Music is the key

Admired for his ability to manipulate tone color, Claude Debussy’s opera Pelleas et Melisande is regarded as a special masterpiece, even if it is a solitary one. Debussy was not known for opera. While Pelleas et Melisande was his only successful opera during his lifetime, it was not the only opera he composed. He made plans for future operatic projects, and he dedicated himself to two projects based on texts by Edgar Allen Poe. As the final years of his life were plagued by poor health, Debussy worked on “La Chute de la maison Usher” (The Fall of the House of Usher) until just before his death. The composer was distraught at the thought of leaving the work unfinished. He also was working on “Le Diable dans le Beffroi” (The Devil in the Belfry), but this work only survived in sketch form. English musicologist Robert Orledge, who is renowned for his expertise in early twentieth century French music, reconstructed both of these works with immense sensitivity ...

Through these selected masterpieces of the repertoire for solo cello, Emmanuelle Bertrand invites us on a journey to the heart of languages of popular inspiration. When music takes over the idioms characteristic of each culture, pushing back the limits of instrumental technique, reshaping and dismantling the rules the better to express a specific identity, then the cello truly ‘speaks’ and takes us beyond frontiers, where the souls of a people take root. This title was released for the first time in 2000/11.

The shadow of death hovers over Debussy’s Violin Sonata though you would never guess from its generally genial disposition: in 1915, with his creative urges stifled by the slaughter of the Great War (he wrote barely anything during 1914), Debussy discovered that he had cancer of the rectum, his mother died on 23 March, and his mother-in-law six days later. In the summer of 1915 he and his wife rented a house at Pourville on the Normandy coast and he began to compose again. ‘I want to work,’ he wrote to his publisher Durand, ‘not so much for myself, as to provide a proof, however small, that thirty million Boches can’t destroy French thought...’ Among the works produced in this creative outburst were the Sonatas for cello and piano and for flute, viola and harp. These were the first of a planned Six sonates pour instruments divers, par Claude Debussy – musicien français (as he now signed himself). The Sonata for violin and piano to which he turned in 1916 was to be the...

The young clarinetist Annelien Van Wauwe earned victory at the prestigious 61st Int’l ARD Music Competition in Munich 2012. On her debut GENUIN CD , recorded with pianist and fellow Belgian Lucas Blondeel, the duo features a three-piece program of Prokofiev and Weinberg. Highlighted by Prokofiev’s Op. 94 Sonata, the release is united in part by the Jewish themes and legacies apparent in the latter two of the works on this disc. Miss Van Wauwe is a regular festival invitee where she appears as both soloist and chamber musician, and has appeared as a soloist in prestigious halls throughout Europe.

The five most brilliant concertos for violin, all penned before the age of 19! Mozart was not even 15 years old when he began composing violin concertos that would serve as a backdrop at Salzburg receptions. An insatiable drive for independence would however lead the young Konzertmeister to overtly challenge musical forms, innovate with genres, humour and frivolity, all of which can be heard in this delightful first collaboration between Isabelle Faust and the musicians of Il Giardino Armonico. “These wonderful performances have the air of chamber music, of close listening between soloist, band and director. Faust isn’t spotlit…but seems part of the ensemble, her sound growing out of the corporate entity to glitter, coax, snarl and soar as required…[a] thought-provoking and eminently enjoyable cycle” (Gramophone) “ Faust and Il Giardino Armonico bring out the shades of colour in the music and revelling in the characteristic phrases, but never forcing the issue...

Katia and Marielle Labèque are sibling pianists renowned for their ensemble of synchronicity and energy. Their musical ambitions started at an early age and they rose to international fame with their contemporary rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (one of the first gold records in classical music) and have since developed a stunning career with performances worldwide. They are regular guests with the most prestigious orchestras such as the Amsterdam Royal Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonic, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Filarmonia della Scala, Philadelphia Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle and Vienna Philharmonic, under the direction of Semyon Bychkov, Lionel Bringuier, Sir Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Kristjan Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, ...

With Molière à l’opéra Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins bring their much-admired combination of Baroque musical stylishness and use of the technique of “parlé-chanté”, adding colour and contrast to the sung text, to comédies-ballets composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marc-Antoine Charpentier during the reign of Louis XIV. The musical and theatrical partnership involving Lully and Molière – they were dubbed “les deux Baptiste” – was one of the most invigorating ever entered into, marrying melody, words, acting and a shared hunger for fame. The collaboration spanned ten works over a decade from 1661. Although Molière never provided the words for a Lully “opera”, the great dramatist clearly inspired the composer who was ten years his junior, in his later tragédies lyriques, a view upheld by the essayist for this recording, Elizabeth Giuliani.  As well as presenting scenes from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, this new Glossa recording draws on the humorous end of the Molière/Lully partn...

Hewitt's remake for Hyperion deploys her personal Fazioli concert grand. The instrument's hair-trigger response to note attacks and release yields complex hues that contrast with the rounder, relatively uniform sonorities of the beautiful Steinway featured on Hewitt's 1999 recording (4/00). More importantly, the pianist's enviable polyphonic acumen and dance-orientated conception continue to operate at full capacity, albeit on a deeper and subtler level, as comparative listening reveals. As they say, the devil is in the details. For example, Hewitt tosses off Var 5's challenging cross-handed leaps more playfully, tempers Var 6's erstwhile fluctuations with greater expressive economy and allows Var 7's dialogue to flourish. Note, too, her nimbler dispatch of the Fughetta and the canon at the fourth (Var 12). By contrast, Var 19's heightened polyphony and slower tempo impart extra gravitas to the music's quasi-minuet character. Hewit...

Collegium Vocale consort from the very beginning of its artistic path (1992) have incorporated Dowland’s songs in its repertoire, and performed them for many years in various configurations. Several presentations of solo performances and duets can be heard on the album “Bonjour, mon cœur” of 2006. The idea of recording the present CD is based on the consistent use of four-voice vocal ensemble. Why? We wanted to see, how songs, which are familiar to us in solo interpretations of Emma Kirkby, Barbara Bonney, Anne Sophie von Otter, Michael Chance, Nigel Rogers, Andreas Scholl and... Sting (among others), would sound in full 4-parts vocal performance. Do they lose its lightness, appeal and charm, or—in the contrary—the listener would discover more nuances, new layers of expression, hard to find in instrumental interpretations lacking words? Of course, we leave the evaluation of the effect to the audience.  We invite to listen to a selection of most popular songs of John Dowl...

T here are thousands of vocal and instrumental settings of Shakespeare's texts, drawn from his comedies, tragedies and sonnets alike. The music celebrating his verse covers more than four centuries: this fascination has lived on into the 20th century and does not appear to be running out of steam. A linguistic virtuoso, a master of human emotions, an expert in Machiavellian stories of intrigue and tyranny, and a bard of love and of the moment - these are but a few of the many facets of the Shakespearian message. We follow him into the heart of humanity and its excesses, from madness to the burlesque , from despair to bonhomie , from hatred of one's fellow man to universal love. So is it really surprising that so many composers in so many languages have used such a rich tapestry of humanity, or that we - the singers at the end of this great chain - have decided to devote a recital to him? Several figures recur: Ophelia “in her sweet madness” and Desdemona in he...

It was in August 1976 at the Lucerne Festival that Anne-Sophie Mutter first set foot on the world’s stage. She was thirteen at the time. The following year she made her Salzburg Whitsun Festival debut under Herbert von Karajan, and a year after that her first recording was released by Deutsche Grammophon. The words “child prodigy” inevitably appeared in the newspapers. “I was half-aware of what was being said,” the violinist recalls, “but it was of little interest to me. I knew that I was a child. And the ‘prodigy’ part struck me as somehow comical.” To become world-famous as a teenager practically overnight was gratifying, of course, but it was also an emotional and a mental challenge. “As a result I learnt from a very early age to adopt a realistic attitude to all that was written about me and to place a certain distance between it and my private life.” This down-to-earth attitude was to prove useful to Anne-Sophie Mutter, for what followed was an international career...

Between chamber music and solo recital, Hugues Chabert has chosen not to choose, bringing together in his debut album the two inseparable components of his life as a pianist. Oscillating between deep interiority and expressive generosity, the Etudes-tableaux op.39 and Cello sonata op.39 are pure jewels of instrumental lyricism, introducing two facets of Rachmaninov's music.

It is rare for an artist to break through the boundaries of classical music stardom and achieve recognition in the wider world, but Anna Netrebko has achieved that and more. In a recording career stretching a mere dozen years she has not only seduced the classical scene with the beauty of her voice, her superb vocal control and supreme musicality, she has also become an interna­tional icon. More than an operatic diva, Anna Netrebko is an enormously charismatic individual whose vivacious style and dazzling stage presence are as celebrated as her musical artistry. Her future plans include her latest return to the Met, this time as Manon Lescaut (November / December 2016), and appearances as Lady Macbeth at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich (December 2016). Before that, she will give three concert performances of Manon Lescaut at this summer’s Salzburg Festival, starring opposite her husband, tenor Yusif Eyvazov, with whom she will also give concerts in Hamburg an...

“I work in between the cracks,” says vocalist/composer/performance artist Meredith Monk, “where the voice starts dancing, the body starts singing, the theatre becomes cinema.” In a way, everything she does is about ecology – that interconnectedness; those wild vocal noises – and On Behalf of Nature is a treatise without text, an outcry without words. She wants the work: “to expand our awareness of what we are in danger of losing”, and she does that by making music that sounds as if it comes from the earth, feet planted in the mud, voices erupting and gusting and keening. As a live show its physical gestures were a bit stilted and obscure; for me it’s more articulate as music alone. And though Monk’s incredible technical range is going, the softer stuff is still enthrallingly playful and ritualistic. Sometimes it feels weird being a bystander to her music: this kind of elemental rite should involve us all. ( Kate Molleson / The Guardian) With her latest, multivalent ECM ...

The Musical intoxication of a great era: on 7 September, 2002, Sir Simon Rattle was appointed new Principal Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, marking the start of a new and memorable era for the world of music. Rattle has opened up new repertoire channels for the musicians, endowed the tradition-steeped ensemble with a youthful image and established the inimitable 'Rattle Sound'. Great moments – brought together here for the first time on 3 CDs.

Gustavo Dudamel and the Wiener Philharmoniker release their latest recording with Deutsche Grammophon, an all-Russian album out now.The album couples two selections by Mussorgsky –  Pictures at an Exhibition , orchestrated by Ravel, and  A Night on Bald Mountain  – with Tchaikovsky's Waltz from  Swan Lake .  While making the album at Vienna's Musikverein in April 2016, Gustavo and members of the orchestra participated in workshops alongside young people from the El Sistema-inspired Superar. The program is based in one of Vienna's most ethnically and culturally diverse neighborhoods and offers music lessons to around 900 children between the ages of five and sixteen. "For our current recording project, a wonderful program of Russian delights, the Wiener Philharmoniker and I have joined forces with children from Superar, offering young people of a range of backgrounds the opportunity to engage with themes from Mussorgsky's  Pictures at an Exhib...