Yuja Wang THE BERLIN RECITAL ENCORES

Yuja Wang is one of those exceedingly rare pianists to have become a major international presence by her 21st birthday. Having performed by then with such orchestras as the New York, St. Petersburg, and China philharmonics, and the Chicago, San Francisco, and Houston symphony orchestras, she transitioned almost overnight from an unknown but hugely talented teenager to arguably the most famous Chinese-born female pianist. And with a multi-disc recording contract with DG and a schedule of more than 100 concerts yearly, she is one of the busiest on the globe, as well. While she has had success in competitions, Wang owes her sudden fame mostly to her role as a fill-in for superstar pianists who cancel on short notice. Most famously, Wang substituted for Martha Argerich in the Tchaikovsky First with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in March 2007. The reviewers were ecstatic in their praise for her performance. The following year she substituted for Murray Perahia on a concert tour that garnered lavish critical acclaim from Boston to San Francisco. Wang's repertory is broad and quite eclectic, taking in works by Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and others.

Borodin Quartet SHOSTAKOVICH The Complete String Quartets - Piano Quintet

For more than seventy years, the Borodin Quartet has been celebrated for its insight and authority in the chamber music repertoire. Revered for its searching performances of Beethoven and Shostakovich, the Quartet is equally at home in music ranging from Mozart to Stravinsky. 

Described by the Daily Telegraph Australia as “the Russian grand masters”, the Borodin Quartet’s particular affinity with Russian repertoire is based on constant promotion, performances and recording of the pillars of Russian string quartet music - Borodin, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, as well as Glinka, Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Schnittke. The Quartet is universally recognised for its genuine interpretation of Russian music, generating critical acclaim all over the world; the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes about them “here we have not four individual players, but a single sixteen-stringed instrument of great virtuosity”.

The Quartet's connection with Shostakovich's chamber music is intensely personal, since it was stimulated by a close relationship with the composer, who personally supervised its study of each of his quartets. Widely regarded as definitive interpretations, the Quartet’s cycles of the complete Shostakovich's quartets have been performed all over the world, including Vienna, Zurich, Frankfurt, Madrid, Lisbon, Seville, London, Paris and New York. The idea of performing a complete cycle of Shostakovich's quartets originated with the Borodin Quartet. In recent seasons, the ensemble has returned to a broader repertoire, including works by Schubert, Prokofiev, Borodin and Tchaikovsky, while continuing to be welcomed and acclaimed at major venues throughout the world.
CD 1 & 2, CD 3 & 4, CD 5 & 6, CD 7

Bruckner Orchester Linz / Dennis Russell Davies ISANG YUN Sunrise Falling

Uncompromising in his life as he was in his music, Korean composer Isang Yun (1917–95) held fast to his dream of a united Korea, even as he was unjustly accused of espionage for North Korea and sentenced to imprisonment and death. From a life of unimaginable oppression and torture emerges music of raw emotional power, heard on ISANG YUN: Sunrise Falling, a centennial commemoration of Yun’s life and music from the PENTATONE Oxingale Series. Maestro Dennis Russell Davies, a longtime collaborator and advocate for Yun, curates the program and conducts the Bruckner Orchestra Linz. A cellist himself, Yun’s fascinating, highly autobiographical Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (1975/76) anchors the album. In a live performance, cellist Matt Haimovitz tackles the controlled chaos of Yun’s score, bursting with passion, despair, and new timbral textures, such as the use of a plectrum to emulate the Korean zither, the kŏmun’go. Yun’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 (1981) features violinist Yumi Hwang-Williams, who reflects upon her own emotional return to Korea in 2015, where she performed the work at a Festival in honor of Yun. The double album also includes the orchestral Fanfare & Memorial, and additional illuminating solo works by Yun performed by pianist Maki Namekawa, Hwang-Williams, and Haimovitz. 100 years after Isang Yun’s birth, the two Koreas still teeter on a razor’s edge, with ever more global ramifications. His music opens the gate to a lost, united land, with Yun’s own heart bleeding but ever hopeful.

Raquel Camarinha / Yoan Héreau RENCONTRE

‘Rencontre' is the first recital album of soprano Raquel Camarinha and pianist Yoan Héreau, new signings on Naïve. It crystallizes several years of passionate live music-making for the duo. From Debussy to Poulenc, via Ravel and the all-too rare Delage, we are invited on a journey akin to a game of mirrors between composers, music, poems, characters and performers, that is in turn amorous, dreamlike, mysterious and wonderfully evocative. The Portuguese soprano Raquel Camarinha was born in Braga in 1986. She began her vocal studies in 2000, completed the Secondary Singing Course in 2004, and in 2009 the Undergraduate Course in Music, at the University of Aveiro. In 2011 she took her master’s degree at the Paris Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique et Danse, in the class of Chantal Mathias. Winner of several national and international awards, in 2011 she won first prize at the Luísa Todi National Singing Competition in Portugal, as well as the Best Female Performer Award at the Armel Opera Competition in Hungary.

Valentina Tóth ERNÖ DOHNÁNYI Ruralia Hungarica - Humoresken in Form Einer Suite

Bartok, Kodaly and Erno Dohnanyi (who often used his German name Ernst von Dohnanyi) are the three great composers of twentieth-century Hungary. Dohnanyi’s piano music is both rooted in late Romanticism and is especially connected to Brahms and with Hungarian folk music. After a critically acclaimed disc devoted to Bartok and Kodaly, Valentina Toth performs works by the last composer of the great Hungarian triad. Valentina Toth remarks: “Although they were not musically trained, my parents taught me to love Bartok and Kodaly. I treasured their music from the time I was young, and only became acquainted with Dohnanyi’s work much later, when I came in contact with it by accident. It was romantic, virtuoso and incredibly well written for the instrument. What more can you ask as a concert pianist? And although he may only seem rather less distinctly Hungarian than Bartok, many aspects of his country are reflected in his work. I remember when I was working on the Ruralia hungarica, my father recognised many of the melodies from the songs he had learned as a boy.” As a composer, Dohnanyi, whose oeuvre mainly consists of piano music, deep in his heart always remained a musician grounded in nineteenth-century Romanticism. Dohnanyi wrote Ruralia hungarica in 1923 and gave it a real Hungarian touch by including a wide range of folk melodies in all movements. The Humoresken Op. 17 from 1907 date from when he taught in Berlin. They are basically romantic in nature and now and then reminiscent of Brahms’s piano music. As the name suggests, these are more or less light-hearted character pieces, in which he draws on musical forms from the eighteenth century. ”It is beautiful how Valentina Toth makes great art from this close to folk music leaning miniatures”. (Klara Radio)

Sayaka Shoji / St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra / Yuri Temirkanov BEETHOVEN & SIBELIUS Violin Concertos

Sayaka Shoji will release her latest album on Deutsche Grammophon on 26 September. The album includes violin concertos by Beethoven and Sibelius recorded with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and her long-time mentor and supporter, Yuri Temirkanov. Her interpretation of Beethoven’s violin concerto features Shoji’s own cadenza which she composed in 2006.
The album release coincides with a forthcoming Japanese tour with the Orchestra and Temirkanov in November where she will perform Sibelius’ Violin Concerto in five cities including Suntory Hall, Tokyo and Symphony Hall, Osaka.
A prolific recording artist, Shoji’s notable recordings include Beethoven’s complete violin sonatas with Gianluca Cascioli and a live recording with Menahem Pressler from April 2014 with sonatas from Mozart, Schubert and Brahms.
The 2018/19 season will see the violinist make debuts with Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Klaus Mäkelä as well as the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn under the baton of Dirk Kaftan. Further ahead, Sayaka will join Yuri Temirkanov and the SPPO for concerts in Rome, Udine, Bari and Milan playing Brahms’ Violin Concerto as well as a tour in Japan.
Highlights in 2017/18 included concerts with the Tonkünstler Orchester/​Sado for Bernstein’s Serenade, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/​Noseda for Respighi Concerto Gregoriano and a Japanese tour with The Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev.

Eldbjørg Hemsing DVORÄK Violin Concerto SUK Fantasy & Love Song

Eldbjørg Hemsing’s very successful debut album of Shostakovich & Borgström violin concertos, e.g. having entered German Top 20 Classical Music Charts in May this year, is followed in autumn 2018 by a recording of Dvořák’s Violin Concerto and Suk’s Fantasy and Love Song with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Alan Buribayev. 

Eldbjørg Hemsing says about her second solo album release: “A special and close relationship with Antonín Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A minor goes all the way back to my childhood. I grew up with two siblings, and my younger brother Andris used to play the concerto constantly at the highest volume until my mum decided to hide the recording. However, my curiosity about Dvořák grew, eventually also leading to my discovery of Josef Suk’s compositions. Despite the difference in expression and style between the two composers, the eloquence of the Czech idiom that they share fascinated me. Dvořák’s Violin Concerto is a masterpiece, both playful and yet very serious. Josef Suk’s Fantasy is on the other hand like a mosaic adventure, where each of the stories come together forming the piece. And, finally, Love Song is somehow a true reflection of the romantic idea of love.”

Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov / Salagon Quartet CÉSAR FRANCK Sonate pour Piano et Violon ERNEST CHAUSSON Concert

Chausson’s Concert for violin, piano and string quartet is chamber music, of course, yet displays a symphonic character that justifies the title. Some performances, such as the superb Decca recording by Pierre Amoyal, Pascal Rogé and the Ysaÿe Quartet, underscore the work’s quasi-orchestral heft; others, like the classic Columbia account by Zino Francescatti, Robert Casadesus and the Guilet Quartet, present a more intimate view. In this dazzling new version, Isabelle Faust, Alexander Melnikov and the Salagon Quartet seem to be staking out a middle ground.

Faust and the quartet use vibrato rather sparingly, which clarifies the often intricate texture and creates a luminosity that, while lacking in bite and body, conjures and maintains a spellbinding, moonlit atmosphere. Note, for example, the pearlescent opacity of the passage at 6'26" in the first movement, and the almost spectral quality at the beginning of the finale – worlds away from the playful (yet equally magical) reading by Francescatti, Casadesus et al. Yet there’s no lack of drama. Indeed, Faust, Melnikov and the Salagon frequently bring Chausson’s fascination with Wagner to the fore and even anticipate the languorous sensuality of Scriabin (listen from 4'35" in the first movement), thanks in large part to Melnikov’s judicious phrasing.

Franck’s Violin Sonata is equally impressive. Here, again, Faust uses vibrato prudently, and in general finds intense expressivity in restraint and emotional directness. Pianissimo passages beckon in secretive, confessional whispers, and the sometimes blunt rhetoric of Franck’s style is allowed to speak for itself without overemphasis or apology. The electricity of the third-movement Recitativo-Fantasia, for instance, is conveyed not with bold gestures but through quiet, sustained tension, so that even the most sparsely textured passage keeps one on the seat’s edge. Melnikov’s tone can harden in loud passages, but this may be partly the fault of the engineering, which is pleasingly resonant yet also strangely muffled. In any case, the interpretations are so committed and forthright that any occasional sonic blemish is only momentarily distracting. The Decca recording with Amoyal and Rogé offers the same coupling in better sound but seems overwrought in comparison. Those looking for greater passion and tonal warmth in this repertoire are urged to hear a recent Aparté release with Rachel Kolly d’Alba, Christian Chamorel and the Chicago-based Spektral Quartet. (Andrew Farach-Colton/ Gramophone)

Isabelle Faust ROBERT SCHUMANN

Isabelle Faust, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Alexander Melnikov begin their project to record all of Schumann’s concertos and piano trios using gut strings and a piano of Schumann’s time (a Streicher of 1847) with the most challenging two works of all. The tangled performance history of the Violin Concerto is well enough known by now – written in 1853 for Joseph Joachim to play, it was suppressed after Schumann’s death and not performed in public until the 1930s. Performances have remained sporadic though, and as Faust’s shows, even the finest violinists (and she is one of the very best around today) still struggle to make convincing sense of some passages, especially in the rather stop-start opening movement; there are moments here when the usually nimble Freiburg Baroque Orchestra sounds as if it is having to wade through musical treacle. Composed two years before, the G minor Piano Trio isn’t top-drawer Schumann either, especially when compared with the two earlier trios, but Faust and her colleagues have the knack of teasing out its lyrical beauties and giving all the music real lightness and transparency.

Alexander Melnikov ROBERT SCHUMANN

This is the second in a three-part series exploring Schumann’s concertos and piano trios on gut strings and a period piano, and as the slightly creepy cover photo spells out – shadows of violinist Isabelle Faust and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras flank Alexander Melnikov like lurking henchmen – it is the pianist’s turn to shine. Melnikov is a steely player with plenty of ideas and charisma, but even in the finessed company of the Freiburg Baroque and conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, his bracing account of the Piano Concerto is hard to love. The first moment opens with a dry punch and hurtles ahead hell-for-leather; the second movement is breezy and borderline trite, and the finale digs in its heels with laboured earthiness and a self-conscious ping at the top of each phrase. All affectations evaporate in the Trio, though, where Faust’s sound is so silvery and expressive, so simultaneously commanding and questioning, that she risks blowing the rest of the disc out of the water. (The Guardian)

Jean-Guihen Queyras ROBERT SCHUMANN

The idea for this CD project arose during a tour on which we performed Robert Schumann’s Trio op.80. As passionate admirers of the composer, we conceived the desire to place his works for piano, violin, and cello in a broader context and to illuminate them mutually in order to allow listeners to gain a deeper understanding of his music. We soon agreed to play the pieces for this recording on a historical piano and stringed instruments with gut strings, using orchestral forces to match. Thanks to this, we expected our playing to be better balanced, better articulated, and more open-minded. 

Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburger Barockorchester sprang spontaneously to mind as the ideal partners for a project of this kind. And indeed they took up our idea enthusiastically and were keen and irreplaceable fellow-conspirators in the world of Schumann. 

Our shared journey into the magical world of this incomparable composer will remain with us as an exceptionally intense, happy, and fulfilling experience. (Isabelle Faust / Alexander Melnikov / Jean-Guihen Queyras)

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra / Manfred Honeck SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 5 BARBER Adagio

Shostakovich’s music abounds with ambiguities and coded references that beckon to us to read between the lines. In the Fifth Symphony, art and politics are so entangled that extramusical speculation is unavoidable. Yet what is the practical, interpretative effect of our conjecture? As for the symphony, the only significant point of textual contention concerns the final pages and whether the printed metronome mark of crotchet=188 should actually be quaver=188, as on Mravinsky’s 1938 recording and later corroborated by Shostakovich’s son, Maxim. Otherwise, though, the score is clearly notated, down to subtle details of pacing. If we trust the composer to have communicated his subversive intentions so artfully, do we really need to second-guess him?

Manfred Honeck seems intent on wringing every last drop of drama from the symphony in this live recording. He seizes upon the first movement’s stark juxtapositions. Rhythms in the jagged opening phrases are razor-sharp and urgently dispatched – though at a speed considerably faster than the composer’s metronome mark – then the pace eases as the mood becomes more lyrical. The tempo careens back and forth like this, highlighting the character changes, although the result sounds more like a film score than a coherent symphonic essay.

In the Scherzo, Honeck again characterises vividly but is freewheeling with the text, adding a slew of heavy accents that have an effect akin to rough jabs to one’s ribs. Isn’t the music’s Mahlerian bite – as Shostakovich notated it – sufficiently vicious? And then, when Shostakovich does indicate accents later in the movement, they don’t stand out. The Largo, however, is beautifully done. Honeck’s cinematic approach is touchingly effective here, with the opening section unfolding in long, flowing phrases, like a slow-sweeping panoramic shot. The finale packs a powerful sonic punch, thanks to impassioned playing by the Pittsburgh Symphony and stellar, rumble-the-floorboards engineering. Still, Andris Nelsons, in his recent DG recording (also live), is generally more faithful to the score while maintaining a tighter grip, and Haitink’s intense sobriety (Decca) remains a benchmark.

On paper, following this with Barber’s Adagio for Strings might appear anticlimactic but on disc it’s convincing. Barber’s idiosyncratic nod to Tudor polyphony – Honeck writes that he transferred vocal-style phrasing from the composer’s choral version – serves as a elegiac yet soothing benediction. (Andrew Farach-Colton / Gramophone)

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra / Manfred Honeck STRAUSS Elektra - Rosenkavalier

Given that the orchestra could be described as one of the key characters in Strauss’s Elektra, it is surprising that nobody before Manfred Honeck has made a suite of music from the opera. In collaboration with the Czech composer Tomás Ille, he has created a 33-minute suite performed with tremendous élan by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. Honeck employs opulent forces, but scaled down from the 110 musicians Strauss demands in the pit.

The recording packs a mighty punch from the initial Agamemnon motif, scything brass braying Elektra’s revenge theme. There is percussive glitter for Klytemnestra, whip cracks marking the arrival of her entourage. The full barbarism of Strauss’s score makes a searing impact, Orest’s murder of Klytemnestra especially brutal, yet there are moments of great tenderness too. Reference Recordings affords the Pittsburgh Symphony a weighty sound, strong in bass attack. Honeck provides his own excellent booklet-notes which give the listener a blow-by-blow account of the music, with helpful timings.

After a polite pause, horns whoop their libidinous joy to launch another Strauss suite. Der Rosenkavalier, given here in Artur Rodzinski’s 1944 arrangement, offers a high-calorie feast after the visceral drama of Elektra. Composed only two years apart, the operas occupy very difficult musical worlds. Honeck, who’d have played this many times in the Wiener Staatsoper pit, teases the waltz rhythms with halting rubatos. Baron Ochs’s waltz steals in on the softest, most hesitant of strings, returning with great bluster to conclude the disc. A splendid showcase for Honeck’s Pittsburgh forces. (Mark Pullinger / Gramophone)

Isabelle Faust / Ewa Kupiec BARTÓK Sonates

Bartok’s First Violin Sonata is notoriously reluctant to yield its secrets. Three expansive movements parade dissonances virtually by the bar; the total playing time is well over half an hour (38 minutes in this particular performance) and allows for absolutely no easing of intensity. The opening Allegro appassionato is a complex essay, to say the least: many have braved its pages and although most available recordings convey the scale of the movement, none is more comprehensively perceptive than this new CD by the young violinist Isabelle Faust. Harmonia Mundi count Faust among the “cream of the new generation of musicians” (this budget-price disc is one of a series devoted to Les Nouveaux Interpretes) and, on the evidence presented here, no one could rightly counter that claim. Ewa Kupiec, who will be familiar to some readers through her recordings on Koch Schwann, provides Faust with motivated support; not, perhaps, as leonine as Richter (with David Oistrakh) or Argerich (with Kremer), but always attentive to mood and detail.
Faust favours a sensual approach that draws active – and unexpected – parallels with the music of Berg. She ventures deep among the first movement’s more mysterious episodes: listen, for example, to her fragile tone projection from 6'27'' and follow it through for a couple of minutes. This is truly empathetic playing, candid, full of temperament and always focused securely on the note’s centre. The crescendoing processional that sits at the heart of the second movement (5'24'') is charged with suspense and the steely finale suggests an almost savage resolve (try the rocketing glissando ‘take-offs’ from, say, 3'48''). Faust and Kupiec visit corners and perspectives in this score that others merely gloss over, and the recording supports them all the way.
The Solo Sonata is virtually as impressive. Here Faust approaches the music from a Bachian axis: her tone is pure, her double-stopping immaculate (and never abrasive) and her sense of timing acute. She obviously relishes the score’s balance of colour and counterpoint, and her performance is distinguished by a combination of musical intuition and technical finesse (a good place to sample is 5'49'' into the first movement).
I would strongly urge you to purchase this superb disc, even if you already own recordings of both works. Still, as it’s a reviewer’s job to survey the field, I should remind you that Pauk and Jando on Naxos offer forthright performances of the two sonatas (plus Contrasts) and Menuhin is extraordinarily eloquent in the Solo Sonata. Either will do nicely, but Faust is a persuasive narrator; she and her piano partner break down barriers in the First Sonata that, for some readers, will mean the difference between approachability and continuing bafflement. Do give them a try.' (Gramophone)

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra / Manfred Honeck BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 3 Eroica STRAUSS Horn Concerto No. 1

Reference Recordings proudly presents these two iconic works in definitive interpretations from Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, in superb audiophile sound. This release was recorded in beautiful and historic Heinz Hall, home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In his fascinating and scholarly notes, Maestro Honeck gives us great insight into the history of both pieces, and describes how he conducts and interprets each. He reminds us that the “Eroica” was a bold departure from earlier symphonies, a “dance symphony with dramatic inventiveness, full of new elements that had never been heard before.” He quotes Beethoven’s student Ferdinand Ries, who wrote “Beethoven played recently for me (the Eroica) and I believe both heaven and earth must tremble when it is performed.” Honeck puts his own inimitable stamp on this interpretation, giving the listener a chance to experience the novelties of the “Eroica” as if hearing it for the very first time. This release is the eighth in the highly acclaimed Pittsburgh Live! series from Reference Recordings.

Turku Philharmonic Orchestra BRAHMS III SEGERSTAM

"This third [album] in the ALBA-TROSS-series of Brahms-Segerstam juxtapositions is an excellent tidbit of the contents of this unique project with [longbearded rascals] as musical musketeers.... the material has exploded into multiversic infinities..." as Leif Segerstam clearly says about this fabulous third release in the four album series with all four Brahms symphonies and four symphonies from Leif Segerstam’s over 320 symphonies. In this third album is presented Brahms’ third symphony and Leif Segerstam’s symphony no 294, “Songs of a UNICORN heralding...” with Horn obligato played by Tanja Nisonen. Leif Segerstam (b. 1944), conductor, composer, violinist, and pianist, is one of the most versatile musical talents in the Nordic countries. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in 1952-1963 and completed diplomas in violin and conducting. After completing his degree in conducting at Juilliard Music Academy in 1965, Segerstam spent three years conducting the Finnish National Opera. He continued his career with Stockholm’s Royal Opera, and the German Opera and Berlin as well as the Finnish National Opera. His numerous recordings have received wide international acclaim.

The American String Quartet AMERICAN ROMANTICS

These recorded performances (16 March 2011; the Dvorak 5 June 2017) mean to celebrate the 45^th anniversary of the American String Quartet—Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney, violins; Daniel Avshalomov, viola; Wolfram Koessel, cello—specifically by featuring works that embrace the “national” experience as Dvorak had defined it for our composers, to avoid the imitation of European models. The so-called “American” Quartet in F Major (1893) came to quick fruition in the course of seventy-two hours in Spillville, Iowa. The use of pentatonic scales, Native American rhythmic motives, and the particular color of the viola make the first movement Allegro, ma non troppo immediately gripping.  In the momentum of its lyric and vivid energies, Dvorak finds room for some strict counterpoint in the development. The famous Lento has the violin in a melody set above an undulating bass line. The cello assumes the duties of poignant lyricism. The pulsations and mixed colors combine to create an extremely affecting moment in chamber music literature. The melody has tremolando effects to accompany its last page. The Molto vivace scherzo utilizes Dvorak’s patented contrast between the major and minor modes of F. A lively dance in rondo form, the music pays homage to a scarlet tanager which had made a nest outside of Dvorak’s home window. The Finale: Vivace, ma non troppo exploits another rondo form, this time built upon both a folk dance and a chorale that recalls a Czech hymn, the latter’s giving some sense of Dvorak’s potent homesickness. The sonic image, captured by vivid microphone placement from Judith Sherman, endows the performance with gracious “presence.”

Jonas Kaufmann / Anita Rachvelishvili AN ITALIAN NIGHT

 

A magical evening dedicated to beautiful Italian music with the world’s greatest tenor. Captured live for release on CD. Featuring Anita Rachvelishvili. This is the key release this year from “The world’s greatest tenor” (The Telegraph). This summer Jonas presented his most popular Italian repertoire live from Berlin’s outdoor amphitheatre Waldbühne (Forest Stage). Jonas brought the house down with a succession of hits from his extremely popular ‘Dolce Vita’ programme as well as exciting arias and duets (with mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili) from the Italian opera repertoire.

Antonio Pappano / Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia BERNSTEIN The 3 Symphonies

Leonard Bernstein was the Honorary President of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia from 1983 until his death in 1990. Temperamentally they were exceedingly well suited. Their ethos, their extrovert nature, to say nothing of their innately operatic manner, made them a good fit. And there’s something of Bernstein’s dynamism and eclectic, all-embracing nature in the person of Antonio Pappano whose penchant for, and love of, jazz for starters ticks one of the many boxes that this music demands. So here we have it: the three ages of Lenny the symphonist, fittingly signed off with that short, sharp, wacky jam session Prelude, Fugue and Riffs.

Let me say straight away that these performances come at us with a theatricality that puts them firmly ‘on stage’ where they belong. All three pieces are essentially about the process we all go through to ‘find ourselves’, except that in Bernstein’s case the question of belief and faith was to haunt him, trouble him, from first to last. How to reconcile being Jewish with his essentially agnostic nature. That The Age of Anxiety is flanked by the soul-searching of the Jeremiah and Kaddish Symphonies is nothing if not ironical.

One should give credit for the fact that Symphony No 1, Jeremiah – his very first orchestral work – sprang so fully formed from his imagination. For sure it is mightily filmic, a piece whose movement titles ‘Prophecy’, ‘Profanation’ and ‘Lamentation’ portend and indeed deliver biblical gestures; but the piece is big-hearted, too, and paradoxically there is an almost guilty jubilance in the central ‘Profanation’ movement – a destructive hedonism in which Bernstein’s composerly prowess advances in leaps and bounds, powering forwards on the back of driving rhythms and self-evidently American syncopation. We are pre dating and predicting here the prairie-pounding Scherzo of Copland’s Third Symphony and the Santa Cecilia players fully relish the heat of it (flaring trumpet fanfares and all) only to slink back into the singing melody of the Trio section which hardly needs saying could only have been penned by Bernstein. Then there is resonance in the closing lamentation for the fallen city of Jerusalem (the political overtones will never have eluded Lenny) with Pappano’s solo casting (inspired throughout this set) hitting precisely the right declamatory tone with Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s ripely theatrical delivery.

The Second Symphony, The Age of Anxiety after WH Auden’s tremendous prose poem, is I think Bernstein’s finest concert work – still hugely underrated in some quarters. This searching dark night of the soul, evolving as it does from that lonely two-part clarinet counterpoint at the outset (the musical equivalent of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and one of Bernstein’s most inspired ideas), uses an interlocking variation technique to great effect, each new idea emerging from the last notes of the previous one to create not just a sense of evolution but of new beginnings, too.

Again, Pappano’s choice of the audacious young Italian pianist Beatrice Rana – a rising star if ever there was one – is right on the money. She has the razzle-dazzle in spades, of course, but it is the mercurial throwaway manner (cool, and then some, the jazzy ‘Masque’ at the heart of the piece brilliantly on point) that really excites. That and her ability suddenly to look inwards and to thoughtfully reflect on what is past and what is to come. She and Pappano communicate great kinship in the piece and that inexorable build to the cathartic peroration has impressive inevitability. One of those eternally hopeful Bernstein sunsets or sunrises, depending on your viewpoint.

Symphony No 3, Kaddish, is still the most problematic of the three symphonies for me, one in which the music seems almost incidental to Bernstein’s spoken text. That text – highly emotive as it is – has always struck me as more therapeutic for him than it has ever been for the listener. What we have here is essentially a melodrama, a public venting of his troubled relationship with God, the Father. But Pappano has played an absolute blinder in casting Josephine Barstow in the Speaker’s role. She is tremendous and far and away the most exciting, the most affecting, the most probing narrator of any on disc. One can all too easily forget that she was an English scholar and an actress before she was a singer. She is blistering in her voicing of Bernstein’s angry confrontations with his ‘Tin God’ while the music for its part wrestles with its thorniness, finding respite in the central lullaby and the glorious ‘rainbow’ theme which Bernstein, one feels, knows all too well is the manifestation of his true self. But it is Barstow that makes the piece work as never before in my view and it is Pappano who should take credit for knowing all too well that she would.

Lenny’s Benny Goodman inspired-jam session Prelude, Fugue and Riffs is the most pertinent of postscripts to this terrific set. Alessandro Carbonare emerges from the orchestra to lead his feisty combo through the seven action-packed minutes where classical sleight of hand meets jazz improv. Hard to believe it’s written down. But then that was the general idea. (Edward Seckerson / Gramophone)

Carion Wind Quintet DREAMS OF FREEDOM

The award-winning Carion Wind Quintet returns with Dreams of Freedom, featuring the world-premiere recording of Borderless by Syrian refugee Moutaz Arian, alongside Mozart, Zemlinsky, Hindemith, Stravinsky and Pärt.
The rich variety of music on this album is unified by each composer’s ‘dream of freedom’. All of these composers experienced exile of one kind or another, travelling far from home in order to pursue their vocation. Mozart left the stifling confines of Salzburg for the cultural riches of Vienna. Stravinsky, Hindemith, Zemlinsky and Pärt all left unsympathetic or even hostile regimes, and Kurdish composer Moutaz Arian escaped Syria and now lives in China; he dedicated his piece, Borderless, to Carion. Yet despite the profound, sometimes painful origins of this music, this is an album full of joie de vivre: music full of hope, intellect and even humour.
Mozart’s delightful Serenade No.11 in E flat, KV 375, was his first known foray into the Viennese tradition of wind band music, and Stravinsky’s Suite No. 2, derived from earlier piano pieces, features a March, Waltz and Polka which are all wonderfully skewed takes on convention, while Stravinsky’s unmistakeable harmony, reminiscent of Petrushka, imbues the quirky Galop.

Zemlinsky represented an important link in the evolution of music from Brahms to Mahler to the Second Viennese School; dating from 1939, his Humoresque was one of the last pieces he wrote. Hindemith’s Kleine Kammermusik features a witty march followed by a wry waltz which parodies overly sentimental music. In the fourth movement each instrument enjoys cadenza-like passages before the demanding swagger of the finale. Arvo Pärt’s Quintettino dates from 1964, before his “holy minimalism” style emerged, and so represents a fascinating example of his earlier experiments in sound.

Moutaz Arian is a Kurdish composer from northern Syria who now lives in Beijing, performing his compositions in China and Japan. Arian’s Borderless is a powerfully pertinent and hugely topical work. He says of this piece that it expresses “our desire to live more freely in a world without the borders that separate us, not only borders of land, but physical and human barriers, too.”

Jesus Rodolfo TRANSFIXING METAMORPHOSIS

“Once upon a time, in a hidden part of France, a handsome young prince lived in a beautiful castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the prince was selfish and unkind. He demanded that the village fill his castle with the most beautiful objects, and his parties with the most beautiful people...”

The magical music that accompanied the story of Beauty and the Beast was what aroused in me, aged 4, the love of music. From that moment, my life events had a soundtrack that would shift like a kaleidoscope. Nearly 30 years later, it feels like looking through the glass of that kaleidoscope again, and a new soundtrack plays in my head describing each of the three decades of my life. 

Just as it is when we go for a walk, Bach’s Adagio from his Solo Violin Sonata No. 3 builds, step by step, towards noble and divine harmonies. Like any prince, my childhood was spent chasing my dreams; in my case, learning the works of Bach, as well as conveying the beautiful message of faith through music. At this time of life, creativity is limitless, bold and innocent, and this sonata not only communicates that spirit but also delivers a message of hope for the future. 

Paul Hindemith was Germany’s “enfant fatale”, and although very conservatively rooted in Baroque techniques of composition, he strove for the more modern and avant-garde. When this Sonata for Solo Viola, Op. 11, No. 5 was written, Hindemith was undergoing his final and definite transition to becoming a fully- edged viola player, establishing himself as the most famous violist and composer for viola in music history. In a similar way, my teens were a period of blossoming creatively, musically and personally. I felt like a warrior defending my identity and developing who I envisioned I wanted to be. 

My 20s were a time of extremes at every level: the biggest challenges and most fulfilling accomplishments. Ligeti’s Viola Sonata is also a work of extremes, renowned as the hardest solo sonata ever written for the instrument, encapsulating his compositional techniques in just one piece. And so, when I least expected it, the transformation happened. These experiences coalesced and, all of a sudden, I realised I was an adult. I am nothing but the result of what has been learned during those different phases of my life, paired with the beautiful dreams, experiences and wishes that brought about the metamorphosis of these reminiscences, producing who I am today, as an individual and as a musician.  (Jesus Rodolfo)

André Isoir J.S. BACH Te Deum

The French organist and composer, André Isoir, studied in Paris at the École Cesar-Franck with Édouard Souberbielle (organ) and Germaine Mounier (piano). At the Conservatoire de Paris, he studied with Rolande Falcinelli and received the premier prix in both organ and improvisation in 1960. He won several international organ competitions including the St Albans International Organ Festival in England in 1965, then won 3 consecutive annual prizes (Prix du Challenge) at Haarlem Competition in Holland (1966-1968). He was the first French organist to achieve this distinction in the history of the competition. In 1974 Isoir was given the prize in composition by the Amis de l'Orgue for his Variations sur un psaume Huguenot.
c served as organist at St.-Médard from 1952 to 1957, at St.-Séverin from 1967 to 1973, and at the Abbatial Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris from 1973. As a recitalist, he became particularly well known for his performances of the works of J.S. Bach.

André Isoir made many recordings, particularly on the Calliope label. As of 2006, there were 36 of his recordings in the catalog. They have received numerous awards. He made over 20 CD's of the organ works of J.S. Bach. His recordings of the music of César Franck on the organ of the cathedral at Luçon have also been particularly praised. He did not neglect more obscure but very worthy composers. He recorded the complete organ output of Nicolas de Grigny who died in 1703 at only 31, but not before "epitomizing the French classical organ tradition...which was) stylistically more akin to harpsichord than to organ practice at the time."

Florilegium TELEMANN Essercizii Musici

Georg Philipp Telemann, the son of a clergyman, was self-taught in music and became the most prolific composer of his time. As a child he had a rare gift for music, but it was taken for granted that he would follow his father and turn to the church for his livelihood. At that time the musical profession was still held by many scholars and citizens to be inferior and disreputable.

Despite his mother’s efforts to dissuade him, popular legend has it that she even confiscated his music and instruments, this persecution only led to a secret rebellion as he describes in his first autobiography of 1718: “My fire burned far too brightly, and lighted my way into the path of innocent disobedience, so that I spent many a night with pen in hand because I was forbidden it by day, and passed many an hour in lonely places with borrowed instruments.

London Symphony Orchestra / Sir John Eliot Gardiner MENDELSSOHN

LSO Live presents Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s award-winning Mendelssohn series together in its entirety for the first time. Captured over three seasons during critically-acclaimed concerts in the Barbican Hall, this box set offers listeners the definitive account of Gardiner’s unique take on Mendelssohn with the London Symphony Orchestra: a blend between the conductor’s wide-ranging expertise and the Orchestra’s signature sound.

This box set includes celebrated interpretations of the complete Mendelssohn symphonies, as well as three of the composer’s most popular overtures and Gardiner’s landmark version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, all in ultra high-definition stereo and multi-channel audio across four Hybrid SACDs.

Reflecting on this exploration of the great German composer with the LSO, Gardiner said: ‘My admiration for Mendelssohn has gone up enormously as a result of this project... It’s so rewarding working with this group of players; they’re willing to go to the last nth degree, in terms of phrasing and articulation, and that’s a joy.’

James Ehnes JAMES NEWTON HOWARD - AARON JAY KERNIS Violin Concertos BRAMWELL TOVEY Stream of Limelight

This program features the world premiere recordings of three works written for violinist James Ehnes. Familiar to movie fans the world over, James Newton Howard has composed over 120 film scores. Upon being commissioned to write a violin concerto, Howard admitted to feeling, ''thrilled, excited, expectant and ultimately terrified.'' Pulitzer Prize winning composer Aaron Jay Kernis first composed for Ehnes in 2007 and a few years later his Violin Concerto followed. Bramwell Tovey and James Ehnes's musical relationship dates back to 1990, and they have performed together countless times. Stream of Limelight gives James's incredible technique ample opportunity to dazzle, and is a superb finale to this fascinating album of new compositions.

Dresdner Oktett FRANZ SCHUBERT Oktett F-Dur 803

To forge chamber music from orchestral scores and make music of the highest order with like-minded colleagues — this was the ambition of eight section leaders of the Dresden Staatskapelle when they founded the Dresden Octet to give a chamber concert during the orchestra’s tour of Hong Kong in 2015. The idea of creating such an ensemble had been on the cards for some time — hardly surprising given that the Staatskapelle is bound to chamber music by a long and significant tradition embodied by the Tonkunstler-Verein zu Dresden (Composers’ Society of Dresden), which was founded in 1854 and has been run independently to this day. “For us, music-making in the octet is an ideal form of chamber music,” acknowledges the ensemble’s double-bassist and founding member Andreas Wylezol. For this release the ensemble has chosen Franz Schubert’s Octet in F major D 803.

Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Sonn und Schild

For the fourth time on the Phi label, Philippe Herreweghe presents three cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach – Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 4, Gott der Herr ist Sonn und Schild, BWV 79, and Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80. Written at different moments in the composer’s life and based to a large extent on the works of Martin Luther, these cantatas reflect a marked taste for dramaturgy, vivid word painting and an invariably astonishing use of instruments and voices. Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent give us an accomplished version of these masterpieces, confirming, if further proof were needed, their stature as ardent champions of Bach.

Dan Ettinger / Stuttgarter Philharmoniker MOZART Symphonies 25 & 40 - Sonata for Two Pianos

Dan Ettinger is one of the leading international conductors of his generation. Since the start of the 2015/2016 season he has been Principal Conductor of the Stuttgart Philharmonic and General Music Director of the City of Stuttgart. His contract was prematurely extended in July 2016 to run till the summer of 2023. Ettinger regularly conducts at the world’s great opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Washington National Opera, London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, the Opera National de Paris, the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Opernhaus Zurich, the Salzburg Festival and the State Opera Houses of Vienna and Munich. Ever since he began his conducting career, Ettinger has been scoring great successes on the concert platform as well. From 2002 to 2003 he was First Guest Conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. His appearances with the Stuttgart Philharmonic and with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Israel Symphony now form the core elements of his concert activities. On this release, he leads the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker in performing the timeless works of W.A. Mozart.

Orchestre Symphonique De Québec / Fabien Gabel GAÎTÉ PARISIENNE

From the waltz to the French cancan to the ballet, this program by the Orchestre symphonique de Québec under the baton of conductor Fabien Gabel illustrates the perfect symbiosis between dance and French music. On the menu: Maurice Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales; Jacques Offenbach’s suite Gaîté Parisienne, arranged by Manuel Rosenthal; and the suite Les Biches by Francis Poulenc. 

Recognized internationally as one of the stars of the new generation, Fabien Gabel is a regular guest of major orchestras in Europe, North America, and Asia, and has been music director of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec since September 2012. He is also music director of the Orchestre Français des Jeunes for the 2017, 2018, and 2019 seasons, taking over from David Zinman.

Vox Clamantis / Jaan-Eik Tulve SACRUM CONVIVIUM

‘Sacrum Convivium’ presents a vision of French music over two millennia: from Gregorian chant through Guillaume de Machaut’s extraordinary ‘Lai de Nostre Dame’ to the Twentieth Century of Maurice Duruflé, Francis Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen, all three of them influenced in some way by the spirituality and sensibility of Gregorian chant, which Messiaen himself described as “the greatest treasure we possess in western music.”

Moonwinds / Joan Enric Lluna / Cristina Montes SALVADOR BACARISSE Le jour de l’an

Jesús Bal y Gay (Lugo 1905 – Madrid 1993) and Salvador Bacarisse (Madrid 1898 – Paris 1963) were two musicians and intellectuals who belonged to the group known as the Generation of ‘27. Having received their education in Spain, they went into exile as a consequence of the atrocities of the Civil War that Spain suffered between 1936 and 1939.

Written in 1942 and performed for the first time in 1946, the Divertimento for Woodwind Quartet is structured in 4 movements. Some aspects attest to the clear influence of Falla, and the use of rhythmic and harmonic pedal notes owes an obvious debt to Stravinsky, charting an aesthetic line close to Neoclassicism. The four movements demonstrate careful, unfussy composition, with few rhythmic complexities, a clear texture that is almost classic in style, melodically avoiding the excessive leaps of the dissonant harmonies of the new melodic concepts of the 20th century, with a counterpoint inherited from Classicism and an entirely traditional instrumental syntax. It is also possible to hear echoes of traditional Galician music, such as the constant purring of the last movement evocative of the drone of the gaita, the typical instrument of Bal y Gay’s native province of Galicia.

Is thought to have been composed in 1955 for clarinet and piano. Bacarisse went on to produce two new versions of the work for violin and piano, and for cello and piano, respectively. In both cases the title was changed to Introduction, Variations and Coda. The manuscript of the first version has been lost, so Joan Enric Lluna took on the challenge of trying to reconstruct the work for clarinet, tailoring the music to the instrument’s particular idiosyncrasies while adhering as closely as possible to the composer’s other versions for violin and cello. Knowing the capabilities of the Valencian clarinettist and conductor, and hearing the resulting sound, we must applaud this work for its fidelity to the style and aesthetic of the Madrid composer. Of a similar aesthetic are the two pieces for solo harp, and harp and wind instruments. The Concert pour le jour de l’an, Concert for the Day of the Year, for Harp and Woodwind is an expanded version of the Concerto in E flat that Bacarisse wrote in 1954 for the same combination of instruments which was subsequently reorchestrated in 1961 under the same title Concert pour le jour de l’an but in this case with the orchestration increased to for Harp and Orchestra. There is no record of the first version having ever been performed.

Zefiro / Alfredo Bernardini JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Brandenburg Concertos

The name of this group of concertos, attributed by Bach scholar Philipp Spitta, comes from their dedication to the Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt, half-brother of King Friedrich I of Prussia. The original title of the autograph score of 1721 reads: “Six Concerts Avec plusieurs Instruments Dediées A Son Altesse Royalle Monseigneur Crétien Louis, Marggraf de Brandenbourg ... par Son tres-humble et tres obeissant serviteur Jean Sebastien Bach”. The use of the French language was common at the German courts, reflecting the influence that the court of Versailles held over the other courts of Europe in matters of art and culture. 

The six Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach are some of the most celebrated and fre- quently performed works in concerts and at festivals. And yet, this cycle presents numerous characteristics that are unusual when compared to the Italian models of recent invention. Indeed, Bach did not hesitate to incorporate among the more brilliant or cantabile movements typical of the concerto grosso or the Italian solo concerto certain elements characteristic of other styles.

Richard Boothby TELEMANN Solo Fantasias

One of the greatest finds of the 21st century for the early music world, Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for Viola da Gamba were considered lost until the discovery of an original print in a private collection in Germany in 2015. Perhaps some of the composer’s finest work for solo instrument, they are described by soloist Richard Boothby as being “... by turns virtuosic and expressive,Telemann usesall the techniques of the instrument to create satisfyingly complete Fantasias that are full of diversity.”One of the UK’s leading exponents of early music, Richard Boothby founded the Purcell Quartet in 1984 and was a founder member of Fretwork in 1985. Since then his career has been bound up with these two groups with whom he records and tours; and through whom he plays the broadest range of repertory for the instrument from the earliest music to the latest contemporary music commissioned for viols.

As you’d expect, the music is pre-eminently personable, eclectic, adroitly crafted, and gambists have rallied to the cause…Boothby is alive to their confiding intimacy and made-in-the-moment fluidity…Just occasionally a pinched note jars, and it’s easy to be wrong-footed by the phrasing at the start of the D major, but they’re small quibbles in a disc instinct with affectionate insights. (BBC Music Magazine)

Pablo Barragán / Juan Pérez Floristan / Andrei Ionita BRAHMS Complete Clarinet Sonatas & Trio

It is clear and undisputed that the Sonatas belong to the outstanding clarinet music-literature. Brahms succeeds in his two “Sister Sonatas” to show the full sonority of the woodwind instrument while treating the piano as an accompaniment, but equal chamber music partner. Clarinet and piano always stay together – in support and in dialogue. The composition in all of these works can be experienced as a contribution to any understanding of expression and inter-musical relationships: this becomes clear on an inter-musical level of the composition and on an inter-humane level of the interpreters. It is especially this aspect which makes Brahms still experienceable in performance and interpretable today. In this ‘performativity’, the works experience their raison d’être; and in their performance, the intimate dialogue of friendship becomes reality. It is hard to find such a well-balanced and creative union between three artists, whose solo careers speak for themselves, but whose collaboration evoke the true essence of music-making. The most notable element perhaps, which brings Pablo Barragan, Juan P. Floristan, and Andrei Ionita together is their common vision of the communicational power of chamber music, its capacity to inspire and transform and its importance for their professional and personal development.

Baiba Skride AMERICAN CONCERTOS

“America, you are better off” – wrote Goethe in 1827, weary of German Romanticism and the 'fruitless wrangling' of sterile debates.

A century later, the New World experienced an unprecedented wave of migration consisting of leading figures, largely Jewish, from the cultural and intellectual spheres of Germany and Austriia, composers were able to immerse themselves in the new world of sound film in Hollywood. However, few were able to reap those rewards to the fullest. Among those few, who were able to make their way through pragmatism and perseverance, were Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Miklós Rózsa – both regularly nominated for Oscars. While making a living from this genre of 'music drama', each of them – whether or not they were recognized by the classical music business – sought to push the limits of the traditional formats and were remarkably successful in doing so.

'If you’re Heifetz, I’m Mozart!' Taking a phone call, Rózsa could scarcely believe that the legendary virtuoso was seriously interested in his Violin Concerto and was ready to give the work its premiere – but so he did in 1956. It was the same with the Violin Concerto by Korngold, Rózsa’s senior by ten years: the 1947 premiere of this twentiethcentury classic again showcased Heifetz as soloist. In the new generation of genuinely American musicians, one outstanding figure was Leonard Bernstein, an all-rounder whose early success led on to even greater heights: here too, one can hardly ignore his contribution to film music, even if it amounts to one single film. Bernstein rated his Violin Concerto of 1954, 'Serenade', inspired by Plato’s Symposium, as his best work ever, and this work too in its imaginatively slimmed-down scoring for string orchestra, harp and percussion is now acknowledged to be an important 20th-century concerto for violin. Isaac Stern performed the premiere of the work with the composer conducting. As an encore', this compilation includes the masterly Symphonic Dances from the immortal 'West Side Story', which has long risen above the 'fruitless wrangling' over 'light' and 'serious' music. The very different challenges posed by all three concertos are brilliantly overcome by Baiba Skride, whose unquestionable virtuosity nevertheless takes second place to the immediacy of her musical language and expression.

Concerto Italiano / Rinaldo Alessandrini UN VIAGGIO A ROMA

"The programme on this CD provides a snapshot of music over a few decades. An incomplete one, in that it focuses firstly on the contribution of Stradella, who lived in Rome between 1652 and 1678, with his S. Giovanni Battista, performed in the church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini in 1675; then the visit of Georg Muffat, a Frenchman interested in Italian style, a pupil of Pasquini between 1681 and 1682, and a great admirer of Corelli; the young Handel, who was the object of admiration in the papal city between 1707 and 1709; Alessandro Scarlatti, prolifc, tireless composer and musical traveller, and lastly Corelli, the classic symbol of the splendour of Roman musical culture, who spent the whole of his life from 1675 ‘in urbe’." (Rinaldo Alessandrini)

Gothenburg Symphony / Neeme Järvi STENHAMMAR Sången - Reverenza - Romeo and Julia - Two Sentimental Romances

The collaboration between Gothenburg Symphony, Neeme Järvi and BIS began in 1982 with the recording of Wilhelm Stenhammar’s First Symphony, originally released on vinyl and then re-released on CD in 1986. By that time, Neeme Järvi and the orchestra had already started on the many Sibelius recordings that would contribute to the team’s rise to fame. In total, the orchestra and Järvi would go on to record some 45 discs for BIS, including several with music by Stenhammar. It would however take until 2018 – 36 years after that first disc – before the opportunity arose to record that late, great work of his – the symphonic cantata Sången (The Song) for four vocal soloists, mixed choir, children’s choir and large orchestra. 

Because of the large forces involved, Sången is a rarity in the concert hall as well as on disc – there has only been one previous commercial recording, made in 1988. As might be expected there was a sense of occasion in the Gothenburg Concert Hall during the concert and recording of this all-Stenhammar programme – a sense of occasion that audibly comes across in this present disc. Also included are the well-loved Two Sentimental Romances for violin and orchestra with the orchestra’s eminent leader Sara Trobäck as soloist and the rarely heard suite from the music to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Julian Prégardien HANS ZENDER Schuberts Winterreise

The tenor Julian Prégardien joins ALPHA for several recording projects that will showcase every facet of his talent, notably lieder and oratorio. His first album on the label is devoted to one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of music, Winterreise, but in a version with orchestra composed by Hans Zender in 1993.

He scored the work for orchestral forces very different from the ensembles used in the nineteenth century (including, for example, a soprano saxophone, an accordion, a harmonica, a wind machine, a guitar and a very large percussion section). Hans Zender describes his work as a ‘creative transformation’: ‘My own reading of Winterreise does not seek a new expressive interpretation, but systematically takes advantage of the freedoms that performers normally allow themselves in an intuitive way: slowing down or accelerating the tempo, transposition into different keys, emphasising and nuancing colours.’ Following a staged production of this version of the work, Christian Merlin wrote in Le Figaro in 2018: ‘A spellbinding Winterreise . . . The tenor Julian Prégardien, at once an exceptional singer and a committed actor, gives an incendiary performance combining vocal expressiveness, loving attention to the words and theatrical presence with sensitivity and intelligence in equal measure.’

Viktoria Mullova / Paavo Järvi ARVO PÄRT

Immutable, austere, impassable – the strength of Arvo Pärt’s music lies in its ability to project an image as powerful and complete as the religious iconography it often seeks to replicate.

This is not music that hinges on sudden shifts and sharp contrasts. However, at its core lies the age-old dichotomy between freedom and control, head and heart – or ‘mathematics … and love’, as Pärt himself put it in last month’s Gramophone feature on this recording. Keeping both elements in check – and in balance with one another – remains key.

The Russian violinist Viktoria Mullova brilliantly manages to tease out these dichotomies on this new recording of Pärt’s works for violin and orchestra. In Fratres, she approaches each variation from a different angle. Sap and rosin fly off the bow in the coruscating arpeggio figurations of the opening chord sequence. Mullova’s skill here is to ratchet up the intensity by gradually imparting weight and purpose to the lowest note in each pattern. Lighter feather-bedding is applied in the fourth variation’s rapid triadic ostinatos, creating an almost symphonic effect. Intensity is maintained throughout the double-stopped variation but the expression never becomes exaggerated. There is no let up – and very little rubato – until Mullova finally eases off during the final ‘flautando’ variation.

Mullova’s instinct is to know when and where to foreground these shifting dichotomies. They gradually dissipate during the two-movement Tabula rasa and dissolve completely by the time we get to Spiegel im Spiegel. Aided in Tabula rasa by the equally impressive Florian Donderer on second violin, the overall shape of the work hinges on maintaining a more or less exact proportional relationship of 1:2 between both movements. Gidon Kremer’s premiere recording of the work (ECM), still a benchmark in many respects, is close at 9'36" and 16'50" respectively. But, at 10'57" and 20'35", Mullova is pretty much bang-on.

Pärt was said to have been very pleased with the way the recording sessions went with Mullova, Paavo Järvi and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, and one can certainly understand why. Get the mathematics right and the love will take care of itself. (Pwyll ap Siôn / Gramophone)

Xenia Löffler / Anna Prohaska / Collegium 1704 / Václav Luks JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Oboe Concertos & Cantatas

After the very successful album with the B minor Mass according to the Rheinische Post, the most beautiful recording of this work currently in existence Vaclav Luks and his Collegium 1704 ensemble return to Johann Sebastian Bach. Joined by Xenia Loffler, the solo oboist of AKAMUS Berlin, and the renowned soprano Anna Prohaska, Luks presents a deluxe setup for a programme of concertos and cantatas in which the oboe plays a prominent role. As a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician, Xenia Loffler has gained an outstanding reputation as a baroque oboist over the past several years. Working with ensembles such as the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin, where she has been active as a member and soloist since 2001, she has toured throughout the world and has performed at some of the most important music festivals and concert halls.

Liya Petrova / Odense Symphony Orchestra / Kristiina Poska PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1 - NIELSEN Violin Concerto

After Liya Petrova won joint first prize at the 2016 Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition, jury President Nikolaj Znaider declared he had been 'absolutely blown away by how she had absorbed the Nielsen violin concerto - how it had become hers'. From her debut album on Orchid Classics you can hear just why she made such an impression on those who heard her performance. The Strad praised the 'iron will' Petrova brought to Nielsen's concerto; a fortitude which is matched on this recording by the sensitivity in her approach to the first violin concerto of Sergei Prokofiev.

Hélène Grimaud MEMORY

Music has been described as a means of rescuing that which is lost – a simple yet persuasive idea and one which informs Hélène Grimaud’s working definition of the art form. The French pianist’s latest Deutsche Grammophon recording addresses music’s unique ability to bring images of the past back to life in the present moment, to conjure up vivid evocations of time and place. Memory, set for release on 28 September 2018, explores the nature of recollection through a series of exquisite pianistic miniatures. Grimaud’s choice of repertoire embraces everything from impressionistic reveries by Chopin and Debussy to the timeless, folk-like melodies of Valentin Silvestrov.

Memory and music make perfect partners. Both are fleeting, never fixed, always subject to interpretation. Our identities are formed from memories, just as so many of our most enduring experiences are rooted in music. Hélène Grimaud wanted to explore the universal nature of memory, its place in the lives of us all. Memory, she explains, uses music to probe the many levels of human consciousness.

“Music peels back the layers of time to reveal the essence of experience,” she observes. “Momentary pain, distress, elation, fades – what remains is sensation. Sensation is the resonance of experience in the space of memory. And it is the space where music resonates within each of us – touching us, moving us, bringing us closer to ourselves. In that way, music can also help remind us that for all in our daily lives that is trivial, there’s a place where meaning is stored. And that it is not forgetfulness that is our burden, but the capacity to reflect and remember that is the wonder of being alive.” The pianist’s eloquent discourse on memory touches both the universal and the particular. It reveals, above all, much about her sensibility for music as a natural process, one shaped in the moment of creation and re-creation by instinct and intuition.

Memory follows in the wake of Grimaud’s Water album, a thought-provoking consideration of the world’s most precious resource. Her latest release complements its predecessor, not least by exploring another condition of life all too easily taken for granted until it begins to disappear.

Grimaud chose compositions that speak directly to memory, creating a programme of works which through their simplicity can bypass the barriers of rational thinking to unlock powerful moods, feelings and sensations. These miniatures are not weighty structures; rather, they possess what she aptly describes as immaterial qualities. Each of the album’s fifteen tracks suggests fleeting impressions of a thought recollected, a dream reimagined, an experience recalled to mind. Memory, she says, “serves to conjure atmospheres of fragile reflection, a mirage of what was – or what could have been”.

Her artistry flourished in the sacred space of the Himmelfahrtskirche in Munich’s Sendling  district. The recording venue, a former beer hall converted into a church a century ago, made a lasting impression on her. “The feeling of being alone in a cavernous, resonant space, a building itself constructed as a vessel for spiritual introspection, was immersive,” she recalls. “I am not necessarily a natural colourist yet to be surrounded by resonance – of the notes and between the notes – profoundly changes one’s concept of producing sound. The music must be so transparent as to allow the poetry to shimmer though.”

For composers, memory plays a central role in transmitting influence. Debussy, for instance, absorbed formative lessons from his studies of Chopin and recalled them later in life when composing pieces such as Rêverie and La plus que lente. His musical language also drew impressions from the harmonies of his friend Erik Satie. The points of coincidence emerge clearly in Memory.

Hélène Grimaud highlights the meditative character of works by all three composers, surrounding the heartfelt nostalgia of Chopin’s Nocturne in E minor Op.72 No.1 with a sequence of Satie’s minimalist miniatures, the first of his famous sets of Gnossiennes and Gymnopédies among them. The pianist also spotlights the common ground between two of Silvestrov’s subtle Bagatelles, products of the early 2000s, and Debussy’s beguiling Arabesque No.1 in E major, an early work inspired by the elegant lines and curves of Nature.

Hélène Grimaud compares Valentin Silvestrov’s keyboard miniatures to the image of ‘breathing light’, a poetic metaphor that might easily stand for the haunting impressions left by Memory. (Deutsche Grammophon)

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