Frank Martin: Concerto per clavicembalo e piccola orchestra (1951/1952)

[@edithdzieduszycka5918]

Dopo aver scoperto Frank Martin non l'ho più abbandonato... e ricordo che mi ha molto addolorata la sua morte... già 46 anni fa.....

[@notaire2]

Hoch kultivierte Interpretation dieses neoklassischen Konzerts mit glänzendem Klang des Solocembalos und perfekt entsprechenden Tönen anderer Instrumente. Der intelligente Maestro dirigiert das ausgezeichnete Kammerorchester im gut phrasierten Tempo und mit sorgfältig kontrollierter Dynamik. Einfach wunderschön!

[@nurettinkorkmaz3870]

So beautuful!

[@adolfodorantes4791]

Interesante y original con un final sorpresa.atractivo concierto.

[@veitstauffer9044]

Absolutely amazing!

[@nurettinkorkmaz3870]

Very interesting!

[@lileonie]

Un de mes proches était présent à la création de ce concerto, au Victoria Hall de Genève, par Isabelle Nef, avec Ernest Ansermet dirigeant des musiciens de l'OSR. C'est un plaisir pour lui de retrouver cette oeuvre devenue depuis lors un classique!

[@nurettinkorkmaz3870]

Very beautiful music!

[@MichaelConwayBaker]

Martin was a great influence -- particularly his piano preludes, which I studied with the wonderful pianist Boris Roubakine.

[@jvinikour]

Je me permets de dire que je vais jouer ce concerto merveilleux avec l'Ensemble Symphonique de Neuchâtel, dirigé par Alexandre Mayer le 14 et 15 décembre. Merci d'avoir posté cet enregistrement!

[@michaelbaker1935]

I've never heard this wonderful piece by one of my all time favourite composers! A wonderful performance. Thank you so much!

[@MuseDuCafe]

Ah... another to add to that handful of really fine mid-20th century neoclassical harpsichord concerti. Thanks much for this.

[@hortensehortense]

There is also the Harpsichord concerto of Peter Mieg (1954)… you can find it on KZbin

[@Twentythousandlps]

When this recording was issued c. 54 (10" LP), Alfred Frankenstein wrote in High Fidelity, "This is a real find and a great tribute to Frank Martin's skill, sensibility, and inventiveness. His erudite command of harmony is put to work in search of new and quite fascinating sonorities in the harpsichord; the sonorities of the orchestra are perfectly adjusted to those of the solo instrument, and the whole thing moves with taste, precision, and spirit. Splendid recording."

[@tjittekamminga5170]

Amazing!

[@gerardbegni2806]

This concerto is very clearly written and - what is the most difficult - the sound of the orchestra does not hide that of the harpsichord.

Gerard Begni, the reason you can hear the "harpsichord" even when the orchestra is playing forte is because it's not a harpsichord! It's a Pleyel, which is an ugly-sounding hybrid harpsichord-piano made in the 50s/60s, the instrument played by Lurch the butler on the old black&white _Addams Family_ TV show. Fortunately, they no longer make Pleyels.

[@darrylschultz9311]

@ But would it retain that absolutely di-viiiiiiine air of spookiness with a harpsichord? I THINK NOT!! Now excuse me while I go and twirl my moustache in a manner too malevolently mesmerizing for mere mortal eyes to behold!!

[@darrylschultz6479]

Gerard Begni And that can only be a good thing when you consider the harpsichord has all the spookiest notes right?!

[@dxZephxb]

Some decades ago (around 1984) I heard this wonderful piece performed by George Malcolm and the English Concert (in my view the best interpretation of it) on BFBS, but was never able to get an actual recording of his rendering. I wish somebody would upload this, too.

[@mikeg2924]

Winner!

[@danielthonon]

Isabelle était mon professeur de clavecin au conservatoire de Genève dans les années 1968-1973. Je me rappelle l'avoir entendu travailler ce concerto pour un concert qu'elle allait donner avec l'orchestre de la Suisse romande dirigé par Ernest Ansermet juste avant qu'il meure.

[@treesny]

This was the last of four fine orchestral pieces that Frank Martin composed in the late 1940s-early 1950s: the Concerto for 7 Wind Instruments, the Ballade for Cello, the Violin Concerto and this Concerto for Harpsichord. Martin wrote this work for harpsichordist Isabelle Nef, so it is wonderful to have her recording available again; thank you for posting it. Also, it's great to hear the solo part played on a "modern" (i.e. 20th century) instrument, which has more weight and presence than ones appropriate to 17th or 18th century music. Finally, it's interesting to note that choreographer Kenneth MacMillan used this concerto as the score for his 1971 ballet Los Hermanas (based on Lorca's play The House of Bernarda Alba).

[@darrylschultz6479]

@ If a harpsichord was so supposedly superior why didn't they use it on the Addam's Family instead of this wonderfully spooky instrument? Oh I think I've got it-coz this is wonderfully spooky!

[@cygnebleu]

ah, I love this concerto! thank you, my friends for uploading also Frank Martin!

[@grahamexeter3399]

Taking previous comments about the excellence of this performance into account, I still think the work needs a fresh new recording - by Mahan Esfahani!

[@mmmoroi]

Sounds a bit like background score to "Columbo".

[@AbstractASMR1]

You are a blessed man, whomever you may be/ putting up all of these works, opus magnificat sunshining baby power, The raw and the cooked, where are the true men of learning when the dark clouds of unknowing gather with fists of titantic gloom all of humanity's unbearable fears collapsed to an extreme instant, like dropping the total sum of all horror 'pon the head of a pin. Divertimenti by the dozen---our lives are spent in the space between the walls and the ceilings, add up all that time and be secretly shocked. THis is a poem, that is a symphony...here is a glass of water, sitting inside the stomach of the tallest angel, for reasons only to be disclosed when that man with the tiny nose and rusty sunglasses takes off his shoes and paints the picture he's waited decades to decipher, that earth is purgatorio. Mint-leaves, cherry bellies, yellow wings of angel-butterflies and the correct undulating ratio of blue smoke hovering above Lord Chester's hope chest and the finely attired caterpillars who have been practising the Enchata Rubico, with rubato variations for who knows how long? one more thing, if you please, if you please: keep the jar of goat poison under your mattress, where doctor sardonicus cannot and will not reach it, open it up, drink it down fully and maybe take a devil-driven taxi-cab to the farthest theremin-sountracked reaches of our small cosmiverse...just don't say I did not warn thee und thine, oui?

[@theodoremeckstroth6706]

This is a wonderful work. It is a genuine 20th Century masterpiece in my opinion. However there is a much better performance from a stylistic standpoint conducted by the composer himself. It was available on KZbin at the time I posted this. It is not easy to find. But if you put "Frank Martin Christiane Jaccottet" in the KZbin search engine it should come up .

[@davidjohnson9796]

to Theodore Meckstroth: I don't agree with you that the Jaccottet is better. Actually I find it very inferior. Simply because the composer is conducting does not necessarily add lustre to any performance. Stravinski's own version of the Rite is a disaster and I suspect Martin was not at his best on the podium. In any event I find the recorded harpsochord sound vastly better in this version. Of course Jaccottet is a great player.

[@treesny]

@@davidjohnson9796 Frank Martin made some wonderful recordings as a conductor of his own music, notably the ones he did with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau of the Jedermann Monologues and the 3 Excerpts from The Tempest (Der Sturm). His conducting of the premiere of his Requiem is also very special.

[@stephenmitchell4648]

What an utterly compelling work. Infinitely more subtle and introverted than the Poulenc, and in Martin's unmistakeable voice. Why are his concerti so overlooked in the UK? Shame on us - we are the poorer for it. Wellesz Theatre - you are a complete star for uploading so much completely unmissable music - I've listened to Tippett's second symphony somewhere around 100 times on KZbin courtesy of your upload. What about some complete Rubbra symphonies?

[@johnfrancis9491]

The Martin concerto was performed at a 1957 Proms concert by George Malcolm and Sir Adrian Boult. Otherwise I've never heard it in concert.

[@schockundalltag5315]

Stephen Mitchell There’s also the Concerto of Peter Mieg, friend of Frank Martin, you can listen to on KZbin... it was composed more or less at the same time...

[@louduva9849]

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