Martin: Ballades

Martin Robertson (Performer), Peter Dixon (Performer), Frank Martin (Composer), Matthias Bamert (Conductor), Celia Chambers (Performer), Rachel Masters (Performer), Roderick Elms (Performer), London Philharmonic Orchestra (Orchestra), Keith Millar (Performer), Rachel Gledhil (Performer), Ian Bousfield (Performer), Philip Dukes (Performer)

Product Details

• Performer: Martin Robertson, Peter Dixon, Celia Chambers, Rachel Masters, Roderick Elms, et al.
• Orchestra: London Philharmonic Orchestra
• Conductor: Matthias Bamert
• Composer: Frank Martin
• Audio CD (August 22, 1995)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Chandos
• ASIN: B000000AX6
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #235,278 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  #36 in	Music > Classical > Instruments > Brass > Trombone
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  #51 in	Music > Classical > Instruments > Reeds & Winds > Saxophone

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
The ballade was Frank Martin's specialty. The Swiss composer wrote six of them throughout his long career, each featuring a different solo instrument or group of solo instruments. They are all from about 10 to 15 minutes in length, and like Samuel Barber's Essays for Orchestra, they pack a great deal of concentrated, communicative music into a very small space. The work for viola, wind, harp, harpsichord and percussion is a particularly colorful and evocative work, but then all of them are marvelously written and all too rarely encountered in the concert hall for the simple reason that they're too short. These performances are terrific. --David Hurwitz

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LITTLE MARTIN MIRACLES, June 5, 2003

By	Melvyn M. Sobel (Freeport (Long Island), New York) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Eclectic Swiss composer, Frank Martin [1890-1974], inhabits a sophisticated and moody sound world, and these six "Ballades," collectively unavailable until now, offer us the broadest view of his art and emotional predilections, with each work in fascinating contrast with the other. Thus, the lengthy Ballade for Piano and Orchestra (16:56), a composition that, not unlike Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2, abounds in tense, bare-boned lyricism steeped in sardonic humor, when juxtaposed with the following brief Ballade for Trombone and Piano (8:00), a dark, focused, jazzy, Stravinsky-like piece, and then the extended Cello Ballade (15:56), the most mysterious of Martin's utterances, akin to Bloch's ruminations in Schelomo, rivets the listener and demands that he attend each work in turn. The sheer aural diversity of these compositions is fabulous. The Saxophone Ballade (14:45) opens like some ethereal "haunting," as does the Viola Ballade (12:23), and both proceed to mutate and develop in titillating, unpredictable neo-classicist ways. The Flute Ballade, very much in the style of Martinu, and spiritedly neurotic, maximizes the instrument's enormous potential in effect and display, song and stringency. Matthias Bamert leads The London Philharmonic, and various brilliant soloists, with a firm grip on authenticity and balance. The sound is extraordinary.

[Running time: 76:48]

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Collection of Beautiful Instrumental Works, June 10, 2000

By	Nicholas A. Deutsch (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"It is in the romantic sense of the term that I have taken this title 'Ballade' - in the spirit of the ballads of Ossian. There is in that the evocation of something epic: one is telling a story...." These works, ranging in length from 8 to over 15 minutes, contain some of Frank Martin's loveliest instrumental inspirations, & the 1-movement, multi-tempo form seems to suit his unique blend of Classical & Romantic temperaments beautifully.(The Ballades for flute, trombone & cello also exist in versions with piano accompaniment.) It's wonderful to have all 6 Ballades on a single disk, especially in these excellent performances - one of the best in Bamert's Martin series for Chandos. And this is the only currently available version of the Viola Ballade, one of the extraordinary works of Martin's last years.