A Scarlatti Recital: Albert Fuller Plays Fifteen Sonatas. Albert Fuller, harpsichord. (Helicon HE 1038)

DOMENICO SCARLATTI (1685-1757) composed more than 500 sonatas for the harpsichord—nearly all of which are single movements in binary form—that were among the first to explore almost every aspect of modern keyboard technique. They convey unique charm and vitality. This marvelously engaging 1998 Helicon recording of 15 diverse sonatas is an ideal introduction to the art of harpsichordist Albert Fuller. His playing is delightfully fanciful, and the sound of his Dowd harpsichord is realistically conveyed in an agreeable acoustic setting.

Albert Fuller (see Juilliard Portraits) has been teaching harpsichord at Juilliard for 39 years; he simultaneously taught organ for 11 years. Fuller, who studied harpsichord with Ralph Kirkpatrick and theory with Hindemith, joined the Juilliard faculty in 1964. Founder of the Aston Magna Festival in 1972, he is currently the music director of the Helicon Ensemble.

This past June, two of Fuller's earlier CDs, consisting of music for harpsichord by J.S. Bach and Rameau, were reissued as a two-disc set sold for the price of one (Reference Recordings RR-2105). Fuller's playing is the antithesis of metronomic, "sewing machine" Bach, where one places one's foot on the treadle and pedals away with mechanical regularity. Fuller scrupulously avoids romanticizing the music, but is not reluctant to employ pronounced agogic accents, rubato, hesitations, and ritards to clarify or underline a phrase—as if to compensate for the limitations the harpsichord places on the performer's ability to vary the touch and dynamics. In Bach's Italian Concerto, French Suite No. 6, six selections from the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook, and two Preludes and Fugues from Book 2 of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Fuller's playing is highly colorful and always thought-provoking. The same applies to his piquant readings of Rameau's Suite in A and eight Pièces de Clavecin.

In another recent two-CD album, Baroque Favorites, Fuller can be heard as harpsichordist leading his Helicon Ensemble in chamber works and violin concertos by Vivaldi and Bach (Reference Recordings RR-2101).

Zara Nelsova in Recital

Zara Nelsova: "The Queen of Cellists." Works by Brahms, Beethoven, Debussy, and Chopin. Zara Nelsova, cello; Grant Johannesen, piano. (CBC PSCD 2018)

ZARA NELSOVA, who died in October at the age of 83, was the first female cellist of international reputation (with the possible exception of England's Beatrice Harrison). Nelsova had studied with Feuermann, Casals, and Piatigorsky. Canadian-born of Russian parents, she became a U.S. citizen in 1953. A Juilliard faculty member for 25 years, Nelsova taught at the School from 1962-1971 and again from 1985-2002.

Taped in Toronto in 1968 and released in 2000, this CBC recital CD features Nelsova, accompanied by pianist Grant Johannesen, who was then her husband, in shapely performances of sonatas by Brahms (No. 1), Debussy, and Chopin, as well as Beethoven's Bei Männern Variations. The same artists can be heard in Poulenc's Cello Sonata on a VAI CD (VIAI 1183).

Nelsova had a particular affinity for the music of Ernest Bloch. Her magnificent 1967 recording of Schelomo with the Utah Symphony under Maurice Abravanel in vivid stereo sound (Vanguard SVC-111) gives a true measure of her greatness, serving as an attractive alternative to the currently unavailable benchmark performances by Feuermann/Stokowski and Rostropovich/Bernstein.

Two CDs on the Pearl label offer historically important 1950 composer-conducted Nelsova recordings: a sonically inferior Schelomo (Pearl GEM 0164) and the Barber Cello Concerto (Pearl GEM 0151).

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