The Music Collection
REVIEWS
THE MUSIC COLLECTION
Alexander-Max has an appreciation for Hummel’s writing that comes through clearly in her confident and skilful playing, and, although she easily could, she is careful not to grab the spotlight all for herself. Patsy Morita, All Music Guide
This has given us great pleasure. Susan Alexander-Max on fortepianos from the Derek Adlam workshop with her colleagues bring huge conviction and vitality to this well varied programme. Musical Pointers, Peter Grahame Woolf
Hummel is enjoying something of a well-deserved revival at present, and this CD presents four gems of his chamber music with piano, ranging in date from the entertaining Op. 22 piano trio, written when he was employed by the Esterházy family as Haydn’s deputy, to the beautiful late cello sonata, for Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia to play with the composer on a concert tour of St Petersburg and Moscow in 1822. The performances are first-rate, and it’s fascinating to be able to compare the two fortepiano copies from Derek Adlam’s workshop, the earlier Rosenberger having a distinctly thinner and brighter tone than the more modern-sounding Streicher. It’s also good to have one last recording by the much missed Micaela Comberti. Strongly recommended.
Richard Maunder, Early Music Review
Most of Hummel’s chamber music has been recorded recently, though the Piano Quartet is new to the catalogue. What sets this recording by The Music Collection apart from most, though, is the use of period instruments – and the pay-off is striking. Alexander-Max uses two different pianos – for the Trios a copy of a 1795 instrument and, for the Sonata and Quartet, an 1814 copy, both from the workshop of Derek Adlam…… Played with a fine sense of period style….., this is a charming addition to Hummel on disc. BBC Music Magazine*****
The artists are all first class and obviously experiencing a lot of enjoyment in making this disc which is faithfully conveyed to the listener. Much of the credit for the success of this disc, however, must go to Susan Alexander-Max, the fortepianist, who never ceases to amaze me with her impeccable musicianship. It is native New Yorker, Alexander-Max who keeps everything together here; her fortepiano playing is imbued with a magical pulse. Nothing sounds pedantic with her, a quality I picked up the first time I heard one of her recordings. Add these points to her outstanding technique, and we have a wonderful artist on our hands. This is music-making that doesn’t just sound like it has been prepared for recording purposes. Very highly recommended. In fact, five stars.
Lance G. Hill, The Classical Music Guide Forum
Three substantial works are played here with profound sympathy for style and period...Moments are breathtakingly beautiful...Exemplary playing of captivating music. BBC Music Magazine*****
Three appealing works from an underrated composer, in sympathetic period performances. ...The Largo opens sombrely...permitting the piano to 'sing' more lovingly...The performances are exquisite, and the 'cleaner' sound of the period pianos used...helps to maintain the overall clarity of texture........... Gramophone
...Alexander-Max's stately fortepiano entry revealed the inner heart of the movement's song - and then its fantasy....
Hilary Finch, The Times
...Hummel's music is vivacious, melodic and interesting, as shown on a recent recording on the English ASV label.... The first rate performance is by The Music Collection, a group based in England. Its founder, New York native Susan Alexander-Max, is the sparkling and assertive pianist. The Patriot Ledger, Canada
The slow movement, by the way is a winner, with the simplest of melodies - a gorgeous one nonetheless - teased out and lingered over lovingly...The performances are sensitive and poetic, with plenty of fizz for the faster moments....There are rival recordings of all three works, but not in this intelligent, informative combination. A winner! Martin Anderson, Fanfare, USA
SUSAN ALEXANDER-MAX
Naxos has a reputation for being a label that releases the best recordings done by performers nobody ever heard of but that shouldn’t be counted against them. They find musicians whose egos take a back seat to the music they play and get exemplary performances from them. Susan Alexander-Max has to be one of the great pianists that fall into that category. She finds what’s in the music she plays. In the allegro from the G minor sonata she conjures waves of serene beauty, interrupts them with claps of thunder and returns the listener back to that moment of contentment. In the andante cantabile from the same piece she conveys a sense of profound melancholy along with deepest thought. The presto from the B flat sonata combines playfulness with drama. Those are just a few examples. Clementi’s music is very impressionistic. Susan Alexander-Max reflects it well in her playing.
The instrument is a joy to listen to, as is this whole recording. The entire disc is good but the Opus 8 and 13 sonatas should be singled out for special notice. These pieces go a long way toward pointing out what would follow them.
For lovers of the piano and especially for people interested in the roots of music that’s better known this disc gets the highest recommendation. Brian J Hay, Canada
These elegant works are articulated in all their moods, whether stately, introspective or brilliant, with skillfully-crafted counterpoint. Aficiionados of the early Baroque will find much to enjoy... Musical Opinion
Although written for ‘cimbalo’ (harpsichord), Susan Alexander-Max plays the pieces here on the restored Cristofori piano in the New York Metropolitan Museum, one of three extant instruments which their inventor himself called a ‘harpsichord with soft and loud’. Alexander-Max has clearly got to grips with its special demands, particularly its ability to articulate by dynamic accents as well as the minute delays and silences with which harpsichordists shape a phrase. She plays with the restraint demanded by such a delicate and complex mechanical action, and the sound is charming – warm and plumy in the middle and lower range, more sparkling on top. The upper register can become swamped by the riches of lower down in the loud passages – a characteristic of the instrument itself as much as of the recording – but the quiet contrasts are wholly endearing. A most imaginative combination of music and instrument, both revealed as far more than mere curiosities. BBC Music Magazine*****
Pianist Susan Alexander-Max makes full use Zipoli's ideas and of the instrument's capabilities. Her touch is light and deft but she's more than willing to make full use of the volume the instrument offers as well. Her control is remarkable and her sense of musical phrasing is exquisite. The music often seems to be rolling back and forth like waves from a gentle sea or the rocking of a child's cradle. She's equally at home with any passage or tempo and always just seems to be rolling through the music as if she and it are inside one another. There's never a sense of listening to a Scarlatti rip-off and if this disc has an effect other than becoming a wonderful addition to any library of classical music it's to make me wish that Susan Alexander-Max would record some of Scarlatti's work as well. I suspect they would be a revelation to many listeners. She really is that good. The best thing to do with this recording is to just put it on the player, let it wash over and enjoy the surprises; there will be plenty of them. This is beautiful music and it's played and recorded beautifully on an instrument that has a sound not often heard anymore. This is a "must" for all lovers of baroque music with an Italian flavouring to it. Brian J. Hay, Canada
Albany Records continues to produce a steady stream of high-quality recordings of unfamiliar repertoire. Many of them feature contemporary music, but its catalogue also carries works from previous eras. One of its new releases is "Domenico Zipoli: Sonate d'Intavolatura per Organo e Cembalo" (Troy 669). Zipoli was born in Spain in 1688, but he should be considered a Baroque composer of South American. The Spanish colonists not only brought their cannons and conquistadors to the New World, but their culture as well. Zipoli set sail for Paraguay, but ultimately settled in Argentina, where he established himself as one of the most important composers of New Spain. He died there in 1726, leaving a legacy of fine compositions that were celebrated in Peru, Bolivia and other colonies.
On this disc, pianist Susan Alexander-Max offers four suites by Zipoli. Her performances of the composer's graceful melodies and idiomatic keyboard writing are sensitive and stylistic. The effect is greatly enhanced by her decision to use the 1720 Cristofori piano from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This instrument, with its light action and silvery tone, is ideal for this repertoire and is exactly the type of piano Zipoli would have known. The recorded sound is also excellent. I was pleased that it avoids two common mistakes of many early keyboard recordings, which are either too reverberant or so closely miked that the listener feels his head is glued to the soundboard. The packaging, which features a color reproduction of a page from the original edition of Zipoli's "Parte Seconde," is attractive. Mark Kroll, WBUR Public Arts Journal, Boston, USA
This is an important recording done for the Metropolitan Museum in New York on their Cristofori fortepiano of 1720, almost contemporary with Zipoli’s Sonate d’Intavolatura of 1716, the second half of which is played here……While some of the shine has worn off the Cristofori’s sound over the centuries it displays a crispness of articulation which Alexander-Max uses with great subtlety to bring out all the contrapuntal nuance in these very attractive binary movements. Noel O’Regan, Early Music Review
She plays her beautiful fortepiano with an intuitive sense for the color and tonality of the instrument, which only enhances the élan of the music. Peter Burwasser, Fanfare, USA
Playing an attractively mellow-toned, untwangy fortepiano, the American pianist Susan Alexander-Max gives magnetic performances of five sparkling early sonatas by Clementi in what I hope is the start of a series from Naxos. Edward Greenfield, The Guardian*****
Susan Alexander-Max presented a delightful afternoon of classical works for Fortepiano at the Wigmore Hall on 15 December.
Mozart's 10 Variations on Gluck's Unser dummer Pöbel meint K455 drew fine playing and instinctive styling to open the concert. Two of Clementi's Sonatas, both in G minor, Opus 7 No 3 and Opus 8 No 1, were imparted with nicely shaped phrasing and shaded dynamics that put the instrument's powers to full use. It was perhaps in the slow movements, with their delicately etched lyrical lines, that we could understand the best of these.
Two Haydn works, the C minor Sonata Hob XVI No 20 and the C major Fantasie Hob XVII No 4, brought lingering appogiaturas and animated colourings through the intelligent pedal use, especially the damper pedal in the Sonata. In the Fantasie I discovered how the Fortepiano may facilitate faster speeds, as opposed to the earlier keyboard instruments of the plucked variety, demanding exceptional control.
Beethoven's E flat major Sonata Opus 31 No 3 found a heartfelt interpretation, the innate depth well supported by Alexander-Max's performance and understanding of this transitional instrument from classical times. David Alker, Musical Opinion