmonic), and was never afraid to stand up for his principles. He was one of the few conductors prepared to speak out against the vogue for sensationalism in operatic productions.

In 1996 he famously withdrew from Tim Albery's staging of Nabucco, in which the Israelite women were dressed as Victorian prostitutes in ball gowns and the men as early 20th-century middle-European Jews, declaring he was "out of sympathy" with the production. So, as it turned out, were audiences.

Edward Thomas Downes, always known as Ted, was born in Birmingham on June 17 1924. He began learning the piano and violin when he was five and sang as a boy chorister at King Edward School. Though forced to leave school aged 15 through lack of money, he won a scholarship to read English and Music at Birmingham University, where he began playing the cor anglais.
During postgraduate studies at the Royal College of Music, he played in the first performances of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes at Sadler's Wells in 1945 and in The Sleeping Beauty at the re-opening of Covent Garden in 1946. He then got a job as a lecturer at Aberdeen University where he conducted his first opera, The Marriage of Figaro, before winning a two-year Carnegie scholarship to study with Hermann Scherchen in Zurich.

Downes began his professional career with the Carl Rosa Opera Company and in 1952 landed a job at Covent Garden as a repetiteur; his first job was prompting Maria Callas in Norma. The music director Rafael Kubelik gave him his first breaks by allowing him to stand in at short notice when other conductors cancelled. He made his conducting debut in 1953 in a revival of La Bohème.

Downes's lifelong love affair with Verdi's operas began later the same year when Kubelik called him in at a day's notice to conduct a performance of Otello. "I'd never conducted any Verdi, and certainly not Otello, though I knew it because I'd coached the singers," Downes recalled. "So that was the first Verdi I ever did, with no rehearsal whatever. And I immediately felt on home ground. I seemed to understand Verdi as a person. He was a peasant. He had one foot in heaven and one on the earth. And this is why he appeals to all classes of people."

At the same time, though, Downes was acquiring a reputation with the Russian repertoire. This began when Kubelik wanted to do Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in English with Boris Christoff in the title role, but Christoff refused to come unless he could sing the part in Russian. Kubelik told Downes that he would have to learn the language to teach the chorus and the smaller parts. The warm critical reception encouraged the company to embark on a series of major premieres, for which Downes translated the texts and prepared the performers. These included such works as Mussorgsky's Khovanschina and Shostakovich's Katerina Ismailova.

When Downes himself conducted the premiere of Katerina Ismailova in 1963, he had the opportunity of working closely with the composer. The experience led him to question the popular view that everything Shostakovich wrote had a dissident subtext. Shostakovich, he recalled, had "complained bitterly to me about people trying to put political agendas into his music. He said they were more interested in what was written about his music than in the music itself".

Downes's determination to emphasise the integrity of Shostakovich's musical vision led him to focus on the grand design rather than milk every ironic nuance for hidden political meaning. As a result he established a reputation as one of the world's most powerfully persuasive interpreters of the composer's works.

At the same time he championed the works of Prokofiev, conducting the British premiere of War and Peace in a concert performance at Leeds Town Hall in 1967, and orchestrating and conducting the world premiere of the composer's one-act opera Maddalena in 1979.

Downes remained a company member at Covent Garden for 17 years and returned annually as a guest conductor before assuming the post of Associate Music Director in 1991. In 1967 he became the first English conductor to conduct a Ring cycle since Sir Thomas Beecham. He also championed the works of modern English composers, premiering, among other works, Humphrey Searle's Hamlet (1969), Richard Rodney Bennett's Victory (1970), Peter Maxwell-Davies's Taverner (1972) and John Tavener's Thérèse (1979).

Elsewhere, Downes became the Australian Opera's musical director in 1970 and conducted the first performance in the new Sydney Opera House (of War and Peace). He was, for many years, chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Orchestra, and he enjoyed a long relationship with the BBC Philharmonic, serving as its chief guest conductor, Principal Conductor, and finally as Conductor Emeritus.

Downes might have considered the political meaning in Shostakovich to be overplayed, but as an "old-fashioned socialist idealist" he never made any secret of his own radical sympathies. When resurrecting the score for I Masnadieri in 2002, he remarked on the topicality of a story of a hero who joins a gang of bandits and sticks by them even though horrified by their deeds: "You have to ask why these people are behaving this way," Downes observed. "Not all terrorists are evil Iagos."

Certainly Downes, content and easy-going, was never one to behave badly, unlike others in the often highly-strung world of classical music. When asked where the key to Sir Georg Solti's success lay, Downes replied: "He was a bastard – a marvellous man and a great conductor, but a complete bastard when he needed to be. That sort of ruthlessness just wasn't in my nature."
In the later stages of his career, Downes found himself afflicted by failing eyesight and by increasing deafness, as a result of which he was forced to withdraw from the opera and concert scene. In 2005 he celebrated his 53rd – and last – season at Covent Garden, conducting ten performances of Rigoletto.

Edward Downes was appointed CBE in 1986 and knighted in 1991.

According to their children, he and his wife Joan, a former ballet dancer and choreographer, took the decision to travel to the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic in Zurich to end their lives together after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. They are survived by their son and daughter, Caractacus and Boudicca, named, characteristically, after the two great ancient Britons who fought the might of Rome.

英國每日電訊報（2009/07/14 Telegraph）

再入荷...再入荷！「限定盤」的迷思

此套Deutsche Harmonia Mundi 50th Anniversary Edition 50張CD盒裝，應該可以說是日本HMV網站去年最搶手的貨品之一，標榜「限定盤」，數度斷貨，在愛樂者的引頸期盼下，又死而復活了好幾回，也多次在預約暢銷排行榜上名列前茅，小小遺憾的是，隨著日幣一路飆漲，從一套折合台幣不到2000元，已經足足漲了快1/4的價錢（不包括運費，一張CD平均不到50元台幣，更比台灣零售價便宜快1000元），筆者還是遲遲沒有動手...

綜觀近期盒型套裝CD發行中，真正名符其實的「限定盤」應該是DG法國版的梅湘百年誕辰紀念專輯（32CDs），台灣代理商進口數量很快就全部銷售一空，歐美各大購物網站現在也很難再找到了，但這應該算是絕無僅有的特例，而且跟法國DG自行企畫脫不關係；相對的，原本應該可以賣得很好但卻不如預期的則有DG版卡拉揚70年代交響曲錄音輯（38CDs）與Decca版華格納歌劇拜魯特音樂節錄音全集（33CDs），儘管一上市也標榜為「限定盤」，但這麼一段時間過了以後，目前市面上還很容易找得到就是了...

平心而論，古典音樂市場這麼不景氣，既然消費者想買，「再入荷」劇碼自然會一再上演！

全新海頓交響曲全集37CDs by Dennis Russell Davies

美國指揮家Dennis Russell Davies指揮德國 Stuttgarter Kammerorchester，預計2009年9月上市。特別冠上「全新」二字，因為至少就筆者個人來說，從未看過散裝片在台灣市場上出現過，因此，自然不會有所謂重複購買的問題...

Dennis Russell Davies於1995年被任命為Stuttgarter Kammerorchester首席指揮，接下這個號稱歐陸歷史最悠久的室內樂團，1998年11月起在德國Daimler Benz公司的大力贊助下，展開一項長達12年(1998~2009)的 "Haydn Decade"計畫，2006年儘管他已經卸下這項職務，仍然繼續灌錄完整海頓104首交響曲，此盒37張CD即為其累累碩果。

名符其實的「洋垃圾」...

華格納歌劇全集（43CDs）只賣EUR 29.99... （德國JPC網站，原價EUR 99.99）

Der Fliegende Holländer (Hotter, Hann, Willer, Orchester derBayerischen Staatsoper, Krauss / 1944)

Tannhäuser (Seider, Schech, Paul, Bäumer, Klarwein,Orchester der Bayerischen Staatsoper, Heger / 1951)

Lohengrin (Steber, Varnay, Windgassen, Uhde, Greindl,Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Keilberth / 1953)

Das Rheingold (Wegner, Mosuraltis, Yang, Smith, Weinschenk,Badische Staatskapelle, Neuhold / 1993-1995)

Die Walküre (Cook, Olsen, Wegner, Pohl, Nikolova,Badische Staatskapelle, Neuhold / 1994, 1995)

Rienzi (Treptow, Eipperle, Prybit, Schlüter, RSO Hessen,Zillig / 1950)

Parsifal (London, Weber, Windgassen, Uhde, Mödl, Orchester derBayreuther Festspiele, Knappertsbusch / 1951)

Die Feen (Korhonen, Patchell, Sonntag, Kriscak, Sirkiä,Teatro Comunale di Cagliari Orchestra,Ötvös / 1998)

Götterdämmerung (Cook, Brinkmann, Bryjak, Tervo, Ronge, Pohl,Badische Staatskapelle, Neuhold / 1995)

Meistersinger (Edelmann, Hopf, Schwarzkopf, Kunz, Unger,Orchester der Bayreuther Festspiele, Karajan / 1951)

Siegfried (Neumann, Weinschenk, Wegner, Bryjak, Yang,Badische Staatskapelle, Neuhold / 1994, 1995)

Das Liebesverbot (Walter, Zadek, Dermota, Friedrich, Steffek,Großes Wiener Rundfunkorchester, Heger / 1963)

Tristan & Isolde (Suthaus, Flagstad, Greindl, Fischer-Dieskau,Thebom, Philharmonia Orchestra, Furtwängler / 1952)

日本古典音樂唱片市場救星～辻井伸行

毫無疑問的，甫拿下第13屆Van Cliburn國際鋼琴比賽冠軍金牌的20歲視障鋼琴家辻井伸行，可以說是今年上半年日本古典音樂CD市場的救世主。他的唯二錄音作品～拉赫曼尼諾夫第二號鋼琴協奏曲與蕭邦作品輯，分別拿下日本HMV網站古典部2009年上半年協奏曲與器樂類雙料冠軍。

以下新聞取材自2009年6月7日中國新浪網～

在美國舉行的Van Cliburn國際鋼琴比賽中首次獲得第一的日本人辻井伸行發行了DVD《河流私語～Suntory Hall LIVE》，在7月6日的DVD綜合排行榜上銷售2869張，共計銷量1萬2661張，成為日本第一位DVD總銷售量超過1萬張的鋼琴家。由於很多人希望能看到他在美國取得成績的報導以及演奏時的樣子，該DVD同時收錄了音樂會的錄影，在6月22日的DVD排行榜上排第13位。6月29日綜合排行榜上作為鋼琴家首次打進前10，排第7。銷售數量上，超過了阪本龍一的《PLAYING THE PIANO/05》的3647張3倍之多。

日本HMV網站古典部2009年上半年暢銷排行榜

交響曲目冠軍




交響曲目亞軍


交響曲目季軍

室內樂冠軍（算是異軍突起的黑馬吧...）

室內樂亞軍

室內樂季軍

超便宜的布魯克納交響曲全集11CDs

沒聽過的樂團＋沒過的指揮＝11張絕對都是第一次買，不會有買到散裝片的機會...

日本銷售成績與評價都非常好，以往一套一萬多元日幣時，就有不少日本樂友買進，且反應也還不錯，降價後，幾乎等於是原價的1.5折，果然掀起一波搶購風潮。台灣代理商近期即將引進，零售價只有七百多塊錢...

1997~2006年在德國威加騰教堂所錄下的實況錄音全集，「如此低廉的價格，堪稱絕無僅有」～代理商廣告詞

寧可Decca傳奇灰飛湮滅，也不要如此不堪苟延殘喘...

無論是Ella Fitzgerald或Billie Holiday，都是筆者個人非常喜愛的「傳奇性」爵士女歌手，但當他們的名字出現在出現在Decca Legends品牌下，尤其是跟Erich Kleiber或Joan Sutherland等古典音樂界傳奇人物並列時，實在是落差太大，根本是大大糟蹋了「歌劇王國」美譽。

罕見歌劇：Gaspare Spontini《貞潔的修女》 Muti版

La Vestale
Milan La Scala Chorus; Milan La Scala Orchestra/Riccardo Muti

1995年12月英國《留聲機》雜誌樂評：

That this work is the essential link between Gluck and Berlioz, and also pre-echoes late Rossini and Bellini, is even clearer here than on the Kuhn set. Muti, working with stronger forces than were available to Kuhn, emphasizes its centrality in the history of French opera and moulds the music urgently, keeping a sure grasp of the whole while observant of pertinent detail. Well aware that the piece is poised intriguingly, if precariously, between the classical and romantic worlds, he responds accordingly, aided and abetted by the chorus and orchestra of La Scala. He plays the score complete, including the ballets that close Acts 1 and 3. Thus full justice is done, in orchestral terms, to an opera that needs help if it is to work in the opera house, because in it convention rubs shoulders with original inspiration.

Some of the singing is another matter. Muti seems somewhat injudicious at present in his choice of leading ladies for dramatic pieces. After Eaglen's hit-and-miss Norma (EMI, 10/95) he now offers us Huffstodt's somewhat under-characterized Julia. The American soprano certainly feels, and is able to convey, all the vestal virgin's conflicting emotions as she re-encounters her Licinius and her despair as she faces death for her illicit love, but her voice is not altogether pleasing. Its persistent tremor vitiates her good intentions, spoiling her line much of the time, and the tone itself is monotonously one-dimensional so that the many affecting phrases she sings in the last two acts suffer from weak execution. Plowright, though not ideal in the rival set, makes a grander, more positive impression and her French is much better enunciated than that of Huffstodt, who swallows her consonants.

Michaels-Moore (the name is hyphenated, Sony) sings much more articulate French and commands a more satisfying line than his partner. Although it is strange to hear a baritone rather than the usual tenor in the part, Michaels-Moore is quite happy in the tessitura and generally justifies the high opinion in which he is now held. He begins tentatively but builds the character into something vital and positive, his tone always warm and even. Graves is an imperious if not very idiomatic Grande Vestale, Kavrakos an imposing Pontifex if you can take his quick vibrato. Raftery's move from baritone to tenor doesn't seem a happy one on this evidence: his tone as Cinna is gravelly.

For all my reservations, the sum here is greater than the parts simply because Muti imposes a unity of purpose on the whole. He benefits from recording in the opera house, with the extra frisson that brings to all the performances, making this version a more successful offering than the Kuhn set. The recording, well balanced, catches the theatre's atmosphere.

祖賓梅塔也灌錄過莫札特歌劇《費加洛婚禮》？

Florence Maggio Musicale Chorus; Florence Maggio Musicale Orchestra/Zubin Mehta

1994年 6月英國留聲機雜誌（Gramophone）樂評：

Were there not at least half a dozen recommendable CD versions available, not to mention the Sony Classical Abbado LaserDisc account (2/94), this new one might be more than welcome. It is a reasonably enjoyable, middle-of-the-road performance rather in the vein of the Solti, Levine or Davis sets, having a similar sense of the drama's development and a deal of good singing; but nothing is done that gives it a place above, or even alongside the front-runners. Mehta's direction is at its best in the big ensembles: the finale of Act 2 is cogent and vividly dramatic. Elsewhere he seems content to coast through the familiar score, supporting good but not particularly lively playing.

The recording derives from a production given at the Maggio Musicale in Florence two years ago, but because some of the singers had already taken part in other versions, changes in the cast had to be made. Thus Cuberli and Rodgers, Barenboim's Countess and Susanna, have been replaced by Mattila and McLaughlin (who also sings her role for Abbado); Hampson, Levine's Almaviva, is here sung by Gallo, who was Figaro for Abbado! These examples of change and change about only go to demonstrate that the popular operas are today being recorded far too often for their own or any company's good, as any reputable executive will readily admit 'off the record' (forgive the pun!). It results in generalized, 'international' readings with no individual character, the bane of our times.

The strengths in this set lie very decidedly with the men. Pertusi is as excellent a Figaro as any (so he was, apparently, on stage), in the class of Taddei (Giulini) and Salomaa (Oestman), his nutty, characterful bass-baritone and vital diction ideal for the part: he is very much the lynchpin of the performance. The only possible drawback is that he is hard to differentiate in timbre from Gallo as Almaviva. The latter may be slightly better suited to Figaro, but his Count is also a formidable personage, sounding at once in command of his unruly household, yet vulnerable to the machinations of his underlings. He sings his aria with fluent command of voice and phrasing. His and Pertusi's treatment of the text shows the advantage of engaging Italians for Mozart's Da Ponte works. That is also the case with Benelli, an experienced and amusing Basilio, Nosotti's Bartolo and the veteran Tadeo's Antonio, all very amusing.

Not that Marie McLaughlin is anything but idiomatic in singing recitatives. Unfortunately she has become so familiar with the role of Susanna that she now over-inflects every word, underlining the text in an uncomfortably mannered way, and her ''Deh vieni non tardar'' here reveals an acquired habit of sliding uncomfortably in and out of notes. Having just listened to Jurinac as the Countess on the reissued 1956 Philips Figaro (under Bohm), I found Mattila's portrayal wanting in her predecessor's warmth of voice and manner, and her sense of pitch is suspect. Bacelli is a lively enough Cherubino but one with no specific advantage over her many predecessors on disc.

Appoggiaturas are notable for their regrettable absence. The harpsichordist accompanying the recitatives is irritatingly hyperactive and the recording balance is erratic: voices are sometimes forward, at othersiz. the Act 3 finaleistanced. Otherwise the recording is more than adequate, given a rather heavy bass sound. I suppose in an era when we are becoming increasingly used to chamber and/or period-instrument performances (Gardiner's is eagerly awaited), one such as this sounds increasingly anachronistic. So the recommendation remains for more positive interpreters: Oestman, or if you are still allergic to period instruments and a scale appropriate to Mozart's era, try Giulini or, at mid-price, Erich Kleiber; or, at bargain price, Gui. For a version in the Mehta vein with a stronger cast, try Solti.'

Brilliant再版Minkowski2002年DG版幻想交響曲

Hector Berlioz (1803 - 1869)
Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14
Herminie-Scene lyrique

Aurelia Legay, soprano
Les Musiciens du Louvre
Members of Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Marc Minkowski, conductor
Live Recording: 12/2002, Paris

licensed from Deutsche Grammophon

Edward Greenfield在2003年10月號英國留聲機雜誌（Gramophone）的評論～

A live Fantastique doesn’t challenge the best, but there is a welcome bonus

Recorded live, this characterful version of the Symphonie fantastique breaks new ground in bringing together the talented performers of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, using modern instruments, and wind-players from Marc Minkowski’s period orchestra, Les Musiciens du Louvre. Not that I would have noticed; there is no discrepancy between the two groups, and Minkowski, period specialist though he is, takes an unashamedly romantic view of Berlioz, generally preferring spacious speeds, strikingly different from Gardiner or Norrington in their period performances.

Minkowski takes this tendency to its extreme in the slow introduction with its self-conscious pauses. While he sustains his tempi remarkably well, never letting the music sag in the evocative sections of the 20-minute ‘Scène aux champs’, Sir Colin Davis – in all his versions – and Myung Whun Chung in another Paris recording from DG, make the music flow more easily, and just as expressively.

The dynamics of a live occasion have their own part to play, especially in the excitement of the final ‘Witches’ Sabbath’. Some listeners will find themselves jumping up to change volume levels, such is the dynamic range of DG’s all-embracing recording.

My reservations over the symphony disappear with Aurélia Legay’s dramatic reading of Herminie, the rare scène-lyrique. This was the second of Berlioz’s four entries for the Prix de Rome on a text from Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. It makes an apt coupling: Berlioz uses the theme which later became the idée fixe of the symphony at key points in Herminie, including the work’s opening and its gentle close. It says much for both Legay’s warm, focused soprano and for Minkowski’s direction that the ear is drawn to moments which prefigure his supreme achievement, Les troyens.

Brilliant再版Schiff＋Fellner貝多芬大提琴奏鳴曲全集

奧地利大提琴家Heinrich Schiff 與同鄉年輕鋼琴家Till Fellner於1998年11、12月灌錄的貝多芬大提琴奏鳴曲全集，2000年由Philps公司發行時只能說是「驚鴻一瞥」，馬上消失在茫茫片海...

荷蘭Brilliant即將以低價版重新發行。2000年6月英國《留聲機》雜誌曾有「如歌唱般美麗動人」樂評：

Beautifully smooth and cantabile readings with some especially beautiful effects in the more reflective movements, though at times they're just a shade too civilised


The traditional, legendary view of Beethoven presents him as a fiery, temperamental iconoclast, but it's surely a characteristic of great music that it expresses many different aspects of its composer's personality. Schiff and Fellner for the most part give us a suave, civilised impression of Beethoven; not superficial - there are moments of profound contemplation - but with fewer rough edges, fewer uncontrollable flights of passion than we usually hear. Fellner's exceptionally smooth, expressive touch, and Schiff's warm, well-rounded tone make for interpretations of the more cantabile music that are particularly memorable: the opening Allegro of Op 69 doesn't want for energy, but the emphasis is on the beautifully shaped melodic lines. The minor-key transformation of the opening melody in the development section is unusually plangent. In one or two of the quicker movements, though, I felt the playing was just too civilised - the first Allegro of Op 5 No 2 could, with advantage, have had more urgency and intensity (it's a great shame, by the way, that they omit all the long repeats in both Op 5 sonatas). The fugal finale of Op 102 No 2 sounds extraordinarily smooth and poised for such a notoriously knotty piece. That something is lost by such an approach is made clear from a comparison with Maisky and Argerich's high-speed, explosively dynamic performance.

In lively movements such as the finales of the Op 5 sonatas, Schiff sometimes plays the medium-fast detached notes very short and strongly accented, and fast passagework with a rather fierce off-the-string bow-stroke. His desire, I'd guess, is to achieve maximum clarity, but so sensitive to balance is Fellner that (on this very clear recording) the cello has no difficulty being heard and, to my ear, these very unclassical bowings are too intrusive. Fortunately, this happens only infrequently - what remains in the mind most strongly are the beautifully realised introspective moments - the dreamy Andante at the start of Op 102 No 1, in Op 5 No 1 the slow passage in the first movement's cadenza, and the adagio variation of WoO46. Indeed, all three variation sets are very fine - the brilliant piano passages in the two earlier works (WoO45 and Op 66) tossed off with unostentatious virtuosity, the dialogue between the instruments both playful and expressive. The scherzo of Op 69 is outstanding in a different way; the tied notes of the main subject are reiterated gently in the way Beethoven seems to have intended, but which is almost never heard. Misha Donat's excellent booklet-note quotes Czerny's description of the effect, which adds a subtly disturbing atmosphere to the movement.

Along with the mercurial, spontaneous Maisky/Argerich set, I'd recommend Schiff and Fellner for the way they make the music sing.


八卦消息說，Heinrich Schiff曾一度向老前輩Friederich Gulda提出合作邀請，但遭到後者婉拒，理由是其與Pierre Fournier合作版本已經後無來者， 『沒有任何人可取代他心目中的Fournier』...

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約翰奈許靈（John Neschling）指揮巴西聖保羅交響樂團（Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra）為BIS公司灌錄的魏拉羅伯斯（Heitor Villa-Lobos）巴哈風巴西組曲（Bachianas Brasileiras）、合唱作品全集與吉他獨奏曲集，7張CD即將集結成為盒裝版本，7張CD只賣3張價，非常誘惑人的組合。

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