Music is the key

In 1968 the choreographer George Balanchine made a ballet from two works by Xenakis Metastaseis and Pithoprakta and the following year he commissioned Xenakis to compose an original score for New York City Ballet. Antikhthon turned out to be one of the great might-have-been collaborations: Xenakis completed the score in 1971 , but the work was never staged. The concept of Antikhthon Anti-Earth or Counter-Earth was first proposed by the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus of Croton around 400 BC. He speculated that there was a Counter-Earth a hypothetical heavenly body that revolved with the earth around a Central Fire. This led to Philolaus being credited as one of the first to propose that the Earth was not the centre of the universe, but that it was in an orbit around the Sun (Central Fire), with the other planets. This idea clearly appealed to Xenakis as the basis for a stage work, though his score has no programme and no scenario. Presumably he intended the notion o...

After building a career in the former U.S.S.R., the Azeri soprano Dinara Alieva has had engagements at major European houses in Berlin, Vienna, Munich and Dresden. Her voice offers warmth, vibrancy (occasionally too much) and a fundamentally handsome tone color. (Alieva has upped her game since her last Delos disc.) The beefy-voiced Latvian dramatic tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko rose to international prominence when Riccardo Muti chose him to sing Otello at Salzburg in 2008. The Met secured him the next year for Rusalka ; striking successes in new Met productions of Il Tabarro and Boris Godunov followed, along with strong work in revivals of Norma and Carmen , plus Otello with the Chicago Symphony. Antonenko opens the 2015–16 Met season as Verdi’s Moor in a new production directed by Bartlett Sher and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.  This often exciting joint recital was recorded in Kaunas, Lithuania, in July 2014. The track order is a bit bizarre — Aid...

  Dear friends, We are about to embark on an exciting project which will fulfill a powerful desire of mine – to properly record my first opera, “Prima Donna” with a fabulous orchestra and release a double CD and vinyl of that recording. I would love for you to be a part of this journey as we move through the process and create a magnificent product. “Prima Donna,” was written and performed during the most dramatic period of my life to date, and considering my life, that’s pretty dramatic! New arrivals, death, terrible defeat and glorious triumph line the tale of this work both on stage and off, a tale that is still unfolding and that I would both like you to know and even more importantly, be a part of. From the early rocky days with the Metropolitan Opera, the valiant premiere at the Manchester International Festival, sold out shows in London and Toronto and finally the firestorm involvement with the New York City Opera at BAM, the tale of “Prima Donna’s” coming ...

Serenade: The Love Album was recorded on the celebrated 'Ex-Vieuxtemps' Guarneri del Gesu violin, dated 1741, which is considered to be the finest sounding violins in existence, and is known to be most valuable violin in the world, having last sold for over $16 million. Anne Akiko Meyers has been awarded exclusive lifetime use of this instrument. This year, she was featured in a story with the violin on CBS Sunday Morning. Anne Akiko Meyers was Billboard's top-selling classical instrumentalist in 2014, a year in which she released two critically-heralded and popular albums. The Four Seasons: The Vivaldi Album, released in February 2014, debuted at #1 on the classical Billboard charts, and American Masters, released in September, was named one of the Best of 2014 by Google Play and called "the most noteworthy new music encounter" of the year by the Chicago Tribune.   On Serenade, Anne Akiko Meyers -- a champion of living composers -- commissioned s...

Of all the longstanding relationships built between its artists and Manfred Eicher , the musical partnership of ECM Records' founder/primary producer and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt—who turned 80 years old on September 11, 2015—has to be one of the label's most important and fruitful. Certainly, amidst ECM's more composition-focused New Series imprint, there are few others whose collaborations with Eicher have proven to be so personally meaningful, so groundbreaking and so emotionally resonant. While Eicher worked in the classical world prior to launching the label's New Series imprint with Pärt's Tabula Rasa in 1984—specifically, beyond being double bassist in a symphony orchestra before starting the label in 1969, his work with early minimalist trendsetter Steve Reich , whose Music for 18 Musicians (1978), Octet; Music for Large Ensemble; Violin Phase (1980) and Tehillim (1982) would later be reissued on CD within the New Series sphere—it was P...

Chemistry is one of the most mysterious aspects of the performing arts, especially when it comes to music. In athletics, the chemistry among teammates is almost always right before us. When Larry Bird made eyes-closed, over-the-head, backwards passes to Kevin McHale or Robert Parish, we had the benefit of watching slow-motion replays. And even before television, when the early 20th Century Chicago Cubs turned a double play, going from "Tinkers to Evers to Chance" (as a famous poem says), the North Side crowd in the stands could see that unspoken understanding among the three players at work before their eyes. Musical chemistry, when right, is almost impossible to discern. Two musicians with an innate, natural understanding of interpretation and expression meld together seamlessly when that chemistry is at its best. Such is the case with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and pianist Lambert Orkis. To be clear, either one of these two raises the level of any collabo...

Revelatory’, ‘depth of sound’, ‘soaring virtuosity’ are among the terms that have been used todescribe this ‘extraordinary interpreter’ (sources: Diapason-Classica-Le Figaro). Between her two cultures, western and eastern, Shani Diluka pursues an international career , championing a wide repertoire but always mindful of passing on the rigorous standards of the great thinkers of music (from Schnabel to Kempff , to whom critics regularly refer when discussing her playing). She is a regular guest at leading venues such as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Salle Pleyel and Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Festival de La Roque d’Anthéron of which she is one of the most loyal visitors, the Arsenal de Metz, the Grand Theatre de Bordeaux, the Menton International Festival, La Folle Journée in Tokyo (where she gave the opening concert), Zubin Mehta’s Bombay Festival where she was principal pianist, and the Verbier Festival at which she gave t...

Thoughtfully programmed and original in conception, Tamsin Waley-Cohen's recordings for Signum Classics are far from the usual recital fare. Following the albums 1917: Works for Violin & Piano by Debussy, Respighi, Sibelius, and Elgar, and Soli: Works for Solo Violin by Bartók, Penderecki, Benjamin, Carter, and Kurtág, Waley-Cohen explores pieces by Karol Szymanowski and Reynaldo Hahn, two composers whose styles are quite different. While Szymanowski and Hahn share some biographical similarities, the main point of their pairing here is the influence of César Franck, whose popular Violin Sonata in A major affected both composers. Hahn's refined and cheerful Violin Sonata in C major stands in contrast to the exoticism and brooding mystery of Szymanowski's Violin Sonata in D minor, but both works reflect the Franck sonata in form, development of themes, and the shifting chromaticism of the harmony and underlying tonal framework. The performances are sympathetic and true ...

Four-time Grammy nominated Anoushka Shankar is one of today´s most distinguished and versatile classical cross-genre sitar performers and composers. Her unique approach to classical music and world music genres is both highly artistic and commercially appealing to a wide audience. After Traveller and Traces of You this pure Indian classical album is Anoushka´s third release on Deutsche Grammophon and 8th solo album recorded right at her HOME studio in London. Inspired by her classical upbringing and teaching by her legendary father, Maestro Ravi Shankar this album offers both meditative and virtuoso Indian classical raga for Solo Sitar with ensemble. With Home Anoushka continues her journey exploring modern and fresh ways to reinterpret and keep alive the beautiful musical traditions of India, as taught to her by her father Ravi Shankar. There is an intimate warmth and bloom about this classical sitar album, which is largely thanks to Anoushka Shankar's ...

French pianist Alexandre Tharaud is known for programs that hold together only marginally, and so it is here: Mozart's French piano student who went by the name of Mademoiselle Jeunehomme (or Jenamy or Jénomé) is associated with only one of these works, and possibly not even with that one: she is said to have given the premiere of the sprawling Piano Concerto No. 9 in E flat major , K. 271, but the work has all the hallmarks of music Mozart wrote for himself. What you have here is a rather random collection of classical piano-and-orchestra music, with a neglected aria thrown in for good measure. This said, Tharaud stands out from the crowd of other pianists who have played this concerto. It's not so much the rest of the program: the rather plain Piano Concerto in D major, Hob. 18/11, of Haydn, or the two smaller obscure Mozart works. It's that the E flat concerto is really different. He performs with a well-established historical-instruments group, Les Violons du Roy under...

Like for every nation, the space in which the musical Armenian culture developed corresponds to the nation’s development itself. According to some scientists, Armenians’ attested origins are dated from the second millenary B.C. The history of musical Armenian culture can be divided in two big categories: traditional and artistic music. Until the middle of the 19th century, traditional Armenian music used to be monodic in its whole. This monadic Armenian music can also be divided in three other categories: popular traditional music, traditional professional music, known as the Gusans’ or Aschughens’ art (Armenian equivalent for troubadours), and at last the artistic professional Middle Ages music, spiritual music or religious vocal art in Armenia. In the middle of the 19th century appear the first musical artistic works from Armenian composers. In the second half of this century, bases and specificities of the artistic Armenian music start to become important, freed from...

In this celebration of Vienna, Stéphane Tétreault and Marie-Ève Scarfone evoke two instruments that are no longer commonly played today. Their performance transports us from the grace of a Haydn divertimento to Schubert’s divine “Arpeggione”, to say nothing of the depth of Brahms’ Cello Sonata No.1 . The baryton, a member of the viola da gamba family, was in use as early as the 17th century but did not gain popularity until the second half of the 18th century. In addition to its seven bowed strings, the baryton has 16 to 20 wire strings that are plucked with the thumb of the left hand, making it particularly diffi cult to master. Joseph Haydn contributed greatly to the baryton’s popularity by writing over 170 works for the instrument, including 126 trios, no doubt at the behest of his patron, Prince Nicolas Esterhazy, who played the instrument himself. The version heard here of one of Haydn’s many works for baryton, viola and cello was arranged by the Russian-born Am...

This disc, recorded in 2014, completes the whole set of the three Brahms violin sonatas played by Faust and Melnikov. The first sonata, previously issued, is coupled with the Brahms trio and his Op 116 Fantasias for piano. This inevitably makes for difficulties for collectors as the main alternatives for the violin sonatas couple all three on one disc. This disc also comes with unusual couplings which are the Schumann Three Romances which were published for either violin and piano or oboe and piano. These are very attractive pieces of vintage Schumann inspiration in a particularly gentle and song-like mode. The song-like nature of the music particularly suits the oboe, a wind instrument which phrases like a singer. There is a famous and superb version of these three pieces for oboe played by Holliger and Brendel as part of a Schumann disc of supreme quality. However, Faust and Melnikov make a strong case for the violin version with all the appropriate empathetic ph...

Cello superstar Sol Gabetta teams up with the celebrated musicians Giuliano Carmignola, violin, and Dejan Lazić, piano, to form a formidably talented ensemble for this new all-Beethoven recording. They will be joined by conductor Giovanni Antonini and the Kammerorchester Basel, a team who have great pedigree recording Beethoven’s works to critical acclaim. The centrepiece of this album is Beethoven’s ‘Triple Concerto’, the Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano in C Major, Op. 56. The choice of the three solo instruments effectively makes this a concerto for piano trio, and it is the only concerto Beethoven ever completed for more than one solo instrument. The album also includes a number of Beethoven’s most well-known overtures. The famous Coriolan Overture features alongside ‘The Creatures of Prometheus’ and the Egmont overtures.

Swiss recorder virtuoso Maurice Steger is one of the most exciting specialists on his instrument to come along since the late and lamented David Munrow, and he was already becoming an established touring artist in Europe while still a student. Having previously delivered two fine discs of Telemann and Giuseppe Sammartini chamber works, Harmonia Mundi's Venezia 1625 finds Steger as leader and coordinator of a large group of instrumentalists, though not all play at the same time; larger configurations of the ensemble dominate the first half of the program. What ties it all together is the concept, which centers on the early Baroque chamber sonata (or sinfonia) as practiced in Venice around 1625, a time and place that nearly signify the declaration of independence for Western instrumental music. Publications of that era tend to be so vague in terms of instrumentation that nearly any combination is conceivable to realize a given piece, and Steger takes full advantage of this in maki...

Hailed for her "generous temperament" and "agile and radiant voice", French soprano Julie Fuchs is a rising star in the operatic world. Named Opera Artist of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique Awards and 2nd prize winner in Operalia 2013, Ms Fuchs has an exclusive long-term contract with Universal/Deutsche Grammophon, with whom she recorded her first solo disc of French Arias with the Orchestre National de Lille in 2015: "Yes" will be released on the 11th of September 2015, with a second disc planned for 2016.  Ms Fuchs has several important house and role debuts planned. At the start of the 15-16 season she makes her Paris Opera debut as La Folie in the Laurent Pelly production of Platée (conducted by Minkowski) and later that season makes her Bayerische Staatsoper Munich debut as Musetta in La bohème . In 16-17 Julie will make her debut at the Wiener Staatsoper and sing Marie in La fille du régiment  in Lausanne. Other engage...

Sigismondo D'India was an Italian composer. Probably born in Palermo—he described himself as "nobile palermitano" in the prefaces to his works—he spent his adolescence in Naples, where there are recoirds of a Don Carlo D'India, a relative or possibly his father. Following a musical education in that city, he would have done so as part of a musical scene that included Jean de Macque who lived in Naples from 1587 and who counted amongts his pupils Gesualdo, Maione and Trabaci. During the first decade of the Seventeenth Century, D'India traveled around some of the most important courts of northern and central Italy: Mantua, Florence and Rome. He published his first printed work in 1606: Il primo libro de madrigali a cinque voci. In the preface to his Musiche of 1609, he recounts that in Florence he sang alogside two of the most celebrated figures in music, Giulio Caccini and the acclaimed virtuoso singer Vittoria Archilei. In 1611 he settled in Tu...

Conductor Laurence Equilbey continues to broaden the range of repertoire in which the choir Accentus excels. This album presents a sampling of some of Mendelssohn's (relatively) small-scale sacred choral works. Each of them demonstrates the sweet euphony characteristic of so much of the composer's writing. The single-movement cantata Verleih uns Frieden gnädiglich, and the chorus from Christus, "Es wird ein Stern aus Jacob aufgehn" are especially lovely examples of the choral serenity Mendelssohn was so skilled at creating. Christus consists of six movements from the unfinished oratorio, with three movements devoted to the Nativity and three to the Passion. In the cantatas based on Lutheran chorales, O Haupt voll blut und wunden and Vom Himmel hoch, it's easy to hear the influence of J.S. Bach in the music's contrapuntal richness and the grandeur summoned in the choral passages. The soloists, soprano Sandrine Piau, tenor Robert Getchell, and basses Markus But...

Naturally when one thinks of the words piano concerto and Russian, Rachmaninov comes to mind, but this album proves that Prokofiev is equally adept at composing a masterwork for the piano, the Piano Concerto No. 2, which is made up of four movements. Though the recording quality is a bit too soft at the beginning when the piano enters, the tone is very crisp and bright and perhaps a little too polished-sounding. Prokofiev is less tonal here than in some of his other works, and this certainly makes the concerto a challenge to play. However, Vinnitskaya is more than up to the task, as her elegant, delicate touch moves through runs in the first movement with great precision and handles lively, playful passages in the third movement with great agility. Vinnitskaya's style might be likened to a ballet dancer: supple, strong, but never ungraceful. Sometimes the phrasing in the first movement sounds mostly horizontal; that is, we get the sense of the flow of the melody, with less emphasi...

Hailed as the most influential composer of his generation, electro-acoustic polymath Max Richter defies definition: composer he may be, but he is also pianist, producer, remixer, and collaborator, and beyond argument one of the most prolific of contemporary musical artists. Inspired equally by Bach, punk rock and ambient electronica, Richter’s sonic world blends a formal classical training (he graduated from the Royal Academy of Music, and was a pupil of renowned composer Luciano Berio) with modern technology. His unique and distinctive brand of heartbroken melodicism bridges the minimalist greats with pioneering electronics and the contemporary digital music production multiverse. Time Out has remarked on the ‘overwhelming emotional power’ of his work, the New Statesman has noted its ‘astonishing depth and beauty’ while Classic FM and Pitchfork have called it ‘stunning’ and The Guardian ‘languorously transcendent’. Over the years Richter has become best known for his...

“I was homesick,” he confesses. “I had been in the US for two or three months, I was 18 years old, away from my parents for the first time, so far from home.” Many adolescents experience bouts of melancholy, but Daniil Trifonov, born in Nihzny Novgorod in 1991 and recently arrived in Cleveland, was no ordinary teenager. Trifonov transformed his feeling of longing into musical inspiration and, touched by the “musical poetry” of one of the most beloved composers of his homeland – Rachmaninov – began composing. The result was an original, five-movement work for solo piano, rich in virtuosity and lyricism, expressing Trifonov’s nostalgia for his roots. Trifonov dedicated the piece to his mentor Sergei Babayan. He called the piece Rachmaniana – “a kind of homage to Rachmaninov” , reflecting the “pianism” and “nostalgic yearn- ings” Trifonov shares with his older compatriot, who also had made a home in the New World. “I like to think,” reflects Trifonov, “that I feel a particular cultur...

In May 2015 Anne-Sophie Mutter put her noble, impressively named “Lord Dunn-Raven” Stradivarius through more than its usual paces. For a change, rather than standing on stage in one of the world’s renowned grand concert halls, she spent two evenings playing in a tiny graffiti-scrawled nightclub in the Friedrichshain district of Berlin. The name of the club was Neue Hei- mat, or “new home”, and on two evenings in early summer it was jam-packed with hip young people. The atmosphere heated up in the usual way for such clubs, but not in the usual way for Anne- Sophie Mutter’s concerts. As she later put it: “It wasn’t good for the Strad’s wood. I’m the sort of person who usually sweats discreetly beneath my clothes. But it was extremely hot in the club, and in the long run it put a big strain on the varnish. So to prevent the original varnish from becoming damaged we applied a thin protective coat to the Strad where it touches my bare skin. But any instrument over 300 years old is boun...

This debut disc from French artistic collective La Tempête and their director Simon-Pierre Bestion is, at first glance, frankly bizarre. Period instrumental and choral works by Locke and Purcell sit alongside music by Frank Martin and living French composer Thierry Pécou. Divided into a sequence of quasi-dramatic ‘acts’, the music is designed to capture the ‘plural spirit’ of Shakespeare’s The Tempest , mirroring the play’s narrative ‘without restricting itself to works actually written for the play’. It’s hard to shake the impression that this brilliant group of young musicians just wanted an excuse to perform some of their favourite pieces, but they make such a stylish job of it that it’s easy to get swept up in their wide-ranging enthusiasms. Most exciting are instrumental interludes by Matthew Locke, whose The Tempest opens the disc, and (according to some rather ponderous booklet-notes) was the inspiration for the project. Bass-anchored and percussion-driven, the...