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


Support us financially by purchasing this from

Mordecai Shehori plays Fantasies
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Fantasia in G minor, Op. 77 (1809) [8:24]
Robert SCHUMANN (1810-1856)
Fantasia in C Major, Op. 17 (1835-36) [28:02]
Fryderyk CHOPIN (1809-1847)
Fantasy in F minor, Op. 49 (1841) [11:39]
Polonaise-Fantasy in A-flat Major, Op. 61 (1845-46) [12:32]
Mordecai Shehori (piano)
rec. August 1999, New York City
CEMBAL D’AMOUR CD182 [62:41]

In August 1999 Mordecai Shehori recorded a programme of fantasies. This makes for diverting programming, focusing as it does on Beethoven, Schumann and Chopin and it would have been interesting to read of his imperatives in a disc such as this but there are no notes as such, just a generic biography such as can be found in many of his discs.

It’s not every day that performers tackle Beethoven’s Fantasy in G minor, Op.77. Shehori marshals its variations with acuity, ensuring the drama is well scaled but never overstated. It’s playing that marries technical excellence with architectural perception. Larger long-term considerations apply in the case of Schumann’s Fantasy in C major. One is reminded here, from time to time, of Horowitz’s 1965 recording of the work – Shehori moved in Horowitz’s orbit for a time – in its ruminative reflectiveness cut short by Schumann’s ensuing drama. The sense of dynamism is also somewhat reflective of the older man’s performance though no one, surely, could match Horowitz’s dynamism or his myriad shadings and voicings in this work, whatever one may ultimately feel about the performance as a whole. The quality of ‘majesty’ in the second panel is certainly present in Shehori’s hands and the music moves with a vital swinging rhythm, though some of the phrasing is very personal. It seems to me that the quality of recorded sound is just a fraction too hard so that the final movement, that should emerge and be sustained ‘slow and soft’ sounds, despite much of his playing being sensitively shaped, too bluff. Listening variously to Anda or to Annie Fisher reinforces the questions of dynamics and phrasing.

The two Chopin fantasies augment Shehori’s quite extensive portfolio of recordings by the composer. He is less leonine than Horowitz in his 1951 Carnegie Hall reading of the Polonaise-Fantasy, remaining more serious, less potentially capricious, and broader in tempo. His dynamics are also more scaled, the expressive component of the music-making emerging naturally, legato unforced. For the Fantasy in F minor Shehori strives for directness and linearity, though he ensures that colouration is a strong component of his conception. He doesn’t seek to replicate the sculpted bigness of approach of someone like, say, Małcużyński, so that the grave bass patterns are not nearly so audible. This technically splendid reading doesn’t enshrine any overt ardour or romanticist passion: it is more circumspect and reserved.

As a whole the programming works well and reflects Shehori’s direct and unruffled musicianship.

Jonathan Woolf

 

 



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