Mariss Jansons / Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks BRUCKNER Symphonie Nr. 8

The genesis of Anton Bruckner's Eighth Symphony was probably affected by a bout of sudden fame that boosted the composer’s constantly shaky self-confidence. After the performance of Bruckner’s Seventh, the famous conductor Hermann Levi had hailed him as "the greatest symphonist since the death of Beethoven". Frequently ridiculed in Vienna, Bruckner had finally been taken seriously in Munich: his importance had been recognized, and the Austrian emperor had awarded him the Order of Franz Joseph – something that filled Bruckner with very special pride. In the summer of 1884 he set to work on a new symphony, and in August 1887, after three years of work, the symphony was completed. Because of energetic objections from Levi, however, it was not immediately performed. Bruckner revised his work thoroughly between October 1887 and March 1890, and the premiere of the Eighth Symphony in its new version finally took place on December 18, 1892, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Hans Richter. It was an extraordinary success. Hugo Wolf described the concert as follows: "It was an absolute victory of light over darkness, and the storm of delighted applause was like some elemental manifestation of nature. In short, it was a triumph as complete as any Roman emperor could have wished for." Since then, Bruckner's Eighth Symphony has been an integral part of the symphonic repertoire, yet it still continues to present a huge challenge to performers. Mariss Jansons and the musicians of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks are however more than equal to the extraordinary demands made by this masterpiece. The recording of the Munich concert event of November 2017 has now been released by BR-KLASSIK: it is an exemplary performance of one of the most important compositions of the Late Romantic symphonic repertoire, in its version of 1890.

Orchestre national d'île-de-France / Enrique Mazzola / Rex Lawson DARIUS MILHAUD La Bien-Aimée IGOR STRAVINSKY L'Oiseau de feu

The origins of this CD are unique. e story begins a few years ago, when I met Rex Lawson, an imaginative musician who is probably the world's foremost pianola virtuoso.

The day I visited his studio, which contained thousands of pianola rolls, I felt as though I was entering a cave of Ali Baba. All these old rolls, all this forgotten music, were enough to leave any musician dumbfounded! Rex immediately piqued my curiosity by telling me that a piece for pianola and orchestra composed by Milhaud and first performedin Paris in 1928, on the same evening as Ravel's Bolero, had fallen into oblivion. That's when a kind of treasure hunt began. Rex found the orchestra score (the original!) at Northwestern University, in the United States.

Meanwhile, the publisher Universal came up with the orchestral material, which of course matched up perfectly with the score. Last, but by no means least, Rex Lawson heroically produced a new roll for the pianola part. Next, a conductor had to be found who would want to perform the piece again. That's where I came in! So that's how, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, La Bien-Aimée was brought back to life after going unheard for many years. What a pleasure to discover the pages of this score, which had never been recorded; to sit at the piano and imagine Milhaud developing the bits of piano music of Schubert and Liszt, the orchestration, sometimes comical, sometimes very refined; and then to listen to the roll that Rex had reconstructed. The experience was so exhilarating that we decided to make this recording with the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France. (Enrique Mazzola)

Jürg Frey BEUGER - CAGE

Clarinetist Jürg Frey performs two works, one composed by Antoine Beuger and one by John Cage, both related to time, or of becoming and of unceasing becoming, pieces using silence in powerful sound structures, contrasting empty moments with the complexity of individual sound. 

 "The movement which occurs throughout the program played here by Jürg Frey, is one of becoming, of unceasing becoming; that means: of time. Becoming has no starting point and no desire to reach a close. lt cannot be localized. lt is unseizable, even in the smallest interval between two points in time. lt occurs imperceptibly, in the simultaneity of "not yet" and "already gone". Becoming is never presence. That is why becoming occurs in silence. lt appears as though nothing takes place - then, as it turns out, something irreversible has happened.

In "dialogues (silence)" by Antoine Beuger; this concept is made perceptible. Each sound structure is preceded and followed by silence. Between the silence after a sound structure and the silence before the next one, one hears the sound of a page being turned: the sound of silence between the silences.

When music abandons itself to complexity, tapping into the infinity of possible differences in sound, becoming also occurs, as it were, while one's back is turned. lt is never equal to what is going on, but merely passes through.

"Music for One" by John Cage is characterized by the presence of both directions: infinite extension of the moment in silence; infinite diminution of the time-space in complexity. lt is however not the diversity which distinguishes this music, but its equanimity." (Editions Wandelweiser)

GALINA USTWOLSKAJA Sinfonie Nr. 3 WOLFGANG RIHM Musik für Klarinette und Orchester BERND ALOIS ZIMMERMANN Photoptosis

This disc comprises three live performances from Munich’s Musica Viva Festival: the works by Ustvolskaya and Bernd Alois Zimmermann from the same concert in December 1998‚ the Rihm – a world première – from November 1999. The rather raw recorded sound reflects the constraints of these occasions‚ as do the rough edges of the orchestral playing‚ but the strong‚ and very strongly contrasted character of these compositions is arrestingly immediate. Zimmermann’s Photoptosis (1968) is the earliest piece‚ a reflection on the biblical phrase ‘and there was light’ which opens up an increasingly dazzling range of textures while – 1960s­style – incorporating a range of quotations and allusions on its way to a turbulently ecstatic conclusion.
Markus Stenz homes in on the music’s broad effects‚ and the result is far more than a mere revival. Photoptosis remains highly contemporary‚ and also offers the strongest possible contrast to the primitive yet forcefully characterised austerity of Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No 3 (1983).
Ustvolskaya’s music is unsparing in its refusal to elaborate‚ a quality which might earn it the label of ‘minimalist’ were the musical atmosphere less desolate. Named after the short‚ psalm­like poem which a reciter intones on two occasions during its 18­minute course‚ this plea to Jesus to ‘save us’ offers no spiritual consolation‚ but portrays a world from which salvation has been eternally withdrawn. The scoring is weird yet startlingly effective – five each of oboes‚ trumpets and double basses‚ a trombone and three tubas‚ various drums and a prominent piano – and‚ to me‚ the effect is the more unsettling for being utterly devoid of ambiguity.
Rihm’s music is rarely light­hearted‚ either‚ but this half­hour clarinet concerto‚ written in 1999‚ is constructed with skill and subtlety‚ the prevailing tone of lyric melancholy offset by more mercurial‚ agitated episodes. The tirelessly active solo line is challenged by the accompanying orchestra in various ways‚ creating a wordless drama that is all the more involving for Rihm’s characteristic tendency to evoke traditional shapes and modes of expression while leaving their precise provenance in doubt. Jörg Widmann is a charismatic soloist‚ and the evident tensions of the live occasion enhance the power of the experience on disc. All three compositions are guaranteed to get you thinking as well as listening. (Gramophone)

SWR Sinfonieorchester / Sylvain Cambreling HELMUT LACHENMANN Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern

Concertante recording of Helmut Lachenmann’s groundbreaking opera, and the first to feature the revised version, the so-called “Tokyo-Fassung” which the composer now regards as definitive. The opera, while loosely based on Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale is not a work that admits of a single “meaning”, its plotline is multiple and diffuse, but an undercurrent of social criticism is implied as Lachenmann views the pauper (The Little Match Girl), the terrorist (Gudrun Ensslin)and the visionary artist (Da Vinci) all as outsiders, figures on the fringes of society, driven to the margins by circumstances and by society’s coldness, and, in consequence, playing with fire in their responses. Coldness, figuratively and literally, is one of the opera’s subjects. Extreme cold and burning desire, as attitudes and conditions, counterpoint each other in the music. The action evolves through the suggestibility of the sounds which Lachenmann deploys like no one else and with a poetry all his own. “Not only is ‘The Little Match Girl’ by far the biggest work of one of Europe’s most esteemed composers, but it magnifies the qualities of strangeness and intensity, of huge but frustrated power, that have given him his reputation” (Paul Griffiths, The New York Times)

WOMEN OF NOTE

Clara Schumann's recently recovered G-Minor Sonata['s]...bold gestures and the strong development of its ideas, especially in the substantial and stormy first movement, offer plenty of rewards, both emotional and intellectual... And while the excerpts from Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's The Year fit more comfortably into the orthodox parameters of music for (advanced) domestic use, they do so with exquisite polish... Highly recommended to anyone intrigued by the repertoire. (Peter J. Rabinowitz)

Lasting a shade under twenty minutes, Zwilich's Third Symphony is large in scale. Sinewy, assertive and confident, it is very much in the tradition of the Great American Third Symphonies of the 30s and 40s. As is the case with some of her music from the past decade or so, Shostakovich is the muse in some of the symphony's timbres, rhythms, power, and intensity... Marked Largo, the third movement cyclically revisits the first. Its midsection is strikingly dark and somber... This CD is a release of a major importance. Top recommendation. (Benjamin Pernick)

The great find of this release, however, and reason to rush out and buy it, is Galina Ustvolskaya. Born in 1919, one of the most important students of Shostakovich, and longtime resident of St. Petersburg, her music is fiercely original. I find myself almost at a loss for words to describe it. Simple motives are reiterated and developed with a sort of hypnotic force, but the os.tinati are never “cheap.“ Every gesture seems won through a titanic struggle. This is deeply spiritual music, but informed as much by anguish as transcendence... [B]y the 1988 sonata, Ustvolskaya is completely her own composer. It is only six and a half minutes long, but its thunderous, relentless low clusters (brutal sound-masses, yet still full of harmonic meaning) make it unique among piano music I have heard over the last decade, and its intensity suggests a piece far larger than its real-time duration. Though I have heard some of her music over the radio, and though I know a boomlet of her music is emerging on CD, this is my first encounter with Ustvolskaya on disc, and it has been shattering, the type of discovery that adventurous listeners dream of. (Robert Carl)

Evelyn Glennie / Singapore Symphony Orchestra / Lan Shui ORIENTAL LANDSCAPES

It has often been said that Western composers came into contact with percussion and percussion music at the time of the Paris World Fair at the very end of the 19^th Century. From this time, so called exotic instruments made their way into Western music thanks to composers such as Stravinsky, Milhaud (who may well have composed the first percussion concerto of all times), Bartók, Varèse, Jolivet and Messiaen, to name but a few. Since then there have been many works for percussion, often drawing their musical inspiration from the East and the Far East. This is the common feature shared by the four pieces recorded here.

Hovhaness’s interest in Eastern cultures is well-known and many of his numerous works, both small and large, have been inspired by Japan or Bali. His xylophone concerto Fantasy on Japanese Wood Prints Op.211 composed in 1965 is one such work. Its title rather suggests a suite of short colourful sketches capped by a lively dance section. Most Hovhaness hallmarks are there, most prominently, modally inflected themes. This colourful work has already been recorded (at least) once before (played by Robert van Sice who nevertheless chose to perform it on marimba rather than on xylophone [Etcetera KTC 1085]).

Thea Musgrave has composed a number of superb and highly inventive concertos, most of which have been recorded at one time or another. However, her Journey through a Japanese Landscape for marimba and wind ensemble, completed in 1994 and first performed in Cheltenham that year by Evelyn Glennie and the RNCM Wind Ensemble conducted by Timothy Reynish, is new to the catalogue. It is based on a series of Japanese haikai representing the seasons of the year. (A pity, though, that these short poems are not printed in the otherwise excellent notes.) As might be expected, this is another fine example of Musgrave’s imaginative and colourful writing. This piece is a worthy successor to her earlier concertos and a most welcome addition to her discography.

Chen Yi and Zhou Long, husband and wife incidentally, are both Chinese-born composers in their late forties. Both, too, are highly representative of Chinese composers whose early composing efforts were cut short by the so-called Cultural Revolution that – ironically enough – aimed first and foremost at suppressing rather than highlighting the pre-Communist Chinese cultural past. Thus, when allowed to resume their musical studies, they – and other Chinese composers – turned to their country’s musical and cultural past, as it were, as a reaction and an exorcism as well. Their music includes a number of features of early Chinese music in an attempt at reconciling Eastern thinking with Western musical techniques. This is quite evident in Chen’s substantial Percussion Concerto of 1998 written for and first performed by Evelyn Glennie with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lan Shui. The first movement draws on a tune from the traditional Beijing opera Farewell to my Concubine whereas the second movement is a realisation of a poem Prelude to Water Tune in which the percussion player also declaims the words imitating "the exaggerated reciting style of Beijing opera". The last movement Speedy Wind is a lively, rhythmically alert piece of music including a cadenza for percussion leading into the work’s fiery conclusion. As a whole, the piece is quite impressive and quite attractive, though it may be a bit too long. It is nevertheless quite rewarding.

The cultural world of the Tang dynasty (618 – 907) apparently means much to Zhou and has had a lasting influence on his music. His subtly scored Two Poems from Tang was selected for the 1997 Masterprize and was recorded that year by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Harding. His Out of Tang Court recorded here is scored for a Tang ensemble (i.e. gu-zheng [a 21-string Chinese zither], pi-pa [a 4-string lute] and er-hu [a 2-string vertical fiddle]) and orchestra. Its is a subtly and delicately piece of music of great beauty. No doubt, the real gem in this most interesting release.

Performances here could not be bettered and are superbly recorded. A rather unusual release, maybe, but a most enjoyable and interesting one opening many new musical vistas. Not for Glennie’s fans only. (Hubert Culot)

Daan Vandewalle ALVIN CURRAN Inner Cities

Inner Cities are where you go to get debriefed, to dance a tarantella with Gurdjieff; to see Italo Calvino greet Giordano Bruno in Campo De’ Fiori; to play low C 78 times and low D-flat once for Giacinto Scelsi’s 79th birthday; to hear Louis Armstrong fuse time and space in Providence, and Ella, Peanuts Hucko, and Brubeck fill a Newport stadium unamplified; to watch Cage and Braxton play chess in Washington Square Park; to roll around in a pile of rags with Pistoletto and Simone Forti; to listen to Ezra Pound’s silence by the Grand Canal; to hear Julian Beck say "Paradise Nooow....." and years later on film say "I wuz bawn in a garbage can"; to become a composer in the Coolidges’ apple tree; to hear Miles and Coltrane blow minds at Storyville (price, one coca-cola); to listen to Cy Twombly just back from the Gobi desert; to meet Diana in her temple on Lake Nemi; to hear Art Tatum play the whole world from memory; to record, for Perlini’s "Otello", a tin can rolling through a Venetian church; to give an impromtu ram’s-horn concert for Palestinian shopkeepers; to ride with a New York cabbie nuts about Gubaidulina; to sit at Patience Gray’s table; to plant a Magnetic Garden in the Beat 72 theater; to make love with a Jewish Rhein-maiden; to help Giuseppe Chiari remix Palazzo Strozzi and Robert Ashley collect dust from the union-floor of Local 802; to hear fog-horns with the Narragansett Indians; to cook funghi porcini for Luigi Nono in Berlin-Friedenau; to meet Morty Feldman on Eighth Street; to make the Ligurian coast into watercolormusic with Edith Schloss; to hang with the Carrara anarchists and the Bertolucci’s in Tellaro where DH Lawrence had his piano delivered by mules; to get booed off the floor staging Korean folk songs in Darmstadt; to listen for Messaien in Birdland; to hear Evan Parker play the Festa dell'Unita and George Lewis play the Tower of Pisa; to see and hear Annea Lockwood’s astounding glass concert at the Middle Earth; to be sitting in a room with Alvin Lucier; to hear Thelonius Monk detune time at the Five-Spot; to observe Sartre and Beauvoir drinking Campari from a window on Piazza Navona; to accompany ventriloquists, hypnotists, sirtos dancers, and bouzouki players in the Catskills; to watch Lenny Michaels dance the mambo at Susan’s Piano-Bar and Grill; to see Steve Lacy play his soprano sax with his left leg; to blow shofar to Judith Malina’s Shelley; to split the MEV door at the Obitorio; to copy for Cardew while he rolled the revolution on the banks of the Tiber; to play on a Holland American Ocean Liner which later catches fire and sinks; to wish that Meredith Monk, Diamanda Galas, Joan La Barbara, Billie Holiday would sing from the minarets five times a day; to play Dixieland in the Brussels World’s Fair across from Varese and Xenakis’ Phillips Pavillion; to play "An American in Paris" in Dahomey with John Sebastian Sr. on harmonica; to witness real Balinese dance in trance; to accidentally step on Dietrich Fischer Dieskau's foot backstage at the Akademie der Kunste; to record an interview with King Hussein of Jordan; to watch Trisha Brown levitate on Bach in San Francisco; to help Cage squeeze lemons into his fresh taboule on 18th Street and watch David Tudor mix chili peppers and lasers at the Grand Hotel des Palmes; to play the Sydney Harbour like a bandoneon; to teach advanced-orchestration in the Greek Theater at Mills College with Pauline Oliveros and the ghost of Harry Partch; to shake Stravinsky's hand in the American Sector-Berlin and Varese’s in New Haven; to watch Kosugi dance his electric violin around Marcus Aurelius; to get thrown off stage in London as a warmup act for the Pink Floyd; to meet Stockhausen at a strobe-light show in Düsseldorf; to open windows on Cage’s cue for adding real cold air to his Winter Music; to camp out with Teitelbaum and Rzewski for Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point; to hear Terry and LaMonte’s landmark concerts at the Attico in Rome; to help Charlotte Moorman and Nam June Paik get an introduction to the Pope; to nearly get sequestered along with Arnold Dreyblatt’s instruments at the Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof; to play the "Tennessee Waltz" with a banjo-band in Florence; to hear Maryanne Amacher make sound circle your head in her Boston harbor basement; to have tea and guffaws with Helen and Elliott; to play "Drumming" with Steve Reich in Pamplona; to bury 80 loudspeakers under Melissa’s Floor Plan in Linz and feed hay to a Diskklavier in Donaueschingen; to play with the original Scratch Orchestra; to make 300 people in 6 countries who cannot see or hear one another play together on the radio; to drink a Turka-Cola at the foot of Mt. Ararat; to hear Scelsi’s piano sonata on the car radio in central Anatolia; to make a concert of shiphorns in the "Golf of Poets"; to be 5 years old in Central Falls, Rhode Island, sitting next to my father in the trombone section at the Sunday afternoon Vaudeville show. (Alvin Curran 14.8.04)

Ann Roux / Marieanne Lee / Lionel Desmeules NICOLAS CAPRON Premier Livre de Sonates à Violon Seul et Basse

Nicolas Capron dedicated his First book of sonatas for violin solo and basso continuo to the Count of Lauraguais, a man of intelligence and extravagant figure, immensely rich and learned. Here, we are continually impressed and moved by the composer’s extraordinary abundance and expressive variety of musical motifs; were there words, it would be akin to taking part in a musical drama displaying a complete range of emotions, from tragical to comical. Capron chisels each of his propositions by finely combining mode, range, rhythm, accompaniment, and then multiplies its expression by juxtaposing motifs with contrasting affects. He enhances his writing with numerous technical prowesses that also contribute to its expressivity, in particular the use of the highest pitch of the violin, which can produce the effect of an echo, of surprise or moving fragility. Graceful and unexpected passages in staccato-legato also appear here and there to charm the listener. Often, his fast movements include developments with raging arpeggios, as dazzling as formidable; his slow movements are moving both by their simplicity and trueness of expression. In one word, the Capron sonatas are a magnificent example of galant style music.

Brasil Guitar Duo / Delaware Symphony Orchestra / David Amado LEO BROUWER The Book of Signs PAULO BELLINATI Concerto Caboclo

Two Twenty-first century concertos written for guitar duos from Latin America’s foremost composers, the Cuban, Leo Brouwer, and from Brazil, Paulo Bellinati. Almost an octogenarian, Brouwer has been hugely prolific in his supply of music for guitar, and in the past I have been rather ambivalent towards his deluge of scores that include twelve guitar concertos. His first concerto for two guitars, named The Book of Signs, was completed in 2003, and I would unhesitatingly describe it as the finest work I have heard from him. Rather unusual in construction, and relying on Beethoven’s piano work, 32 Variations in C minor, for the first movement’s thematic material, his skill in creating the complexity in interweaving the two instruments is continually intriguing. Enclose this in Latin American rhythms and a pro-active string orchestra, and the score certainly needed a slow movement to reduce the radiant temperature. With more than a passing relationship to a romantic Hollywood film sound-track, it leads to a final Allegro in the form of a tricky Rondo with a sentimental central section. In total, the work plays for around three quarters of an hour, and more than twice the length of Bellinati’s Concerto Caboclo. Completed in 2011, and with a full orchestral accompaniment, it is just one step away from the world of ‘pop’ music, with tunes you will think you have heard somewhere before in the opening movement, and in direct descent of Rodrigo in the finale. The Brasil Duo is technically superb in the complex passages from Brouwer, and suitably smooth in the smoochy Bellinati. Very effective orchestral participation from Delaware and their conductor, David Amado. The recording quality is outstanding in every aspect. (David Denton)

Voces Suaves / Jörg-Andreas Bötticher COME TO MY GARDEN, MY SISTER, MY BELOVED

Voces Suaves, which performs Renaissance and Baroque music with solo voices, is a vocal en- semble based in Basel (Switzerland). Taking into account the insights of historical performance practice, the ensemble strives for captivating rhetoric combined with a warm and full overall sound that makes the music come alive with emotion. By virtue of the intensive collaboration, a great familiarity within the musical work has evolved. 

The ensemble, founded in 2012 by Tobias Wicky, is made up of a core of eight professional singers of whom most have a connection with the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. The ensemble’s character has been shaped together with Francesco Saverio Pedrini, who directed it until 2016. Since then it works without a permanent director, but maintains frequent collaborations with Jörg-Andreas Bötticher and Johannes Strobl. 

The repertoire contains a broad selection of Italian madrigals, works of the Early German Baroque, and larger-scaled Italian oratorios and Masses. In planning the programs, care is taken to include works by forgotten composers, such as Lodovico Agostini or Giovanni Croce, alongside those of well-known masters like Monteverdi or Schütz. 

Voces Suaves regularly joins together with other ensembles in order to perform larger-scale works. Since 2015 various recordings have been released and have been honored with interna- tional prizes (including the Diapason découverte).

Justin Taylor CONTINUUM

Following his First Prize at the Bruges Competition and his first album, devoted to the Forqueray family (Choc of the Year in Classica, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros), the Franco American harpsichordist Justin Taylor has recently been awarded the Révélation Musicale Prize of the French Critics’ Circle. His career has developed rapidly, both as soloist (harpsichordist and also fortepianist) and as director of his ensemble, the Taylor Consort, with which Alpha will soon be recording... For his second recital, Justin Taylor juxtaposes Scarlatti and Ligeti, two composers whose periods and universes seem so remote from each other, yet who show numerous affinities: in their inventiveness, the virtuosity of their respective languages and their common urge to push the keyboard to its very limits.

Continuum builds a bridgehead between these two hypersensitive composers by intertwining Ligeti’s three emblematic (and spectacular!) pieces for solo harpsichord with sonatas by Scarlatti.

Justin Taylor LA FAMILLE FORQUERAY

In recent years it has become commonplace to attribute the 1747 Forqueray Pièces (issued in two versions – one for bass viol, the other for harpsichord) mainly to the son, Jean-Baptiste, who published after his father Antoine’s death. This superbly conceived and produced debut recording suggests we should think again.

Even the young, Franco-American harpsichordist Justin Taylor himself attributes the two 1747 suites on this disc– at least in their final form – to Jean-Baptiste Forqueray. Yet Taylor’s own polished arrangement of a manuscript three-movement Suite pour trois violes by ‘Monsieur Forcroy’ (an earlier spelling often used to refer to Antoine) – if it is indeed by the father and not the son – bears many of the same musical fingerprints. Within the ingratiating Allemande lurks a popular song. The seductive Courante has such exuberance and momentum that evokes the mercurial Antoine. The piquant harmonic progressions in the poetic Sarabande presage those found in the 1747 suites. Viol scholars think of these pieces as less technically demanding than those of the 1747 collection. Taylor, having carefully studied the latter, has nevertheless ensured that the former are similarly styled. Some might say that, like Jean-Baptiste, he has muddied the waters; others will feel he has realised the music’s potential.

The disc opens appropriately with an unpretentious but nevertheless accomplished unmeasured Prelude, also attributed to Antoine, then follows it with a thoughtfully commanding performance of the first 1747 suite. Two aspects of his interpretation stand out: the breathtaking range and subtlety of his rubato and the unexpected slivers of rhetorical silence he deftly inserts. The final movement of the suite, ‘La Couperin’, is juxtaposed with Couperin’s own keyboard portrait of Antoine, though here Taylor respectfully curbs his inégalité. Duphly’s exquisite homage to Jean-Baptiste (and the 1747 collection) leads on to the Forquerays’ monumental Fifth Suite, played with affection and panache.

Winning first prize at the 2015 Musica Antiqua Festival in Bruges enabled Taylor to make this recording, which itself is destined to win him fresh accolades. (Julie Anne Sadie / Gramophone)

JÜRG FREY L'âme est sans retenue I

Swiss composer Jürg Frey's six hour long electronic tape piece L'ame est sans retenue I was recorded and assembled in 1997/98 and is now being released for the first time. It is the longest piece Frey has ever composed in his over 40 year career. 

In this piece, Frey utilized the sounds of field recordings he made in Berlin in 1997 as the source materials, alternately inserted between long stretches of silence. Frey was particularly focusing around that time on how the dynamic relation between sound and silence can affect our perception of the silence in a frame of space and time. By using the environmental sounds of field recordings and silence as materials, which was an unusual method of composing music at that time, Frey created a subtle but captivating flow over the six hours in which nearly imperceptible pitches, rhythms, dynamics, textures, overtone - all emanating from the natural environment - are faintly consonant with each other. “It’s about how ‘normal’, ‘regular’ things are transformed - by the work of composing, by decisions, by intuition, by the ear - to an art work.” (Jürg Frey) 

The title “L'ame est sans retenue I” is a quotation of a single, isolated sentence from French poet and writer Edmond Jabès’s book Désir d'un commencement, Angoisse d'une seule fin (Desire for a Beginning, Dread of One Single End). The simple clear-cut structure and slightly enigmatic, ambiguous air of Frey’s L'ame est sans retenue I echo with the world of Jabès’s book, in which a large portion of white space (silence) is distinctly present between blocks of sentences and a list of evocative keywords create introspective, silent, distant atmosphere. 

Miriam Feuersinger / Capricornus Consort Basel CHRISTOPH GRAUPNER Himmlische Stunden, selige Zeiten

The ubiquitous presence of the Bach cantatas in posthumous reception and present-day performance practice easily obscures the fact that the Central German church music of the Baroque distinguished itself through a preponderantly different appearance. Bach’s aspiration to develop all the combinatorial possibilities and his quite problematic equalisation of orchestral compactness and vocal lines rather represent a special case that, not by chance, came into con ict with new ideals of comprehensibility and definitude.

The extensive cantata oeuvre of Christoph Graupner, only parts of which have been apprehended until now, is audibly orientated towards a different goal: to promote devotion through emotional clarity, thus gratifying the connoisseur without making undue demands on amateurs. Graupner’s music aims to grab hold of the listener without losing intellectual elegance and the composure which is a courtly public’s due. His credo of the utmost possible “Simplicität”, laid down in the preface to the Darmstadt Chorale Book in 1728, must not be misunderstood, however: Graupner’s cantatas speak a comprehensible, but thoroughly elevated and markedly intellectual language. Unlike the sovereign, easily grasped Telemann and the often ingeniously plain Stölzel, Graupner prefers a refined elaboration with a hidden, deeper meaning that is not always easily accessible and audibly reckons with an informed interpreter. When we read in a 1781 Darmstadt testimonial about Graupner that he “linked art with nature, splendour with simplicity, charm with beauty” and thus “brought about ... edification and enjoyment”, then these were compliments from the eighteenth-century point of view to which a Sebastian Bach, for example, could hardly lay claim.

Tippett Quartet MENDELSSOHN String Quartets Op. 80, Opp. 12 & 13

An exciting new collaboration between Somm Recordings and the Tippett Quartet begins with striking performances of early and late string quartets by Mendelssohn. Fiercely imbued with the spirit of Beethoven, Mendelssohn’s Opp. 12, 13 and 80 quartets brim and boil with an innovation, dynamism, emotional sincerity and technical flair some would deny the composer. These deeply felt performances from the Tippett Quartet present Mendelssohn in a new light and challenge Hans von Bülow’s notorious observation that he “began as a genius and ended as a talent.” All three quartets – Op. 13, composed when Mendelssohn was just 18-years-old, and Op. 80, his last major work, completed two months before his death at 38 – speak movingly of loss. Op. 12 laments the passing of Beethoven, Op. 13 regrets unrequited love, Op. 80 an inconsolable response to the death of Mendelssohn’s sister, Fanny. The earlier works, the Tippett Quartet says, “command an astounding expressive power and technical prowess with all the exuberance and intensity of a young man searching for the sublime and the profound.” Mendelssohn’s last significant musical utterance, the valedictory Op. 80, “turns his sense of loss, grief and, most of all, anger into a truly sublime work of art”. “When we were recording them,” says the Tippett Quartet, “it felt like we were playing brand new pieces by a living composer, not works that carry, and have become burdened by, the weight of tradition”. These poignant, powerful, emotionally raw, musically rich performances make persuasive claim for music of passion, poetry and profundity and offer fresh insights into Mendelssohn as he was meant to be played.

Miriam Feuersinger / Les Escapades HABE DEINE LUST AN DEM HERREN

The outstanding musical significance of Johann Rosenmüller, who was said to be able to merge Italian sensuality and German “gravitas” in his compositions in the most harmonious way, was already undisputed among his contemporaries. He studied in Leipzig, and quite soon the town council realized that he was a musician of an immense talent. Rosenmüller therefore received a position at the famous Leipzig Thomasschule, and was considered as the future successor of the ill Thomaskantor, Tobias Michael. His future would actually have been secured at that point if a scandal had not shaken the Leipzig music scene in the spring of 1655: Johann Rosenmüller was imprisoned due to alleged homosexual activities. But he could escape from prison and flee to Italy; he lived in Venice for 25 years before he could return to Germany. But also during the time of his exile he went on composing for German courts; Rosenmüller’s music was so highly esteemed that hardly any court orchestra in the German-speaking countries could afford to neglect his works in their repertoire selection.

The Rosenmüller sacred concertos recorded on this album are combined with equally fine compositions of less-known German contemporaries such as Johann Balthasar Erben, Augustin Pfleger, Christian Flor and others. The soprano Miriam Feuersinger is a specialist for sacred music of the German Baroque and was awarded with the famous German “Echo Klassik” in 2014 for her album with cantatas by Graupner. Nearly all the sacred concertos by Rosenmüller and his contemporaries chosen for her new CD are world premiere recordings.

Peter Eötvös / Ensemble Modern HELMUT LACHENMANN Schwankungen am Rand

The New York Times recently asked the question "Who is the most influential European composer of the moment?" and answered that no name "comes to mind more immediately than that of Helmut Lachenmann: The best of his work takes you by the hand and will not let you go until it has shown you things you could not have suspected."

The first New Series disc by the great German composer/inventor resounds with startling sound-events, realized brilliantly – and dramatically – by the Ensemble Modern and the Ensemble Modern Orchestra, under the inspired direction of Peter Eötvös. These compositions from 1974/75, 1983/84 and 1992 represent key moments in Lachenmann's restless voyage of sound-discovery. But as he reminds us, uncovering "new" sounds is but the beginning of the process: "The discovery of a sound, or even a new soundscape ... does not merely open up a new creative paradise to the composer; at the start it generates 'problems' ... It is, after all, a question of the permanent opening up of aural perception..."

In an insightful liner note, Lachenmann writes of the way in which the composing of "Schwankungen am Rand" („Fluctuations at the Edge“) changed his work and his life: "When the project was completed, I was no longer the person I had been; I was ready for adventures in other thought zones. Finally, I seemed to have arrived at a place that allowed me to look in all directions..." The compositional process had been a laborious one. Taking his cue from the "thunder sheets" used in his former teacher Luigi Nono's Diario Pollacco I, Lachenmann had spent weeks exploring the sound properties of sheets of steel: "I began banging on them every which way, dragging them across the floor over soft and hard surfaces, plying them with metal rods. I struck them, scraped them, dropped them edge first onto the floor, so that the glissando-ing metal sheet bent, doubled up, contorted, acquired nicks ... and at some point these objects turned into radically deformed monster violins with super-pizzicato-fluido sounds, or they took on the character of huge, exceedingly reverberant flexatones ..." An ensemble was implied of real and imaginary instruments, incorporating "an arsenal made up of sources of sonance and resonance ranging all the way to the naked white noises of loudspeakers, 'crumple zones' of crushed wrapping paper crackling, and expansive echo chambers." In the process, Lachenmann found himself asking what, in this context, does a tone, an interval, a chord, a figure, mean? And what, indeed, is music?

"Schwankungen am Rand" is an important pioneering work, and one that prompts Jürg Stenzl, in a CD booklet essay to assert that, to certain extent Lachenmann "reinvented instrumental music [...] To claim that Lachenmann's works present a challenge is seemingly to state the obvious. But our musical culture has scarcely anything so exciting, fascinating, moving and terrifying to offer its inquisitive listeners as the music of Helmut Lachenmann."
Both the Ensemble Modern and its larger offshoot, the Ensemble Modern Orchestra have worked closely with Helmut Lachenmann. When the expanded EMO gave its premiere performances in 1998, it played "Schwankungen am Rand", under the direction of Peter Eötvös. Eötvös is also the dedicatee of "Mouvement – vor der Erstarrung", and the Ensemble Modern gave the German premiere of this dark work in 1984, a performance described by the composer as "incredibly inspired and precise". Lachenmann has called "Mouvement" a "final attempt to strike water out of the dead monument known as music"; it is, he says, "a music of dead movements, almost of final quivers."

"Die ... zwei Gefühle ...", incorporating texts of Leonardo da Vinci, was written in 1992 while Lachenmann was working on what has since become his most highly-acclaimed work, the opera "Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern"; in expanded form, the piece was subsequently incorporated into the opera.

In the context of the present CD, "Die ... zwei Gefühle ..." traces a connection to the Nono-inspired "Schwankungen am Rand". It was written "near the Sardinian town of Alghero, in the empty house of my friend Luigi Nono, who had died two years earlier. And like him, I had been driven by my burning desire to perceive the enormous confusion of diverse and strange forms brought forth by ingenious Nature ..." (ECM Records)

Alessandro Simonetto YANN TIERSEN Amélie & Other Piano Works

French composer Yann Tiersen has written music for various instruments, including guitar, piano, synthetizer, violin, accordion, xylophone, and melodica. Some of his compositions have been used in film scoring, such as “Amélie”, whose soundtrack primarily features excerpts from his first three studio albums (“La Valse des monstres”, “Rue des cascades”, and “La Phare”).
The present recording features Tiersen’s original solo piano works selected from his very first album, but also from “L’Absente”, “Les Retrouvailles,” and from his last work - “EUSA”. It also includes some piano works found in the soundtracks for “Amélie” and “Goodbye Lenin!”.
Described by Eric James (music associate of Sir Charles S. Chaplin) as "a tremendous natural talent," Alessandro Simonetto gives a soft touch and poetical sense to the music. Similar assessments were expressed about his latest recording. But in this new recording we also find a particular rhythmic approach not only to what we identify as minimalistic music or purely "film music," but also rock and avant-garde.
In addition to this extraordinary contribution to the genre, Simonetto is scheduled to record the extensive soundtracks for “Goodbye Lenin!” and “EUSA” soon.

Cyril Auvity / Ensemble Desmarest / Ronan Khalil MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers

Cyril Auvity heads the cast in a new recording of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers in a production being released by Glossa. Auvity is the lovelorn Orpheus who ventures, with his lyre, into the Underworld to plead with Pluto (Etienne Bazola) for the return of his Eurydice (Céline Scheen), struck down in her prime by a snakebite, being encouraged in his efforts by Proserpine, the wife of the ruler of Hades (Floriane Hasler).

This is a two-act chamber opera, written in 1686, and it is not known whether Charpentier ever composed any more music for the piece (the drama stops at a tantalizing moment in the well-known story). Even still, the composer appears to have invested substantial inspiration into the work, which will have been performed in front of the composer’s patron, Mademoiselle de Guise by a group of singers working within the limitations imposed by Jean- Baptiste Lully’s “musical monopoly” of the time.

For this recording, keyboard-player Ronan Khalil directs his Ensemble Desmarest. The demanding lead role of this entertainment continues Auvity’s strong current presence in French Baroque music-making – as well as his connection with Glossa. His Orpheus follows his previous Charpentier Stances du Cid release on the label, as well as appearances in operas by Campra, Destouches and Lully. Marc Trautmann both informs and entertains in his accompanying booklet essay. (Glossa)

Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik / Rüdiger Bohn / Claudia Barainsky GYÖRGY KURTÁG Botschaften des verstorbenen Fräuleins R.V. Trussowa JÖRG WIDMANN … umdüstert …

In different ways the music of György Kurtág and Jörg Widmann can be described as an individual, productive dialogue with musical stimulations of the past. This is evidenced in Kurtág’s works by the great breadth of musical forms that he references, extending from the traditional triad by way of highly diverse canonic techniques onto the use of noise – mostly articulated in fragment-like miniatures or in cyclical compositions consisting of such miniatures. In contrast, Widmann is gravitated to the musical expressions of Romanticism and tends to connect their possibilities to his personal ways of sound exploration. 

Kurtág’s cycle Messages of the Late Miss R.V. Troussova for soprano and chamber orchestra, op. 17 (1976–1980), which treats of the failure of human relations, is based on the poems by the Russian poet Rimma Dalos. In language as grotesque as it is drastic and at the limits of self-respect, it lays out one woman’s ideas about loneliness, exhibitionism, and deprivation. 

Widmann focuses on the sculpting of sounds: individual instrumental textures of variable density alternate and thereby initiate a process of slipping in and out of different tonal qualities that grows ever thinner toward the end until it finally dissolves into quiet fragments. The word “umdüstert” occurred frequently in Romantic literature, and this fading out of the composition can certainly be read as an indication of an existential point of reference of the music.

Miranda Cuckson / Blair McMillen CARTER SESSIONS ECKARDT

Violinist Miranda Cuckson and pianist Blair McMillen have already proven themselves an estimable duo for works by American Modernists such as Shapey and Martino. Their latest outing features Elliott Carter’s Duo for Violin and Piano (1973), a formidable piece written in the midst of Carter’s most compositionally rigorous period. And while the twosome emphasize the brittle, cutoff phrases that frequently appear in the work, they also do a deft job of pointing up the places in which violin lines melt into the resonance of piano chords (and viceversa). Thus, theirs is a rendition that juxtaposes rigor and grace, violence and gentleness; this versatility makes it one of my favorite outings with this piece I’ve thus far heard.

Composed in 1953, Sonata for solo violin is one of Roger Sessions’ first large-scale attempts at 12-tone composition. Clocking in at over thirty minutes, it is a bear of a piece, demanding both virtuosity and considerable thoughtfulness from the violinist to bring it off: Cuckson has both in spades. I particularly enjoy her traversal of the work’s last movement, a brisk “Alla Marcia” with incendiary passagework and double stops aplenty. Cuckson brings laser beam accuracy to the numerous tricky to tune passages.

Jason Eckardt wrote Strömkarl to complement the other pieces on this recording. It is based upon a Northern European legend of violin playing sprites who took up residence near waterfalls; depending on the rendering of the story, either charming passersby with music or leading them to drown. Eckardt captures this mischievous ambiguity with pixellated altissimo violin writing and brittle pizzicati; the piano is also given an angularly terse role to play. My money is on Eckardt’s image of the sprite being a wicked little beastie, but either way the piece is vividly characterful and a real workout for the performances; one they assay handily. (Christian B. Carey)

VIJAY IYER Mutations

Mutations is Vijay Iyer’s first album as a leader for ECM, and a recording that will widen perceptions of the pianist-composer’s work. At its centre is “Mutations I-X”, a composition scored for string quartet, piano, and electronics. A major piece built out of cells and fragments, it veers through many atmospheres, from moment to moment propulsive, enveloping, lyrical, luminescent, and strangely beautiful. Through thematic interactivity, the interweaving of acoustic and electronic sound-textures, and some decisive improvisational interventions in notated music, Vijay Iyer has created a multi-faceted suite whose very subject is change. Iyer gives a positive value to the concept of ‘mutation’ in this music, and variously appears in it as an interpreter of notated elements, as an improviser, and as “a sort of laptop artist, mixing in noise and different sounds,” encouraging the transformative processes: The suite is framed by three solo statements: "Spellbound and Sacrosanct, Cowrie Shells and the Shimmering Sea”, a solo piano reading of one of Iyer’s early compositions, and “Vuln, Part 2" and "When We're Gone", pieces created in summer 2013. The newer compositions put the piano in counterpoint with electronically generated rhythms and textures which extend the aura of the suite, making the arc of the whole album a journey over changing terrain. (ECM Records)

Irish Chamber Orchestra / Jörg Widmann WIDMANN 180 Beats per Minute - Fantasie MENDELSSOHN Sinfonie 3 "Schottische"

Seldom has one heard one of the best known works of Mendelssohn, the brilliant Hebrides Overture, so wild, gruff and raw, so fissured even, as in this concluding installment of Mendelssohn symphonies with Jörg Widmann. This is without question a thoroughly contemporary interpretation; we get the now universal sense of hearing anew that comes with period instruments, even though none are being played here. It must have been a real stimulus to the composer at the conductor’s desk – a music analyst in the highest degree – to take this music tamed by over-familiarity and strip it of everything that is pseudo-obvious and safely middle-of-the-road. And it is that principle, faithfully followed in the earlier releases, of quite deliberately comparing and contrasting Mendelssohn’s works with the clarinet-playing conductor’s own that must have been what struck the spark and audibly kindled the music-making spirit of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. A drama otherwise reserved for the concert hall here comes across admirably: the well-known early-19th-century works sound like new, which is a compliment to their interpreters. Widmann’s two early works, now a part of his own history, turn out to be good, even exhilarating, listening; inspired by the young composer’s disco nights, “180 beats” goes well with the fascinating “Fantasie”, played by the composer himself, which effortlessly surmounts the limits seemingly set on the harmonies of a monophonic wind instrument. This is a spine-tinglingly new way to listen to Mendelssohn’s music. (Arkiv Music)

Jean-Claude Henriot ROBERT SCHUMANN Kreisleriana, Op. 16 - Nachtstücke, Op. 23 - Geistervariationen, WoO 24

It is not without reason that the most recent album of French pianist Jean-Claude Henriot is dedicated entirely to Schumann’s music. The artist considers him to be the first composer who explored the musical areas discovered by Beethoven. Through precise and sensitive interpretation of works by both composers, the pianist devotes himself to the search of a beautiful sound as reflection of speech and its transcending qualities. The pieces presented on the album vary in terms of style, form and atmosphere. Kreisleriana, Op. 16, composed on the basis of contrasts and written under the influence of meetings with Chopin, refers to the literary output of E.T.A. Hoffmann and constitutes an opposite to both dark, ordered according to a completely different principle Nachtstücke, Op. 23 (Schumann wrote, “While composing, I kept seeing funeral processions, coffins, unhappy, despairing people. While I was composing I was often so overcome that tears came forth...”) and Geistervariationen from the last year of composing, which in turn are characterized with simplicity, calm and reflectiveness.

Georg Nigl / Anna Lucia Richter / Petra Müllejans / Roel Dieltiens / Andreas Staier BACH PRIVAT

This recording is an invitation to immerse ourselves in the musical inner circle of the Bach family. We are familiar with Johann Sebastian Bach as a composer of genius, but we know little about his family life, with the exception of the famous Clavierbüchlein (Little keyboard book) that the forty-year-old composer gave as a present in 1725 to his second wife Anna Magda-lena, his junior by sixteen years. This manuscript is a unique document of the music the family played together. It provides us with a point of reference for the ‘programmes’ of these domestic concerts: it contains short keyboard pieces and songs alongside extended arias taken from the church cantatas, as well as chamber music. Bach and his two eldest sons were not only virtuoso harpsichordists but also excellent violinists, while the composer’s son-in-law Bach, J. C. Altnic-kol, played the cello and was an outstanding double bass player. Anna Magdalena Bach and her oldest stepdaughter both contributed as singers. And the still young children of the second marriage participated by playingeasy pieces on their father’s various keyboard instruments. The musicians and singers on this recording, all eminent exponents of Bach and of Baroque music in general, have come together here to bring these exceptional moments back to life.

Michael Faust / Sheila Arnold / Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä / Patrick Gallois PETERIS VASKS Flute Concerto - Flute Sonata - Aria e danza - Landscape with Birds

If I hear a piece of music on the radio that I don’t immediately recognise I try to guess first of all roughly when it was written. Then I try to identify the part of the world it is from. I do this before trying to determine any traits that might indicate who it might be by. In this way I can at least narrow down a few possibilities before waiting to find out the answer. 

I don’t know enough of Latvian composer Peteris Vasks’ music to be able to identify it precisely as being by him. On the other hand I might have managed the rest of my own criteria and narrowed down the part of the world in rough terms. There does, after all, seem to be a commonality of sound world shared by composers from the Baltic States and Finland. I find that there is a wonderfully ethereal quality to the music of composers from that area of Europe that is so very descriptive. I first heard this in the music of Sibelius and it seemed and seems to me to describe perfectly the cold, clear air and snowy tree-filled landscape. 

In his Concerto for flute and orchestra Vasks’ also has that precise quality for which the flute, with its bright, clear tone, is a perfect vehicle. This is a seriously brilliant work of almost indescribable beauty. It works its magic on the listener from the very opening and is so captivating it is difficult to leave it for another work without wanting to hear it again immediately. No one could fail to be mesmerised by its fabulous tonal quality. Also fascinating are the extraordinary abilities of flautist Michael Faust for whom the concerto was written. 

The art of flute playing is again amply demonstrated in the Sonata for flute and alto flute solo. It’s in three movements, the central one for flute and the outer ones for alto flute. It is an object lesson in flute virtuosity in which Vasks has the instruments mimic the calls of animals or birds. None of this presents any challenge at all to Faust whose artistry seems boundless. 
Aria e danza for flute and piano is less identifiable in terms of geographical origin. That in no way detracts from its qualities. It was written ostensibly for teaching purposes but I can imagine that any would-be flautist who could achieve a convincing performance of it would be considered as being on their way to achieving their aim. 

The final work Landscape with Birds for flute solo is another composition that would test all but the most skilled musicians. It calls for almost every facet the instrument can produce. 

It was no surprise to read that Vasks is passionate about environmental issues. He incorporates his concerns about the fragile relationship between Man and Nature into his music as well as implying the risks we run if we don’t keep this at the forefront of our minds in our dealings with nature. These concerns, which are so well expressed in the flute concerto, are of greater importance to him than a simple statement about the beauty of nature though obviously that also comes through. 

The concerto (in its revised form) and the Aria e Danza are both world première recordings. The sound is superb. South Indian-born pianist Sheila Arnold is an utterly sympathetic partner for Faust in the Aria e Danza. The small 38-member Finnish Sinfonia Finlandia Jyväskylä is exemplary in its performance of the concerto under Patrick Gallois who has been its music director for nine years up to 2013. After his tenure ends the orchestra’s artistic committee will take on the responsibility for deciding its programmes. 

This is a wonderful disc of the most compelling music. Once again Naxos has come up trumps in presenting it to the public and at a price it can afford. All of this should help it to achieve the widespread recognition it deserves. (Steve Arloff)

Lara James / Jeremy Young / Kathryn Price / Sinfonia Viva / Nicholas Kok FAÇADES

As most readers will know, the saxophone’s association with the emergence of jazz in the early years of the last century tainted its reputation for decades as a vehicle for serious music. Judging from this and many other releases of contemporary, often jazz-inflected, compositions, old prejudices are just about gone. In fact, the composition and recording of saxophone works is almost a growth sector in a classical music industry far too focused on recycling. Here, for those attuned to it, is relatively new music—all of the composers are living—much of it drawing upon the vitality of the improvisational genre, all of it accessible without being simplistic or pastiche.  

Saxophone aficionados will likely know the 1970 Sonata by veteran composer Robert Muczynski. His Concerto for Alto Saxophone garnered a Pulitzer Prize nomination, and this is a piece in the same mold: well-structured, sensitive to the capabilities of the instrument, and full of engaging invention. If the Andante maestoso is more melancholy here than majestic, it does evoke a kind of film noir urban jazziness. The Allegro energetico is just that, to the point where James has to stretch a bit to keep up. Otherwise, the title work, by Philip Glass, is the most likely to be familiar. I love its classic minimalism, with slowly evolving motoric figures underpinning a fairly diatonic melody line. James floats the line well, if coolly, with great vibrato control, but her decision to overdub both parts is a misstep. She is a sensitive collaborator and might have discovered more in the work if she had played it with another soloist. What’s more, the overdubbed parts do not always sync perfectly with the nicely done accompaniment.  

The other three less-familiar works are enjoyable. I particularly like Rodney Roger’s ebullient Lessons of the Sky . The version for oboe and piano has been recorded by Michele Fiala on MSR, but this one for soprano saxophone is equally agreeable, with the sax perhaps more characterful in the jazzy sections and the oboe a bit more poignant in the wistful central section. In both cases, the playful interplay between soloist and piano in this Ravelian work is a delight. Jazz saxophonist Colin MacDonald’s Here Again for soprano saxophone and cello is nicely lyrical, with striking emotional depth but an oddly ambiguous ending for a wedding anniversary gift. James plays it softly and sensitively, but gives up some tonal solidity in the process, especially noticeable in contrast to cellist Kathryn Price’s rich sound. The Christopher Painter Sonata, a James commission, is brusque and the most listener challenging of the works, but retains a jazzy appeal. Graham Fitkin’s Glass brings the CD to a nicely Satie-esque conclusion.  

Lara James is an estimable, if not sensational, proponent of all these works. A well-known performer and teacher in her native Wales, she possesses a solid technique and sensitivity to the jazz idiom that allows her to create a sense of improvisation, most notably in the Painter. Her warm, somewhat reedy tone is well suited to most of the works, though she does not have the seamless legato or seemingly endless breath control of, say, Eugene Rousseau or Nobuya Sugawa. Her intonation is mostly secure, but not perfect. The recordings are good, with a generous balance for the excellent collaborators, though the overdubbed sax duet in Façades does not seem to be in the same acoustic as the orchestra. However, this and other reservations are minor in the face of the body of significant and enjoyable music that James has provided here. That in itself is enough for a warm recommendation. (FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames)

Choir of Clare College, Cambridge / Graham Ross O LUX BEATA TRINITAS

Graham Ross and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, have released a series of albums on Harmonia Mundi that outline the liturgical year, with programs devoted to Advent, Christmas, Passiontide, Easter, All Saints and All Souls, and Epiphany. This 2018 album, O lux beata Trinitas, rounds out the series with music on the subject of the Trinity, featuring works from the British and Russian choral traditions. The increasing popularity of Orthodox Christian chant and liturgical music by Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Sergey Rachmaninov, and to a lesser extent Alexander Grechaninov, Mikhail Glinka, and Pavel Cesnokov, may have revitalized the Western choral repertoire, but the core of most English church music still depends on the customary mix of Renaissance masters (represented here by William Byrd and John Sheppard), Victorians (Charles Villiers Stanford, John Stainer, and Charles Wood), and modern and contemporary composers (Benjamin Britten, James Macmillan, Gabriel Jackson, and Joshua Pacey), giving the Clare College Choir a great variety of sacred styles and moods to choose from. Of added interest for choral fans are the two world premiere recordings: Ross' Duo Seraphim, an ecstatic antiphonal work of haunting intensity, and Pacey's Tres sunt, a contemplative motet that essentially outlines the Trinitarian doctrine in English and Latin texts. This collection demonstrates the group's extraordinary versatility and compelling ensemble sound, which give the performances an air of excitement not usually associated with English choral music. (Blair Sanderson)

Sheila Arnold ÉCOUTEZ!

Claude Debussy left a profound mark on music history when he dissolved functional harmony under the influence of the music of the Far East. 

Tōru Takemitsu had to distance himself from his own culture in order to listen to Japanese music with the ears of a Western-trained musician – adopting, for instance, the approach of John Cage. He came to realize that Japan’s venerable musical tradition had long been highlighting individual notes as complex sonorities in their own right, instead of treating them as part of a series of several notes. 

From the human need for sound as well as silence, John Cage drew the most extreme conclusions. The concept of a “beautiful” sound was never static in music history: it has changed over the centuries, and it differs from one culture to another. Western musical aesthetics tend to differentiate between “noises” and “notes”: the latter feature well-ordered harmonics. The concept of “dissonance” has also changed throughout different musical periods. What is more, musicians and their audiences have always felt the need to “savor” a dissonance – to listen to it consciously, to experience it – before it is resolved. 

On the other hand, time plays a truly fundamental role in how a work is conceived and structured, and each individual listener experiences musical time in a different way. Ideally, the performer and the listener share the same time system: they enjoy passages in a similar way, they hear a piece with the same depth of focus. Music resonates inside the instrument, in our bodies, in the space that surrounds us. Each note is in motion. When several notes vibrate simultaneously, they make up an ocean of concomitant vibrations. If we add the sounds and noises from our surroundings, then we are dealing with an incredible concentration of sonic events within a very short period of time. 

What happens then? 

We become more aware of the way we perceive things. If we are lucky, this kind of conscious musical listening starts to affect how we pay attention to other people, whether they are speaking or not. And lending an ear to one another has become more necessary than ever. Wouldn’t you agree? (Sheila Arnold)

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra / Jakub Hrůša BARTÓK & KODÁLY Concertos for Orchestra

Exuberant, colourful and edgy concertos for orchestra by Bartók and Kodály are brought together in spirited and vivid performances from the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by the podium sensation Jakub Hrůša on this PENTATONE release.

Bartók’s landmark Concerto for Orchestra is not only a thrilling orchestral tour de force; it’s also a striking and deeply expressive work which effortlessly assimilates Hungarian folk melodies and rhythms in its compelling and polished score. At times brooding and mysterious, it’s Bartók’s most popular and uplifting work, and it ends in a flurry of high spirits.

With its lush and vivid orchestration and a healthy rhythmic swagger, Kodály’s lesser-known Concerto for Orchestra is a captivating and buoyant work. Inspired by the Baroque concerto grosso but updated with a romantic sensibility, the result is a sure-footed, rousing and energetic showpiece for orchestra.

Ana María Valderrama / Víctor del Valle BRAHMS & FRANCK

Since her debut as a soloist with conductor Zubin Mehta at the celebrations concert of the 70th birthday of Her Majesty the Queen of Spain, Ana María Valderrama has established herself as one of the most acclaimed Spanish violinist of the moment.

Víctor del Valle, who enjoys a special connection with the world of chamber music, is involved in active collaboration with various musical groups and soloists. However, his growing prominence on the musical scene is undoubtedly due to his career as a concert pianist together with his brother Luis.

Winners of the Pablo Sarasate and the ARD Competitions respectively, Ana María Valderrama and Víctor del Valle team up to offer a very personal and insightful rendition of two masterpieces in 19^th century chamber music: Brahms’s Third Violin Sonata and Franck’s Violin Sonata. Two musical gems open and close the recording: Brahms’s Scherzo movement from the F.A.E. Sonata and Franck’s Mélancolie.

Schumann Quartett / Anna Lucia Richter INTERMEZZO

Their point of departure and focus is his String Quartet no. 1 in A minor. Robert Schumann always had difficulty with this particular genre, and in 1842 he brought his "attempts at writing quartets" to an end in a headlong burst of creativity that produced his opus 41, comprising three quartets. The Schumann Quartet musicians concentrate unconditionally on the vocal part-writing, and rather than merely overcoming the technical challenges choose to simply ignore them. The music of Felix Mendelssohn is suffused with what Schumann envied as "ease" or "facility". 

The String Quartet no. 1 in E flat major was written in the late summer of 1829, when the younger composer was not yet 20. The correlations, corresponding references and tributes are all in evidence – Mendelssohn's string quartet is the perfect match for Schumann's equivalent work. There is a kind of cross-fertilization between the attention to detail and fresh approach taken by the Schumann Quartet and the modernity of the almost youthful Mendelssohn; the result is encapsulated in the unrestrained joy of music-making in the fourth movement. Schumann and Mendelssohn provide the framework into which Aribert Reimann then sets "his" Schumann. Reimann is one of today's most successful composers and is linked to the composer of the Romantic era born in Zwickau, Saxony, by more than music. He is in fact a direct descendant of the physician who treated Schumann at the psychiatric hospital in Endenich and has therefore had access to the patient file detailing the precarious balance of Schumann’s emotional state. His attitude to Schumann is therefore a reflection of those impressions. The Adagio zum Gedenken an Robert Schumann (adagio to the memory of Robert Schumann) based on two unfinished chorales without words was composed as a result of intensive and personal cooperation between the quartet and Reimann.

In Reimann's arrangement of the 6 Gesänge op. 109, the ensemble succeeds, in harmony with the soprano Anna Lucia Richter, in fulfilling Schumann’s wish for an "additional, fully-formed accompanying instrument". Reimann's skill in handling the original brings out the fine features and nuances of the lyrics. The quartet and singer complement each other so effortlessly that the unusual combination sounds like a quintet that has been working together for many years.