RECORDING OF THE MONTH


RECORDING OF THE MONTH

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
A London Symphony
Oboe Concerto
£11 post free World-wide



RACHMANINOV Elegy, Preludes, Piano concerto 3
£12 post free World-wide

CHAUSSON, DEBUSSY
RACHMANINOV
TRios
2CDs £16 post free World-wide

Search
What's New
Classical CD Reviews
Live Reviews
Jazz CD Reviews
Composers
Resources
Contact Us

Every Day we post 10 new Classical CD and DVD reviews. A free weekly summary is available by e-mail. MusicWeb is not a subscription site and it is our advertisers that pay for it. Please visit their sites regularly to see if anything might interest you. Purchasing from them keeps MusicWeb free.
  Classical Editor: Rob Barnett  
Founder Len Mullenger   
 


CD REVIEW


EXPLORE
Musicweb - CLICK

------------------
Message Board
Announcements
Twitter @MusicWebINt
------------------


Schubert complete symphonies
Bamberger Symphoniker
Jonathan Nott


Only complete set on the Market
35CDs £67

 


 

RECORDING OF THE MONTH

Momentous!

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

Italian Cello Concertos and Sonatas
3CDS £10.95


Brahms Symphonies Zinman
£26.85

 

RECORDING OF THE MONTH

Beethoven Symphonies
Thielmann


Magic Moments of Opera
10 Operas Arthaus £95


Brilliant Classics 40CDs


Brilliant Classics 60CDs


9 Symphonies Chailly
£31.90


9 Symphonies C Davis
£18.70

BARGAIN OF THE MONTH

Absolutely marvellous!
£5.99 post free


Bruch VC1 Gluzman
Quite the finest performance of the Bruch concerto I have ever heard.


The best opera DVD of the year so far [ST]


Mahler Song Cycles
Katarina Karnéus

Available again

The Raga Guide
4CDs + 196 page book
£33 post-free world-wide
15,000 copies sold

 

 

Would you like a hyperlinked weekly summary of the CDs we have reviewed?

Click for further details

Sample: See what you will get

Editorial Board
Classical Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Seen & Heard
Editor Emeritus
   Bill Kenny
Editor in Chief
   Stan Metzger
MusicWeb Webmaster
   Len Mullenger
Assistant Webmaster
   David Barker

 

For further information see www.zupiano.com

 

 

Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART (1756-1791)
Sonata in F major K. 533/494 [23:48]
Sonata in E flat major K. 282 [13:44]
Sonata in D major K. 284 [27:44]
Zeynep Ucbasaran (piano)
rec. 24-25 October 2006, Abravanel Hall, Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, California
EROICA JDT 3311 [65:16]

 


This is the sixth recording by Santa Barbara-based pianist Zeynep Ucbasaran. I have reviewed them all for MusicWeb and have found her work, developing from a slightly timid first offering, increasingly interesting. This, her second Mozart disc, seems to me to represent a further step along the line (link to previous Mozart review).

Zeynep – since her first name appears everywhere in capitals and her second in small letters I shall gratefully take the hint to use this more easily remembered first name – has gathered together three of Mozart’s more anomalous sonatas. The F major is a composite work, two late movements combined for publication with a revised version of an earlier Rondo. Still, the three movements seem to fit. The E flat is the only Mozart sonata to begin with a full-scale slow movement. The Adagio-Minuet-Finale pattern was more likely in Haydn, but it draws from Mozart one of the most beautiful of his earlier slow movements. The D major is the only Mozart sonata which ends with a set of variations. The sheer length of this movement – almost 17 minutes in this by no means slow performance – has discouraged performers from programming a work which hogs half the programme. They may also have been puzzled by the central “Rondeau en Polonaise” which is rather static and over-ornate.

Zeynep’s playing has always been unfailingly musical, but I find more temperament here than previously. The recording itself is big and bold and transferred at a rather high level, creating an initial impression of a degree of aggressiveness. Certainly, Zeynep makes the most of every piano/forte contrast, but once I had attuned to this I found it all to the good in Mozart works that need a degree of sales-talk. If you prefer a more Olympian, sublime approach you may prefer the late Haebler cycle on Denon or, as this is not easy to obtain, de Larrocha on RCA may be a fair substitute. I might prefer this approach in the calm opening Adagio of K.282 where Zeynep’s staccato left-hand semiquavers (16th notes) were not much to my taste, but elsewhere I appreciated the immediacy of communication Zeynep finds. The first two movements of the F major sonata get an emotional weight they can easily bear.

Zeynep is signally successful in the long variation movement of the D major work. If Haebler tries to disguise the length by making it as simply beautiful as possible, Zeynep goes one better by making it all as interesting as possible. Without distortion, she finds maximum characterization in each variation, at times making them seem blueprints for some of Beethoven’s Bagatelles. The Adagio variation is played with deep feeling. For once I reached the end of this movement feeling that the prospect of hearing it again would be welcome. It was at this point that I realized that the gifted player of the earlier records is developing into a pianist of some stature. I wonder if she might now record some of the Mozart concertos?

An excellent recommendation, then, for three of Mozart’s rarer sonatas played with real conviction.

Christopher Howell 

 

 

 

Advertising Rates
Visitor stats
MusicWeb International
has over 40,000 Classical CD reviews on offer

Discs received

Having a problem Donating?



Gerard Hoffnung Concerts &
The Bricklayer Story

MusicWeb can now offer you discs from the following catalogues:
Prices include postage

There will be NO VAT Rises

[Acte Préalable £13.50]
[Arcodiva £12.00]
[Avie from £6.25]
[British Music Society £12.00]
[CDACCORD from £13.50 ]
[ClassicO £12.50]
[Hallé from £11]
[Heritage £10]
[Hortus £14.99 ]

[Lyrita ONLY £11.75 ]
[Nimbus Special prices]
[Northern Flowers £13.50]

[REDCLIFFE £11 ]
[Sheva £11]
[Tactus £11.50 ]
[Talent from £12.00 ]
[Toccata Classics £10.50 ]

Musicweb
Special Offers

Monthly Best Buys

 

Naxos Classical


New Releases

Hyperion


New Releases


 





MusicWeb sells the Polish
catalogue CDAccord
£10.50 post free W-W


MusicWeb sells the
Arcodiva catalogue
£12.00 post free W-W


£11.75
post-free
world- wide

 

 

Google Ads - for information about privacy matters, click here
Amazon Musicweb International is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Pat and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.