"Dresden & London - The Golden Age". The Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra led by Noam Schuss. Soloists: Noam Schuss (violin), soprano Einat Aronstein

 

Noam Schuss (jbo.co.il)

Einat Aronstein (www.einataronstein.com)

In "Dresden & London - The Golden Age". Concert No.5 of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra's 37th subscription series on May 3rd 2026, at the Jerusalem International YMCA, JBO concertmaster Noam Schuss both led and soloed. She also provided the audience with some interesting background information, explaining the Dresden-London connections as to  composers and works on the program. We heard soprano Einat Aronstein performing music of Handel. At the harpsichord and organ was JBO founder and music director Prof. David Shemer.

 

The concert opened with Francesco Geminiani's Concerto Grosso No.7 in D minor after Corelli's Violin Sonata No.5. Vibrant and attractively ornamented, the performance brought out the music's variety of forms and colours, its musical language straddling the 17th- and 18th centuries. The JBO's playing was exuberant and moving, with Geminiani's choice and exploration of emotions remaining accessible to today's audiences. And here was the first strand of the connection between works on the program. Having studied under the celebrated Corelli, Geminiani moved to England in 1714, where his brilliant violin playing immediately met with great success, winning him much support from the aristocracy and leading figures at the Royal Court. There, he was invited to play the violin before George I, accompanied at the harpsichord by Handel himself.

 

Born in 1667 in Hanover, Antonio Lotti was a major opera composer of his time, reaching a high point when his operas inaugurated the opera house in Dresden. In 1717, Lotti took his wife, noted soprano Santa Stella, castrati Senesino and Matteo Berselli, the bass Giuseppi Boschi and a complete opera troupe to Dresden. There, Teofane, the composer's 23rd opera, formed part of the sumptuous wedding celebrations of Crown Prince Friedrich Augustus and Maria Josepha, Archduchess of Austria. The new 2000-seat opera house was built for the occasion. Another connection: Handel attended a performance of Teofane in Dresden, then taking the libretto back with him as the basis for his opera Ottone.  The JBO musicians put together a small selection of melodies from Teofane, just enough to whet the audience's appetite to hear the complete work.

 

And to Bach’s celebrated Orchestral Suite No.2 in B minor after BWV 1067…but in a less familiar setting to most of the audience. This was the first time the original violin version (reconstructed by Joshua Rifkin) was performed in Israel. Schuss led and soloed in this setting for violin solo. It was for the audience to undertake the task of putting aside the very familiar sound world of Suite No.2, in which many a flute soloist has been required to prove his worth with no respite in a work opening in the 17th-century Lully style, to close with the extremely galant final section. Known for her fine solo playing and distinctive good taste, Schuss took fellow players and audience through the work with elegance, vision and attention to fine detail. I imagine I was not the only person at the YMCA auditorium missing the sound of the traverse flute contending with the high-spirited Badinerie.

 

The program featured soprano Einat Aronstein in a selection of G.F.Handel's vocal masterpieces. She performed two arias from Handel's opera seria Radamisto - the subdued tragedy imbued in "Qual nave smarrita" (The vessel storm-driven) and the anguished "Barbari! Partiro" (Barbarian! I will leave). Radamisto was first performed at the King's Theatre, London in April 1720, a performance attended by King George I and his son, the Prince of Wales. One of Handel's most substantial and elaborate Latin motets, Silete venti (Silence, ye winds) was also probably composed in London. Aronstein delivered the devotional work with appropriate, rapt intensity, her voice even and pure, as she engaged in the careful use of vibrato to impart urgency, her diction precise. Unmannered, unforced and warm, her singing of the motet displayed refinement and technical ease in all registers. Aronstein, Schuss and the JBO string players highlighted the unmistakable dignity of Handel's music.

 

A concert of excellent performance and interest, it was splendidly led by Noam Schuss.  

 

Bach à Deux Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Trio Sonatas. A new recording in which Emer Buckley and Jochewed Schwarz - DuoChord - perform these works on two harpsichords

 

 

Much of the interest in works of C.P.E.Bach, the fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach, revolves around a certain number of compositions for solo keyboard and his orchestral works. His vocal works and a large part of his chamber music have received surprisingly little attention. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788), a renowned keyboard player himself, was an extremely prolific composer, enjoying a prestigious reputation during his lifetime, with the result that his music became known far and wide. Unlike his father Johann Sebastian, who primarily concentrated on sacred vocal settings for the church, Emanuel, unburdened by cantorial responsibility, composed mostly chamber music for the court. He was particularly attracted to the trio sonata form, to which he devoted some of his finest writing. Highly experimental, composed at a time of change, these works span from the Baroque trio sonata model to the accompanied keyboard sonata, to the Classical keyboard trio…and beyond!  As to the trio sonatas written in a style closer to that of Johann Sebastian, C.P.E. revisited and revised those later in his life in order to distance himself from the Baroque style as much as possible, his own approach becoming stylistically more akin to the lighter, more florid manner of his father’s contemporary, G.P. Telemann.  Indeed, it is in his trio sonatas, now written in a lighter style, free from the complex counterpoint and harmony of his father and independent of contemporary fashions, that we follow Carl Philipp Emanuel developing his own style. Some sonatas are revisions of older compositions. Most of the originals are lost. Indeed, in a letter from 1786, Emanuel wrote that he had burnt a large number of older compositions. Concurrent with revising some early trio sonatas (in the 1740’s, when in Berlin, in the employ of Frederick the Great) he composed some new trios which were much more personal in style and clearly different from his older pieces. Performing on two harpsichords, "Bach à Deux Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Trio Sonatas", DuoChord artists Emer Buckley and Jochewed Schwarz perform a representative selection of these unique works, offering examples of earlier- and later trio sonatas.

 

Trio sonatas Wq71 and 72, as well as Wq143, performed here, were written in 1731 when Emanuel was 17, dating back to the years of study with his father. Emanuel revised them in 1746 and 1747. They exhibit his remarkable creative will, such as in the placement of sudden pauses, the use of surprising harmonic successions, melodic embellishments, continuous transformation of a particular motif and abrupt dynamic transitions. Schwarz and Buckley's playing calls attention to J.S.Bach's influence on the works, at the same time, giving expression to Emanuel's typical fluidity of style, contrasting ideas, hearty dance rhythms and introspective slow movements. The artists' inclusion of ornamentation (some written out, some their own) adds much allure to their playing. The full-blown distinctive stylistic hallmarks of the C.P.E Bach style – the language of feeling, the essence of the north German aesthetic of Empfindsamkeit, with the application of the principles of rhetoric in his works and new ventures into the realm of harmony is obvious in the four Sonatas of Wq75-78. Here was music that catered to a new public eager for personal expression. Performing Trio Sonata in C minor Wq78 (1763), Buckley and Schwarz take on  board its conversational dialogue and the composer's personal idiom with its stylistic daring. They maintain the intensity of the large opening Allegro moderato with vibrancy and feeling, weaving the Adagio's different wandering melody and chordal motif elements into one entity of poignancy, then to give a fiery, vigorous rendering of the challenging Presto, a movement wrought of long, dovetailed phrases. Their affection for the music is evident throughout.

 

And no less affection filters through the artists' reading of Trio Sonata in D-major Wq151 (1747), originally scored for flute, violin and continuo. Schwarz and Buckley's playing of the opening Allegro is exciting, as they maintain the tension of its lively course throughout, to be followed by a well-disposed, finely balanced reading of the Largo and culminating with the joyful, playful energy they infuse into the final Allegro. Wq162 in E major (1749) marks a particularly exemplary case of Emanuel's mature sonata style and of the fact that he had, indeed, discarded any and every concession to the then-ruling musical taste, yet still retaining his ability to compose under the restraints of the court. Buckley and Schwarz's playing addresses the "otherness" of C.P.E's personal expression, from the Allegretto's unpredicted twists and turns, through the chromatic odyssey of the Allegro Di Molto and winding up with the infectious mirth and cheerfulness of the Allegro Assai.

 

In his Essay on the True Art of Playing a Keyboard Instrument (1778), C.P.E. Bach writes: “Play from the soul, not like a trained bird! …. A musician cannot move others unless he too is moved…" Jochewed Schwarz and Emer Buckley's articulate playing of Bach's trio sonatas is bold, articulate, tasteful, intelligent and discerning. It endorses the growing importance of the composer's personal feelings and emotions, displays his light, florid and imaginative style and fulfills the music's call for opulent embellishment. Engaging their undeniable technical prowess, the artists' playing invites the listener to join them on this journey through Bach's array of shifting moods, their performance reactive, conversational and moving.

 

"Bach à Deux Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Trio Sonatas" was recorded at the Paris atelier of Reinhard von Nagel in 2023. Playing from the online edition of the Complete Works of C.P.E.Bach, the artists perform on two double-manual harpsichords built by Reinhard von Nagel, each instrument reflecting a distinct historical model and sound world. One is after an instrument by Christian Kroll, a German-born maker active in Lyon in the 1770s; it offers a clear, bright and slightly incisive sound. The other, inspired by two early 18th-century instruments by the German builder Michael Mietke, features a warmer, rounder tone and a more blended resonance. Together, the instruments create subtle contrast of colour and character, shaping the dialogue between the two parts.

Jochewed Schwarz, Emer Buckley (Reinhard von Nagel)

The harpsichords (J. Schwarz)

A new disc: Romantic works for clarinet and piano. Gaia Gaibazzi and Clarissa Carafa perform music of Brahms, Schumann and Reger

 

"MENTORS", a recently issued disc of German Romantic music for clarinet and piano, presents works of Reger, Brahms and Schumann performed by two Italian artists - Gaia Gaibazzi (clarinet) and Clarissa Carafa (piano). In her liner notes, Gaibazzi writes: "The works of Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Max Reger offer fascinating insights into how composers of the 19th and early 20th centuries reinterpreted and transformed the musical languages of their time." This Da Vinci Classics album presents a carefully-chosen and representative selection of Romantic works for clarinet and piano, works that are both technically demanding and emotionally profound.

 

 

In late 1890, Johannes Brahms was planning his will and declaring that his compositional career was at an end. Then, in 1894, from his summer vacation in the Austrian spa town of Bad Ischl, however, the composer wrote to clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld (principal clarinettist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra as of 1879, and whose playing Brahms had already encountered in the early 1880s) inviting him to visit him there for the two to play "two modest sonatas with piano". Indeed, Brahms’ music for clarinet is clearly influenced by Mühlfeld's instrumental style. The first performances of the Op. 120 Sonatas were given privately soon afterwards, with the press proclaiming that these works were “wonderful” and that they "would cause a great sensation”. Indeed, a comeback from self-imposed artistic retirement has rarely reaped a more illustrious outcome than in the case of the two Opus 120 Sonatas for clarinet and piano! Gaia Gaibazzi and Clarissa Carafa perform the first of the two - Sonata No.1 in F minor. From the initial sounds of the opening Allegro appassionato movement (more wistful than passionate coming from Brahms' pen) one becomes aware of the artists' total affinity with the work, as they move hand-in-glove to seize each of Brahms' different gestures, each of the work's personal contours. Together they recreate the sonata's wonderful contrasts of texture and emotional energy, its urgency and grace, as its mostly introspective course culminates in the exuberance of the final Vivace movement. Their playing engages flexibility of tempo, so integral to the spontaneity of Brahms' musical language, as Gaibazzi's lush playing exploits all the expressive possibilities unique to the clarinet, with Carafa's depth of understanding, the surging waves of feeling woven throughout, and her penchant for the Romantic style  endorsed by easeful virtuosity.

 

 

Clarinettists and many music-lovers are familiar with Brahms' sonatas for clarinet and piano, but, somewhat surprisingly, not all have heard Max Reger’s three clarinet and piano sonatas. Indeed, it was on hearing one of Brahms' Op. 120 sonatas that Reger was inspired to write his own. Brahms' influence is evident in their contrapuntal writing, their textures, the elaborate piano parts and singing clarinet roles, but Reger’s sonatas also bring attention to his unique, rich 20th-century idiom. Performing Sonata No.1 of Opus 49, that in A-flat major (1900), Gaibazzi and Carafa give exciting expression to Reger's original thematic material and harmonic progressions, as they engage in the sonata's plethora of colourful dynamics and intricate phrasing with freshness, buoyancy, inventiveness and finespun sensitivity. Their fine teamwork and transparency of sound present the listener with each gesture and nuance. In addition to the sonata, the artists perform two of Reger's charming miniatures, pieces which testify to the pleasure Reger (like Brahms) took in domestic music-making. Those small gems were generally published in music journals, reflecting the composer’s desire to reach a wider public via shorter works. Carafa and Gaibazzi's delivery of "Albumblatt" (1902) is flowing, placid, at times pondering, their playing of the "Tarantella" (1902) effervescent, bold and wonderfully shaped, its zesty course only temporarily halted by the coy middle section.

 

In February 1849, Dresden was seized by violent political turmoil, forcing Robert and Clara Schumann to flee to the countryside. In a whirl of feverish writing, Robert Schumann created the Fantasiestücke Op. 73 in two days. Coming from one of the happier periods of his life and career, the work (originally titled “Soiréestücke”, to which he then gave preference to the more poetic title) was published later that year. The first performance of the original clarinet and piano setting was given at a concert in Leipzig in January 1850. Carafa and Gaibazzi move seamlessly and deftly from the fantasies' moments of deep introspection through to its bursts of euphoria, each bewitching, unexpected harmonic shift sweeping the listener into a different fulcrum of Schumann's stream of consciousness. Expressive, buoyant and spontaneous, their playing of the three splendid miniatures is carefully paced and flexed, giving sincerity and warmth to the poetry and lush beauty of the Fantasiestücke.

 

Recorded at the Villa Borzino, Borsalla, Italy, in November 2023, this is a disc to appeal to lovers of Romantic chamber music and fine performance. Gaibazzi plays a Buffet Crampon RC clarinet; Carafa plays on a Steinway & Sons model D piano. 

Gaia Gaibazzi (Akvilė Šileikaitė)

Clarissa Carafa (Giusi Lorelli)

 

"Pure Romanticism": Yaniv Dinur conducts the Israel Camerata Jerusalem in works of Gilad Hochman, Dvořák and Brahms. Roi Dayan - solo mandolin

 

Maestro Yaniv Dinur (nbsymphony.org)

Roi Dayan (Michael Pavia)

Conducting "Beyond Notes - Pure Romanticism", Concert No.6 of the Israel Camerata Jerusalem's 42nd season, was Yaniv Dinur (Israel-USA), with soloist Roi Dayan (Israel) on mandolin. This writer attended the concert at the Jerusalem International YMCA on February 26th, 2026.

 

The program opened with "Nedudim" (Wanderings), Fantasia Concertante for Mandolin and String Orchestra (2014), by Gilad Hochman (Israel-Germany). Written for- and dedicated to mandolinist Alon Sariel, the work combines both fantasia- and concerto genres. Setting the scene, the violins enter against a dark, dissonant, otherworldly screen of sound. Engaging in oriental modality, Hochman creates a work taking place within the desert scenery of the country of his birth, the soundscape timeless, austere, at times, disturbing. From the Fantasia's hushed, reflective moments to its intense, gripping tutti, Roi Dayan's playing drew one's attention into each gesture and new section. His performance was finely detailed, articulate, virtuosic and, above all, wonderfully shaped and eloquent. Dayan's personal approach to the work created a direct connection to that very element of Hochman's musical language. In an interview with Maureen Buja for "Interlude" (March 30th, 2018), Hochman said: "In Nedudim I have related to a personal and cultural field, with specific musical implications, and to the non-musical theme of wanderings." Maestro Dinur's direction made for an illuminating and moving performance of "Nedudim".

 

Then to the two Romantic works of the program, the first being Antonín Dvořák's String Quartet No.12 in F major Op. 96 "American", performed in a transcription for string orchestra by Turkish/Armenian conductor Nurhan Arman. Stemming from Dvořák's time in New York (1892-1895), where he served as artistic director/professor of composition at the National Conservatory of Music of America, the quartet was composed in the summer of 1893 in Spillville, Iowa, where the composer was vacationing. His delight at meeting up with the colony of fellow Bohemians there and with his wife and children, who had come from Prague for the summer, gave rise to this exceptionally joyful piece of music. Sketched within a mere 72 hours and completed in twelve days, Op.96 has emerged as the most popular of Dvořák’s fourteen quartets. The work has occasionally been criticised for a "lack of erudition and sophistication". With its marked homophonic style and directness, Dvořák, however, conveyed his aim as being “to write something really melodious and simple.” Adding a double bass line to the score, Nurhan Arman's setting makes few changes. With its pedals or drones and permeating pentatonic themes serving to transmit the rural flavour Dvořák wished to create, Maestro Dinur and the Camerata string players gave lush, fresh and vivid expression to Dvořák’s immediacy of expression and to the flow of effortless-sounding unifying- and thematic procedures. A violist himself, Dvořák gives the viola the opening pentatonic theme. As to the nostalgic, introspective Lento movement, unfolding in a broad arch building up to an exquisite climax, it ended with one last wistful utterance of the melody by the 'cello, here not played by the 'cello section, but by solo 'cello (Marina Katz). Whether or not Dvořák's American compositions show native American influences has long been debated. Making reference, however, to Iowa's natural surroundings, the Molto vivace movement imitates the rhapsodic warbling of an American bird, the Scarlet Tanager, its call played over and over and over again in various guises and at different tempi.

 

For his Serenade no. 2 Op.16 (1858–60), Johannes Brahms' score calls for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns and for strings, but with no violins, thereby giving the main focus of the piece to the winds and to a darker timbral colour than usual. From the warm, gently-flowing lines initiated by the woodwinds in the opening movement, to the exuberant, fun-loving, folk-dance spirit of the second, to the strangely-titled Quasi menuetto (fourth movement) with its irregular phrases and the somewhat eerie moments of its Trio, to the carefree, bold, bucolic Rondo Allegro, in which  the piccolo makes its first entrance, the pulse and flow, the lushness of sound, the gracious melodies and invigorating cross rhythms made for the pleasurable listening associated with the serenade genre. That being said, the A minor Adagio non troppo, the third and central movement of the work, stood out, as it moved into spacious, mysterious and transcendent "non-serenade" territory, its expression pensive and profound. There was much to enjoy in this performance, with many beautiful solos on the part of the Camerata's splendid wind players.

 

A fine choice of repertoire matched by excellent performance!

 

Gilad Hochman (Stefan Maria Rother)

"Different Trains", marking International Holocaust Day. Members of the Israeli Chamber Project perform works of Gideon Klein, Jacob Weinberg and Steve Reich at the National Library of Israel

 

Korbinian Altenberger,Kobi Malkin,Michal Korman,Guy Ben-Ziony (Hanna Tayeb)

"Different Trains", Concert No. 3 (February 3rd, 2026) of the RESONANCE concert series, taking place at the National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, commemorated International Holocaust Day (observed annually on January 27th, marking the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.) This new concert series features the Israeli Chamber Project (artistic director: Tibi Cziger), an award-winning ensemble. The Israeli Chamber Project was established in 2008.

 

The program opened with String Trio for violin, viola and 'cello (1944) by Gideon Klein (1919-1945). The Moravian-born composer/pianist was one of several musicians who were incarcerated at  Theresienstadt (Terezín), a camp set up as a hub of culture for the Nazis to showcase to the world. Composed in a classical three-movement structure, the trio was written just ten days before Klein's transport from Terezín to Auschwitz. Performing it at the Jerusalem concert, Kobi Malkin (violin), Guy Ben-Ziony (viola) and Michal Korman ('cello) gave credence to the fact that Klein had been part of an  exciting, modernist and avant-garde cultural scene, one substantially based in Prague before World War II. The artists' playing of the opening Allegro, with its rhythmic perpetuum mobile, its drive and folk-like theme over a drone accompaniment, and of the fast, joyful dance of the brief finale (Molto vivace), with its clearly contemporary touch, reflected the energetic writing of a young composer. As to the Lento (middle) movement, bearing a strong reference to Janáček, their incisive playing gave beauty and interest to the eight variations of contrasting moods and textures, the theme itself based on an elegiac Moravian folksong. Prior to his transport to Auschwitz and death, Klein had entrusted his manuscripts to Irma Semecká, his Theresienstadt girlfriend, after which the works were eventually turned over to his sister Eliška. The Trio was first performed in 1946 in Prague's Rudolfinum, at a concert organized by Klein's sister.

 

Born in Odessa and educated at the Moscow Conservatory of Music, Jacob Weinberg (1879-1956) was affiliated with the Society for Jewish Folk Music (St. Petersburg), an organization promoting Jewish classical music. Renowned for writing the first Hebrew language opera, "The Pioneers" (Hechalutz), Weinberg composed songs, choral works, chamber compositions and oratorios. He was one of the founders of the Jewish National Conservatory in Jerusalem before immigrating to the U.S., where he became a leading figure in the cultivation of American Jewish music. The ICP artists' playing of Weinberg's Quintet for clarinet and strings Op.40 (1938) was crisp, discerning and quick-witted, giving keen expression to the work's contemporary feel, its introspection and witty vitality. The Recitativo (2nd movement) was moving, with the clarinet (Tibi Cziger) and 1st violin (Kobi Malkin) roles suffused with the melancholy of the kind associated with many eastern European Jewish melodies. As to the Vivo ed accentato (3rd movement), the score alternated between spirited (Jewish wedding) dancelike moments and those reverting to nostalgia. A fine performance of this excellent work. Joining Cziger and Malkin were violinist Korbinian Altenberger (Germany), Guy Ben-Ziony and Michal Korman.

 

In 1988, Steve Reich (b. USA, 1936) wrote "Different Trains" for string quartet and tape for the Kronos Quartet. Stretching the boundaries of the string quartet repertoire, "Different Trains" is layered with the recording of three string quartets, it combines digital sampling, actual spoken words and music derived from speech (the strings imitate the speech melodies and rhythms), the combined effect of train whistles and chugging string (engine) sounds, creating the real-life experience of travel on trains in the USA and Europe between 1939 and 1945.  The Jerusalem performance was accompanied by an outstanding video-art work of Spanish artist Beatriz Caravaggio. The work falls into three movements - the first representing the train journeys Reich took with his governess, as they travelled to and from his divorced parents in Los Angeles and New York, the second showing trains transporting people to the camps in the Holocaust, with the third capturing on soundtrack and film American trains and people immediately following World War II. A forthright work, with film footage shown on a large, tri-partite screen showing constantly moving trains, the people riding them and some occasional background scenery, its intense relentless soundscape is dense in content and message, with the incessant string timbres and the information contributed by "notated" repeated speech fragments from recordings of people - Reich's governess, a retired Pullman porter and some Holocaust survivors. And, with all these stimuli, not to be ignored are the string quartet players on stage reading the tricky score and adding yet another dimension to the rattling train scenes and to the no-less-rattling emotional impact. This is a powerful, uncompromising and disturbing work. Caravaggio's palette is one of predominantly dark and sepia hues; indeed, even her colouring of post-war New York in the third movement is sparing. Reich spoke of the work as presenting "both a documentary and a musical reality."

 

Based both in Israel and in New York, the Israeli Chamber Project is one of today's exemplary and most dynamic ensembles. With their attentive performance and profound reading into the works, the players made for an engaging evening of music. Adding to the experience, the audience was invited to view pictures, books and other digital items related to Jacob Weinberg from the National Library's collections. Ohad Sofer, of the Music Department at the National Library of Israel, was present to answer any questions.

"Violets Are Blue", a recently-issued disc of music on the subject of childhood, performed by Diana Weston and Michael Tsalka on square piano and harpsichord

 

"Violets Are Blue", early keyboard artists Diana Weston and Michael Tsalka's most recent recording, takes us into the world of childhood. Drawing inspiration from Béla Bartók's "For Children", Weston and Tsalka requested works associated with childhood from four contemporary women composers. We hear the works performed on harpsichord and fortepiano.

 

Well before embarking on the "Mikrokosmos", Bartók composed "For Children" (1908-1911), a  comprehensive collection representing the research into folk-song he had carried out together with Zoltán Kodály. The first volume is based on Hungarian folk tunes, with the second, on Slovakian tunes. The pieces have descriptive titles, referring to songs or dances. Tsalka and Weston arranged and performed a few pieces from each collection. Choosing to play five from the Slovakian Folk Tunes on  square piano, Tsalka performs them with personal expression and charm, pacing each thoughtfully, signing out with the Dirge, its left-hand melody graced by the haunting, repetitive ringing of bells allotted to the right hand. For pieces based on the Hungarian Folk Tunes, Weston's playing on harpsichord is animated and dancelike, the last piece (No.25) turning to introspection. For our young pupils, the pieces, suited to what small hands can manage, offer fine study material and plenty of variety. To our adult ears, they are exquisite, whole compositions. The artists' playing of these miniatures, each perfectly fashioned and characterized by the modes and authentic rhythms of those regions, emerges transparent, convincing and fetching. 

 

Commissioned by Diana Weston, "Hopscotch" (2025) by Ann Carr-Boyd (b. 1938, Australia) sits very well on early keyboards. Weston and Tsalka give zesty expression to Carr-Boyd's articulate, accessible language and to the almost-visible chronicles in which she embraces memories of children at play, the graceful movements (and music typical) of a ballet class, and we are also invited to envisage the drift of "I Hate Spinach". 

 

"The Rain Puzzle", by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin (b. 1957, Uzbekistan) is a fascinating piece. Adhering to the work's harmonic course and structure, the performer is at liberty to decide on dynamics, tempo and even on the choice of keyboard instrument(s). Choosing to play this perpetuum mobile on the fortepiano, Weston's performance takes the listener beyond the lightweight pitter-patter of raindrops that taper off now and then, yet never cease. Following each basically tonal harmonic process to its port of call becomes an intricate part of probing the puzzle. 

 

By another Australian composer, Diana Blom (b.1947, New Zealand), "Ballpark" for two harpsichords offers a series of clever depictions of the actions and pace of a number of ball games. This is spirited, characterful writing for two harpsichords, here performed with meticulous precision.

 

The selection of pieces from "Märchen" (Fairytales) by Violeta Dinescu (b.1953, Romania, in Germany since 1982) presents a rich potpourri of characters, situations, descriptions and short narratives sure to fire the imaginations of young listeners and of those of us adults reluctant to leave the world of fairytale fantasy. On this recording, some pieces are played on square piano (Tsalka), some on harpsichord (Weston) and a handful on both. Dinescu does not limit her style to any one tonal system, rather, making use of tonal-, modal- and/or atonal writing in order to create each tiny, finely-etched vignette, be it a description of some strange hybrid creature, the lure of magic, of a princess in a tree, Caspar's hen laying some notes, Grandmother's music box, a puzzle, and more. Then, with the artists performing in duo on square and harpsichord, we hear several more miniatures (this time untitled) from "The Story Book of My Grandma", Dinescu again employing various compositional strategies and  including a touch of folk idiom. In keeping with the fact that this second collection includes some aleatoric elements (suggested by whimsical graphic signs), the pieces were recorded live, undergoing no editing. 

 

The art of performing miniatures is of the essence in "Violets Are Blue" - contemporary music for square piano and harpsichord.  Dr. Diana Weston (Australia) and Prof. Michael Tsalka (Israel-China) address every fine detail and gesture, reading into each piece in depth with new curiosity and commitment. Their playing is polished, exhilarating and inventive, exhibiting fine teamwork. This  delightful line-up of works calls for active listening. Recorded in Sydney, Australia, September 30th 2025 for the Wirripang label, the artists perform on a Flemish single-manual harpsichord (Marc DuCornet), a Zuckermann single-manual harpsichord and a restored square piano forte by Robertson (c.1835), Liverpool, England.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Diana Weston (Courtesy Thoroughbass)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Michael Tsalka (Geelvinck Muziek Musea)

Daniel Johannsen and Dror Semmel perform Schubert's "Winterreise" at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Jerusalem

 

Daniel Johannsen (Anette Friedel)

Dror Semmel (Alex Kaplan)

The stormy, blustery weather leading up to January 10th 2026 had given way to a hazy, pallid Jerusalem sky. The ground was damp underfoot. Nature had provided the ideal setting for a performance of Franz Schubert's "Winterreise" (Winter's Journey) to take place at the Eden-Tamir Music Center. In collaboration with the Israeli Schubertiade, we heard the song cycle performed by tenor Daniel Johannsen (Austria) with Eden-Tamir Music Center artistic director Dror Semmel playing the center's recently-acquired Graf fortepiano.

 

Dr. Semmel opened the festive event with a few words about the fortepiano as being the instrument Schubert would have heard, the fortepiano symbolizing the Romantic Lied genre, its timbre and scope creating an intimate connection between music and text. Builder of historic pianos Paul McNulty (US) modelled this Graf fortepiano (the only one in Israel) after instruments played by Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin.

 

Confronting his own approaching death, Schubert found appropriate content for the "Winterreise" song cycle in the dark, melancholic poems of a Prussian contemporary - Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827) - a lyric poet who was known to openly invite collaborations with musicians. Unjustly referred to in his day as second rate, Müller had, in fact, given new expression to the literary ideals of his time. "Winterreise" presents only one speaking character and no narrator, leaving the listener unaware of the protagonist's name, his appearance (except that he has black hair), his birthplace, occupation or personal history. Of his inner life, we learn more as the cycle progresses. From the first chords of the opening song, "Gute Nacht" (Good Night), as we join the protagonist stepping away from the town, rejected by the lady he loves, the piece's fleeting recollection of better times is replaced by the piano re-establishing the bleak mood and weary pace (a feature recurring in several of the songs.) Johannsen and Semmel's deep, rigorous inquiry into the wealth of fine details and the many layers of "Winterreise" summons the audience at the Eden-Tamir Center to be more than attentive!

 

In addition to some vivid story-telling, the artists' production displayed the cycle's succession of psychological states - the protagonist's emotions and moods, those ranging from sadness, anger, despair, nostalgia, illusion and hope to resignation - the different states of mind often shifting from one to another within the blink of an eye. With the fortepiano's timbre direct and transparent, we hear the occasional divergence between the character of the words and the keyboard score, an interesting element, at times intimating that the piano is more aware of certain issues than is the traveller, at others, perhaps more distanced. And the contrasts, so many contrasts - songs of intensive, explosive energy, songs of wispy textures and eerie stillness, references to the icy European winter, to the comfort of warmth, moments of gorgeous, idyllic Viennese melodiousness and then of despair, contrasts of texture, of tempo, of gesture, and more. They were all present, not only via the contours of the singer’s melody, but also in the pictorial vividness of the piano score, set within Müller and Schubert's immense, palpably existent nature canvas.  

 

I choose to mention "Die Krähe" (The Crow), a song unique in Lied literature and one of my favourites. Imaginatively evoking the crow's call (via the word “Krähe") Johannsen portrays the wanderer speaking fondly of- and to the crow that has accompanied him from the outset of his journey, asking if it will stay with him till he dies. However, presenting the song's austere duality, the wanderer also asks whether the crow is waiting to feast on his carcass. Taking leave of gravity, Semmel's playing elevates the listener way up into the tranquillity of the sky to join the bird soaring in its airy expanses, then to finally descend smoothly into the piano's lower register to deliver Schubert's grim answer. 

 

As to "Der Leiermann" (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man), the cycle's horrific final song, announced by a drone on the piano (a feature of the hurdy-gurdy, an early instrument having several drone strings), Johannsen and Semmel's careful, deliberate pacing of its bleak, haunted content creates a sense of staticity. The artists' melancholic, intense reading of one of the most enigmatic songs in Lied repertoire was heightened by an otherworldly effect Semmel created by combining use of the Graf's double moderator with the sustaining pedal.

 

Thirty years after Schubert’s death, Joseph von Spaun wrote of attending the first performance of "Winterreise" - a private affair, in which the composer performed the song cycle for his friends. Schubert referred to the work as " a cycle of horrifying songs", adding that they had cost him "more effort than any of my other songs.” With "Winterreise" originally composed for the tenor voice (possibly to give a sense of implied youthfulness) Daniel Johannsen is utterly convincing as he narrates and emotes, enlisting his large range of dynamics and engaging in word painting, his vocal timbre warm yet variously coloured, his diction inviting the audience to savour every word, every gesture. These qualities, together with Dror Semmel's outstanding and committed reading of the richly allusive and occasionally austere piano part, made for a vital, moving and altogether engrossing musical experience. 

Graf fortepiano (Courtesy Eden-Tamir Music Center)