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

 

 

Availability
CD: Cameo Classics

The Great Pianist Composers
Volume 1
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Piano Sonata No.2 in G minor [17:27]
Abegg Variations Op.1 [7:48]
Arabesque Op.18 [6:49]
Carnaval Op.9 [29:27]
Angela Brownridge (piano)
rec. Square Chapel Centre for the Arts, Halifax
CAMEO CLASSICS CC9029CD [62:53]

Availability
CD: Cameo Classics

Volume 2
Fryderyk CHOPIN (1810-1849)
Scherzo No.1 Op.20 [9:02]
Scherzo No.2 Op.31 [8:48]
Scherzo No.3 Op.39 [7:08]
Scherzo No.4 Op.54 [10:13]
Fantasie in F minor Op.49 [12:33]
Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor Op.58 [25:28]
Angela Brownridge (piano)
rec. Fairfield Halls, Croydon
CAMEO CLASSICS CC9028CD [74:00]

Availability
CD: Cameo Classics

Volume 3
Franz LISZT (1811-1886)
Années de Pélerinage - Deuxième Année (Italie)
Sposalizio [7:17]
Il Penseroso [4:29]
Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa [2:24]
Sonetto 47 del Petrarca [5:27]
Sonetto 104 del Petrarca [5:41]
Sonetto 123 del Petrarca [6:09]
Après une lecture de Dante - Fantasia quasi Sonata [14:15]
Piano Sonata in B minor [25:36]
Angela Brownridge (piano)
rec. 12 December 2011, Fairfield Halls, Croydon
CAMEO CLASSICS CC9045CD [71:16]
Experience Classicsonline


Under the rubric of ‘The Great Pianist Composers’ Angela Brownridge and Cameo Classics present three recently recorded discs devoted to a selection of works by Schumann, Chopin and Liszt. The attempt is presumably to give a cross-section of works by each composer with each disc circling around a major Sonata.
 
Brownridge is certainly no stranger to the music of Schumann. In fact she recorded the Album for the Young for Hyperion, and it can now be found on Helios CDH55039. Here she performs the G minor Sonata with great attention to detail, taking excellent tempi, and playing with skill and sensitivity. Judged by the highest exemplars on disc - let’s say Levitzki, Grainger and Gilels to choose three - she can be heard to hang fire, lacking the sense of drive and anticipation generated by that trio of titans. Her reserve is certainly not unattractive but she is not one ardently to phrase through paragraphs. Her tone though is warm and often delightful. In Carnaval she seems especially preoccupied with the music’s dance elements, and takes her time exploring and presenting them, as she does in Pierrot. Textures are light and there is real clarity in her performances. Chopin is not effusive and she abjures the grand seignorial in Paganini. This disc is completed by attractive performances of the Abegg Variations, and a genial-sounding Arabesque.
 
Volume two is devoted to Chopin. She plays the four Scherzos, the Fantasie in F minor and the B minor Sonata. If one starts with the sonata, one reprises those virtues of tonal lustre, refinement of phrasing and distinctive clarity that illuminated her Schumann disc. The only limitations, really, are expressive ones. Both here and in, say, the Fantasie one feels her holding back at the ends of phrases where she could, with profit, drive onwards. There is sometimes a shying away from emotional commitment. This is a shame as her bright and engaging Scherzos, especially No.4, show that ‘she could if she would’.
 
Her Liszt sonata doesn’t feel especially fast but when one looks at one’s watch one realises that it is. It must be one of the fastest performances on disc in fact. Again, the salient points to note are those of digital clarity and a studied refusal to over-pedal. Indeed she is scrupulous throughout these three discs in her avoidance of over-pedalling. Her approach is thus strongly linear, avoiding muddied textures. Her chording is sound, and highly accomplished. Occasionally this does come across as rather circumspect and almost surgical. The physical demands of this sonata are strong and I felt energy somewhat sapping toward the end, which loses phrasal shape once or twice, good though the earlier fugal section is. Clearly Horowitz, Argerich, Arrau and Fiorentino, to name a formidable quartet, offer a wholly different, more knotty, kinetic, virtuosic and overwhelming experience. In addition, her Petrarch Sonnets are again marked by directness - though her No.47 is surely too detached and cool. However her Il Penseroso is another matter; it has something of the gaunt trajectory of Sofronitzky’s recording. And Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa has a straightforward and engaging quality, though it doesn’t seek to replicate Sofronitzky’s occasional outbursts of raw emotion.
 
There are two different venues involved in these three discs. The recording quality is excellent though, being cut at a relatively low level, you’ll need to turn up the volume. In all these are sympathetic performances.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 
Masterwork Index: Liszt piano sonata

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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






Error processing SSI file