MENDELSSOHN-BARTHOLDY ALPENHEIM -BARTHOLDY ALPENHEIM - RONDO SACD

SKU/Barcode: 827949015267

The super audio CD format allows for five independent sound channels, plus a subwoofer bass channel. Audiophile labels have taken advantage of this capability to release choice items from the quadraphonic LP era of the mid-'70s, remastering the sound either to five channels or, as in this case, to the original four. So-called "quad sound" was basically a failure, a last blip in the momentum generated by stereo and the quantum leaps in quality it generated. But some interesting recordings came along for the ride, and this was one. Quad sound catalogs favored imposing music that seemed serious yet wasn't complicated enough to distract listeners from the medium's ability to display the basic textures, and the larger piano works of Mendelssohn, then as now not terribly often performed, perfectly fit the bill. The big Piano Sonata in B flat major, Op. 106, was composed in 1827 and drew heavily in its first two movements on Beethoven's then quite young Piano Sonata No. 29, in the same key and, by coincidence (the Mendelssohn was numbered later), the same opus number. There are also overtones of Weber. It's not top-notch Mendelssohn, yet, as with many of the composer's second-tier works, it is appealing without depending on pyrotechnics. Austrian pianist Ilse von Alpenheim, married to conductor Antal Dorati, delivers a sober performance that catches to the hilt the combination of crowd-pleasing instinct and slightly elevated tone that endeared Mendelssohn to Victorian audiences. In the Variations s rieuses, Op. 54 (track 6), probably Mendelssohn's most famous piano work aside from the Songs without Words, she cleanly picks through the nagging little dissonances that give the work its flavor. Alpenheim bookends these works not with the abundantly accessible Songs without Words, but with lesser-known short works of lower tension levels. The disc is a bit scanty at just 46 minutes plus, but it made sense to replicate the original LP. The sound, recorded in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw (and sampled on a good conventional stereo, not on SACD equipment), is impressively spacious and clear. An offbeat choice that will please audiophiles and anyone else fond of remembering the days when it was thought that engineers with pocket protectors were going to lift music to a higher aesthetic plane.