both musical, and music was always important
I hear
to him. He began learning the violin at the ten-
der age of 3 and began his career as a popular
entertainer in clubs and restaurants, eventual-
ly collaborating with Victor Borge. His entry
into classical music happened by chance in
1944 when the conductor of the Academic
Orchestra asked if he would play the solo part
of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto 1. Tworek had
never heard it before but managed to learn the
part in the few days before the concert. He
then began studies with Max Schluter, a for-
mer soloist who had taught many important
violinists in Scandinavia.
Tworek quickly learned a broad repertoire.
He kept a bit of the Gypsy style that he had
developed for playing in cafes and restaurants,
and it stood him in good stead in works like
Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto 2, which he
recorded in 1946 and is presented here. As he
studied classical music late, his technique had
some weaknesses, and these are evident at a
couple of spots in the Wieniawski.
The taxing Solo Violin Sonata by Bartok also
shows some strain, but his playing is mostly
accurate. The other major work here is the
Franck Violin Sonata. Tworek plays well, but his
pianist, Esther Vagning, is recorded far in the
background—unfortunate because the piano is
an equal partner with the violin in this piece.
Most of the program is devoted to short,
encore-type works, and they are played with
all of the character that they deserve. This is
the first time that I have heard the original ver-
sion of ‘The Canary’ by Ferdinand Poliakin; I
knew it only in the version called ‘The Hot
Canary’. Tworek does a superb job imitating a
bird here.
The main appeal of this set is to fans of the
violinist. He was a good musician but not a
great one, and his technical limitations were
occasionally obvious. He did possess the
charisma of a soloist, but most of these pieces
are available in recordings by far more accom-
plished artists and in better sound.
MAGIL
Romantic Viola
VIEUXTEMPS: Sonata; FUCHS: Sonata; REI-
NECKE: Fantasy Pieces; LISZT: Romance
Oubliée
Daniel Weissmann; Jean-Louis Delahaut, p
Fuga Libera 750—60 minutes
The Vieuxtemps is the standout piece here. It
has a more distinct character than the other
works, even the Liszt. The Fuchs has a warm,
Brahmsian glow, and the Reinecke pieces are
American Record Guide
inspired by similar works by Schumann.
nothing special or memorable in the works
collected here aside from the Vieuxtemps.
Daniel Weissmann is a good violist, but he is
hardly outstanding.
MAGIL
Latin Winds
Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos, Chavez
Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra/ Clark
Rundell, Mark Heron
Chandos 10975—66 minutes
English musicians in works by Latin American
composers. I tend to expect such music to
sound very Latin American—dance flavors,
lively rhythms, intricate and noisy percussion,
sensuous harmonies—but such is mostly not
the case here. The work that most fits the
stereotype is last on the program, Carlos
Chavez’s three-movement, 18-minute Chapul-
tepec (1935). The movements are arrange-
ments. The lively I (‘Marcha provinciana’) is of
‘Zacatecas’, an 1892 march by Genaro Codina.
A varied II (‘Vals nostalgico’) is a setting of
Radolfo Campodonico’s politically charged
waltz ‘El club verde’. ‘Cancion de Adelita’ is a
marching song from the Mexican Revolution.
Each movement sounds quite Latin.
Joaquin Rodrigo’s music also sounds Latin
American, but less overtly than Chavez’s. His
10-minute Adagio (1966) is contemplative. His
18-minute Per la Flor del Lliri Blau (For the
blue lily flower) tells the old story of three
brothers who search for a flower that will cure
their father’s illness (and make the finder
wealthy); when the youngest finds the flower,
the others kill him. Potent brass fanfares begin
the piece. Dissonances foretell conflict. A
beautiful duet with harp and oboe begins to
tell the tale, and musical adventures ensue.
Rodrigo wrote this colorful work for orchestra
in 1934, and then arranged it for wind band 50
years later.
Two works by Heitor Villa-Lobos, both
composed in the 1950s for the American Wind
Symphony, sound as much North American as
South. The 18-minute Fantasia in Three Move-
ments (1958) has a varied but mostly brooding
I, energetic II, and bustling III. The three-
movement, 18-minute Concerto Grosso (1959)
pits a woodwind quartet (flute, oboe, clarinet,
bassoon) against an ensemble of winds, brass,
and percussion. The cheerful I has much
counterpoint, fast ascending arpeggios, and
fast articulated scales. A brief quartet cadenza
is all bird song trills, leading to a beautiful and
quiet chord at the end. II is also quite cheery
213
and contrapuntal, and III is a prelude and
four-voice fugue built on a subject where bold,
ascending fourths lead to fast, descending
triplet thirds. As in I, the ending is preceded by
a quartet cadenza.
Excellent playing by one of the world’s elite
wind ensembles.
KILPATRICK
Medieval Chant & Early Music
from Finland
Cetus Noster; Koyhat Ritarit ; Finnish Radio
Chamber Choir/ Timo Nuoranne
Ondine 1233 [2CD] 121 minutes
These discs were originally released in 1995 as
ODE 874 (disc 1) and 1998 as ODE 918 (disc 2).
The first disc includes chants from the masses
and offices of St Henry, the patron saint of Fin-
land. The selection consists mainly of
antiphons, responsories, and readings, ending
with the sequence ‘Ecce Magnus Presbiter’.
Disc 2 consists of cantios —Latin sacred
songs, apparently associated with young schol-
ars. According to Ikka Taitto, the entire genre is
often referred to by the title of the first publica-
tion of 1582—Piae Cantiones. This is a very
appealing repertory of music, consisting of
tuneful strophic songs on religious subjects.
Most of them are set with simple triadic harmo-
nizations. Others, like ‘Iesu Dulcis Memoria’,
exhibit some polyphonic elaboration around
cadence points. Some other songs like ‘Ramus
Virens Olivarum’ are sung monophonically by
the entire ensemble. Their tunefulness, strophic
forms, and simple harmonies, tenderly sung
here by the Finnish Radio Chamber Choir,
remind me of vernacular song collections pub-
lished elsewhere in Europe in the 16th Century.
In fact, there are two vernacular songs on the
program, both sung monophonically: ‘Jumalis-
ten Joucko’ and ‘Kunniallisuuden Hyvyys’. Texts
and notes are in English.
LOEWEN
Tempus Viellatorum—Fiddle in 13th
Century
Alejandro Tonatiuh Hernandez, with Pepe
Morales Luna, Raul Lacilla Crespo, Maurco
Moina
Enchiriadis 2047—46:37
Medieval & Renaissance Fiddle
Dietmar Berger
Urania 14037—58 minutes
In the last issue (p. 193) Mr Brewer reviewed a
Ricercar release (388: “In Seculum Viellatoris”)
that explored how a medieval instrument
214
sounded, and how it was used, both alone and
in ensembles. In that same line now, these two
releases extend the process.
The instrument is called in colloquial Eng-
lish the fiddle, but it is known as the fiedel, the
vielle, and the viella. There is no such thing as
“music for the fiddle”, of course, and little
instrumental music of any kind, much less for
specific instruments, was written down. But
we do know that this was a basic bowed instru-
ment for centuries and was used in any num-
ber of ways and combinations in vaguely spec-
ified instrumental performances.
The two performers, the Spaniard Hernan-
dez and the German Berger, have been
involved, first, in the present-day reconstruc-
tion of such an instrument, and then in explo-
ration of its performance possibilities. Each
musician has done a great deal of research into
relevant materials, Hernandez concentrating
on literary sources, while Berger has built
strongly on visual evidence—his booklet notes
are based on the examination of nine contem-
poraneous pictorial items.
Hernandez plays 12 scraps of 13th Century
music (both sacred and secular), mostly as
solos, but in several cases with the backing of
players of a reed instrument or percussion. His
instrument, as recorded here, has a rather
heavy and muddy sound, and his playing is a
bit heavy-handed.
By contrast, Berger plays completely alone.
His instrument has a much brighter and open
sound, which he exploits with sensitivity. His
18 selections span a wide chronological range,
from 12th Century songs (or later) through
14th Century Italian dances, on to 16th Centu-
ry dances, and even Elizabethan lute pieces.
Such range obliges him to go beyond what
seems the logical boundaries of fiddle use. This
is particularly emphasized by his doubtful
pizzicato playing, once in an Attaignant dance,
but otherwise in the three English lute pieces
(by the likes of Francis Cutting and John Dow-
land). The fiddle was becoming obsolete by the
end of the Renaissance, increasingly replaced
by the early violin; and such music would have
been played on the lute, I should think.
Both these releases will be of interest to
fanciers of the earliest stringed instruments.
The Hernandez program strikes me as a tech-
nical demonstration of limited rehearing
value, whereas the Berger program is not only
historically interesting but pleasant to listen to
more than once.
BARKER
September/October 2018
Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction
prohibited without permission.