Rarely-heard music, Evgeny Sudbin ... and HM The Queen!

Have you ever heard of Joseph Jongen? No, neither had we, but our first hour will feature his Piano Quartet Op.23 on this week's Vivace. 

At 7 o'clock, we have a well-known trio by Mozart to enchant you.  Then, after selections by Lumbye and Ponchielli, we'll feature a work by CPE Bach played on a rarely-heard instrument, the tangent piano. And just before 8 o'clock, we have a super-special royal birthday to celebrate.

During the 8 o'clock hour, we'll start a few days of celebration to mark the visit to Charlottesville next week of the great Russian-born pianist, Yevgeny Sudbin, whose concert on Tuesday, April 29 at the University of Virginia will be the season finale for the Tuesday Evening Concert Series. He will join us on Vivace to play one of Beethoven's great piano concertos.

As ever, I hope you'll join us for Vivace, three hours of entertaining and interesting music, this Friday, 6-9 am, right here on WTJU-Charlottesville.

PS.  If you also tune in Sunday morning at about 8 am, Mr. Sudbin will be interviewed by Deborah Murray on Classical Sunrise.  In fact, why not start your Sunday on a gentle note by tuning in from 6-9 am.

Moments of Love - Dominique Labelle and Yehudi Wyner show real chemistry

Moments of Love
Ravel, Saint-Saens, Wyner, Hahn, Britten
Dominique Labell, sporano
Yehudi Wyner, piano
Bridge Records

Dominique Labelle and Yehudi Wyner have put together an engaging program with "Moments of Love." Labelle's voice has a warm lower register and a very clean upper register that she uses to great effect in this musical examination of love's multiplicity. There's a real chemistry between singer and accompanist that makes the listening experience even more enjoyable.

Featured on the recording is Ravel's "Trois Poems de Stephane Mallarme" and a selection of songs by Saint-Saens. Labelle's voice is well-suited to this French repertoire, sounding slightly mysterious in the Ravel, and inviting and charming with Saint-Saens' selections.

There's something about the composer playing his own work -- especially one as accomplished a performer as Wyner. "The Second Madrigal: Voices of Women" was originally written for soprano and chamber ensemble. His adaptation of the work for voice and solo piano is quite effective. The composition seems to borrow gestures from mid-century atonality, but still (to my ears) rooted around tonal centers. The result is music that conveys deep emotion though apparent dissonance -- emotion Labelle expresses quite effectively.

Reynaldo Hahn's youthful art songs are sung with a simple beauty entirely appropriate to the material, and the disc ends with four songs from Britten. Jazz and tin-pan alley rubs shoulders with classical in these numbers, and Labelle delivers with a wink and smile.

Anna Bon di Venezia: Harpsichord Sonatas a welcome rediscovery

Anna Bon di Venezia
Six Sonatas for Harpsichord, Op. 2
Barbara Harbach, harpsichord
MSR Classics

Anna Bon di Venezia is a somewhat mysterious figure -- very little is known about her, save that she, along with her parents (a stage manager and an opera singer) were hired by Count Esterhazy, where (presumably) they worked under his Kappellmeister, Franz Joseph Haydn.

Anna Bon published a set of flute sonatas, a set of keyboard sonatas, a set of trio sonatas before marrying and apparently retired from music.

The harpsichord sonatas, published in 1757, are fascinating. To my ears, they sound similar in style to the ones Haydn wrote around the same time. These are short, straight-forward works that are charming in their simplicity. Barbara Harbach performs them with delicacy and authority, bringing out the beauty and elegance of Bon's carefully crafted melodies.

These works, I think, compare favorably to contemporaneous sonatas by more famous composers. Recommended to anyone interested in early classical music.