MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


 
REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: Crotchet

Charles Tomlinson GRIFFES (1884-1920)
Roman Sketches, Op. 7 (orch. Griffes and Craig Leon) (1915-6, 1919/2004) [22:48]
Erich Wolfgang KORNGOLD (1897-1957)
Symphonic Serenade, Op. 39 (1947) [25:57]
London Symphony Orchestra/Simone Pittau
rec. Abbey Road Studio No 1, January 2004
ASV GOLD GLD4020 [59:21]

Experience Classicsonline


The American Impressionist composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes enjoyed a brief vogue in the earlier part of the last century, but then fell into obscurity, perhaps because a little of his favored faux Orientalism - like the ersatz Americana of Carlisle Floyd and Douglas Moore - goes a long way. Griffes originally wrote the four Roman Sketches for piano, though he only got around to orchestrating two of them, with the first, The White Peacock, attaining independent status as a concert piece. The producer of the present disc, Craig Leon, who claims expertise as both an arranger and an ethnomusicologist, has completed the task, matching Griffes's own orchestral style nicely. Not examining the booklet carefully until after I heard the disc, I had no idea that the arrangements weren't all the composer's.

The White Peacock goes nicely; the gorgeous liquid woodwind solos are a delight. Night begins with a harder edge before blossoming into coruscating sonorities, with full-bodied horn duets answered by the woodwinds. The Fountain of the Acqua Paola remarkably works a Debussyan harmonic palette, generating activity from strings of parallel chords, into rich, Ravelian textures. In the concluding Clouds, the celesta accents in the more lightly-scored passages represent perhaps too obvious a pictorial stratagem, but the music again opens out voluptuously at peak moments.

The title Symphonic serenade may seem oxymoronic, and, indeed, Korngold's "serenade" for strings is no trifling one: the score is laid out on a "symphonic" scale, with the first and third of its four movements each running for over ten minutes. Surprisingly, it's not the rich, Romantic style of the composer's film music that dominates this score. The outer movements are driven by the vigorous, strongly profiled rhythms of Neo-classicism. The finale's third theme, at 2:09, would have fit right into Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks! The pizzicatos of the Intermezzo are aggressive, even spiky - nothing like the Playful Pizzicato of Britten's Simple Symphony. The broad, concentrated chorale that begins the Lento religioso suggests Bruckner, but other influences make themselves felt as the movement proceeds: vaulting leaps out of late Mahler, hints of the slow movement of Nielsen 2, and even a bit of anguished Expressionism. Yet Korngold's craftsmanship fuses this potpourri of influences into a persuasive musical stream with a compelling, impeccable logic.

The young Italian violinist-turning-conductor, Simone Pittau, finds just the right touch for Griffes, touching in detail with a light hand - as noted, the LSO woodwinds shine - while maintaining a firm rhythmic backbone, and he has a good grasp of Korngold's arching structures as well. The wide-ranging engineering strikes a good balance between detail and warmth in the Griffes; the Korngold sounds a bit blurry, perhaps because the string playing, while basically accurate, doesn't quite offer pinpoint precision. For those interested in these less-well-trodden corners of the repertoire, this definitely merits a recommendation.

Stephen Francis Vasta 

 

 

 

 


 


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

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

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
Past 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






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.