Marlboro Music Festival: 50th Anniversary -- Beethoven, Dvorak, Janacek / Serkin, Schneider
On this CD:
1. Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performed by Marlboro Festival Orchestra
with Rudolf Serkin
Conducted by Alexander Schneider
2. Fantasia for piano, chorus, and orchestra ("Choral Fantasy"), Op. 80
Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performed by Marlboro Festival Orchestra
with Shirley Close, David Evitts, Beverly Morgan, Rudolf Serkin, Sanford Sylvan
Conducted by Peter Serkin
3. String Quintet for 2 violins, viola, cello, & double bass in G major (once listed as Op. 18), B. 49 (Op. 77)
Composed by Antonin Dvorak
4. Mládí (Youth), suite for wind sextet, JW 7/10
Composed by Leos Janacek
Editorial Reviews Serkin's son Peter conducts the Choral Fantasy, a piece hastily written for a special occasion and its performing forces, not unlike those at Marlboro. Together with its message of musical uplift (no text is included), this makes it singularly appropriate for the Festival, though with its bombastic beginning and somewhat trite Theme and Variations, it depends on the performers' enthusiasm to make it work. The second disc features the strings and winds. Dvorák's Quintet Op. 77, an early work despite the late opus number, adds a bass to the string quartet, enhancing the sonority and allowing the cellist free use of the upper register. The performance, which includes the second movement Dvorák later removed and recast as an orchestral Nocturne, is beautiful, making the most of the work's youthful exuberance and lovely Bohemian melodies, and almost concealing the composer's still imperfect command of developing his material. By contrast, Janácek wrote his wind sextet Youth when he was 70, at the peak of his mature skill, yet it, too, has an amazingly fresh, buoyant vitality. Vigorous, mournful, spooky, lyrical--its mercurial moods and beguiling melodies make it irresistible, and the performance is terrific. --Edith Eisler
Amazon.com
This two-disc set commemorates the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont by several distinguished European musicians, including violinist Adolf Busch; his brother, cellist Herman Busch; and his son-in-law, pianist Rudolf Serkin. Marlboro, a unique community of artists of different generations and backgrounds who inspire and teach one another, has opened the world of chamber music to many young musicians and become a breeding ground for fledgling ensembles. Many of the participants on this recording are now renowned soloists, chamber musicians, and orchestra principals. And the playing is fabulous. In the Beethoven Concerto, Serkin plays with a beautiful sound, great expressiveness, and freedom, taking all the time in the world to caress every note and nuance; his transitions are miracles of poise, his climaxes are grand. In the slow movement, a supplicant pleads with a stern deity; in the finale, humanity's joy of life is restored. Schneider's conducting is sympathetic, but not always synchronized with the soloist.
Marlboro Music Festival: 50th Anniversary -- Beethoven, Dvorak, Janacek / Serkin, Schneider, Music, David Evitts, Sanford Sylvan, Ludwig van Beethoven, Antonin Dvorak, Leos Janacek, Alexander Schneider, Peter Serkin, Beverly Morgan, Shirley Close, Marlboro Festival Orchestra, Rudolf Serkin, Gene Tucker, Chamber, Choral, Choral Music, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Concerto, Orchestral & Symphonic, Piano Concerto, Quintet for Five String Instruments, Sextet for Six Woodwind Instruments
Marlboro Music Festival: 50th Anniversary -- Beethoven, Dvorak, Janacek / Serkin, Schneider
Music Review:
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