Reviews | PORTFOLIO 2021

#29/2021 (FR)

Dec.2021/Jan.2022 | Jean-Charles Hoffelé | CLASSICA No.238 (pag.99) | Pietro SCARPINI (1911-1997) | « Rhine Classics réunit le legs inespéré d'un génie du piano n'ayant presque rien laissé au disque. Un petit miracle »

#28/2021 (FR)

December 2021 | Jean-Michel Molkhou | DIAPASON No.706 (pag.111) | Henryk Szeryng - live in USA

#27/2021 (UK)

December 2021 | GRAMOPHONE | Editor's Choice | Henryk Szeryng - live in USA

#26/2021 (UK)

6 December 2021 | Jonathan Woolf | MusicWeb International | Ivry Gitlis - "in memoriam" A compendious and valuable Gitlis box, a fitting memorial and retrospective | «Its highlights include works, such as the Brahms, that are new to his discography and the opportunities for contrasts between performances of the same work. Some of the earlier broadcasts are in mono – all CD1, the Sibelius with Devos on CD2, the Brahms in CD4, and obviously the whole of CD9, but the remainder seems to be in stereo. The fine restorations are in 24bit 96 kHz. There’s a first-class booklet with full performance details, excellently reproduced photographs, and label reproductions. The booklet note is by the man who made this box happen, Emilio Pessina, and the Gitlis discography, accurate up to June 2021, is by the indefatigable Jean-Michel Molkhou. Discographies are moveable feasts so let’s hope he will be updating it before too long.»

#25/2021 (UK)

30 November 2021 | Stephen Greenbank | MusicWeb International | RECORDING OF THE YEAR 2021

Gabriella Lengyel (violin) Jenő Hubay's Last Pupil rec. 1951-1972 RHINE CLASSICS RH-018

The violinist Gabriella Lengyel (1920-1993) made only three commercial LPs in Paris – two private releases for Voxigrave in 1951, and one for Ducretet-Thomson in 1953. This accounts for the fact that she is relatively unknown today. This 9 CD set from Rhine Classics of live and studio recordings will, hopefully, redress the balance. The collection has been approved by the violinist’s brother Attila (Atty) just a year before his death in 2018. The restorations are superb, as is the accompanying documentation, with the cache of photographs an added bonus.

#24/2021 (UK)

18 November 2021 | Stephen Greenbank | MusicWeb International | Pietro Scarpini - Mahler … and beyond The sixth and final volume of a wonderful recorded legacy. | «This is the sixth and final volume in Rhine Classics’ Scarpini Edition, amounting to a total of 33 CDs. My reviews of the previous volumes can be found here (review ~ review ~ review ~ review ~ review). The Edition documents the pianist’s significant recordings, many of which were recorded privately. [...] In 1950, Scarpini made a two-piano transcription of movements 2-5 of Mahler’s Tenth Symphony. Using the overdubbing technique he performed both parts. The recording was made for Italian radio, 13 February 1950. The 16” 78rpm acetate transcription discs have scrubbed up well. Scriabin’s Prometheus (Poem of Fire) performance from 24 April 1968 has all the passion and fire of Richter’s recording. Scarpini’s grand scale playing is imposing and spectacular as he weaves in and out of the narrative, with Piero Bellugi keeping his forces firmly under control. The wordless chorus is impressive. [...] Scarpini was a great advocate of Busoni’s Piano Concerto. On February 3 1966 he performed it in Cleveland under George Szell as part of the composer’s centenary celebrations. Robert Shaw took care of the choral contributions. A pupil of Busoni, Edward Weiss, reckoned that Scarpini’s interpretation of the work matched that of the composer closer than that any other pianist. [...] Valentino Bucchi is a new name to me, and will probably be unknown to many, judging by the dearth of information on him on the internet. His Concerto in rondò, for piano and orchestra, penned in 1957, is an engaging work, neoclassically drafted, with angularity pitched against more serene and reflective moments. I like it very much, and for me it amounts to a new discovery. [...] Violinist Sandro Materassi joins forces with Scarpini for Dallapiccola’s Due Studi, for violin and piano. The first is a lugubrious Sarabande, contrasting strikingly with the jagged and dissonant Fanfare e Fuga. The four-movement Divertimento for violin and piano begins with a Pastorale, which sounds as if it’s being improvised on the spot. A Baroque-style Bourrée follows. The third movement has a hint of Paganiniana, whilst the finale is a set of variations on a declamatory chordal theme. The violin and piano items, a studio recording from 1973 released as an LP in Italy, are in a warm, cushioned intimate sound. [...] CD 5 is devoted to the Legendary Scriabin Recital given at the Sale Apollinee, Theatro La Fenice, Venice on 20 April 1963. Scarpini has a natural affinity for the composer’s piano music. His well-grounded technique favours exquisite voicing of chords, digital dexterity, layering of sound and stunning pianistic effects. His sensitive use of pedal enables him to coax myriad tonal shadings from the piano. His En Rêvant, Avec Une Grande Douceur from 2 Poèmes, Op 71 is a perfect example. He teases the rhythms, and is always alert to dynamic variance from whispering pianissimos to thundering fortissimos, and every gradient in between. His Vers la flamme (Towards the flame) is terrific, imbued with scorching volatility – real edge-of-the-seat stuff. So too is the final item of the recital the Sonata No 9, Op 68 ‘Black Mass’, perhaps the most famous of all Scriabin’s sonatas, played with an imaginative range of expression hardly equaled.
As with the previous volumes, the remasterings are superb in every respect. The accompanying booklet has some fine photos documenting the pianist’s career. The whole Scarpini project has been a labour of love for Emilio Pessina and I thank him for his commitment and endeavours.»

#23/2021 (FR)

14 November 2021 | Jean-Charles Hoffelé | ARTAMAG' - Focus - Le disque du jour | LE VIOLON PARLE « Ivry Gitlis était devenu pour nous tous qui fréquentions les concerts parisiens une présence qui semblait éternelle. Le sourire toujours un peu moqueur, l’anecdote aisée, l’œil qui frise avant une petite saillie humoristique, au bras de Martha ou accompagné d’amis fidèles, il s’était fait une religion de venir entendre ses confrères. Qui aurait pu le penser mortel ? Certainement pas Emilio Pessina, qui après avoir publié un double album consacré à ses enregistrements de jeunesse s’était attelé à la mise au point de ce coffret, faisant écouter à Ivry les bandes d’archives qu’il dénichait. Finalement la mort sera passée par là, emportant le violoniste, et transformant ce coffret pensé pour qu’il soit publié de son vivant, en hommage.
En rien un hommage funèbre ! [...] Folie !, le Finale du Sibelius avec Gérard Devos qui entraîne le Philharmonique dans une course incendiaire. Quel archet !, qui prend tous les risques et brûle ses cordes ! Admirable Ivry, tout entier vivant dans cette somme prodigieuse, ne la ratez pas ! »

#22/2021 (UK)

19 October 2021 | Jonathan Woolf | MusicWeb International | Pietro Scarpini - BEETHOVEN Scarpini’s under-the-radar legacy continues to expand and impress. | « Rhine has focused extensively on the surviving legacy of Italian pianist Pietro Scarpini and you will find a number of their releases reviewed on this site. But Rhine wasn’t the only label to promote his recordings, as the late Allan Evans’ Arbiter label released a disc called ‘The Pietro Scarpini Edition’ (see review), the first of a projected series, which contained two of the performances in Rhine’s latest release. These were the Op.111 sonata and the recording by which Scarpini is best known, the Piano Concerto No.4 in the live RAI Rome performance with Furtwängler given in 1952. [...] The jump in sonics from previous restorations of the concerto to that presented by Arbiter was striking and very welcome. Quite a lot had had to be taken on trust before, but aurally things were clear and clean in their transfer and that’s the case here too, which is not surprising as I suspect that Arbiter had access to a high-quality original source, as does Rhine. I won’t repeat my comments about these two performances other than to note that one now has the opportunity to hear the two other Beethoven sonatas that Scarpini recorded on 13 March 1961 when he also performed Op.111 – namely Op.14/2 and the Pathétique. They share the resilient and technically strong elements – but above all the interpretative excellence – that so distinguished his reading of Op.111. [...] one can nevertheless admire this great Beethovenian in intimate action, his control well-nigh exemplary. It seems inconceivable, as it has throughout this entire series, that Scarpini only made one commercial recording, but he was a man who preferred the less glacial arenas of live performance and home taping. He is not alone in that.
The booklet presentation is customarily attractive and 24bit 96 kHz remastering has been employed throughout. Scarpini’s legacy can now be seen in all its variety and richness in this series of Rhine releases and this latest example is no less impressive than the previous examples.»

#21/2021 (UK)

15 October 2021 | Stephen Greenbank | MusicWeb International | Ivry Gitlis - in memoriam "inédits et introuvables" A handsome tribute | «This 9 CD set, newly released by Rhine Classics, bears the title “in memoriam”. It celebrates the long and distinguished life of Ivry Gitlis. He died last December at the grand old age of ninety-eight, but it also looks forward to next year, which is the hundredth anniversary of his birth. [...] These radio broadcasts, live airings, original masters, 78s and LP recordings have been splendidly compiled and the 24bit 96 kHz restorations have been lovingly tendered. These new-comers significantly expand the Gitlis discography. The booklet offers some beautifully reproduced photographs of the violinist. There’s one photograph at the end of the booklet showing Ivry Gitlis pictured with the set’s producer Emilio Pessina which, in some way, attests to the devotion Pessina has to the artist. Jean-Michel Molkhou has provided an up to date complete discography of the violinist, running to some thirteen pages; I found it very useful. All told, this collection is a handsome tribute to a great violinist, whose individuality and sometimes maverick approach singles him out as an artist worthy of your attention.»

#20/2021 (UK)

5 October 2021 | Jonathan Woolf | MusicWeb International | Henryk Szeryng - CHAUSSON, PAGANINI, HAHN live in USA Two works new to Szeryng’s studio discography makes this an appetising release. | «Whilst live performances by Szeryng are not uncommon it’s always exciting when hearing him perform works he never recorded commercially and that’s the case with Chausson’s Poème and Reynaldo Hahn’s Concerto. [...] The Chausson receives a vivid, masculine reading which vests the music with a real sense of drama far removed from some rather more evanescent performances. Though oriented toward the Franco-Belgian school, Szeryng here marries tonal purity with expressive breadth and a real sense of theatrical flair. The orchestra, invariably tagged as the most Gallic of American ensembles, plays its role too as does Tilson Thomas whose accompaniment matches Szeryng’s in boldness, drawing out the music’s full complement of romantic fervour. There’s no question that Szeryng’s rich vibrancy is gloriously on show here. [...] The music’s fearsome demands are surmounted with evangelical bravura by Szeryng, and he and Tilson Thomas relish Paganini’s explicitly Rossinian élan. Rhythmically the results are biting and exciting, and Szeryng is just as fine in the graceful cantabile of the slow movement, as the violin spins its succulent line over accompanying orchestral pizzicati figures, as in the magnificently bowed Polacca finale, with a full array of soloistic colour. [...] The Hahn is an exceptional rarity on disc. Szeryng is especially effective in the intermezzo-like lyric beauty of the slow movement, where Hahn’s orchestration is both apt and precise, as he is in the vif et gai pirouetting of the acrobatic finale. Though he is on less Olympian form than in the Paganini and Chausson works, this is a fortunate survival as Szeryng was to die just over three months later.
Some applause and tuning (both cut short) have been included, the recorded sound in both concerts is very fine indeed, and the notes are good. Presenting two works new to Szeryng’s discography should prove to be a particular draw, not least in such handsomely accomplished readings.»

#19/2021 (UK)

15 September 2021 | Stephen Greenbank | MusicWeb International | Pietro Scarpini, Vol.5 - BEETHOVEN Performances which certainly do honour to the music. | «This volume is devoted to Beethoven and consists of a live solo recital given in Milan on 13 March 1961, a concerto recording dated 19 January 1952 and three home studio recordings from the 1970s. [...] The 1952 live recording of the Furtwängler/Scarpini/RAI Beethoven Piano Concerto No 4 has had several incarnations on CD, and collectors will be familiar with the performance. I’m told that many are poor-sounding, certainly the Urania release that I’m familiar with is. Comparing it to this new transfer suggests that Emilio Pessina has had access to excellent source material. Whereas the Urania transfer is muddy and dimly lit, this remastering restores a favorable balance between soloist and orchestra, and the overall picture isn’t as sonically constricted. The piano line is brighter and more defined. Furtwängler is a sensitive partner and is with the soloist all the way, allowing a certain amount of freedom and flexibility. The finale, though not as fast as some, is nevertheless rhythmically buoyant and engaging. [...] The booklet contains a cameo portrait of the pianist by the producer and audio restorer Emilio Pessina in addition to some interesting black and white photographs of the artist. Detailed track listings, timings and dates are included. As to the audio quality, these documents derive from a variety of sources and have undergone 24bit 96 kHz remastering. The Milan recital sounds excellent. The 1952 concerto recording, whilst not having the same cleanness, projects the Scarpini tone very well. The home studios have the intimacy and closeness one would expect. I totally concur with Mr. Pessina who lauds Scarpini as a “true interpreter of the classics”.»

#18/2021 (UK)

12 September 2021 | Stephen Greenbank | MusicWeb International | Henryk Szeryng - CHAUSSON, PAGANINI, HAHN live in USA A fiddle player of sovereign instrumental mastery, refinement and artful musicianship. | «[...] the second concert, dated 20 November 1987, features the Violin Concerto of Reynaldo Hahn. Szeryng’s crisp, incisive bowing adds spice and sparkle to the proceedings. These are live recordings and the applause has been retained to evoke the live concert experience. The sound quality cannot be faulted, and one can only assume that Emilio Pessina, the producer and audio restorer, has had access to fine source material. The booklet is written by Gary Lemco who discusses both Szeryng’s art and the background and context to the works performed. It’s certainly a disc to treasure. »

#17/2021 (UK)

July 2021 | Rob Cowan | GRAMOPHONE | Great Musicians from under the Radar : Aldo FERRARESI & Pietro SCARPINI

#16/2021 (FR)

4 ☆☆☆☆ | May 2021 | Jean-Michel Molkhou | DIAPASON No.700 | Gabriella Lengyel « Des disciples de Jeno Hubay, Gabriella Lengyel est sans doute l'une des plus oubliées. [...] Ce généreux coffret à l'appareil éditorial exemplaire ne se contente pas d'exhumer sa très modeste discographie officielle, il la complète par des archives radio suisses inédits et souvent d'une excellente qualité sonore. Le répertoire, considérable, inclut des concertos de Hubay et Respighi (avec Jan Koetsier), Lalo (Max Sturzenegger), Brahms (Ernest Ansermet), Haydn (Urs Joseph Flury). A une vaste collection de sonates s'ajoutent une intégrale des oeuvres pour violon et piano de Schubert (avec son frère Atty au piano) ainsi que de nombreuses pages de XXe siècle, notamment hongroises. La violoniste, dotée d'une sonorité vibrante et d'un style typique de son école d'origine, révèle une personnalité attachante, un pathétisme à fleur de peau. A ce titre, son concerto de Brahms, capté live à Genève le 15 Octobre 1958, est d'une intensité rappelant Joahanna Martzy, autre élève de Hubay, sans atteindre néanmoins sa suprème maitrise technique. [...] L'Opus 78 de Brahms (en Studio à Paris en 1951, avec Max Geiger) est habité d'une touchante tendresse. [...] Pour les amateurs de raretés. »

#15/2021 (DE)

May 2021 | schallplattenkritik.de | PREIS DER DEUTSCHEN SCHALLPLATTEN KRITIK | Gabriella Lengyel - Jenö Hubay’s last pupil | Works by Béla Bartók, Benjamin Britten, Johannes Brahms, Ernst von Dohnányi, Ferenc Farkas, Joseph Haydn etc. Various orchestras and conductors. 9 CDs, Rhine Classics RH-018 .

Gabriella Lengyel won the second prize in an international music competition in Vienna in 1937. In the review of the award winners’ concert, it said: »A petite, dark-haired girl, the violinist Gabriella Lengyel, appears and plays a virtuoso Valse Caprice with such gorgeous verve and dazzling technique that one was involuntarily reminded of Erika Morini when she was still an adolescent teenager celebrating her first triumphs.« That was no exaggeration. The recordings made available for this edition by the Swiss violinist, composer, and conductor Urs Joseph Flury demonstrate a system of values primarily oriented towards substance. For the jury: Wolfgang Wendel

#14/2021 (UK)

April 2021 | Rob Cowan | GRAMOPHONE (pg. 89) | BOX-SET Round-up « Rob Cowan revisits the recordings of a quartet of less prominent masters from the past -- [...] Another musically potent brother/sister celebration finds the great violinist/teacher Jenő Hubay's last pupil Gabriella Lengyel playing alongside her pianist brother Atty in repertoire that includes numerous rare but involving Hungarian pieces, as well as works by Schumann (the first two sonatas), Ravel (the Sonata, where the 'Blues' threatens as menacingly as the Left Hand Concerto's goose-stepping central episode does), Poulenc, Lennox Berkeley (Sonatina) and Britten (Suite, Op.6). Also included, an enrapturing account of Bartók's Second Sonata and a series of Bartók violin duos (with Anne-Marie Gründer) that vies with, if not tops, the best from elsewhere. Most significant perhaps is the Brahms Concerto under Ernest Ansermet, an inward-looking performance where you can check Lengyel's approach against her own detailed annotations based on Hubay's teachings. Lengyel's sound is mellow and veiled, her manner of phrasing linear, resembling in at least that one respect the French-born violinist Jean Ter-Merguerian, a player of Armenian ancestry noted for his seamless bowing, and whose tonal properties include a fast vibrato and a sound that's far leaner than Lengyel's, certainly in the featured Brahms Concerto recorded at his American debut (Boston, 1975) under Arthur Fiedler. Highlights here are a sizzling account of Khachaturian Concerto under Michael Maluntsian and various collaborations with the pianist Pierre Barbizet, including a bright and keenly driven Beethoven Triple Concerto (with a superb cellist, Yvan Chiffoleau) and Sonatas 1, 7, and 9, where Barbizet's playing, although not note-perfect, is so much freer and seemingly 'off the cuff' than it is on his earlier recordings with Christian Ferras, the First Sonata including its first-movement repeat (which it doesn't on either of the Ferras/Warner Classics versions). Also, Sarasate's Caprice Basque (wonderful!), and, of especial beauty, Mozart's Sonata K.378, while the set also includes the 1990 Sonata by composer-pianist Gérard Gasparian (dedicated to Ter-Merguerian) and music by Komitas. Both Lengyel and Ter-Merguerian were highly accomplished players whose artistry should be enjoyed by the widest public, so hats off to Rhine Classics for affording us the opportunity of hearing them. »

#13/2021 (UK)

6 April 2021 | Jonathan Woolf | MusicWeb International | Sergio Fiorentino - live in USA «The documentation of Sergio Fiorentino’s tours continues with this 9-CD box that contains American concert performances given between 1996-98. Rhine Classics has retained concert integrity, and doesn’t intersperse performances from one concert throughout the box, allowing one to hear whole performances except for those occasions when too much duplication would have been involved, even for his greatest admirers. The result is either a complete concert or items from complete concerts. [...] The various Newport Music Festival concerts and venues are outlined in the excellent booklet and there is an index of works performed as well as detailed track listings. Everything has been remastered to a high degree except where the original source material is inevitably somewhat compromised (that Alice Tully Hall concert but it’s the only such example). Some photographs grace the booklet – there’s a very good one of the charmingly reserved Fiorentino, in tie and tails, and the looming Igor Kipnis, for example - and some of the programmes are reprinted along with some of the adulatory critical responses from the local critics. Add this to your Rhine Classics’ Rachmaninov set and his Taiwan disc and then consider it alongside his Berlin recordings to reach a truly impressive overview of Fiorentino in the 1990s. »

#12/2021 (FR)

April 2021 | Jean-Charles Hoffelé | CLASSICA No.231 (p. 107) Pianos d'hier - Re(Découvertes) | Sergio Fiorentino live in USA 1996-1998 « ... le pianiste napolitain déboutonna son piano dans un programme conclu par un feu d'artifice de pièces de virtuosité. Le public de l'East Coast avait trouvé son nouveau Jorge Bolet. [...] des raretés jouées avec une élégance poétique venue d'un autre temps [...] où la fantaisie s'allie à un chic irrésistible, enthousiasmant le public. »

#11/2021 (UK)

25 March 2021 | Stephen Greenbank | MusicWeb International | Sergio Fiorentino (piano) - live in USA «Life-enriching performances. | This recently released 9CD collection from Rhine Classics documents Sergio Fiorentino’s live performances in the USA between 1996 and 1998. [...] He opens three of his recitals with Bach, transcribed by Busoni. There’s clarity of articulation and delineation of polyphonic lines in the fugues, with the preludes grandiloquent and soul-searching. [...] Poetry, intimacy and warmth inform Schubert’s Sonata in B flat, D960. Fiorentino has full measure of the work’s architecture and structure. The dark elemental forces of the slow movement make their presence felt, with the bright and joyous Scherzo providing some relieving balm. The genial song-like character of the outer movements of the Sonata in A major D 664 is a welcome counterpoise to the melancholic and bittersweet flavour of the central Andante. [...] It’s worth mentioning a superb performance of the epic Chopin's Fourth Ballade from Boston Radio on CD 9. It captures the striking contrasts between tender lyricism and violent drama. [...] Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No 2 in G-sharp minor, Op 19 “Sonata-Fantasy”. Fiorentino’s impressionistic colours and myriad shadings conjure a mystical effect, and the second movement’s pianissimos are breathtaking. [...] It’s pleasing to hear the pianist in chamber music collaborations, and there are two marvelous examples in the collection. Beethoven’s Quintet in E-flat Major for Piano and Winds, Op 16 [...] the Franck Quintet, taped in Newport a year earlier, is a reading of emotional urgency and smouldering potency. The wistful slow movement radiates an autumnal glow, with the framing outer movements heated and intense.. [...] The material derives from several sources and has been expertly restored by the 24bit/96Khz remastering process. The audio quality throughout is, for the most part, very good. The booklet includes detailed track listings and timings, in addition to a selection of contemporary reviews of the concerts by eminent critics. Photographs of Fiorentino relaxing at the pool table are a pleasing bonus. A quote from Eric Johnson, Director of Yamaha Artist Services (October 1998), encapsulates what this compelling collection has to offer: “My life is richer from having known and heard him”. »

#10/2021 (UK)

March 2021 | Rob Cowan | GRAMOPHONE (pg. 88) | REPLAY Some Legendary Pianists « Rob Cowan's monthly survey of historic reissues and archive recordings -- [...] referenced by Sergio Fiorentino in a revealing interview included on Rhine Classics' impressive "Live in USA 1996-97-98", where this belatedly discovered great (though modest) pianist offers dazzlingly direct accounts of such major works as Schumann's Fantasie, Op.17 (various versions are included), Beethoven's Op.110 and Rachmaninov's Second Sonata. There are copious Chopin selections, Brahms' Op.39 Waltzes and quintets by Franck and Beethoven (with excellent young players) recorded at the Newport Festival. Fiorentino's signature qualities of brilliance, clarity, fluency, attention to inner voices, thunderous climaxes and frequent delicacy inform virtually everything he plays, as well as his ability to either retreat or come to the fore as necessary in chamber music, while the stereo sound quality is in general first-rate.
Another significant Rhine Classics release features the pianist Pietro Scarpini, a pupil of Casella and Respighi who performed Beethoven under Furtwängler and championed Schöenberg post-war. Here he plays Bach - both books of The Well-Tempered Clavier and The Art of Fugue. Despite Scarpini's reputation as a fearless promoter of new music, the general manner of his Bach-playing reminds me, in its breadth and romantic rubato, of the great pianist/harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, specifically in the '48', the fugues in Book 1 especially, where he bends the line as the music unfolds. Some of his chosen tempos are extremely broad (the E minor Fugue from Book 2). On the other hand, note how sensitively he balances voices at the start of the E major Prelude from the same book, meandering ecstatically thereafter. Then there's the closing fugue from Book1, 9'54'' to compare with Landowska's 6'48, and building inexorably in austere grandeur as it progresses. [...] »

#9/2021 (UK)

16 March 2021 | Stephen Greenbank | MusicWeb International | Gabriella Lengyel - Jenő Hubay’s last pupil « Gabriella Lengyel was born in Budapest in 1920 and began learning the violin at the city’s Franz Liszt Academy at the age of only five. By fifteen she’d completed all the courses with distinction, obtaining a diploma in violin. She then went to Jenő Hubay and Edouard Zathureczky, who applied the finishing touches. [...] In 1946 she clinched 2nd Prize in the International Long-Thibaud Competition, and two years later the Grand Prix at the Carl Flesch Competition in London. That same year she fled the Hungarian communist regime and settled in Paris, where she took up a teaching post at the Conservatoire. In 1950 she formed the Trio Lengyel with her two musician brothers Atty and André. She died in Paris in 1993. Throughout her career she worked with some of the most renowned conductors of the day, including Ansermet, Fricsay, van Beinum, Jochum, Solti, Enescu, Casals and Mengelberg. As far as recordings go, she recorded only three commercial LPs in Paris – two private releases for Voxigrave in 1951, and one for Ducretet-Thomson in 1953. Some of these are included in this collection. [...] In early 1953, the Duo Legyel set down in the studio of Schweizer Radio in Basel the complete works for violin and piano by Franz Schubert. They are to be found across CDs 4 and 5. These are some of the loveliest works in the repertoire and the Duo offer elegant, stylistic and idiomatic performances. In the three Sonatinas, touched by the influence of Mozart, they emphasize the youthful nature of the music. In the more mature Duo Sonata of 1817 the composer finds his own voice, with the work free of stylistic influences. The finale is particularly fine, here bristling with energy and joy. The Fantasie, Schubert’s masterpiece from 1827, is probably the most frequently performed and recorded of his violin and piano works. The central variation section, on the theme Sei mir gegrüsst, is characterful. In short, it’s a fully integrated performance and stands shoulder to shoulder with some of the very best recorded versions. [...] Those seeking off the beaten track repertoire need look no further, as there’s an ample selection here. Lengyel did much to champion her contemporary fellow Hungarian composers, and several are represented in the set. [...] This wonderful collection, approved by the violinist’s brother Attila (Atty) just a year before his death in 2018, preserves the legacy of this significant artist. The 24bit 96 kHz restorations by Emilio Pessina are first-class and bring new life to these valuable aural documents. The documentation is superb, and the cache of photographs is an added bonus. This is a collection I wouldn’t like to be without. »

#8/2021 (FR)

1 March 2021 | Maciej Chiżyński | ResMusica | Jean Ter-Merguerian, un grand talent méconnu « Rhine Classics publie un coffret de cinq disques dévolu à des enregistrements inconnus du violoniste arménien Jean Ter-Merguerian. Une belle découverte. [...]
Voici un album englobant plus de six heures de prestations intéressantes voire envoûtantes, offrant un bel aperçu de la carrière d’un artiste qui échappait aux clichés et qui ne recherchait pas la notoriété. Avec un excellent travail de restauration dû à Emilio Pessina, cette parution s’impose comme un must have pour les amoureux du violon. »

#7/2021 (UK)

24 February 2021 | Jonathan Woolf | MusicWeb International | Gabriella Lengyel - Jenő Hubay’s last pupil « Gabriella Lengyel (1920-1993) was indeed, as the box announces, Jenő Hubay’s last pupil. Born in Budapest she began at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in the city, winning distinctions and completing all her courses at the age of fifteen, before continuing with Hubay and, after his death in 1937, Ede Zathureczky. She won second prize at the Sixth International Violin Competition in Vienna 1937, but the outbreak of war curtailed a burgeoning career. In 1946 she won another second place, this time at the prestigious International Long-Thibaud competition in Paris, but in 1948 fled Hungary and lived in Paris where she established a long-standing duo with her brother Attila (or Atty). In 1950 they formed a trio with their brother Endre. She performed in Casals’ Prades orchestra (a photograph in the booklet shows her fiddling away) and she made a very few LPs. She taught for many years whilst maintaining a European-based career, making visits to Switzerland, in particular, where she broadcast often for Radio Basel. [...] Disc 1 brings her teacher Hubay’s Concerto No 3 and Respighi’s Poema autunnale, both with the Bamberg Symphony and Jan Koetsier in 1954. She is much faster than a modern exponent like Hagai Shaham and catches the music’s fluid fantasia quality with great rhythmic precision and sense of colour. Her bowing is crisp in the Scherzo, there is noble ardour and moving intensity in the Adagio, and there is zest in the finale where she negotiates the cadenza with bravura. Vilmos Szabadi and Aaron Rosand made good recordings of this but Lengyel characterises even deeper. Respighi’s work was dedicated to Mario Corti and contemporaries such as Lydia Mordkovitch play it quite deliberately. Even Ricci did so. Nishizaki on Marco Polo however approaches Lengyel in taut sweetness, even more so than Julia Fischer in her 2010 recording on Decca. Lengyel negotiates its changes in mood, tempo and texture at a decisive tempo and her evocative playing is alluring throughout. [...]
I mentioned the booklet earlier and it’s been splendidly compiled with some very beautifully reproduced photographs of the violinist, concert posters and a reproduction of a colour drawing of her by Willy Hug, which was donated to Richard Flury. There is a brief chronology of her life and very full track details and dates. In every way the documentation and transfers are worthy of this eminent but too-little known violinist. »

#6/2021 (UK)

January 2021 | Jonathan Woolf | MusicWeb International | Pietro Scarpini, Vol.4 - BACH « [...] In this new 6-CD set, everything is by Bach; both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier and The Art of Fugue.
Book I was recorded by RAI, Rome over three successive days in January 1961, in good mono sound. RAI’s original master tapes are lost and it was fortunate that the pianist retained his own set in his archive and it’s these that Rhine has used for its remastering. You will search in vain for signs of quixotic caprice in Scarpini’s performance. There is instead a tremendous sense of concentration and clarity, the music propelled where appropriate by animated left-hand voicings that ensure buoyancy but never overbalance the music making. [...] He is lively and robust but it’s always controlled. He uses the pedal with discretion but always with purpose and ensures that in the Fugue of No.21 the music swells with due amplitude. The concluding Fugue, the complex B minor, is given time to weave its spell. [...] He turned to the second book in the mid-70s, this time in his home studio. Whilst the majority of Book II is in mono, seven Preludes and Fugues are in stereo. His ability to phrase with unselfconscious naturalness and to balance the demands of both hands is here undimmed. The playing is again refined without becoming academic, rhythmically alive without becoming aggressive. [...] The following year, at his home studio but this time in St Moritz, he recorded himself performing The Art of Fugue ending precisely where Bach stopped. Scarpini was not quite 65 when he set down, in the course of one day, the whole work. That his technique was so formidable can’t be doubted and there are, throughout the six and a half hours of this set, very few smudges or imperfections and such as exist are largely immaterial. So it is in The Art of Fugue. Scarpini’s touch is refined, his imagination alert, his intellectual equipment attuned to the complex tapestries to be conveyed. It is a measure of his success that one listens in one uninterrupted span to his imaginative but stoically focused playing. »

#5/2021 (UK)

January 2021 | Jonathan Woolf | MusicWeb International | Jean Ter-Merguerian: The Soul of the Violin « [...] Rhine Classics’ survey starts with his visit to Boston in June 1975 where he joined Arthur Fiedler, by all accounts deeply impressed by the performance, in Brahms’ Violin Concerto. [...] Fiedler conducts with vigour and Ter-Merguerian plays with sonorous attention to detail, clean, finely bowed and eschewing extraneous gestures. He takes a tempo in the finale reminiscent of Heifetz’s and drives with intensity throughout the movement. [...] He plays Bach’s Chaconne with a delicacy that avoids contrasts, preferring a linear clarity and directness. This single-minded approach operates on a narrower expressive bandwidth than more showy performances but is also more interior and less projected. [...] there seem to be no other available examples of his art, which makes this 5-CD set attractive to specialists in the field. »

#4/2021 (FR)

28 January 2021 | Jean-Michel Molkhou | DIAPASON No.697 | Jean Ter-Merguerian - Violon «[...] Admiré - notamment pour sa technique d'archet - par Szeryng, Francescatti ou Rostropovich, il ne laisse aucune discographie officielle. C'est dire si ce coffret, doté d'une notice très documentée et réunissant des enregistrements de concert et de radio inédits, sort de l'oubli un violoniste de grand talent. Il s'ouvre par une interpétation fort inspirée du concerto de Brahms, captée en public à Boston en 1975 sous la baguette d'Arthur Fiedler, dans laquelle la maestria de Ter-Merguerian impressionne. [...] deux démonstrations de son art en solo, dans une magistrale vision de la Chaconne (Bach), toute empreinte d'humanité, et dans la Sonate n°3 d'Ysaye. [...] Ainsi sa vision, aussi incandescente que poignante, du concerto de Khachaturian en 1964, et plusieurs miniatures de Prokofiev, Sarasate, ou Komitas attestent déja une forte personnalité autant qu'une virtuosité étincelante. [...] A découvrir sans hésitation. »

" [...] Admired - notably for his bow technique - by Szeryng, Francescatti or Rostropovich, he leaves no official discography. This shows that this box set, with its very well-documented instructions and bringing together unpublished concert and radio recordings, brings a very talented violinist from oblivion. It opens with an interpretation strongly inspired by Brahms' concerto, recorded in public in Boston in 1975 under the baton of Arthur Fiedler, in which the mastery of Ter-Merguerian impresses. [...] two demonstrations of his art solo, in a masterful vision of Chaconne (Bach), all imprint of humanity, and in Sonata nr.3 by Ysaye. [...] Thus his vision, as incandescent as poignant, of the Khachaturian concerto in 1964, and several miniatures of Prokofiev, Sarasate, or Komitas already attest a strong personality as much as a sparkling virtuosity. [...] To discover without hesitation. "

#3/2021 (FR)

February 2021 | Jean-Charles Hoffelé | CLASSICA No.229 (p. 109) Archets en majesté - Cordes et Âmes | « l'archet électrique du méconnu Jean Ter-Merguerian »

February 2021 | Jean-Charles Hoffelé | CLASSICA No.229 (p. 109) Archets en majesté - Cordes et Âmes | « le lyrisme envoûtant de Gabriella Lengyel »

#2/2021 (CA)

16 January 2021 | Mark Ainley | The Piano Files | Favourite Releases of 2020 « Rhine Classics delivers two more releases in their Fiorentino and Scarpini series, one new set of each artist. After 2019’s jaw-dropping complete Rachmaninoff solo music by Sergio Fiorentino, 2020 saw a 9-CD set of the Italian pianist in recital in the US in the last three years of his life (1996-98). All master tapes were provided by Ernst Lumpe, the German collector who brought Fiorentino back to the concert stage and the studio (Lumpe introduced me to his playing when I first visited him in 1990). The sound is superb, as is the playing throughout – always insightful, moving, individual yet idiomatic. There is one recital at which he experienced some memory lapses, but even there his playing was mesmerizing, and each disc features some of the most sublime pianism you could hope to hear – every note, phrase, piece is beautifully played.
Pietro Scarpini is featured in a 6-CD set of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Die Kunst de Fuge, salvaged from tapes of both radio broadcasts and home sessions recorded for the pianist’s own documentation. The playing is less consistent than we hear in previous releases of Scarpini’s broadcast performances on this label (some ear- and eye-opening performances that I adore), and he can go from rather mundane phrasing to utterly sublime nuancing from one second to the next. He tends to eschew the pedal and employs some expansive ritardandi that are definitely arresting and insightful, and his overall approach reminds me of Alexander Borowsky’s account: earthy, almost rustic in its directness (he doesn’t emphasize burnished tonal colours), with a less-than-ideal instrument that almost sounds historical – a fascinating take that will be of particular interest to Scarpini fans and those exploring unconventional takes of these magnum opera. »

#1/2021 (FR)

3 January 2021 | Jean-Charles Hoffelé | ARTAMAG' - Focus - Le disque du jour | L'ARCHET DU ROI « Jean Ter-Merguerian [...] qu’un tel musicien n’ait pas suscité l’intérêt des éditeurs phonographiques reste un mystère, d’autant que les violonistes de cette qualité n’étaient pas légion au début des années soixante. La beauté épurée de sa sonorité, l’ampleur de ses phrasés, la haute spiritualité qu’il met à ses Sonates de Beethoven (écoutez le concert marseillais avec Pierre Barbizet) ou l’imaginaire subtil dont il pare la Première Sonate de Brahms (ses pizzicatos impondérables dans la section centrale du Vivace) font regretter qu’on ne puisse disposer de l’intégralité de son répertoire, mais du moins le coffret offre deux concertos qui montrent son génie : à Boston, pour Arthur Fiedler, un Brahms dont le Finale emporte l’audience d’admiration, et perle absolue qui permet de le placer au même degré que son maître David Oistrakh, en 1963 à Yerevan, le Concerto de Khachaturian, dont le Finale atteint tout de la perfection électrique et du sentiment de rêve éveillé, que seul y mit avant lui Julian Sitkovetsky. Entendez cet archet

stellaire !. »

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" [...] That such a musician did not arouse the interest of phonographic publishers remains a mystery, especially as violinists of this quality were not numerous in the early sixties. The refined beauty of his sonority, the breadth of his phrasing, the high spirituality he brings to his Beethoven Sonatas (listen to the Marseille concert with Pierre Barbizet) or the subtle imagination with which he adorns Brahms' First Sonata (his imponderable pizzicatos in the central section of the Vivace) make one regret that we cannot have the entirety of his repertoire, but at least the box set offers two concertos that show his genius: in Boston, for Arthur Fiedler, a Brahms including the Finale wins the audience of admiration, and absolute pearl that allows to place it at the same level as its master David Oistrakh, in 1963 in Yerevan, the Khachaturian Concerto, whose Finale reaches all of the electric perfection and the feeling of daydreaming , which only Julian Sitkovetsky put in before him. Hear that stellar bow !. "