MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. 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

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 £12.50 AmazonUK £16.49 AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline


Bohuslav MARTINU (1890-1959)
Marionettes Book I H137 (1924) [12:569]
Marionettes Book II H116 (1918) [13:56]
Marionettes Book III H92 (1914) [10:00]
8 Preludes, H181 (1929) [18:49]
Les ritournelles H227 (1932) [12:20]
Paul Kaspar (piano)
rec. 2009
TUDOR 7148 [68:34]

 

Experience Classicsonline


 
Unlike the omnivorous Giorgio Koukl, fellow Czech pianist Paul Kaspar is going slow in his exploration of the core Martinu piano music. There are no indications yet as to how far this cycle will go, or whether it will in any way seek to replicate the multi-volume Koukl-Naxos trawl of every scrap that Martinu wrote for the solo instrument. One suspects, given that Kaspar’s journey started back in 2002 in recordings made by Bavarian Radio in Munich, that his ‘cycle’ will be less exhaustive. I’ve written about his previous two volumes (see review) and the essential truths remain, certainly as regards the Koukl, and the Leichner recordings.
 
Puppets or Marionettes – one takes one’s pick in English as to the title - was written in three books over a decade. They are brief character studies, lit with compressed theatrically and terpsichorean impulse. Koukl (see the review of Puppets) etches these pieces sharper in the main whilst Emil Leichner, that venerable master on Supraphon, prefers a rather more romanticised patina. Kaspar’s tempi are similar, give or take, to Koukl’s but the latter is the more rhythmically playful. I liked Kaspar’s playing in the central movement from Book I, where he finds a touch more mystery than his competitors, though he does weight his chords rather more ‘artistically’ and some may find him a touch mannered as a result. He and his engineers prefer in any case a mellow, bronze-brown tone whereas Koukl, true to his stylistic precepts, evinces a more bright, treble-orientated sonority. This inevitably affects things; the burnish of Kaspar and the incision of Koukl, whereas Leichner remains somewhere in the middle.
 
In the challenges of Les ritournelles H227 Kaspar plays with overt expressivity. Koukl is quicker than both Kaspar and Leichner, the former’s playing being stylish, committed and energetic, the latter’s more seignorial. Kaspar is perhaps the most expression-conscious. None however adopt Firkusny’s solution, which is one of the most tensile approach to architecture, involving sculpting the first of the two intermezzi with the most dynamic motion imaginable. Otherwise, at a more ponderous speed, the chordal repetitions can (and often do) sound a bit dull, and the Martinu cadences fail to thrill as they should. Kaspar’s second Intermezzo is affectionate and unhurried if sometimes a touch literal.
 
The Eight Préludes (1929) are dance-drenched examples of the composer’s curiosity in this area. Kaspar plays the Scherzo by digging in hard and his Largo is quite extensive. Again, Koukl proves the quicker, if relative speed matters to you. More important is the element of accenting and the rhythmic charge that a tighter tempo conveys. In many cases however Kaspar’s solutions are perfectly idiomatic and convincing.
 
So, once again, Kaspar offers viable alternatives to his disc competitors. Questions of tonal wash and accenting will play their important part in the equation. There are price considerations here, as well as the question of preferring to pick and choose amidst the 7 CD series from Naxos, and the Supraphon three CD box (SU36562). In my experience Kaspar’s performances are for those with a burnished, less extrovert appreciation of the composer’s piano music.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 

 

 


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.