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)

Manuel Barrueco / Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia / Víctor Pablo Pérez CONCIERTO BARROCO

Here are five excellent works for guitar and orchestra. The longest are the pair by Roberto Sierra (b. 1953), each a few seconds over 13 minutes. Folías is a modern set of variations on that tune most of us first met in Corelli’s variations (La folia). Concierto barroco combines Afro-Cuban and Baroque elements. It also contains some modern dissonances or polytonalities along with its neo-Baroque passages. Folías sounds rather like Richard Strauss combined with Manuel de Falla and seasoned with a dash of Joaquín Rodrigo. Sierra’s pieces begin and end the concert, while Vivaldi’s typically vigorous—and genuinely Baroque—concertos are second and fourth on the disc. Arvo Pärt’s mesmerizing Fratres serves as centerpiece.
Pärt wrote Fratres for violin, string orchestra, and percussion, but suggested this arrangement when Manuel Barrueco approached him about writing a work for guitar. I have compared the guitar version with the original on a Deutsche Grammophon disc with violinist Gil Shaham, conductor Neeme Järvi, and the Gothenburg Symphony; either version holds my attention very well indeed.
As expected, Barrueco plays splendidly, and so does the Symphony Orchestra of Galicia, based in La Coruña—yet another provincial band capable of world-class performance. Koch delivers deliciously warm and vivid sound. This disc will be high on my list of potential holiday presents. (Robert McColley, FANFARE)

Maya Beiser WORLD TO COME

Over the course of her career, cellist Maya Beiser has continued to transcend the traditional boundaries of her instrument, reaching far beyond mere interpretation of the classical repertoire, indeed beyond classical music altogether, to become a creative performer drawing on a variety of genres and influences: Eastern, Western, and South American folk music, jazz, even rock & roll.
"World To Come" finds cellist Maya Beiser at the height of her risk-taking and boundary-crossing ambition. She defies not only cultural differences but also conventional oppositions of artist and medium, music and visual art, live performance and recorded material.
David Lang's "World To Come" is written for solo cello, the title piece incorporates pre-recorded cello tracks, theatrical lighting and video projection. A cellist and her voice are separated from the outset and struggle through out to reunite. As Lang describes it, "World To Come" is an introspective and highly personal prayer, a meditation on hope and hopelessness, and an elegy about the life and death of the soul."
Osvaldo Golijov's "Mariel" contains haunting melodies based on the native music of Northern Brazil this new version is for solo cello, drones and vocals.
World To Come also features Arvo Part's "Fratres," which was written for the eight-cello ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic. Beiser plays the piece herself through multi-tracking.