The monochrome frontispiece
by Cindy Brzostek is attractive, but
otherwise this album's packaging looks
thrown together like a cheap vanity
production. The program listing is minimal,
poorly proof-read ("Polonaise Brilliant")
and minimally informative; I ferreted
most of the headnote details out of
Chwiałkowski's Da Capo
Catalog of Classical Music Compositions
(New York, 1996), with a quick swipe
at Grove's along the way. The
four-page leaflet includes biographies
and photographs of the performers, but
nothing at all about the music. The
only place you'll find the album's order
number is on the CD itself, making it
hard to find in stock at bricks-and-mortar
shops.
Such a bare-bones presentation
does the unhackneyed program a disservice.
More comprehensive annotations would
have indicated that the Mendelssohn
and Chopin are not transcriptions of
similarly titled piano pieces, as I
had reflexively assumed, but original
chamber compositions. Clarinettists
more frequently feature in the Schumann
Op. 73 Phantasiestücke,
but the composer offers the cello and
the violin as possible solo alternatives.
Similarly, Fauré's Sicilienne
is familiar from the suite to Pelléas
et Mélisande - in an orchestral
reworking of this cello-and-piano original.
In fact, the only old-fashioned transcription
here is The Swan, with the piano
taking over the harp arpeggios more
or less note for note.
Benjamin Shapira is
at his best in long, singing themes,
which he "bows into" with incisive strength
- exactly the formula to raise the Mendelssohn
above the level of well-crafted salon
music. As he moves through the range,
he weaves the rich, dusky warmth of
his low register into the bright nasality
of the upper for a pleasing timbral
chiaroscuro. His fingers aren't as reliable
as his bow arm: rapid passagework, especially
high up on the A string, can get slithery,
and the tone loses body. Still, his
playing unfailingly communicates: he
has the measure of
Schumann's haunted lyricism and conflicted
drama, of Fauré's melancholy yearning,
of Popper's showy Gypsy flourishes.
Only the Dvořák Rondo
misfires: from the tentative initial
pickups, it feels reined-in, despite
a few unconvincing bursts of forward
motion, and ultimately sounds padded
and repetitious.
At the piano, Shulamith
Shapira leaves an equivocal initial
impression in the Mendelssohn, where
she projects the rhythm of the accompaniment
too insistently and regularly. She eventually
relaxes, however, and proves undaunted
by Chopin's rippling passage-work and
Schumann's turbulence. In Fauré's
Elégie, when the piano
projects a phrase successively in two
different octaves, she colors it differently
each time - nicely done.
The vivid recording
makes its best effect at a slightly
lower volume level than usual; otherwise,
the bass end of the piano becomes a
bit overwhelming.
Stephen Francis Vasta
Benjamin Shapira (cello)
