Reviews for
GMCD 7189 - The Eye of the Storm
Ferruccio Busoni's Zurich Friends and Disciples
American Record Guide November / December 2000
The Eye of the Storm
Busoni's Zurich Friends & Disciples LISZT- Mephisto Waltz; MAREK: Song of
the New Year'. Chorale for Organ; JARNACH: Christ on Olympus, Prelude,- FREY:
Fantasy on 0 Haupt voll Blut,- SULZBERGER: Violin Sonata; SCHOECK: The
Mechanical Cleck; Scherze for String Trio; JELMOLI: Platee Variations
Andrew Zolinsky, p; Ceruti Quartet; Nigel Potts, org; Oliver Lewis, v; Tim Grant, va:
Justin Pearson, ve-Guild 7189 (Qualiton) 78 minutes
Zurich became a European artist center during World War I. Ferruccio Buson! settled
there and with him a large circle of composers. It is from this group that this recital is
drawn.
It opens with a spectacular transcription by Busoni of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz. Czesiaw
Marek was Polish born but sought refuge in Zurich during the War. He became a friend of
Busoni's and sought advice from him regularly. Two miniatures that aren't otherwise
recorded are included here.
Philipp Jarnach is represented here by Christ on Olympus for string quartet. The
notes don't further identify him or his connection to Busoni. Emil Frey is peripheral in
his relationship to Busoni. He had studied in Paris with Faure and Widor before moving to
Berlin as a concert pianist. He spent some time in Moscow before returning to Zurich. His Fantasy
on 0 Haupt voll Blut und Wunden is a fascinating work.
Marcel HS Sulzberger is enigmatic. Born in Frankfurt to Swiss parents, he eventually
,moved to Paris for a time. He invented and lied about himself so much that little can be
trusted. He was the first Swiss (1907) to abandon tonality, and much of his music is very
advanced for his time. His 1919 Violin Sonata was performed but once, in 1924; yet it is
remarkable, for it swings between the styles of Faure and the Second Viennese School. I
must admit that I don't find it particularly attractive.
Othmar Schoeck is fairly well known today. He and Btjsoni developed great respect for
one another despite their obvious differences. His two short works here are not really
definitive.
Hans Jelmoli was born into a well-to-do Zurich family. He trained in Frankfurt but
returned to Zurich after a few years and freelanced for the rest of his life. He and
Busoni held each other in healthy respect. Certainly his baroque variations are
inventively written.
Only four works here can be considered truly important: the Busoni-Liszt, the Frey, the
Sulzberger, and the Jelmoli. Performances seem good and the recordings, made in a small
studio, are fine.
Bauman
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE - NOVEMBER ISSUE
Collection:
The Eye of the Storm
Works by Sulzberger, Frey, Jelmoli, Liszt (arr. Busoni), Marek, Jarnach &
Schoeck
Ceruti Quartet; Oliver Lewis (violin), Andrew Zolinsky (piano), Nigel Potts (organ)
Guild GMCD 7189 – 78:20 mins. - £££
This fascinatingly planned programme showcases the Swiss composers who came within
Busoni’s orbit during his self-imposed Zürich exile during World War I, and were all
affected by the experience. Only Othmar Schoeck, Philipp Jarnach (who completed
Busoni’s Faust) and the recently revalued Czeslaw Marek (subject of an
eight-CD Koch series), the only name likely to be at all familiar, are represented by
miniatures (some fascinating ones nonetheless, including a delicately minimalist
dance-number from Schoeck’s opera Das Wandbild, with libretto by Busoni).
The more substantial items are Emil Frey’s big Bach fantasia, more Lisztian than
Busonian; Hans Jelmoli’s Rameau Variations, clearly indebted to Busoni’s
reworkings of Baroque originals; and most remarkable of all Marcel Sulzberger’s
Violin Sonata. Busoni generously encouraged Sulzberger, but this extraordinary piece moves
in a passionate trajectory of its own, from Fauré via Decaux to Scriabin and even
Schoenberg. Not surprisingly it was entirely too avant-garde for ist time and place
(Zürich, 1919) and apparently had only one performance (Paris, 1924) before the present
recording. It was well worth resurrecting – as, to a lesser degree, is everything
else here. The performers sound sympathetic and entirely at ease with this unfamiliar
music; Andrew Zolinksy’s fine account of Busoni’s recension of Liszt’s
first Mephisto Waltz is another compelling reason to buy this beautifully recorded
disc.
Calum MacDonald
Performance *****
Sound *****
INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW - OCTOBER 00
The Eye of the Storrn
New
Ferruccio Busoni’s Zurich Friends and Disciples.
a Andrew Zolinsky (piano); bCeruti String Quartet; c
Nigel Potts (organ); d Oliver Lewis (violin); e Tim Grant (viöla); e
Justin Pearson (Cello)
Guild GMC07189 (full price, 1 hour 18 minutes). Producers Michael
Ponder, Paul Spicer. Engineers
Michael Ponder, Tony West. Date April 5th-May 7th, 1999.
Frey Fantasy on the Chorale ‘0 Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’a.
Jarnach Christ on Olyrnpus - Prelude for String
Quartetb. Jelmoli Variations on an Aria
from the opera ‘Platée’ by Rarneauad. Liszt
(arr. Busoni) Mephisto Waltza. Marek Chant
du nouvel anb. Choralec. Schoeck Das
Wandbild - The Mechanical Clocka. Scherzo for String Triode. Sulzberger Sonata for Violin and Pianoad.
The unifying thread of this programme is the circle of friends and pupils around Busoni
when he was in exile in Zurich during the First World War (he refused to live or play in
any of the belligerent countries). The source of all the material is the holdings of the
Zentralbibliothek in Zurich - ‘the largest collection of musical manuscripts in
Switzerland’, as Christopher Walton’s booklet essay proudly announces.
Some of the names are familiar. Busoni himself wrote the libretto for Othmar
Schoeck’s opera Das Wandbild (1918), represented here by a brief and
elliptical instrumental excerpt; there’s also the gentle Scherzo for string trio, his
only essay in the medium. I complained in my review in the August issue (page 64) of the
final instalment of Koch’s eight-disc traversal of the music of Czeslaw Marek
(1891-1985) that it omits the Chant du nouvel an and the Chorale for organ - and
here they are, slight in substance but digmified in manner.
Philipp Jarnach (1892-1982) is best remembered these days as the man who completed
Busoni’s Doktor Faust, but there have been stirrings on Jamach’s own
behalf recently, most substantially Stefan Weiss’s Die Musik Philipp Jarnach (Verlag
Dohr: Cologne; 1996); and last year a disc devoted entirely to jarnach’s music was
released by Divox. jarnach’s music can be harmonically oblique; this two-minute
prelude for string quartet, Christ on Olyrnpus, is as soothing as a Christmas
carol.
The names that were entirely new to me are those of Marcel H. S. Sulzberger
(1876- 1941) and Hans Jelmoli (1877-1936); I had come across references to Emil Frey
(1889- 1946) but wasn’t familiar with any of his music. Sulzberger seems to have been
way ahead of his time, particularly when compared to his Swiss contemporaries: his Violin
Sonata (1919) has its point of departure in French music but then skirts atonality -
imagine Fauré in Schoenberg’s Vienna.
Jelmoli’s Rameau Variations (c1918) are tonally orthodox but beautifully
crafted: they would make an appealing addition to a recital programme. The real discovery
here is Frey’s Fantasy on ‘0 Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’, a quiet
masterpiece. The model is plainly Busoni’s Fantasy after J. S. Bach (1909),
and the intellectualised, sublimated passion of the language lies very close to
Busorii’s. Frey’s handling of the chorale is subtle, understated: after an
extended introduction, it emerges through the dark textures, picked out near the top of
the counterpoint, and then disappears back into them, informing the contours of the music
rather than directing them - John Ogdon would have loved this piece. Frey, plainly, is a
man who deserves much deeper investigation - there’s a respectable amount of
orchestral music, for example, in holdings spread between the Zurich Zentralbibliothek and
the University of Basel. If this recording alerts some young scholar to the presence of a
rewarding Ph.D. subject and directs other musicians to a master-in- waiting, it will have
done an immense amount of good.
All these works are given reliable, sympathetic performances from the young musicians
involved, most of them British, in first-rate recorded sound; Andrew
Zolinsky’s account of the Frey Fantasy is particularly
fine. Walton’s useful notes give thumbnail sketches of all the composers, and
their careers; and the cover design is elegant and attractive This is an endlessly
disc and it deserves your close attention.
Martin Anderson
Page revised 01.02.2001
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