Music is the key

Young British composer Rebecca Dale, the first female composer to sign to Decca Classics, will release her debut album ‘Requiem For My Mother’ on 31st August – featuring two major works: her brand new Materna Requiem and her choral symphony When Music Sounds. At the heart of Rebecca’s first recording is her Materna Requiem – a beautifully moving and uplifting tribute to her late mother, who died in 2010. The work draws from both the traditional text of the Catholic Mass and contemporary poetry and is a homage to parents everywhere. It features the voices of soprano Louise Alder, tenor Trystan Griffiths and young chor isters Hannah Dienes-Williams and Edward Hyde (BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year 2016) alongside the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The work will receive its world premiere performance at The North Wales International Music Festival in St Asaph Cathedral on 22nd September. Rebecca Dale says of the album: “It’s an amazing feeling to be re...

“Negotiating dynamic shifts of emphasis,” The Independent has noted, “Dénes Várjon displays that most valuable of gifts: the ability to play in a way which makes you listen anew to the familiar.”  This capacity is to the fore in the Hungarian pianist’s sensitive exploration of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke , Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit and Bartók’s Im Freien – an illuminating journey through three worlds of poetic imagination. As Jürg Stenzl writes in the liner notes. “All three works were bold forays into fundamentally new music that far transcended the limits of their time. They require pianists for whom transcendent virtuosity is second nature.” Dénes Várjon more than fulfils the requirement. One of the most sought-after soloists and chamber musicians, he is a musician who puts the core and meaning of the compositions ahead of self-display. Recorded in Lugano in 2016, De la nuit is Varjon’s fourth appearance on ECM and his second solo album for the label, following...

Munch Suite is a unique recording from acclaimed violinist Henning Kraggerud being released to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the painter Edvard Munch. It features 15 new solo pieces, every one directly inspired by a specific painting by the great Norwegian artist. Each piece has been written by a different composer, in this case some important figures on the international contemporary music scene including Aaron Jay Kernis, Alissa Firsova and Laurent Petitgirard. The CD is presented in a de-luxe edition box that includes reproductions of each painting depicted in the suite. The idea to let contemporary composers interpret Edvard Munch's iconic artworks came from the director of the Vestfold International Festival. Violinist Henning Kraggerud immediately saw the artistic potential of the project and the result is a solo suite that reflects the unique position of Munch's work as musical inspiration. The Munch Suite features premiere recordings o...

Alissa Firsova may be the mature side of 30 but this album radiates youth in all its wonder, complexity and heartening naivety. Any caveats implied by that observation are largely blown away by the ferocity of Firsova’s expression and there are countless moments on this disc where you feel her writing in the white heat of total inspiration. Many of them come in Bride of the Wind for two pianists, a reflection on the love between Oskar Kokoschka and Alma Mahler that obviously yet transcendentally captures the idea of two souls so wrapped up in one another that their relationship is as fraught, precarious and charged as is its ecstatic. There are many levels on which Firsova harnesses that feeling: one pianist knowingly completing another’s thoughts; one instrument rubbing against the other like a huge, grinding hulk in an act that could almost prove fatal. Much of the music here is explicitly linked to beautiful experiences in Firsova’s life. In Loss for clari...

London based pianist and conductor Mark Knoop is known for his fearless performances and individual interpretations. He has commissioned and premièred countless new works and worked with many respected composers including Peter Ablinger , Joanna Bailie , Michael Finnissy , Bernhard Lang , Cassandra Miller , Matthew Shlomowitz , and Steven Kazuo Takasugi . His versatile technique and virtuosity also bring fresh approaches to the standard and 20th-century repertoire. My music contains many musics , but impure, misremembered, smudged and melted, torn apart yet not completely erased. (Michael Finnissy) Michael’s music is gnarly, gristly even — one senses keenly that it is the product of an intellectual yet instinctive wrestling with the very philosophy of music. (Juliet Fraser)

Eve Egoyan, specializing in the works of living composers, releases her first CD the things in between. The selections, all world premiere recordings, range from minimalist to experimental, from the lushly complex and abstract to compositions which recall a more standard classical repertoire. Eve has performed solo recitals to sold out houses, and as a soloist with some of the country’s leading orchestras. “With grace and intensity in equal measure, Canadian pianist Eve Egoyan seems incapable of an unmellifluous gesture…And if there’s a thread that runs through this recording, it is the affection which the composers and performer obviously have for the piano – for its sonority, versatility and history.” (Elissa Poole, Opus) “A performer whose powers of listening cast a hypnotic spell over her audiences, opening their ears and hearts… What’s Egoyan´s secret? Meticulous preparation . Discerning choice of repertoire-she only plays music she loves… An innate love ...

Composer Ann Southam (1937–2010) was exhilarated by sound. She had an open mind for all forms of artistic expression, especially music and sound. An innately curious person, she enjoyed experimenting with sound and making musical discoveries. She was equally fascinated by a single ringing piano note as by a cycling sequencer in the electronic music studio. Southam spent much of her creative life at home with her Beckstein grand piano, constantly trying out the stream of ideas that would spring to her fertile imagination. In an interview she gave in 1997 she said, “I always knew I wanted to be an artist. Art is magic.” From her New York orchestral debut at age 14 (“promethean talent” – New York Times) to the present day as one of Canada’s leading artists, pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico continues to astound audiences and critics with her dazzling command of the keyboard. CBC Music named her one of 20 Can’t-Miss Classical Pianists of 2014 , and one of Canada’s 25 best ...

He is the first musician in China to receive a master's degree in clarinet from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, a top music school in the country.  Wang has released 12 albums that are being used as teaching material at the conservatory. He also won the best instrumental-album award at the Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan.  As the husband of former Olympic gymnastics champion Liu Xuan, he is used to being pursued by the media.  But last year, when he sent producers some 40 music samples from his new record company, Universal Music, the feedback he got caught him off guard.  While the young musician had expected positive reactions, he was told the samples were "interesting" or "disastrous".  "It's something I have never experienced before ," says Wang, 37, who was considered gifted since his childhood. "I didn't feel depressed. Instead, I was excited because I knew that it's time for me to change."

Until 2010 Heribert Breuer was professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin . He teached theorie of music and choral conducting. His artistic actitivity appoints in both domains: as founder and director of the Berliner Bach Akademie and as arranger of music from Bach, Mozart and composers of romanticism. Meanwhile he distinguished with an immense number of adaptations for different instrumentations. The most popular ones are his version of the “Arpeggione-Sonate” of Franz Schubert (violoncello, windquintet) and Bach’s “The Art of Fugue” for four quartets. Heribert Breuer’s versions are inspired arrangements, often supplemented by more voices and they truly reflect the spirit of the compositions. His version of the last Contrapunctus of The Art of Fugue was performed at the opening of the Bach-Festival Leipzig in the Thomaskirche. Breuer's arrangement of the Goldberg-Variations for septet (string trio, woodwind trio and harp) was recently recorded by Deutschlandr...

At age 18, Soo-Min Lee already won 1st prize in Dong-A competition which is one of the biggest competitions in Korea. She studied with Prof. En-sik Choi in Seoul National University and after she finished Bachelor, she continued her studies in Cologne with Prof. Rainer Moog. She finished her Diplom with distiction and Konzertexamen in Musikhochschule in Cologne. From her devoting to contemporary music, she has participated in International Ensemble Modern Academy in 2008-09. Since then she plays in Ensemble Modern as a guest violist throuout many major concert halls in Europe. Recent engagement include appearences at Salzburg, Paris Salle Pleyel, Berlin Konzerthaus, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Roma Santa Cecilia, Milano among others. She has been invited to Salzburg Music Festival,Verbier Music Festival, Open Chamber Music in Prussia Cove, Seoul Spring Festival of chamber music, and Tong-Young international music festival. She has played as the 1st Principal Violist in Duisburger...

Hymne à la beauté' brings together rarely heard gems of chamber music in delightful arrangements for voice, violin and piano, passionately performed by the aspiring and outstanding Swiss artists Sonja Leutwyler (mezzo soprano), Astrid Leutwyler (violin) and Benjamin Engeli (piano). This programme of discoveries features captivating works by Louis Spohr, Johannes Brahms, Charles Ives, Camille Saint-Saëns, Felix Petyrek, Czesaw Marek and Ottorino Respighi. On a special commission for this CD , the Swiss composer Martin Wettstein has composed the piece 'Hymne à la beauté (hymn to beauty)' for mezzo soprano, violin and piano after a poem by Charles Baudelaire.

Three years after Granados premiered his Trio in Madrid, his admired friend, Joaquín Malats, whom he had known sin ce they were fellow students in Barcelona, premiered his Trio in B-flat at the Madrid Athenaeum. Music of exquisite, elegant, and fresh refinement, constant in flight and resounding in inspiration, condenses in its three movements all the creative potential of a musician who died prematurely at 40 years of age. Pedrell himself confesses in the first person his weakness for Chopin in his first period as a composer: In the year 1872, the chronic nocturnitis from which I suffered, and which was influenced by Chopin and Field, worsened, and I published, almost at the same time, two Nocturnos (in G minor and A major). After a month of intense work, the Trio in C Major op. 50 of Enrique Granados premiered on 22 February 1895, at the Salón Romero in Madrid, the favorite haunt of Madrids chamber evenings, as the culmination of a programme dedicated entirely to the ...

This recording has selected almost all of the piano-voice songs by Ángel Barja, based on ancient Galician folklore, where the melody tames a very accomplished popular style, slenderised in a subtle and coloristic piano accompaniment that scrupulously observes the conventions of popular roots voice writing. Barja preserves the syllabic nature of the melodies and insists on maintaining the accentuations against the verse. He alternates in them the strophic song, with turns and repetitions, with the simplicity of the popular tune, in many cases with medieval roots, as happens in the Cantiga “Those who know how to love” («Cuantas savedes amar») with a 13th century melody. Another bloc groups exuberant Christmas songs and, last, a third group, very eclectic, assembles songs of different styles and subjects. The poetic anthology used by Barja in his songs is very successful regarding the rhythm and musicality of these verses. It is no coincidence that, despite the apparent a...

Chouchane Siranossian is a rising star of the baroque and classical violin, Jakob Lehmann a virtuoso violinist and orchestral director who frequently conducts Anima Eterna. Together, they embody what the Bruges orchestra and its founder, Jos van Immerseel, have decided to call the ‘Next Generation Anima Eterna’… Today they are presenting Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in its original version. “We wanted to take a look into Mendelssohn’s workshop. He struggled with his self-diagnosed ‘revision disease’ and always strove to work hard on himself and his creations” says Jakob Lehmann. Chouchane Siranossian keeps on “It was a fascinating experience for me to discover historical research and its implementation on period instruments in collaboration with Anima Eterna Brugge. In my interpretation, I used exclusively the fingerings, bowings and other performance markings of Ferdinand David and Joseph Joachim, both of whom rehearsed the work with the compose...

One of the recurrent highlights of András Schiff’s chamber music series at the Mondsee Festival over the last decade has been his duet performances with Juliane Banse. The singer first went there, at the pianist’s invitation, in 1994. “I just sang five Mendelssohn songs with him then, but we realized right away that we were a good team,” says Ms Banse. Since then the duo has been a special commitment, a project returned to whenever crowded itineraries permit. “Songs of Debussy and Mozart” is their first album together. A spontaneous, fresh approach, and an exchange of new ideas and insights in the music, has characterized their work. “The extraordinary things about working with András Schiff are that there are no rehearsals in the conventional sense; there’s no writing in the margin of the score, and fixing details and approaching the work the same way each time, none of that. It’s very different every time, which makes the live situation very exciting. Many new things ...

For his fourth solo studio record, Ólafur Arnalds has enthusiastically opened his arms (and his beloved pianos) to new technology. Stratus, a piece of software that composer and audio developer Halldór Eldjárn has spent the past two years collaborating with Arnalds to hone, links two self-playing, semi-generative pianos to a central, human-controlled piano. Using algorithms whose complexity will likely make your eyes twitch, the pianos respond to the notes played on the primary piano and then conjure patterns of notes, melodies, and harmonies of their own. This innovation has led to an album of new approaches, new tacks, and new sounds. Whilst Arnalds has utilised this tech to alter his method, he has also opted to incorporate the far-ranging influences, some of which have made appearances in his Trance Frenz and Kiasmos collaborations, in a raw, unfiltered manner which has, inevitably, led to a varied and evocatively emotional release. Oh… and he also employed Stratus ...

Fascinating journey through the music that unites Debussy with Spanish composers. Places are sounds: Granada. The city was a recurring source of inspiration for Debussy, and yet the composer never visited it; his knowledge of it was gained only indirectly through literary accounts, images, and musical sources heard in Paris. All of these materials served to unleash his imagination in regard to its sound, which according to Falla represented ‘the truth without authenticity, as not a single note is borrowed from Spanish folklore and yet, even in its smallest details, it wonderfully expresses Spain’. A common element links all the composers in the present program: the city of Paris . From the end of the nineteenth to the early twentieth century, the French capital was a fundamental goal for many Spanish composers, who at some point in their lives went there for study or work purposes.

Critics from around the world (Postdate Nachrichten , Fanfare, New York at Carnegie Hall Concert reviews) consider Gianluca Luisi one of the most interesting Italian pianists of our time. His performances have received enthusiastic acclaim in many areas of the world. In Italy, he graduated with honors from the Conservatory of Pesaro; studied at the Incontri col Maestro International Academy in Imola and with Aldo Ciccolini in Naples and Paris. A winner of numerous competitions (TIM International Competition Bellini of Caltanissetta , Rendano Prize , Competition of Cesenatico, Italian Music Youth Auditions, International Competition of Sulmona) Gianluca received the first prize of the 4th International J.S. Bach competition in Saarbrucken - Würzburg, in March of 2001. He was selected among 54 pianists from 26 different countries while the critics heralded him as a new interpreter of J.S. Bach . On that occasion the Saarbrucken Zeitung declared: "The Italian won t...

Jordi Savall is among the leading instrumentalists and conductors of the European early music scene, specializing in Renaissance, Baroque, and Medieval music. He took an interest in early music and began learning the viola da gamba. He studied the gamba and early music research and practice with Wieland Kuijken in Brussels and August Wenzinger at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel. In 1968, Savall married the soprano Montserrat Figueras, who shared his interest in early music. With Figueras and other musicians interested in early Spanish music, he founded the ensemble Hespèrion XX in 1974. The ensemble took its name from an ancient name for the Western European region from Italy to Iberia. At the turn of the 21st century, the group changed its name to Hespèrion XXI. The Codex Trujillo is a manuscript edited by Baltasar Jaime Martínez Compañón, bishop of Trujillo, Peru. It contains 1,411 watercolours and 20 musical scores documenting the life in the diocese. It...

The year 1736 was very important in the life of Bach: he was conferred the title of Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Court Composer. In that same year he composed the only two autographed sonatas for flute and obbligato harpsichord. Both sonatas came to us as a step of an elaborative process which could also have consisted of a diverse instrumentation. Such a practice was of inspiration in choosing two sonatas, originally conceived for other instruments, to be inserted in a project dedicated to the equal dialogue between flute and harpsichord. We have no certainties regarding the dedicatee for the autograph sonatas. The relationship with Dresden maintained by Bach in those years, leads us to theorize that it might have been the flute virtuoso Pierre-Gabriel Buffardin, a close friend of the Bach family. The choice of the instrument for this recording is due to the eventful rediscovery in 2015 of the only known flute trademarked BUFFARDIN LES FILS. A copy of it can be he...

After the huge success of her GRAMMY Award-winning first album for Alpha, Crazy Girl Crazy, Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan is back with her longtime collaborator and mentor, the great figure of twentieth-century music, Dutch pianist Reinbert de Leeuw. For this new recital album, the duo explores the roots of modern music with composers who went on to lead a musical revolution: Arnold Schoenberg, Hugo Wolf, Anton Webern, Alexander Zemlinsky, Alma Mahler and Alban Berg. Vienna: Fin de Siècle presents a vision of Vienna at the height of late Romanticism, when music was at its most lush and decadent, at the edge of tonality and full of voluptuous beauty. Featuring composers for whom text and song were inseparable, the album captures the rich and intense moment before the disruption of the harmonic language of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hannigan and de Leeuw have long championed the exquisite repertoire from this époque.

Bernstein to relax and dream: the double album "Romance" portrays the conductor, composer and pianist from his most romantic side in celebration of his centenary on August 25 th . Leonard Bernstein is still unforgotten today, still on his centenary in 2018, for his outstanding interpretations of great symphonic works by Mahler, Brahms or Beethoven, and his unique sense for emotional melodies in his own arrangements and compositions. Nobody can resist the charm of the love ballad “Maria” or the optimistically inspired song “Somewhere” from the “West Side Story”. On this album some excerpts of Bernstein’s great recordings are carefully selected, which include legendary musical companions: from Edvard Grieg's "Morgenstimmung" (Peer Gynt Suite) with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber to the nostalgic second movement "Largo ma non tanto" from the Violin Double Concerto BWV 1043 by Johann Seba...

Transfigured Night brings together two outstanding composers associated with Vienna: Joseph Haydn and Arnold Schoenberg. The former is often seen as the oldest representative of the “First Viennese School”, whereas the latter founded the “Second Viennese School” , using the classicism of his predecessors to explore new, atonal musical paths into the twentieth century. By combining Haydn’s two cello concertos (in C-major and D-major) and Schoenberg’s symphonic poem Verklärte Nacht – in the 1943 edition for string orchestra – this album sheds a new, fascinating light on both Viennese masters. The connection between the stylistically contrasting pieces on this album is further enhanced by the inspired playing of American cellist Alisa Weilerstein and the Trondheim Soloists. For Weilerstein, this album is not only a fascinating exploration of the rich Viennese musical heritage, but just as much a confrontation with the dark history of a city her grandparents had to flee i...

The two Labèque sisters are Basque in origin, having been born on the southwest coast of France near the Spanish border. Katia and Marielle are a sharply contrasted, yet highly communicative piano team. While their joint reputation was won initially through the performance of unusual repertoire, they have not neglected traditional works for two pianos. For this vibrant and colorful album, the Labèque sisters reconnect with their Basque roots to explore a fabulously varied program that roams over five centuries of music. Joined variously by singers, percussionists, and a viola da gamba player, they weave a wonderful tapestry of sounds that reaches a toe-tapping climax with “Boléro” by Maurice Ravel (also of Basque lineage). The Labèques’ awe-inspiring unanimity of playing again takes the breath away, but they also find a gentler, almost melancholy quality that’s very touching. Folk music and art music collide here and create something very modern yet strangely timeles...

Nadine Sierra, 2018 winner of the Metropolitan Opera’s prestigious Beverly Sills Artist Award, has made her first album for Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Gold, having signed an exclusive contract with the labels last year. Recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Robert Spano, There’s a Place for Us is scheduled for international release on 24 August 2018, in time to mark the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth the following day. The album presents the soprano’s stunning vocal abilities in an eclectic choice of American classical music – as well as works by Bernstein, the repertoire ranges from Stephen Foster and Douglas Moore to Stravinsky and Villa-Lobos, and on again to Ricky Ian Gordon, Osvaldo Golijov and Christopher Theofanidis, with texts in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English. After singing the role of Norina (Don Pasquale) at the Paris Opéra in June and July, Nadine Sierra will perform music from the album at this summer...

On her new album Nightfall , Alice Sara Ott takes a very personal look at the magical moment in time and space between day and night, light and darkness, basing her explorations on works by Debussy, Satie and Ravel. The German-Japanese pianist decided to mark the dual celebration of her 30th birthday and her 10th anniversary as a Deutsche Grammophon artist by examining her relationship with three French composers who have had a significant influence on her, and whose music made an indelible impression on the Parisian arts scene at the turn of the 20th century. With meticulous attention to detail, she traces the shifting moods in these works, revealing the fascinating interplay of the light and dark tones used by Debussy, Satie and Ravel to create such wide-ranging atmospheres. Ending and beginning, transparency and opacity. As day turns to night and light fades into darkness, we enter the blue hour of twilight, when the air seems full of mystery, fleetingly saturated ...

W. H. Auden was a charming moralist, wistful yet pitiless, affectionate yet weighed down by emotional pain. With The Age of Anxiety , he created a historical and psychological diagnosis of the soul and of the time in the guise of a Baroque pastoral poem: “Lies and lethargy police the world / in its periods of peace. What pain taught / is soon forgotten; we celebrate / what ought to happen as if it were done, / Are blinded by our boasts. Then back they come, / The fears that we fear.” The outer frame of the action is provided by the four protagonists who fall into conversation in a New York bar and – as the alcohol breaks down the barriers of internal censorship – discuss the war, their own world view and their faith: a fictional conversation between average people, the chorus of a drama (that fails to materialise) and a hymn and elegy. The poem, which won Auden the Pulitzer Prize, inspired Leonard Bernstein to compose his eponymous symphony: “The essential line of Aud...

Luca Lombardi, born December 24, 1945 in Rome. He studied piano and composition in Rome, Florence, Vienna, Cologne and Berlin, among others with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bernd-Alois Zimmermann and Paul Dessau. He earned a PhD in German Language and Literature at Rome University. From 1973 to 1993 he taught composition at the Conservatories of Pesaro and Milan. He wrote more than 160 compositions, including four operas (Faust. Un travestimento, 1991; Dmitri oder der Künstler und die Macht, 2000; Prospero, 2006; Il Re nudo, 2009), music for orchestra (among which Terra, 2007 and Mare, 2012), chamber music (among which Warum? Secondo quartetto per archi, 2006) and for solo instruments (among which Nel vento, con Ariel for flute, 2004). In the 1980s Luca Lombardi met the flutist Roberto Fabbriciani whose artistry inspired many of his flute compositions. This CD represents a variety in all the pieces and a diverse collection of flute instruments played by Roberto Fabbrician...

Andrew Rangell, who has previously recorded J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, and Eastern European folk music for the Steinway & Sons label, now turns his attention to composers of the early 20th century for his latest album release. The centerpiece of the album is Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata, whose “monumental cussedness, tenderness, and imaginative daring epitomize the character and gifts of its Yankee creator,” in Rangell’s words. Rangell makes the work his own through several idiosyncratic executional decisions, including playing on piano the optional viola part at the end of the “Emerson” movement; using his own forearm instead of a block of wood for the black-key tone clusters in “Hawthorne”; and in “Thoreau,” whistling the optional flute solo. “I hope there may be, in this species of self-reliance, something of Emerson,” writes Rangell. Framing the Concord Sonata are three shorter works from Ives’ contemporaries, including the final piano works of Arnold Scho...

The Berlin Chamber Duo writes of their new release: “This album with its Romantic-era programme has been recorded in dedication of our love of the viola and the music of Robert Schumann. The first ever recording on the viola of the Sonata in A minor op. 105 for violin and piano by Robert Schumann is truly a landmark for the viola repertoire and the listening public… The sonata is played on the viola using the same score as for the original violin part. This fact in turn means that the violist is faced with a special technical challenge, which is probably the reason why the sonata has never yet been recorded on the viola… The ideal complement to this sonata is a selection of Lieder by Robert Schumann, songs which can be beautifully interpreted on the viola…” The Berlin Chamber Duo is violist Mate Szucs, who is the principal solo violist of the Berlin Philharmonic, and pianist Michele Yuki Gurdal, who has been performing throughout Europe since she was nine ...

Solo Collective isn’t quite large enough to be called a supergroup, but it’s definitely a super trio. Combining the talents of Dictaphone’s Alex Stolze (violin), Nils Frahm collaborator Anne Müller (cello) and The War On Drugs’ Sebastian Reynolds (piano), these versatile musicians demonstrate a great affinity for each other’s work, as well as a sense of humility, each taking turns in the spotlight.  “Don’t try to be someone else”, sings the narrator of the album’s only vocal track.  None do, and their individual personalities are responsible for the short album’s great variety.  Never is this more apparent than in the track and video “Holy Island”, dedicated to Reynolds’ mother Sheenagh, lost to him only last year.  As the composition rides the piano to a surprising tonal conclusion, the video switches its perspective as well. The other tracks focus on strings, with occasional layers of chimes (the meditative “Silbersee”) and e...

ICE’s new release on its in-house label, TUNDRA, highlights a fruitful seven-year collaboration between the ensemble and Brazilian born composer Marcos Balter, featuring five world premiere recordings of works commissioned and championed by the group. Balter’s music absorbs techniques and aesthetics from across the compositional spectrum, adapting them to a sensibility that is consistently sensual, colorful, and immediate. The connection between ICE and Balter runs through Chicago, where he served on the composition faculty at Columbia College. Wicker Park , written for ICE saxophonist and former Chicago resident Ryan Muncy, celebrates a Chicago neighborhood known for its bohemian spirit and DIY arts scene. Codex Seraphinianus , for flute, soprano saxophone, viola, and bassoon, is an eleven movement suite inspired by an encyclopedia of imaginary objects by Italian designer Luigi Serafini. The Art Institute of Chicago asked Claire Chase to commission a composer to write a...

Rolf Lislevand lutes, vihuela de mano; Linn Andrea Fuglseth voice; Anna Maria Friman voice; Giovanna Pessi tripleharp; Marco Ambrosini nyckelharpa; Thor Harald Johnsen chitarra battente, vihuela de mano, lutes; Michael Behringer clavichord, organ; Bjørn Kjellemyr colascione; David Mayoral percussion.  On “Nuove Musiche”, his highly successful ECM debut released in spring 2006, Norwegian master lutenist led his own group of international early music virtuosi. The album presented ravishing and most unorthodox accounts of mostly Italian instrumental music from the early Baroque. Based on Italian Renaissance sources from the 16th century – madrigals, chansons and virtuoso lute music – the new programme goes even further back – from the “seconda pratica” of monophonic expressiveness to the “prima pratica” of polyphonic complexity. Once again putting a strong emphasis on improvisation, Lislevand and his colleagues disclose the astounding modernity and emotional wealth in the mus...

Distrustful of virtuosity for its own sake, and aware of his own technical limitations, Giya Kancheli has deliberately avoided using the term "concerto" for his works for cello and orchestra, Simi and Mourned by the Wind. It may be said, however, that these pieces are concerto-like, insofar as sustaining long pitches and controlling the instrument's tone are equally challenging to the performer, and both pieces display serene, chant-like phrases that require a light touch and a steady bow arm. Kancheli's expressions are decidedly somber and meditative -- note the words in the subtitles, "bleak reflections" and "Liturgy in memoriam" -- and it may become obvious why he chooses to score many passages in the cello's and orchestra's lowest range and seldom ventures into the brighter upper octaves, except for occasional eerie harmonics and fleeting "night music" sonorities. The cello's central role in Simi is reverse...

A beautifully-recorded album from master violinist Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata, Baltica, spanning a wide range of music, all of it broached with conviction. Hungarian composer and pianist Stevan Kovacs Tickmayer from the Serbian province of Vojvodina has written eight hymns in commemoration of the film director Andrei Tarkovsky, an artist he has called a homo moralis whose remarkable visions cast a small but significant light on the tragic world of the previous century. Georgian composer Giya Kancheli contributes a silent prayer for two of his most important musical associates: the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich and the violinist Gidon Kremer. The contemplative intensity of the hymns and the ascetic tranquillity of the prayer are offset by César Franck‘s Piano Quintet in F minor like a premonition of Beethoven’s Appassionata, whose second movement, marked Lento, molto sentimento, in turn takes up the mood of the other two works. This programmatic combi...

As a performer, Gál was first and foremost a pianist (though he made it his business to learn to play most of the standard instruments). Little is known specifically of his activities as an organ player, though in an interview given to the Südwestfunk Radio in Mainz in 1986 (at the age of 96) in which he spoke about his early career as a composer , Gál stated that: “I was very interested in the organ at that time. I played the organ myself as a young man. In Vienna you could only play the organ in a church. I did that, I often played for a service in a church, like the Catholic church. The difference is: in Germany the position of organist at a large church was a sought-after and possible profession. In Austria this profession didn’t exist. The Catholic church never spent any money on the organist. It was mostly the local village school-master who played the organ. And so for years I helped out on the organ from time to time in small churches. So I was completely at home on the ...

The Austrian Jewish composer Hans Gál fled Vienna in 1938 for England and then Scotland, then learned that both his aunt and his sister had committed suicide to avoid being sent to Auschwitz. He himself spent time in a British internment camp for enemy aliens. Through these events he maintained a consistent personal style that tended toward optimism, and his Piano Concerto, Op. 57, recorded here for the first time, is a fine example. It is Mozartian without being neoclassic, putting essentially Romantic melodies together in clean, distinct units and adding a bit of chromatic harmony. It's as if Carl Maria von Weber had written his piano music at the beginning of the 20th century instead of the beginning of the 19th. Sample the last movement (track 3), where a very Mozartian mixture of high spirits and melancholy reigns. The Royal Northern Sinfonia under Kenneth Woods and pianist Sarah Beth Briggs are quietly sensitive in the complex ensemble work. The Mozart Piano C...

The Briggs Piano Trio, which Avie brought together for this release, have a mission to raise the profile of the Austrian composer Hans Gál. In 2016, Sarah Beth Briggs and Kenneth Woods collaborated on the world premiere recording of the composer's Piano Concerto. Earlier this year, Briggs contributed to Volume 3 of Gál chamber music series on Toccata Classics. I was very lucky to have the opportunity to review both those discs. Kenneth Woods, whose many-faceted career includes not only playing the cello but also conducting, has recorded the composer's four symphonies. Looking around, there is every evidence that a Gál renaissance is underway, and not before time. Hans Gál, born in Vienna in 1890, studied piano with Richard Robert, who also taught Clara Haskil, Rudolf Serkin and George Szell. Robert later appointed Gál teacher of piano, harmony and counterpoint at the New Conservatory in Vienna. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Gál saw the writing on the wall and...

. . . ["Verismo"] reveals she is more than just a star; her performances of arias and scenes from Italian opera highlight an artistry that is both subtle and thrilling . . . Netrebko's rich lyric soprano is a natural match for the lush vocals demanded by these operas, not least because her voice is at its most powerful and complex in the transitional "passaggio" points at the top and bottom of the treble staff . . . [she] flaunts a fascinating low register in the very first cut on the album, "Io son l'umile ancella" . . . The hallmark of this collection is Netrebko's taking offbeat approaches to pieces opera fans have heard a hundred times before . . . Netrebko's originality of approach can color an entire aria . . . among the most striking performances on this disc are arias from operas associated with full dramatic sopranos. In "Suicidio!" from "La Gioconda", Netrebko evokes a mood of doom with lurching high phrases...

This Profil album couples a piano concerto each from Mozart and Shostakovich, works written around 150 years apart. The two concertos are live recordings taken from a Sunday mid-day concert at Prinzregententheater. Also on the programme, though not included here, were the Gideon Klein Partita für streicher nach trio für violine, viola und cello and Haydn’s Symphony No. 81. The piano soloist is the Bulgarian Evgeni Bozhanov, performing with the Kammerorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under its artistic director and founder Radoslaw Szulc. I note that the Polish born Szulc is principal concertmaster of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. In the Shostakovich, the German soloist Hannes Läubin is principal trumpet of the renowned Bavarian orchestra. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 17 was composed in Vienna in 1784, a most productive time in his career especially for piano concertos – it is one of six he wrote that year. It was premièred the same year at Dö...