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Joseph Martin Kraus: Sonatas
 
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Joseph Martin Kraus: Sonatas

~ Joseph Martin Kraus (Composer), Jacques Després (Piano)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
Price: £4.89 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Product details

  • Composer: Joseph Martin Kraus
  • Audio CD (1 Sep 2003)
  • SPARS Code: DDD
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Naxos
  • ASIN: B0000BV162
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 93,629 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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1. Rondo In F Major (VB 191)
2. Allegro Moderato
3. Andante Con Variazione
4. Allegro Ma Non Troppo Presto
5. Scherzo Con Variazioni (VB 193)
6. Larghetto (VB 194)
7. Vivace
8. Adagio
9. Andante Con Variazione
10. Swedish Dance (VB 192)
11. Zwei Neue Kuriose Minuetten (VB 190)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully played piano music from an excellent but overlooked composer, 13 Oct 2009
Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792) was an almost exact contemporary of Mozart. Although German by birth he worked for most of his musical career in Sweden. Gluck and Haydn were both influences on him, but his musical style is highly original and he is perhaps one of the most innovative composers of the 18th century especially in his use of lyrical melodies, striking harmonies and complex rhythms. Indeed, no less a figure than Haydn regarded Kraus as a "...genius on the level of Mozart..." (New Grove Dictionary of Music). To an extent, the piano music played here is to me more reminiscent of Haydn than Mozart, but it is also particularly forward looking, anticipating the piano music of Beethoven in particular.

The opening Rondo in F (VB191) is a delightfully simple and wistful way to begin the disc. The longer and much more complex Sonatas in E-flat major (VB195) and E major (VB196) both highlight the breadth of Kraus's musical style, showing him to be capable of the contrapuntal rigor of earlier Baroque composers, but having total mastery of the piano sonata form on a level with Haydn and Beethoven; the 'andante con variazioni' movement in both shows his capacity to expand a very simple melody into an impressive and elaborate set of variations, as does the 'Scherzo con variazioni' (VB193). The CD closes with a piano arrangement of a traditional Swedish dance and two minuets, short, light pieces that it is easy to imagine being played as encores.

This is the first time I had heard the pianist Jacques Després, but his playing is technically impeccable and expressive throughout, and he does full justice to Kraus's piano works. The production and the recorded sound are of the excellent quality that we have come to expect from Naxos's solo instrumental albums. Highly recommended.
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Surprising Piano Music by a Contemporary of Mozart, 28 Nov 2003
By J Scott Morrison (Middlebury VT, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
I had never paid much attention to the music of Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792) until Naxos began issuing their series of his orchestral music. Although he is sometimes called 'the Swedish Mozart' and although he has almost precisely the same dates as Mozart, his music is actually more like that of middle-period Haydn in general.
On this disc though, which contains all of his piano music, the style reminds me much more of that of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, although the early pieces sound more like the much older composer, Baldassarre Galuppi--I'm referring especially to the Rondo in F major, VB 191; think of that delightful Galuppi C major sonata that Michelangeli was so fond of and which he recorded several times. There is some similarity, too, to the Mannheim School, although in my opinion he is more talented than, say, Stamitz. This is music that tends towards that sensibility associated with C. Ph. E. Bach, the so-called 'Emfindsamkeit' [roughly 'feeling-ness'] movement.

At any rate, this disc is a bit of a surprise. For one thing one hears surprising turns of phrase, odd (but pleasing) modulations, and unexpected and unprepared-for changes of mood. At first listen, especially if one isn't paying close attention, this sounds like typical style galant music-box prettiness. But when you really hear what he's doing the surprises mount. There is always tunefulness and grace but they are often associated with unexpected asymmetry of phrase-length. This grows as Kraus reaches his maturity and in the second sonata in particular (VB 196) there is even some foreshadowing of early Beethoven in that there is broader statement of themes, a grandiosity even, and more complex manipulation of thematic, rhythmic and harmonic material. (I'm thinking particularly of the second theme of the first movement which is downright Beethovian.) This sonata's last (third) movement is an engaging (but sometimes moodily intense) set of variations.

Which brings me to my favorite piece here: the Scherzo con variazioni, VB 193, a 12-minute set of variations on a particularly trivial theme (but think what Beethoven did with Diabelli's trinket!) that opens with hunting horn harmonies but progresses further and further down a path of harmonic complexity. Indeed one of the variations modulates crazily and rapidly through (by my count) six barely related minor keys; that's pretty wild for 1785; he was living in London at the time, so maybe it was due to all the gin that flowed freely in those days.

The only regret I have about this disc--and I'm speaking wistfully here--is that the so-called Larghetto, VB 194, lasts only 42 seconds. It's clearly a theme for a set of variations, and a potentially fecund one--it's a sort of chorale whose bass-line would have made a bang-up passacaglia--that for whatever reason Kraus apparently never got around to writing. Our loss.

The pianist here, Jacques Després, is new to me and I cannot praise his playing too highly. This is seemingly simple music but, like in that of Mozart, lapses of taste and style in its playing are transparently obvious; there are no such solecisms in Monsieur Després' playing. He is a Québécois currently living and teaching at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, where the disc was recorded. I want to specially mention that the piano used, a Hamburg Steinway, has an extraordinarily rich and lustrous sound and it is beautifully recorded by engineer Garth Hobden.

A pity Kraus didn't write more piano music.

Recommended.

TT=79:17

Scott Morrison

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