Thomas Sondergard / BBC National Orchestra of Wales SIBELIUS Finlandia - Swan of Tuonela - Oceanides - En saga - Valse triste

Described as ‘one of the great new Sibelian teams’ (The Herald), Thomas Søndergård and BBC National Orchestra of Wales continue their shared fascination with the orchestral music of Sibelius.

Released one month after BBC NOW celebrates its ninetieth anniversary, this recording includes many of Sibelius’ most famous masterpieces. Sibelius established his credentials early on with the tonally adventurous En saga, which brings to mind the excellence of Berlioz’ orchestral writing.

Sibelius’ successful foray into the impressionistic tone world of Debussy resulted in the haunting seascape of The Oceanides. Sibelius wrote it was ‘pure inspiration’ that led to the composition of the perpetually popular Finlandia, with its world-famous hymn motif.

The wonderfully descriptive Swan of Tuonela finds Sibelius at his mystical best as he casts the cor anglais as the majestic swan from Finnish mythology.

Delphine Galou / Accademia Bizantina / Ottavio Dantone VIVALDI Arie e Cantate per Contralto

Vivaldi, the Venetian, master of the whole palette of human emotions. From the church to the opera house, from tragedy to joy, the immediately-recognisable sensibility, the expressiveness, the inimitable colours and an unbeatable talent to say so much in just a few notes.

The contralto Delphine Galou (who recently won a Gramophone Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the classical music world) and Ottavio Dantone's Accademia Bizantina have created two recitals of sacred music and of opera that illustrate the incomparable richness of Vivaldi’s body of work and establish the emotional connections between the two repertoires.

For the first time, two volumes of the Vivaldi Edition (in this case the 59th and 60th) will be released at the same time, with their synergy also reflected in the albums’ artwork.

The recital ‘Arie e cantate per opera’ (Opera arias and cantatas) shines a light on and alternates between operatic arias and cantatas, which are related in style and colour.

Jacques Imbrailo / Alisdair Hogarth SIBELIUS & RACHMANINOV Songs

Following critically acclaimed Glyndebourne performances in Michael Grandage’s Billy Budd and Brett Dean’s Hamlet, Jacques Imbrailo has established himself as one of the most exciting young baritones on the world stage.

His debut solo recital for Linn sees him perform with fellow Prince Consort alumni, Alisdair Hogarth, in a mouth-watering programme of Sibelius and Rachmaninov songs.

Among the selection is In the silence of the mysterious night, one of Rachmaninov’s best-loved songs and one of the composer’s greatest achievements in this genre.

Rachmaninov’s trademark melodicism is met with a perfect partner in Imbrailo’s lyric baritone, whilst his expressive and highly intricate accompaniments find a worthy partner in Hogarth.

Providing a welcome contrast to the intensity of Rachmaninov is the Nordic sentimentality that Sibelius brings to his highly romantic songs. The pearl of the Opus 37 collection is Was is a dream?, which the composer himself described as ‘my most beautiful song’.

Together the duo perfectly communicates the passions and anxieties of a poet’s lost love; the rich tone of Imbrailo’s final note provides an immensely satisfying close.

Matthias Goerne / Leif Ove Andsnes ROBERT SCHUMANN Liederkreis Op. 24 - Kernerlieder

In the miraculous year of 1840, which Schumann began in despair, forcibly separated from Clara by her father, he composed nearly 150 lieder, including the two outstanding cycles presented here, based respectively on poems by the great Heine (the Liederkreis op.24) and by Justinus Kerner (the twelve Kernerlieder op.35).

Haunted from beginning to end by Romantic Nature, in the hands of two such outstanding artists as Matthias Goerne and Leif Ove Andsnes these two masterpieces invite us, performers and listeners alike, to share a state of transcendence, a heightened consciousness that transports us directly to the heart of lived experience itself.

Les Siècles / François-Xavier Roth GUSTAV MAHLER Titan

Gustav Mahler was not yet thirty years old when he mounted the podium to conduct his ‘Symphonic Poem’ (Sinfonische Dichtung) in the Large Hall of the Redoute (Vigadó) in Budapest on 20 November 1889. The young man, who had recently been appointed director of the Hungarian capital’s opera house, was presenting an orchestral composition for the first time that evening. This work, which Mahler thought would be ‘child’s play’, was in fact - as he was to admit years later - “one of [his] boldest.” It is the crystallisation of his childhood, marked by the successive deaths of his brothers and sisters but also by the brutality of his father. The work also embodies the dreams that this rebellious young student at the Vienna Conservatory had already forged some ten years earlier, with the new generation of artists and thinkers of which he was a member.

In this album, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles have chosen to present Mahler’s First Symphony in its second version, that of Hamburg/Weimar (1893-94) - a unique opportunity to hear the symphonic poem Titan. By allowing us to follow the genesis of this first large scale work, Titan opens the doors of Mahler’s artistic workshop at a crucial moment in the creative process: the transition from the youthful effort of 1889 to the Symphony in D major of 1896, which established Mahler as one of the foremost symphonists of the modern era.

Trio Wanderer RACHMANINOV Piano Trios

Rachmaninoff's output of chamber music is small but all the more precious for that. Two absolute gems bear witness to the fact: these ‘elegiac trios’, which were produced by a young composer still indisputably under the influence of Tchaikovsky. However, Rachmaninoff’s personality is already fully present, reaching heights of emotion and expressiveness.

The pieces by Suk and Grieg add a further touch of character to the picture, which is painted with an exceptionally rich palette: the artistry of the phenomenal Trio Wanderer.

Ruby Hughes / Clara Mouriz / BBC Philharmonic / Juanjo Mena XAVIER MONTSALVATGE Orchestral Works

The four works recorded here usefully span Montsalvatge's long creative life and encompass different parts of his large and varied output while also providing a welcome opportunity to appreciate his stylistic progress over all these years.
Montsalvatge's idiom is clearly of its time and often embraces various influences without ever attempting at pastiche or parody. His global outlook is that of a composer happy to work within some well-meaning Neo-classicism often spiced with piquant dissonances and polytonality that sometimes bring Milhaud to mind. This is fairly clear in the Partita which earned him the 1958 Oscar Esplà Prize. The Partita as well as the Cincos Canciones Negras and the Calidoscopi simfònic also displays another characteristic of Montsalvatge's music at the time, i.e. the reliance on some exotic dance rhythms such as the habanera. The Partita is in four compact movements without any real connection between them. The Neo-classical tone of most of the music is still more evident at the close of the third movement when it nods (consciously or not) to the Gavotte from Prokofiev's First Symphony. This most attractive work ends with a joyful final, at times fugal movement that also includes a section for percussion alone.

Clara Mouriz / BBC Philharmonic / Juanjo Mena TURINA Danzas Fantásticas

This disc forms part of our ongoing Spanish Music series, performed by the BBC Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena. Here the focus is on the orchestral works of the composer Joaquín Turina, one of the two leading Spanish composers of the twentieth century, the other being Manuel de Falla.

Turina was a prolific composer, who in his sixty-seven years wrote more than one hundred works, in which he explored a wide range of classical genres, from symphonic music, solo piano pieces, and vocal works to ballet scores and chamber music. Most of these show the influences of traditional Andalusian music and folk tunes, often conveying feelings of rapture and immense exaltation, while also owing a debt to a range of French composers.

Turina lived in Paris from 1905 to 1914, and during this time, while taking composition lessons from Vincent d’Indy and getting to know Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy, he absorbed certain aspects of the French style. These influences are particularly evident in Danzas fantásticas and Sinfonia sevillana. While both these works are heavily inspired by the sights and sounds of Turina’s native Seville, they also display hints of French impressionism, inevitably calling Debussy to mind.

Turina was as thrilled by the sound and style of Andalusian folk singers as he was by folksong itself, and in terms of his songs, Poema en forma de canciones (Poem in the form of songs), originally for voice and piano, is probably the best known work. Here, as in ‘Farruca’ from Triptico, the orchestra and conductor are joined by the Spanish mezzo soprano Clara Mouriz for truly idiomatic performances.

Ritmos (Rhythms) was written originally as a ballet, which never reached the stage; nevertheless it proved brilliantly effective in the concert hall. The score itself does not relate to any specific scenario, but follows a progression, which Turina himself described as ‘a gradual journey from darkness into light’.

The Saeta is the only work on this disc in which Turina completely steps away from the influences of folk tune-inspired Andalusian dance rhythms. This is a beautifully written devotional song ‘in the form of a Salutation to the Virgin of Hope’.

HEINZ HOLLIGER - GYÖRGY KURTÁG Zwiegespräche

Zwiegespräche is a meeting of spirits. “We compose the same way,” said György Kurtág to Heinz Holliger on hearing this recording, which emphasises works for oboe by these two major composers. Both of them reference the entire history of music in their pieces, both incorporate dedications and messages to friends and colleagues in the fabric of their work, and both draw upon literature as an inspirational source. Both, moreover, love the miniature as an expressive form; short pieces by Kurtág and Holliger are interwoven. Holliger’s sequence Airs (2015/6) is inspired by seven texts by Swiss poet Philippe Jaccottet, whose voice is heard here. The release of Zwiegespräche is timely. Heinz Holliger turns 80 on May 21, his creativity as composer and his resourcefulness as instrumentalist undimmed. The album concludes with Holliger’s Sonate für Oboe solo, composed in 1956, and still played by its author with absolute authority.

Hila Baggio / Jerusalem Quartet THE YIDDISH CABARET

By juxtaposing Leonid Desyatnikov’s contemporary song settings of Yiddish texts (offering a glimpse into Jewish life in Warsaw during the Weimar Republic) with a pair of chamber works by Schulhoff and Korngold, which also date from this troubled period between the wars, the present recording highlights the fascinating crosspollination then taking place in the music of Eastern and Western Europe.

With soprano Hila Baggio as their featured soloist, members of the Jerusalem Quartet bid us “come to the cabaret” to savour a whole range of stylistic approaches and emotional experiences of the rarest kind.

Kristian Bezuidenhout / Pablo Heras-Casado / Freiburger Barockorchester MENDELSSOHN Piano Concerto No.2 - Symphony No. 1

Mendelssohn’s first symphonic work scored for full orchestra, the Symphony op. 11 in C minor paved the way for even greater examples of the genre he was soon to produce. The concert overture Die schöne Melusine and the sparkling Piano Concerto No. 2 rely on the type of orchestration and harmonic language which are best served when played on period instruments, as heard here. Devoid of the atmosphere of Romantic doom and gloom, nearly every page of both scores is marked by an exuberant cheerfulness, youthful drive, and irrepressible energy.

Sandrine Piau / Le Concert de la Loge / Julien Chauvin SI J'AI AIMÉ

Sandrine Piau’s first recital for the ALPHA Label, with Susan Manoff (Chimère - Alpha 397), proved an enormous hit (Diapason d’Or of the year, Choc of the year, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice). Her new project is a recital with orchestra celebrating French song of the period when it moved from the private salon to the concert hall. Planned in partnership with the Palazzetto Bru Zane, this programme evokes anticipation, desire, pleasure, memory, in short all the vagaries of love experienced by a romantic heroine… To verses of the poets Hugo, Gautier, and Verlaine, Sandrine Piau has selected song settings by Saint-Saëns (‘Extase’, ‘Papillons’), Massenet (‘Le Poète et le Fantôme’, ‘Aimons-nous’...), and Vierne, as well as by the rarely-heard Dubois, Bordes… Julien Chauvin and his period instrument ensemble combine these songs with orchestral pieces (the ‘Symphonie Gotique' by Godard or the 'Valse très lente' by Massenet). The disc also presents excerpts from Nuits d’Été by Berlioz, and ends with the famous classic ‘Plaisir d’amour’ by Martini. 

Girandole Armoniche EXTRAVAGANTES SEICENTO

The focus of Extravagantes Seicento is the musical exuberance of a century full of contradictions, and at the same time receptive towards all kinds of novelty. By means of a rich collection of instrumental sonatas for violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord, the recording portrays the peregrine world of composers and instrumentalists who travelled throughout Europe in their search for receptive cultural circles and the degree of financial stability required for the creation of new works. In particular the Habsburg courts of Vienna and Innsbruck attracted artists from Italy and central Europe, becoming hubs for innovation in the visual arts, the theatre and instrumental music.

Under the imperial protection of Ferdinand III, Leopold I and Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Austria, the great violinists of the 17th century Ignazio Albertini, Giovanni Padonolfi Mealli, Samuel Capricornus, Heinrich Schmelzer and Ignaz Biber expanded the technical potential of the violin and the viola da gamba, producing a repertoire of highly melodious sonatas featuring virtuoso brilliance and such eccentricity of sound as to surprise or even disconcert audiences, both then and today.

Anna Gourari ELUSIVE AFFINITY

In this imaginatively shaped and sensitively played album – her third for ECM -  Russian pianist Anna Gourari explores musical connections and influences extending across the arts.  Three suites of contemporary music are heard here.  Alfred Schnittke’s Five Aphorisms (1990) draw impulses from the poetry of his friend Joseph Brodsky.  Rodion Shchedrin’s Diary - Seven Pieces (2002) dedicated to Gourari and inspired by her playing, reflects the life of a pianist and composer.  Wolfgang Rihm’s sequence of tombeaux, Zwiesprache (1999) pays tribute to musicologists Alfred Schlee and Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, conductor Paul Sacher, and art sociologist Hermann Wiesler. Threaded between the cycles are two Giya Kancheli miniatures drawn from theatre and movie music, as well as Arvo Pärt’s early tintinnabuli-style Variations for the Healing of Arinuschka (1977).  Gourari’s investigation of artistic affinities is framed with Bach’s transcriptions of Venetian composers Antonio Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcello: “Anna Gourari makes these Bach slow movements, too, ours,” Paul Griffiths writes in the liner notes. “And the newer music is cherished and invigorated.”

Valentina Lisitsa TCHAIKOVSKY Complete Works for Solo Piano

Valentina Lisitsa is bold, fearless and forthright to just the right degree in the early works, keen to relish every opportunity Tchaikovsky offers to rack up the tension. We seem set fair for a convincing and idiomatic survey of the solo works … until, oh dear, we hit the buffers on track 6 – the rarely played Valse-caprice, Op 4. What we get is a deconstruction of the piece played at practice speed, lasting an interminable 13'31". Both Viktoria Postnikova (8'47") and Michael Ponti (5'33", with the repeat of the first section omitted), in their complete Tchaikovsky sets, present the true spirit of the piece.

Working one’s way through all 10 discs, you realise with mounting disappointment that this mannerism is something like a default position with Lisitsa when it comes to reflective, technically undemanding works. Indeed, I recall a recital in Cremona a few years ago when she eked out the last pages of a sequence of Chopin Nocturnes with extended rallentandos to the same somnolent effect. Here, for example, are the 12 Morceaux, Op 40, an archetypical Tchaikovsky mixture of inspired and insipid short works. It begins with the brief ‘Étude’, a veritable whirlwind that Lisitsa storms through with thrilling velocity and a marvellous leggiero touch. Immediately after that comes the lovely (and well-known) ‘Chanson triste’. Tchaikovsky marks this Allegro non troppo (not Lisitsa’s moderato) and requests that la melodia be played con molto espressione – which means a degree of rubato, yes, but not a tenuto on the first beat of every bar, dragging down the pulse and bringing a stop go momentum to proceedings. Again, the tempo Lisitsa adopts for No 9 (another salon favourite) is hardly Tempo di valse, its airy grace replaced by a heavy tread, the left-hand melody of its central section dominated by the secondary material in the right hand.

Whenever there is a piece or part of a piece that demands fleet fingers and incisive rhythm – the second sections of ‘Au village’ (No 7), say, and ‘Danse russe’ (No 10) – then Lisitsa is bang on the money; whenever the mood is retrospective or reflective, she becomes a vivisectionist, unpicking these fragile miniatures so that the structure collapses. Try No 12, ‘Rêverie interrompue’, which drifts home at 6'08" compared with Posnikova’s 4'29", a faster reading that, ironically, projects a dreamlike reverie far more vividly. The last track on this CD (disc 6) is Dumka, Op 59, which illustrates to perfection Lisitsa’s Jekyll and Hyde approach.

It is one that is also in evidence on disc 4, which is devoted to The Seasons. Much (in fact, most) of the playing here is quite lovely but, just when you are thinking that this is an account to set beside the best, you sit becalmed in a gondola, with the ‘Barcarolle’ (June) extended to over six minutes. Mikhail Pletnev, who himself is in no hurry to come home, gets to the heart of the matter in 4'36" (Virgin/Erato, 12/94).

So then what do you do when you are presented on disc 3 with both the sonatas (the Grand Sonata, Op 37, followed by the early Sonata in C sharp minor published posthumously) in two of the finest performances I have come across? Lisitsa swallows them whole, with playing of immense power and conviction, allowing herself plenty of time to dream when required without ever slipping into her unsustainable practice-tempo mode. With her incisive attack and steely articulation, this is piano-playing of great character and individuality. If you have stayed clear of Tchaikovsky’s sonatas, these may be the performances that tempt you to investigate.

Elsewhere are Tchaikovsky’s other collections of short works (Opp 19, 39, 51 and 72), works without opus numbers, and the Fifty Russian Folk Songs arranged for four hands (Lisitsa is joined in these by Alexei Kuznetsoff). Discs 9 and 10 are devoted to Tchaikovsky’s own piano arrangements of his orchestral works including the complete Nutcracker, Potpourri on Themes from ‘The Voyevoda’, the Festival Coronation March (a dreadful piece in any form), and the 1812 overture (a thankless task for any pianist). However, the transcription of Marche slave is extraordinary, an ingenious reworking for the keyboard and a stunning tour de force by Lisitsa. On its own it might just be enough to make you press that ‘add to cart’ button.

I might say that the piano, a Bösendorfer, has been very well recorded, even if Lisitsa can sometimes produce a somewhat hectoring, brittle tone at fortissimo and above. The presentation of the 10 discs and the booklet are first-class. In conclusion, Lisitsa offers the most comprehensive Tchaikovsky intégrale on the market but I shall not be replacing my much-played Ponti LPs or, on balance, Postnikova’s seven CDs. I can do without The Nutcracker and the 1812 on the piano – and, ultimately, without the series of eccentric musical decisions that mar Lisitsa’s set. (Jeremy Nicholas / Gramophone)

CD 1 - CD 2 / CD 3 - CD 4 / CD 5 - CD 6 / CD 7 - CD 8 / CD 9 - CD 10

Iceland Symphony Orchestra / Yan Pascal Tortelier GOUNOD Symphonies

After winning the Prix de Rome for his cantata Fernand in 1839 and spending two years in Rome, Gounod should have gone on to study in Germany, but he managed in 1842 to persuade the authorities that he should remain in Rome to work on a symphony.

In 1843 he visited Mendelssohn who (while trying to dissuade him from wasting his time on Goethe’s Faust!) urged him to write another symphony. We do not know how much of the First Symphony Gounod had completed by then, but it is not surprising that Mendelssohn figures as one of the key influences on both symphonies. After performances of individual movements in 1855, premieres were given of the First on 4 March that year and of the Second on 13 February 1856.

Yan Pascal Tortelier and his Iceland Symphony Orchestra demonstrate outstanding precision and musicality in these unjustly neglected works.

Olivier Latry MIDNIGHT AT NOTRE-DAME

While Paris slept,’ reads the blurb, ‘Notre-Dame’s organist Olivier Latry recorded this musical celebration of well-known classics.’ Indeed, the absence of extraneous traffic noise, and the just-perceptible whisper of wind under pressure, ensure that the cathedral’s instrument is heard in ideal circumstances. The programme (recorded in late 2003) pays homage to the skills of a predominantly French group of transcribers. The exception is Liszt’s ponderous treatment of his future son-in-law’s Pilgrims’ Chorus. 

Dupré’s and Messerer’s Bach movements make excellent and invigorating bookends to this slightly uneven hour’s worth of music. Guillou’s transcription of Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue is a highlight: every contrapuntal detail of one of Mozart’s best fugues shines brilliantly. And Guillou’s virtuoso ‘colouring in’ of Prokofiev’s motoric Toccata takes one’s breath away. The en chamade reeds are used to wonderful effect. Resist the temptation to lower the volume level beforehand! Equally successful is Vierne’s transcription of Rachmaninov’s infamous Prelude in C sharp minor. It shouldn’t work on the organ, but it does. All that is missing from the luxurious tonal palette are distant chimes. 

Sizzling sounds abound, too, in Berlioz’s ebullient Hungarian March, though Latry applies a tad too much rubato at times (a complaint levelled at organists the world over) and the requisite rhythmic spring suffers. The two remaining tracks are of Duruflé’s nondescript transcriptions of Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring and Mortify Us. The former is taken too slowly and Latry makes a slightly labourious job of the latter. 

These criticisms apart, the engineers have done a magnificent job in capturing the soul of this Romantic, symphonic organ. Latry’s mastery of both instrument and repertoire is undeniable. I recommend it to even those who have an aversion to organ discs or transcriptions. For those with an SACD player the aural experience will be overpowering. (Malcolm Riley / Gramophone)

Archi di Santa Cecilia / Luigi Piovano TCHAIKOVSKY - DVORÁK Serenades

Following the huge success of the 2017 release, “Cinema per archi”, featuring the music of Rota, Morricone and Piovani, the Arcana label is back with another recording by the Archidi Santa Cecilia conducted by Luigi Piovano, the eminent cellist whose duo performances with Antonio Pappano have met with widespread acclaim among chamber music aficionados. Composed of players from the excellent Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the ensemble here interprets two of the best loved works of the entire string repertoire: the Serenata in C major op. 48 by Tchaikovsky, and the Serenata in E major op. 22 by Dvorák. Both of these works have been special attractions in concert programs at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome and in other prominent concert venues throughout Italy (Ravello Festival, Naples, Ravenna, Reggio Emilia, L’Aquila, Piacenza). The Ensemble’s enormously successful first recording of music by Schubert, including Mahler’s arrangement of Death and the Maiden, was described by Ralph Moore on “MusicWeb International”as «mesmerising, Intense, thrilling and liberated in away too few recordings are these days» and elicited David Vernier to declare in “Classics Today” that «the concluding fourth movement Presto is an impressive display of ensemble virtuosity».

Michael Fabiano / London Philharmonic Orchestra / Enrique Mazzola VERDI - DONIZETTI

American star tenor Michael Fabiano presents a spectacular set of scenes taken from late Donizetti and middle Verdi operas, revealing the strong ties between these two composers. The album documents a paradigmatic shift in Italian opera, from the beautiful lines and crispness of belcanto to a richer, more dramatic musical universe. The historical line stretches from Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Poliuto and Maria di Rohan to mature Verdi operas such as Rigoletto, Un ballo in maschera and Don Carlos. In many cases, Fabiano has selected original, rarely-heard versions, including the thunderous ‘Qual sangue sparsi’ from the original St. Petersburg edition of La forza del destino.

Together, these arias and scenes constitute a world full of heartfelt tenderness and fire-laden drama. After numerous successes on the opera stage, this is Michael Fabiano’s debut album on PENTATONE.

Tripla Concordia / Walter van Hauwe JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Trio Sonata Project

‘The Trio Sonata Project’ takes inspiration from the Baroque practice of arranging pre existing music by other composers for a different set of instruments. As recorder player Walter van Hauwe emphasises, this is something that Bach did himself – borrowing from Vivaldi, Pergolesi and others – giving each his own touch without affecting the ‘message’ of the original works. But to touch Bach; when does admiration bleed into hubris? When do magpies morph into vultures? Charming booklet notes try to set this to rights: in an imaginary conversation, presumably over Zimmermann’s famous brew of coffee, Bach gives keyboardist Sergio Ciomei his blessing. This quasi-blind date (‘will he really come?’), while hovering on the absurd (‘Don’t ever stop, Sergio. You should produce, transcribe, play, record, teach and spread the news’), sets up an interesting transhistorical context for the project.

The album is a mixed bag. Tripla Concordia’s version of BWV1039 – a historical arrangement by Bach himself – is particularly successful. Quietly menacing in the Andante, the two voice flutes open out to incisive playing that sways with imagination in the Presto. The arrangement of BWV997 for alto recorder and harpsichord is less convincing. Ciomei’s harpsichord-playing in the Prelude lacks lushness. The Sarabande also is, unfortunately, heavy-handed. However, van Hauwe’s elegant phrasing does the job for a teasingly short moment: the sunlight of the relative major appears in smiling inevitability – almost distracting from the strange abruptness in the continuo-playing. In tempo, the Gigue and Double lie on the safe side of exciting. Yet superb dynamic control in van Hauwe’s recorder makes for unpredictable intensity.

So, to borrow Ciomei’s analogy, would this album get a second date? Yes. It had its hiccups: a slightly gruff table manner dotted with some dull moments. Next time, I would expect what were flashes of imagination to pervade the conversation, and something that extra bit special to seal a kiss. (Mark Seow / Gramophone)

Fabio Biondi THE 1690 "TUSCAN" STRADIVARI

In the course of his illustrious career, Fabio Biondi has nurtured a remarkable empathy with Italian music from across many centuries, but strikingly so with the early Baroque violin sonata repertory, the development of which was dramatically propelled into the future by Arcangelo Corelli with his Op 5 collection. It is this empathy possessed by Biondi which has inspired the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome (from its bowed instrument collection) to make him a loan of the precious 1690 “Tuscan” violin made by Antonio Stradivari, for this Glossa recording.

Another skill possessed by Biondi is his deft assemblage of programmes, whether for concert or for CD, and this new release of early eighteenth-century violin works touches on the impact that Corelli’s music had on music-making in Dresden, Venice, Padua, London and Amsterdam, to name just a few of the destinations affected as the fame of “Arcangelo Bolognese” fanned out from Rome across Europe.

With a continuo team from his Europa Galante ensemble (Antonio Fantinuoli, cello, Giangiacomo Pinardi, theorbo and Paola Poncet, harpsichord), Biondi plays sonatas by Vivaldi, Corelli, Geminiani, Tartini and Locatelli, and a Ciaccona by Veracini. Recorded in Rome, on an instrument which was originally made for the Florentine court of Ferdinando de’ Medici (and which, over time, has survived all manner of vicissitudes on its journey to Rome!), Fabio Biondi expertly captures the flavour of the eighteenth-century violin sonata.

New Collegium GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN Chameleon

No eighteenth-century composer was so adept at so many musical styles as Georg Philipp Telemann. Telemann's versatility and inventiveness kept his musical style avant-garde during his entire life. He was not only praised by his contemporaries but was highly respected by the next generation: his fame was immense. Thererfore New Collegium, one of the promising ensembles of the younger generation, has chosen for their first CD on the Ramée label to show Telemann the chameleon, the breadth of his musical palette. Some of the pieces will undoubtedly sound familiar; others, such as the Italianate Trio for violin and cello obbligato, or the pastoral Trio for two violins in scordatura, will surely be delightful, new surprises for many. Coming in and out of disguise with Telemann’s chameleonic notes we often find ourselves wondering: is this truly music by just one composer, not six?

Albrecht Mayer / Bamberger Symphoniker / Jakub Hrůša LONGING FOR PARADISE

Albrecht Mayer’s first encounter with music was as a member of the Cathedral Choir in his home city of Bamberg, an early experience which is perhaps partly responsible for the warm, singing quality of his oboe-playing. His artistry invites superlatives: people talk of a “divine spark” and how he has elevated the “miraculous oboe” to become an “instrument of seduction”.

"Longing for Paradise" Inspired by the many composers who lived and wrote during wartime, Albrecht Mayer releases Longing for Paradise, featuring Richard Strauss' notoriously difficult Oboe Concerto, written by the octogenarian composer at the end of WWII, with lesser-known masterworks by Elgar and Goosens and a new arrangement for oboe and orchestra of Ravel's yearning Le Tombeau de Couperin.

Hai-Kyung Suh SOUND PAINTINGS

“The piano becomes part of my body to express all my passion and love which I feel for music. Through my hands, the Steinway speaks to the audience with its own beautiful voice.” (Hai-Kyung Suh)

"A propulsive exciting performance built block by sonic block with the structural command of a musical architect." (The New York Times)

"Her obvious deep involvement in the work infuses it with a freshness and electric energy which has earned her high praise." (London Times)

"An impressive performance by Hai"Kyung Suh, is firmly established in an international career She delivered the power-consuming solo part with far beyond ordinary mastery. Rachmaninoff's multifarious musical intention, from overwhelming melancholy to the rhythmical brio of Cossack ride were presented as precisely as they were vividly realized." (Berlin Morgenpost)

Guy Braunstein / BBC Symphony Orchestra / Kirill Karabits TCHAIKOVSKY TREASURES

Tchaikovsky has dedicated some of his finest music to the violin, but this new album expands the instrument’s repertoire even further. Inspired by greats such as Sarasate, Heifetz, Kreisler and Joachim, violinist Guy Braunstein reanimates a tradition of violin and orchestra rhapsodies with new arrangements of famous excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Swan Lake. Together with the extraordinary Violin Concerto, Valse Scherzo and Sérénade mélancolique, they constitute a collection of glittering Tchaikovsky Treasures.

On this first PENTATONE album, Braunstein plays with the renowned BBC Symphony Orchestra, led by maestro Kirill Karabits.

Calder Quartet BEETHOVEN - HILLBORG

The Calder Quartet invites you on a journey from early to late Beethoven, passing through an exciting contemporary piece by Swedish composer Anders Hillborg along the way. Beethoven’s Op. 131 string quartet, that concludes this album, is already a great adventure in its own right, with its seven movements full of fugal writing, harmonic explorations, variations and passages filled with operatic drama. Hearing this late masterpiece together with the much more classical, but equally lively, Op. 18 no. 3 quartet opens our ears to the exceptional richness of Beethoven’s musical universe. Hillborg’s Kongsgaard Variations reveals unexpected sonic relationships to Beethoven’s variation technique, underlining the modernity of the older composer. This all leads to a program that is lively, layered and ravishingly beautiful.

Hailed as one of the most exciting classical music groups of the United States, the Calder Quartet now presents the first fruit of its exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE.

JOAN VALENT Poetic Logbook

Joan Valent (Algaida, 1964) is a composer and conductor with solid foundations. He studied cello, piano, musical analysis, composition and conducting in Palma and Barcelona. Later, he moved to Los Angeles, where he studied classical composition, film scoring and orchestral conducting at UCLA.

He was nominated in 2014 for a Goya for the soundtrack of Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi (titled Witching & Bitching in English), for which he ended up winning a Fénix award. 2015 saw him attending the Golden Globes for his compositions for the film Birdman (Alejandro González Iñárritu) and in 2016 he won the Gaudí prize for his work in El Rey de la Habana (Agustí Villaronga). On his return to Mallorca the ‘Círculo de Economía’ organisation honoured his outstanding career by arranging a private event in which Joan presents discussions on and performances of four unpublished pieces of his next work. The event is also in support of the Natzaret Foundation, which helps vulnerable children.

Hilary Hahn ANTÓN GARCÍA ABRIL 6 Partitas

Following the widely celebrated release of Hilary Hahn Plays Bach on Decca Classics last fall, Hilary Hahn returns with a world premiere recording of Antón García Abril’s 6 Partitas, commissioned by Hahn for solo violin—her first-ever solo commission and her first of a set of pieces from a single composer. Each movement has a different theme, displays its own personality, and is deeply tied to the performer for whom the work was written—so much so that García Abril chose to name the movements after Hahn in acrostic: HEART, IMMENSITY, LOVE, ART, REFLECTIVE, YOU.

There is a longstanding tradition of great composers writing six polyphonic works for the violin. Perhaps due to the creativity that arises when a composer is limited to a single unaccompanied instrument, and the challenge of creating a set of diverse but cohesive material within that framework, these pieces rank amongst the most iconic, progressive compositions in the repertoire. Hahn commissioned these 6 Partitas from García Abril both to continue this tradition as well as to amplify this important contemporary composer outside of his home country. Likewise, García Abril found inspiration in Hahn’s technical proficiency and interpretational skill, writing her personality and mastery of the violin into the music itself.

“This commission led me to an enthusiastic and long-meditated work,” said García Abril. “I had the great fortune to compose them directly with Hilary… [her] generosity and interest in the work makes her one of the all-time greats, unique and powerful—not only artistically but at the same time intellectually, placing her in a higher musical state.”

Martin James Bartlett LOVE AND DEATH

Since his 2014 victory in BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, Martin James Bartlett has built a considerable international reputation. Love and Death, with its imaginatively conceived programme, gives proof of his artistic range.

"I'm absolutely thrilled to have signed with Warner Classics and to release my debut album Love and Death,” he says. “These are two elemental themes that have inspired breathtaking masterpieces from poets and composers for centuries. My album will feature gloriously beautiful music by Bach, Schumann, Wagner, Liszt and Granados, culminating with an impassioned and fiery 'War' Sonata of Prokofiev and I can't wait to share it with everyone."

In creating the programme, Bartlett’s starting point was Liszt’s transcription of Schumann’s passionate song ‘Widmung’ (‘Dedication’), set to a poem by Friedrich Rückert. “It is a love song that also speaks of death,” he explains, “and it concludes with a quote from Schubert’s Ave Maria, introducing the idea of heavenly love.” These themes are explored throughout the album.

Royal Scottish National Orchestra / John Mauceri / Sandy Cameron DANNY ELFMAN Violin Concerto "Eleven Eleven"

Violin Concerto (Eleven Eleven) And Piano Quartet are the sensational new works on the new album from the Grammy winning, four time Oscar nominated composer Danny Elfman. Danny Elfman has composed more than 100 film and television scores these include the critically acclaimed films Men In Black, Good Will Hunting, Nightmare before Christmas and Spider-man. The Violin Concerto (Eleven Eleven) is performed by the internationally renowned Royal Scottish National orchestra and the outstanding violinist Sandy Cameron. Also featured on this album is the Piano Quartet performed by members of the incredible Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Andrés Gabetta / Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi / Cappella Gabetta TANGO SEASONS

Cappella Gabetta, the ensemble founded by concertmaster/conductor Andrés Gabetta and cellist Sol Gabetta, contrast Vivaldi’s familiar Four Seasons with tango master Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Andrés Gabetta is soloist in the Vivaldi, while he and the ensemble are joined by bandoneon player Mario Stefano Pietrodarchi, who also made the arrangement, for the Piazzolla. Roberto Molinelli’s Reloaded concludes the album.

Orchestra della Toscana / Daniele Rustioni / Alessandro Taverna ALFREDO CASELLA

The dynamic young Italian conductor and his Tuscan orchestra are on scintillating and often witty form...there’s a whiff of Shostakovich about the Concerto for Piano, Timpani, Percussion and Strings from 1943 (so sparsely scored in places that long stretches sound like chamber-music), whilst the spiky, brightly-coloured neo-Baroque world of Scarlattiana of 1926 is second cousin to Stravinsky.

Viviane Chassot / Camerata Bern MOZART Keyboard Concertos

I’ve taken an intense interest in Mozart in recent years and asked myself many critical questions. What has his music to do with our own day and age? Why on an accordion? For me, Mozart’s music is timeless and not linked to any specific instrument. It communicates a sense of pure joy, a lightness based on depth, a feeling of unbridled singing. It evokes images of an exuberant child dancing across a meadow. The real answer came to me at a wonderful moment when my little niece stuck a raspberry over her little finger, looked at it affectionately and said “Hello” with the genuine curiosity of one who suddenly discovers a new friend. That’s Mozart’s spirit for me: an unconditional devotion to life, a love for reality, acceptance and ultimately reconciliation. (Viviane Chassot)

Viviane Chassot / Kammerorchester Basel HAYDN Keyboard Concertos

What could be the possible reason for recording Haydn’s keyboard concertos on an accordion? In this case, the easy answer is that it’s the virtuosity of the Swiss accordionist Viviane Chassot. And, frankly, you could play this music on the swanee whistle and kazoo and it would lose not an iota, not one whit of its playfulness and charm.

Chassot is unfazed by the fingery demands of Haydn’s fast movements; and if her scalic runs are perhaps a little lumpier than, say, the crystalline evenness of Leif Ove Andsnes (EMI/Warner, 4/00), it’s because of the properties of the instrument, and it really doesn’t detract from the music at all. You also hear a little of the button action, which suggests that Chassot’s accordion might have been spotlit a touch in the microphone set-up.

The disc opens with the most famous of these works, the D major Concerto No 11, offering Chassot ample opportunity to show off her technique, especially in the Hungarianisms of the finale. A change of perspective compensates for the absence of oboes and horns in the earlier G major (No 4) and F major (No 3) works, thereby enriching the strings (4.4.2.2.1) in the sound picture. The F major Organ Concerto (No 7) is considered almost certainly not to be by Haydn but it too displays all the harmonic and melodic mores of the 1760s.

You may feel that the mood drifts from Enlightenment Vienna to French café culture in the cadenzas but Haydn left none of his own, and Chassot makes ingenious use of the prevailing motifs in her creations. I’m glad to have heard this; and if hearing Haydn’s concertos on the squeezebox would make your life complete, you’ll not find a better disc. (Gramophone)

Reto Bieri / Meta4 QUASI MORENDO

Quasi Morendo is Reto Bieri’s third appearance on ECM New Series and follows the 2011 solo clarinet album Contrechant (with music of Berio, Carter, Holliger, Eötvös, Sciarrino and Vajda) and a powerful performance of Galina Ustvolskaya’s Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Markus Hinterhäuser, issued in 2014. 

Contrechant was widely praised for both the Swiss clarinettist’s beauty of tone and his uncommon expressiveness with extended instrumental techniques. Quasi Morendo begins with a new exploration of one of the pieces featured on that first album, Salvatore Sciarrino’s Let Me Die Before I Wake (1982), reentering its “whisper-quiet sound world of harmonics, multiphonics and tremolandos” (as The Guardian described it) and making new discoveries. “How the sounds come about is a mystery even to me,” Bieri tells liner writer Roman Brotbeck. “With special grips, even slight changes in the approach to the sound, it is possible to create particular multiphonics; through breathing and blowing (a big difference!) I can influence these sounds in the finest degree.”

Reto Bieri is then joined by the Finnish string quartet Meta4 for a profound interpretation of Johannes Brahms’s Quintet op 115 (1891). Written late in his life, it was inspired by friendship with clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. Brahms had planned to retire in 1890, but after hearing Mühlfeld play music of Weber, Mozart and Ludwig Spohrl, he rededicated himself to composing to create works that count amongst the finest of his long career. From the liner notes: “The Clarinet Quintet is a swan song, a finale; gestures of closure dominate. Even the beginning has the effect of a coda. The strings intone a sinking elegiac melody over four bars, preparing the entrance on the clarinet.” The quintet often sounds freer, and more idyllic, than Brahms’s earlier chamber music, yet is one of his most meticulously constructed works.

The album closes with French composer Gérard Pesson’s Nebenstück (1998), a ghostly re-arrangement of Brahms’s Ballade, Op. 10 No. 4.

Elīna Garanča SOL Y VIDA

Sol y vida is Elīna Garanča’s journey to the South, from Spain to Italy and Latin America, and is her first album focusing entirely on non core-classical repertoire.

Be ready to expect a personal album from the mezzo-soprano, whose centre of life has been Spain for many years. A selection of songs, canzone and tango pieces, both mirroring and spreading a flamboyantly emotional array of beaming happiness, passionate longing and exuberant joy. A feast of vocal colours, and a firework of passion, from the well-known Granada to the intimate world of La Llorona.

Featuring jewels of Latin American song repertoire like Piazolla’s Yo soy Maria, originally part of a tango operita and Gracias a la vida, one of the most covered Latin American songs in history both featuring guitarist Jose Maria Gallardo del Rey in new intimate arrangements. Many of the popular pieces have mainly been sung by tenors, like “Core ‘ngrato”, which was probably written for Caruso or the popular Neapolitan songs “Torna a surriento” or “Canto napoletano”.

Belcea Quartet LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN The Complete String Quartes

Alpha is reissuing the complete Beethoven quartets by the Belcea Quartet : ‘Beethoven’s music has been at the center of our life as a quartet from our very first rehearsal together back in 1994. However, it is more recently that we immersed ourselves totally in Beethoven in preparation for, and during the course of the immense project of performing and recording all of his string quartets in the season 2011/12. It is during this past year that Beethoven’s music became an allconsuming passion for each of us.

These sixteen quartets written some two hundred years ago form one the most complete and powerful musical statements ever made. The completeness lies in their unprecedented intensity and in the astonishing development that can be traced between the early and the late works – a thirty-year long revolution which altered forever the way we experience music.’

CD 1-CD 2 / CD 3-CD 4 / CD 5-CD 6 / CD 7-CD 8 

Daria van den Bercken DOMENICO SCARLATTI Sonatas

There’s a sense of care about the whole production here, from the specially created cover art to the choice of sonatas. Daria van den Bercken is alive to the gentler side of Scarlatti’s creations as well as their brilliance, bringing warmth to the opening sonata, Kk183 in F minor. In Kk109 there’s intimacy, too, the trills clear but not overly prominent, while Kk519 has a quiet sparkle to it. Kk212 is another highlight, with van den Bercken relishing the harmonic tensions and adding fastidious ornamentation.

One of the enduring fascinations of Scarlatti is the way a single sonata can respond to a wide variety of approaches. Van den Bercken takes Kk119 at a relatively sedate pace – others, not least Sudbin in his recent Scarlatti disc (BIS, 4/16), are more outlandish. Kk27, on the other hand, is relatively swift here, but it has its own allure, the ritardandos and accelerandos sounding entirely natural. However, I did find Kk32 just too slow, leaving its beautiful melody sounding a little stilted. Sudbin is also steady but maintains more of a sense of line; he takes considerably more liberties than van den Bercken but he makes them work, thanks to his sense of conviction. She is also a little too smooth-edged in Kk230, which really comes to life in Scott Ross’s classic recording on harpsichord (Erato, 6/88).

Occasionally I wanted a bit more oomph: the hunt-infused Kk159 is too genteel – more of a sedate outing on a seaside donkey than a canter through the fields. Queffélec (Apex, 3/95) is a real speed merchant here but it’s thrilling, and Hewitt (Hyperion, 2/16), not quite so feckless, gets more of a sense of the chase in her reading. But the much-recorded Kk87 is another winner, its undulating lines warmly shaped and full of enticing detail, such as the slightly detached left-hand counterpoint at 4'03". She ends as she began, in a mood of gentle good humour with Kk544. (Harriet Smith / Gramophone)

Aisha Orazbayeva, Mark Knoop MORTON FELDMAN For John Cage

Morton Feldman and John Cage met at a New York performance of Webern’s aphoristic Symphony in 1950, the pair’s friendship enduring until Feldman's death in 1987. Some of Feldman's late chamber works are inordinately long. For John Cage, written in 1979, lasts 75 minutes in this performance. Trying to describe exactly why and how this music ‘works’ is near-impossible. Describing it as a formally diffuse extended duet between violin and piano, the pair often on the edge of audibility, will send some folk running for the hills. Repeated hearings bring the work’s three-part structure into sharper focus, the transformations and allusions seemingly more recognisable each time.

What's magical about so much of Feldman's music is how he can make the most uncompromising dissonance sound warm and consoling. This slow-paced piece doesn't contain hummable tunes, but it's intensely beautiful at times, Mark Knoop’s, soft, bell-like piano chords sharing the space with Aisha Orazbeyava’s violin. Near the close, the violin’s double stopping almost suggests the presence of a third player. “I tried to bring into my music just very few essential things that I need,” said Feldman, and after having overdosed on Rued Langgaard (see below), this disc proved to be a perfect musical decluttering. Nicely engineered, it’s one of several new releases on the label All That Dust, each one neatly presented and well annotated.

Belcea Quartet BARTÓK String Quartets 1-6

"The more we immersed ourselves in these works, the more beauty and richness we discovered in them and we very much hope that this appeal will even still increase in future because we definitely consider these quartets to be the greatest masterpieces of the last century in our repertoire." Belcea Quartet

The First Quartet is the most romantic in spirit and actually harbours a love story. It marks an affectionate withdrawal from a late Romantic fin-de-siècle. The Second (1915-1917) takes us some way towards the gritty, hard-hitting Bartók of the mid-late 1920s. By 1927 Bartók, a superb pianist by any standards, was enjoying a worldwide concert career, and soaking up what that world had to offer in musical terms. One probable influence was Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite, an expressive masterpiece that thrives on a plethora of complexities. Bartók’s Third Quartet does likewise, a work that on one level seems to mimic a Hungarian rhapsody (the alternation of fast and slow music) while on the other takes tiny thematic cells and develops them into a teeming nest of musical activity. Bartók’s next two quartets are both cast unconventionally in five movements of a symmetrical, arch-like design. The Fourth (1928) has at its centre an evocative though austere example of Bartók’s ‘night music’ that opens with a rhapsodic cello solo leading in turn to imitated birdsong. The Fifth Quartet (1934) is built on a far larger scale. Bartok modifies the arch form by placing a scherzo at its centre, a syncopated dance movement in Bulgarian rhythm, framed by two slow movements using similar chord sequences. The air of ineffable sadness that hangs over Bartók’s last quartet (1938) reflects not only a swiftly sickening Europe but personal tragedy: his mother’s journey towards death would end in December 1939. All four movements open with the same, heart-rendering ‘mesto’ (sad) motto. Never has a quartet cycle ended quite so equivocally, or sounded a truer warning, one that even today inspires both awe and gratitude.

Julian Prégardien / Éric Le Sage / Sandrine Piau SCHUMANN Dichterliebe

The album is opened with a lovely yet rarely recorded duet from “Spanisches Liederspiel” (Op.74), where Prégardien is joined by Soprano Sandrine Piau. A short Romance by Clara is then played expertly by Eric Le Sage, then more duets by husband and wife, all lovely performed, until we get to Dichterliebe. This prologue to the Op. 48 cycle works very well, preparing the listener to the world of love, anguish and hope the famous group of songs entails.

Prégardien uses the new Bärenreiter edition to the Dichterliebe, which puts into question few phrasings, markings and, most of all, the decision to omit several songs from the cycle, supposedly due to a request made by the first publisher. Happily, Prégardien and Le Sage don’t bite, and keet the masterful flow of the original 16 songs. Nonetheless, Prégardien not only incorporates some of the new editorial recommendations, but also adds a little of his own. In the first song of the set, as an example, the tenor ornaments with small grace notes on repeated phrases. They are eloquently done, though listeners will have to decide if they truly add to the experience or call attention to themselves. Small surprises can be undoubtedly delightful, though, as when Piau joins for the “Ich liebe dich!” (“I love you”) calling in “Wenn ich in deine Augen seh”.

Éric Le Sage FAURÉ Nocturnes

With their poetry, their passonate and intimate lyricism, their refined style that gradually reveals hidden depths, the thirteen Nocturnes of Gabriel Fauré are the most significant group of works in his oeuvre for solo piano.

Composed over a period of forty-six years (between 1875 and 1821), they bear witness to the composer’s remarkable stylistic evolution. From a form of expression rooted in romanticism, to an aesthetic fully aligned with 20th-century modernity, Fauré can be said to have shaped his musical personality like a sculptor. His Nocturnes are not all of equal importance, but as a whole their diversity and development offer a perfect panorama of his art.

Éric Le Sage, one of the French piano school’s main representatives, whose many recordings for Alpha include the complete chamber music of Fauré, here interprets the repertoire closest to his heart.

Belcea Quartet / Piotr Anderszewski SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No. 3 - Piano Quintet

Shostakovich is something of a departure on disc for both the Belcea Quartet and Piotr Anderszewski but a very welcome one. These two works have long been in their concert repertoire and it shows. They look at the Quintet with fresh eyes and that is evident from the outset. The pianist’s opening soliloquy has power and a directness of emotion, which is matched by the Belcea, but it’s at the point where the music moves into 3/8 (a minute and a half in) that this performance becomes a real ear-opener. How much wistfulness they find here, and Corina Belcea’s tone as she reaches heavenwards is utterly heart-rending. The Takács with Hamelin tend to be more straightforwardly warm at this point.

The fugal second movement has a particularly engaging fragility, Corina Belcea laying the subject bare with the merest touch of vibrato, which is then matched unerringly by fellow violinist Axel Schacher. There’s grim playfulness in abundance in the Scherzo, Anderszewski bright-toned but never aggressive-sounding, while the shocking torpor of the fourth movement is even more strikingly conveyed than in Argerich’s wonderfully responsive performance with Capuçon et al. The Intermezzo was a particular highlight of the Hamelin/Takács performance but this new performance is on a similar level. Anderszewski and the Belcea perfectly capture the finale’s unsettling mix of quasi-innocence and dark intensity, though if you want something altogether more sharp-tongued, more threatening, Argerich and friends are pretty much unbeatable.

The Third String Quartet is every bit as successful, setting off with an almost Prokofievian sense of the dance. The absolute certainty of ensemble is one of the joys of the Belcea, but just as important is their fearlessness, and their reactivity, capturing the music’s emotional shifts unerringly. How deliciously insouciant, for example, are the last two notes of the first movement, a mood immediately shattered by the stridently insistent motif with which the viola launches the second movement; or the contrast between chordal writing and poignant recitative of the fourth. The Belcea are a shade slower than the Emerson, not only here but throughout the quartet, and it makes for a more interesting reading; in the grimly violent third movement, for instance, the Belcea find more grit in the mix, while the Americans sound just a tad relentless. Shostakovich’s finale maintains the intensity of the previous movements and the Belcea respond in kind. A tremendous addition to the Shostakovich discography. (Harriet Smith / Gramophone)

Belcea Quartet JANÁCEK - LIGETI Quartets

Formed in 1994 at the Royal College of Music in London, the Belcea Quartet already has an impressive discography, including the complete Beethoven string quartets (ALPHA262). For this new recording, the ensemble has chosen three quartets by two iconic composers of the 20th century: Leos Janáček and György Ligeti. Fifteen years after their first recording for Zig-Zag, and after some changes in personnel, they have decided to record again the two string quartets by Janáček. The First Quartet was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s famous novella, The Kreutzer Sonata: the fourmovement work follows the narrative, including its culminating murder. The Second Quartet is subtitled Intimate Letters, in homage to Kamila Stösslova, with whom the composer had an important relationship expressed through letters, one that influenced both his life and his music. Finally, the First Quartet by Ligeti, subtitled Métamorphoses nocturnes because of its particular form. The composer described the work as a sort of theme and variations, but not with a specific theme that is then subsequently varied: rather, it is a single musical thought appearing under constantly new guises – for this reason the word ‘metamophoses’ is more appropriate than ‘variations’.

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla / Gidon Kremer / City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Kremerata Baltica WEINBERG Symphonies Nos. 2 & 21

The Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla launches her new exclusive relationship with Deutsche Grammophon on 3 May 2019 with the release of an album devoted to Mieczysław Weinberg’s music. It showcases one of Weinberg’s earliest compositions, the Second Symphony for strings of 1946, and the Symphony No.21 “Kaddish”, completed in 1991, his haunting memorial to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. Kremerata Baltica perform Symphony No.2 and join the CBSO for No.21. The violin solos in the latter work are played by Gidon Kremer. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s music director since 2016, is convinced that listeners will be deeply affected by the composer’s works, which bear witness not only to the variety of his output but its consistently high artistic quality.

“In my opinion Weinberg’s definitely one of the most important composers of the twentieth century,” she observes. “We have an enormous amount of works by him. There are twenty-two symphonies, seventeen string quartets, seven operas, music for film and television, circus and theatre. Each of those works has an incredible ability to speak to performers, to listeners. One can only really judge after encountering those works or at least the majority of them, just how important he is as a composer.”

Echoing his own life experiences, much of Weinberg’s production reveals the influence of some of the most tragic moments in 20th-century history. Born to a Jewish family in Warsaw on 8 December 1919, Weinberg showed early musical talent as a pianist. He was forced to abandon his studies in 1939 when his country was invaded at first by the Nazis, then by Stalin’s Red Army. His mother, father and sister were murdered by the Nazis, while most of his extended family also perished in the Holocaust. He found temporary refuge in Belarus, then headed east to Tashkent when Hitler turned against the Soviet Union in 1941. Shostakovich, impressed by his younger contemporary’s First Symphony, invited him to Moscow in 1943. Weinberg lived there until his death 53 years later.

The Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer has played a central role in promoting the composer’s music. He launched the centenary celebrations this January on tour with his Kremerata Baltica ensemble, a chamber orchestra comprising outstanding young musicians from the Baltic states. When Kremer was appointed as the CBSO’s artist-in-residence for 2018-19, he and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla placed Weinberg at the heart of their programme plans. In an innovative but ultimately hugely successful move, they also decided to bring Kremerata Baltica to Birmingham last November to join forces with the CBSO for the UK premiere of Weinberg’s Symphony No.21 and for DG’s recording sessions