Maddalena Del Gobbo / Robert Bauerstatter / David Pennetzdorfer / Ewald Donhoffer MADDALENA AND THE PRINCE

“Join me in dipping into the world of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, who was known as “the Magnificent”, and his beloved music. The baryton, the instrument on this album, is also magnificent: six (gut) strings to be bowed, nine or more resonating strings (made of metal), a carved head atop the neck, delicate ornamentation and a noble, graceful sound.

Maddalena and the Prince: the prince being Nikolaus Esterházy as well as the noble instrument – in my opinion the baryton is the “prince” of instruments, which can produce the loveliest and most charming sound and whose appearance alone makes hearts leap.

The thrill of recording these works in the Haydnsaal of the Esterházy Palace, drinking in the atmosphere of this magical location while playing, was an unforgettable experience for me and one for which I am truly grateful.I hope that you will be charmed by the baryton in this recording!”

Maddalena Del Gobbo is the artistic patron of Scandinavian Cello School, a foundation that supports, promotes and educates young cellists. This is a project she holds close to her heart and she will donating a portion of her royalties of this album to the foundation.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet / Manchester Camerata / Gábor Takács-Nagy MOZART Piano Concerto KV 466 - Piano Concerto KV 467 - Overture to "Don Giovanni" KV 527

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet’s first three volumes of Mozart concertos with the Manchester Camerata and Gábor Takács-Nagy have been received with widespread acclaim, and so it is with some excitement that we release the keenly anticipated fourth instalment in the series.

Composed within just one month in early 1785, these two concertos by Mozart are among the most popular of all his piano concertos. No. 20, KV 466 was his first concerto in a minor key, and its dark and stormy nature contrasts with the light and sunny atmosphere of Concerto No. 21, KV 467.

Like so many of his piano concertos, both works were composed for the Vienna concert season and were given their premiere performances with Mozart at the keyboard.

The two concertos are interspersed on this recording with a vivid performance of the Overture to Don Giovanni, which shares traits with both concertos and further demonstrates the exemplary playing of Manchester Camerata.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet / Manchester Camerata / Gábor Takács-Nagy MOZART Piano Concerto KV 450 - Piano Concerto KV 451 - Quintet for Piano and Winds KV 452

This third volume in the series from the electrifying combination of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Manchester Camerata under Gábor Takács- Nagy explores the final two of the six piano concertos of the year 1784, on which Mozart staked his reputation as both a performer and composer. Alongside these works features the pioneering Quintet for Piano and Winds, also from 1784, the first written for this combination of instruments and a work which Mozart regarded as his finest to date. The consecutive Köchel numbers of the three piano works hint at a remarkable story: not only were they all written in the same extraordinarily productive year, but all were completed in the same month, March, when Mozart was just twenty-eight years old. The two concertos form a pair, and in letters to his father Mozart makes it clear that he wrote them for his own performance: ‘nobody but I owns these new concertos in B flatand D’, adding in another letter, two weeks later, ‘I consider them both to be concertos which make one sweat’. Heard in this context, Bavouzet’s playing is all the more astonishing.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet / Manchester Camerata / Gábor Takács-Nagy MOZART Piano Concerto KV 449 - Piano Concerto KV 459 - Divertimento KV 136 - Divertimento KV 138

The effervescent and communicative energy of Bavouzet and Takács-Nagy is encapsulated again in this second volume of their Mozart series. These exhilarating interpretations of Mozart’s piano concertos of 1784, faultlessly supported by the Manchester Camerata, follow highly praised concerts as well as a first volume which was ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Pianist.

The two concertos presented here are among the six that Mozart composed in Vienna in an extraordinarily productive year. As Bavouzet states in an exclusive personal note, they ‘share their association with operatic and symphonic styles. The contrasts of mood in their first movements and the cantilenas which serve as second movements relate them more closely with music for the operatic stage, while their finales are conceived in purely instrumental terms and make reference to the symphonic domain. On the other hand, these two works are complete opposites as far as their use of wind instruments is concerned. In KV 449 their inclusion is ad libitum, whereas they very often play the principal role in KV 459.’

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet / Manchester Camerata / Gábor Takács-Nagy MOZART Piano Concerto KV 453 - Piano Concerto KV 456 - Divertimento KV 137

After demonstrating their ‘innate love and understanding of Haydn’s music in performances of the expected vivacity and insight’ (BBC Music – CHAN 10808), Bavouzet and Takács-Nagy, the latter conducting his Manchester Camerata, now explore Mozart’s extraordinarily prolific year 1784 in this new series.

Two of the six concertos composed that year are heard here, each unusual for having been written by Mozart for another pianist and for featuring a central Andante, instead of the more common Adagio.

This is a unique version that, as Bavouzet stresses in his booklet note, ‘although played unequivocally on modern instruments, contrasts with those versions made not so very long ago, which used a large orchestra incorporating sixteen violins and eight double-basses’. He adds: ‘a versions which also will take into account a number of performing practices current in Mozart’s time, such as the use of a solo quartet to accompany certain well-defined passages in which the piano is predominant. A version which in one way or another aims to link tradition and modernity.’

Jasper String Quartet THE KERNIS PROJECT: DEBUSSY

This album marks the culmination of our decade-long journey with Aaron Jay Kernis’s music for string quartet. From the moment we put bow to string for Aaron’s Second Quartet, we realized his special voice and our connection to his music’s ability to capture both the complexity of the world and the simplicity of a moment. This depth fascinated us, inspired our playing and prompted us to dream of commissioning Aaron’s Third Quartet.

Six years later, after performing and recording his first two Quartets and organizing the commission, we received the first movement of his Third Quartet “River”. As the movements accumulated in our inbox, so did our sense of excitement and dread. It was clear that this piece surpassed its two preceding quartets in complexity and difficulty. The route forward was clear enough, but still daunting. Practice, rehearse, repeat. Through the spring and into the summer the piece started to take shape. Coalescing first a little at a time – glimmers of cleverness, brilliance, atmosphere amid the musical and technical challenges. As those moments grew to sections and then movements that began to make sense, we started to build them into the larger arc. (Aaron Jay Kernis)

Joseph Shiner / Somi Kim / Yoanna Prodanova BRAHMS Clarinet Trio - The Clarinet Sonatas

Joseph Shiner and Somi Kim perform the last chamber works ever written by Brahms: his Clarinet Sonatas, heard here alongside his sublime Clarinet Trio, for which they are joined by cellist Yoanna Prodanova. Brahms was so enchanted by the playing of clarinettist Richard Muhlfeld that he came out of retirement in order to write four chamber works for the soloist. Three of those works are featured on this album, interpreted by the exciting up-and-coming clarinettist Joseph Shiner, with Somi Kim at the piano and, for the Trio, cellist Yoanna Prodanova. As so often in Brahms’s paired works, the two sonatas have contrasting characters, the second gentler than the first, although both are highly nuanced, balancing taut structures with expressive, often wistful lyricism. The Trio is an expansive piece which includes in its first movement a theme originally intended for what would have been Brahms’s Fifth Symphony.

Wilhelmina Smith ESA-PEKKA SALONEN - KAIJA SAARIAHO Works for Solo Cello

This solo album by cellist Wilhelmina Smith features works for solo cello by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Kaija Saariaho. Both composers belong to a generation of modernist Finnish composers whose work has gained broad acceptance in musical culture throughout the world. While each composer has a clear individual artistic persona, as a group they are known for pushing sonic boundaries. In writing for strings and, in particular on this recording, the cello, Salonen and Saariaho exploit the outer reaches of the technical possibilities for both the instrument and the performer. Wilhelmina Smith is an artist of intense commitment, poetic insight and dazzling versatility. As a soloist and recitalist as well as a collaborative musician and festival director, Smith has consistently advocated for composers with whom she has developed vital relationships, to have their music creatively positioned within an intellectually engaging context and performed with the utmost passion and technical assurance.

Markus Maskuniitty / Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra / Sakari Oramo SCHUMANN - SAINT-SAËNS - GLIÈRE

Markus Maskuniitty’s debut recording together with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra together with its chief conductor Sakari Oramo, showcases four concertante works for horn and orchestra covering a period of one hundred years (from 1849 to 1951). Robert Schumann described the horn as the ‘soul of the orchestra’ and he had a profound affinity with the instrument. The most substantial of Schumann’s works featuring the horn is the Konzertstück for four horns and orchestra, Op. 86. Schumann considered the work as one of his best achievements as a composer. During 1849, Schumann wrote a total of three works featuring the valve horn. The Adagio and Allegro for horn and piano Op. 70 may be considered a precursor to the Konzertstück and is a central work in the Romantic horn repertoire. This recording includes an orchestration by conductor Ernest Ansermet. Camille Saint-Saëns wrote a large number of concertante works, including a masterfully crafted concert piece for horn and orchestra in 1887. It highlights Saint-Saëns’s mature skills in orchestral writing and as a composer of solo instrumental music. The final piece of the recording is Glière’s Horn Concerto. Completed in 1951, it was the composer’s swansong. In this romantic concerto one can hear echoes of Tchaikovsky and other great masters of Russian classical music.

Lars Vogt MOZART Piano Sonatas K280 - K281 - K310 - K333

After a cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos, solo albums of works by Bach and Schubert in addition to a number of award-winning recordings of piano chamber music on Ondine label, pianist Lars Vogt releases an album of Piano Sonatas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). In this album, two baroque-influenced and virtuosic early sonatas are coupled together with a touching A minor Sonata K. 310 – written at the time of the composer’s mother’s death – and a delightful, Haydnesque Sonata K. 333. 

 Mozart wrote Piano Sonatas K. 280 and K. 281 (Nos. 2 & 3) most likely in 1774, at the age of 18. The elements of Baroque influence are clearly evident in the K. 280 Sonata. A prominent feature in the K. 281 Sonata is, besides its virtuosity, the beautiful slow-movement, “Andante amoroso”. The K. 310 Sonata (No. 8) was written four years later, during the summer of 1778, and is written in a minor key: a rarity among Mozart’s Sonatas. The K. 333 was published in 1784, but the time of its composition might have been earlier. This joyful work with virtuosic passages can be described almost as a Piano Concerto for the solo piano.

Armida Quartett BEETHOVEN - SHOSTAKOVICH

The Armida Quarter, darling of BBC young artists and due to perform at the Wigmore Hall, they will also play at the BBC PROMS on 29 August 2016 at the Cadogan Hall. The new album contains Beethoven Op. 59 No 1 and Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 10, two very difficult pieces. "Opus 59 is extremely challenging", remarks Martin Funda, the leader of the Armida Quartet. "One needs time to grasp these pieces. As performers, we are surprised again and again to note how quickly Beethoven star ts leading us into unfamiliar waters. The F Major Quartet is an 'extrovert' piece; at the same time, it contains a series of incredibly profound moments and a variety of different moods which we have to learn to interpret."

Trio con Brio Copenhagen BEETHOVEN Piano Trios - Volume III

Trio con Brio presents its third volume of Beethoven’s Piano Trios: electrifying performances of music which reveals the composer at the peak of his powers.

Beethoven’s Op.1 Piano Trios began with two works sure to charm Viennese audiences, but in his Piano Trio op.1 no.3 in C minor, featured on this album, we begin to hear the radical, uncompromising Beethoven in music of volcanic force, contrasted with a sublime slow movement. The ‘Archduke’ Trio, op.97, marked Beethoven’s final public performance as a pianist, but was also a turning-point in his output, its warm-hued nature combining heavenly serenity with earthy joie de vivre.

‘Glowing reports hold true. The Trio con Brio Copenhagen clearly occupies a lofty perch in today’s musical scene.’ – Washington Post

‘From the first note, Trio con Brio exudes class... both explosive and exquisitely intimate – aspects that this performance delivers with compelling panache.’ – The Strad

LUDOVICO EINAUDI Seven Days Walking - Day Five

“The recording process has always exhausted me. Since the first times, it turned into a challenge with yourself. You want to reach a certain perfection, but perfection does not exist….”

Seven Days Walking is divided into seven episodes, seven albums (Day One, Day Two, etc. until Day Seven), which will be released at monthly intervals.
Each episode is focused on several main themes, which are recurring in different form: seven variations following the same imaginary itinerary. Or the same itinerary, retraced in seven different moments.
“The idea first came to me as I was listening to the recordings of the first sessions: each version seemed to me to have its own personality, with subtleties so distinct from one another that I was unable to choose which I preferred. I associated everything with walking, with the experience of following the same routes over and over, discovering new details each time. And so in the end I decided to thread them all together in a sort of musical labyrinth, a little like stepping inside the twists and turns of the creative process, to understand how a musical idea can develop in multiple directions, and changing once again at the moment in which it is heard.”

James Rutherford / Eugene Asti SCHUBERT Schwanengesang

The UK is better at creating opera singers than it is at finding work for them: James Rutherford, based in Frankfurt, is a case in point. His baritone has almost everything for the Schubert selection on this disc: lightness at the top, warmth in the middle, velvety low notes, and an edge that ensures the words cut through. In dramatic songs he’s capable of quicksilver changes of timbre; in Kriegers Ahnung, for example, he moves from a low snarl early on to gentle, airborne high notes. All that’s missing is a sense of mischief and the ability to seduce. Ständchen, a lover’s serenade, sounds beautiful but solemn; he’s never going to get that girl to climb out of her window unless he lightens up. Die Forelle, however, is lovely, with Eugene Asti’s bubbling piano nudging the vocal lines along. An die Musik, sung and played with great intensity of feeling, closes a rewarding disc. (Erica Jeal / The Guardian)

The London Haydn Quartet HAYDN String Quartets op. 64

‘He has taste, and the most profound knowledge of composition.’ It’s supremely fitting that Haydn paid his great tribute to Mozart at a quartet party, and there can’t be many chamber music lovers who haven’t tried to imagine what sort of playing Haydn actually heard that night in Vienna – and what that ‘taste’ represented. The question comes up again with the latest release in the London Haydn Quartet’s Haydn cycle for Hyperion. Reviewing the LHQ’s Op 50 set in 2016 I found their performances ‘civilised, carefully prepared and spacious to a T’, and nothing here makes me revise that. These are period-instrument performances, played from an early London edition. Development section repeats are observed, and tempos are on the broad side.

The impact of these choices is most marked in the B minor Quartet (No 2). The LHQ’s first movement is reflective and questioning, though I don’t think anyone could describe it (as Haydn does) as spiritoso. The Adagio goes to some genuinely deep places and the Minuet, taken at low speed, becomes a lilting, bittersweet pastorale. Well, Haydn contains multitudes, and while the group’s habit of stretching the top of a phrase gives the opening movement of No 4 a slightly seasick quality, it gives the brisker finales a genuinely improvisatory feeling. The finale of No 5 (the Lark) is often dispatched as a flashy moto perpetuo; here it breathes, and in doing so becomes a sort of gypsy dance.

Elsewhere, finales are crisply articulated with plenty of dancelike bounce – the final Prestos of Nos 1 and 6 being wonderfully buoyant cases in point. So there’s plenty of character here (the performance of the undervalued No 3 in B flat is particularly coherent and engaging) as well as many qualities which, again, will come down to taste. You might prefer a sweeter violin tone than Catherine Manson’s in the opening melody of the Lark; you might share my misgivings about the pungent vibrato-free portamentos and you might wish that the group had let the exquisite slow movements of Nos 4, 5 and 6 unfurl a little more songfully.

But this is domestic music, after all, and perhaps a certain amount of understatement actually enhances the boldness of Haydn’s invention. Hyperion’s recorded sound captures that small-room acoustic persuasively while still letting Jonathan Manson’s cello glow, and you do get the sense (more vital to Op 64 than the quartets that succeeded it) of this music being something understood between friends. There are bolder, funnier, more wildly imaginative accounts of this music out there but you never doubt the LHQ’s sincerity, or the validity of their approach. Once again, it’s a matter of taste. (Richard Bratby / Gramophone)

Baltic Chamber Orchestra / Emmanuel Leducq-Barôme SCHOENBERG Verklärte Nacht Op.4 - HONEGGER Symphony No. 2

Schoenberg’s early String Sextet ‘Verklärte Nacht’ (Transfigured Night) op.4 dates from 1899. He made the arrangement for string orchestra in 1943. It is a work heavily indebted to Wagner, and especially ‘Tristan und Isolde’ although the unique voice of Schoenberg is already apparent.

‘Gurrelieder’ and ‘Pelleas und Melisande’ would bring the curtain down on his late romantic period and the daring atonal music that has caused him to remain a musical bogey man for many would follow. Verklärte Nacht is a wonderful, intensely moving work and the ideal introduction to this great composer.

Honegger , famous today for his depiction in music of an express steam locomotive ‘Pacific 231’ and the game of rugby in the eponymous work for orchestra composed five symphonies. The second is scored for strings and trumpet . Composed for Paul Sacher and his Basel Chamber Orchestra it was written during the darkest years of World War II. The Nazis had banned Honegger’s music and he was branded as ‘leftist’, composing music for films for resistance cinema. It is a powerful work with a lament -like central slow movement and an energetic choral theme in the finale providing a sense of triumphant resolution.

The Baltic Chamber Orchestra’s first release for Rubicon – Strauss Metamophosen and Shostakovich Chamber Symphony was praised by the BBC Music Magazine and made an orchestral CD of the month upon release. This new album looks set to receive a similarly positive reception.

Ginette Neveu THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS

The French violinist Ginette Neveu was just 30 when her plane crashed in the Azores in October 1949. She had studied with George Enescu and Carl Flesch, and as The Observer wrote in 1945, “Her playing was superbly vigorous and passionate, and made the impression that its great qualities, such as eloquent phrasing and an apparently limitless range and variety of tone, came from the only true source – an identity with the music and with her instrument.” 

Her complete recordings, specially remastered from the best sources available, are gathered on these four CDs, with her incandescent Sibelius Concerto taking pride of place.

2019 marks the centenary of Ginette Neveu’s birth.

 “Her playing was superbly vigorous and passionate, and made the impression that its great qualities, such as eloquent phrasing and an apparently limitless range and variety of tone, came from the only true source – an identity with the music and with her instrument.” The Observer, 1945

The present box gathers the complete studio recordings done by Ginette Neveu and contains the first CD reissue in the West of Ion Scărlătescu’s Bagatelle

Lucy Crowe / Mary Bevan / London Early Opera / Bridget Cunningham HANDEL'S QUEENS

Handel’s Queens features some of the most exquisite pieces of music written by G.F. Handel and his contemporaries for the two finest singers of the eighteenth century, Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni. Often wrongfully framed as rivals, these dazzling new recordings with Mary Bevan and Lucy Crowe reveal the distinctive yet versatile talent of the Italian vocalists. 

Conductor Bridget Cunningham continues her research and created Handel’s Queens and directs London Early Opera from the harpsichord. Handel’s Queens – as part of this important series serves as a further example of Cunningham’s dedication to imaginative programming and outstanding period performance on this double CD placing her at the forefront of baroque research and recording.

HARALD WEISS Trommelgeflüster

Looking at the title of Harald Weiss’s only album for ECM, which means “Drum Whisper,” leaves us with no mysteries regarding what we are about to hear. This simplicity of purpose is characteristic of a composer whose modest discography has sadly left him little represented outside of his native Germany. As percussionist, vocalist, writer, and actor, Weiss brings a love of the theater to his performance style and world, which here is overrun with a thousand bare feet along the dusty earth. Weiss is also well traveled, and from his widely cast net hauls a wealth of local influences onto the vessel of his craft. And so, while flashes of Ramayana re-creation and Peking opera paint Trommelgeflüster as a disjointed pastiche, in the context of this recording these references take on a life of their own. Each percussive cell circles itself into an Ouroboros of change in a larger chain of being. Between the steel drummed steps and melismatic chants of Part I and the darker territories of Part II, which begin as if an offshoot of “Lucifer’s Farewell” from Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Samstag aus Licht before spreading into a diffuse palette of outbursts and whistling dreams, Weiss renders something intensely organic toward the concluding twang, steady and distant like a jaw harp in the mouth of providence.

A wonder of an album that defies categorization in the most pleasant way, Trommelgeflüster has the makings of a ritual, even as it uses itself as a stepping-stone into non-ritual realities, where regularity is but the dream of a nomadic soothsayer. The music skirts the edges of consciousness, even as it plumbs the depths of wakefulness.

Weiss is the recipient of numerous awards, and was just coming into prominence when Manfred Eicher decided to put him into the studio. The result is an intriguing session, and an artist, not be overlooked. (Tyran Grillo)

Alban Gerhardt BACH The Cello Suites

Like many cellists, Alban Gerhardt says he has been wary of recording the Bach Suites before he was good and ready. Now he has finally done it, with a rider that it was his approaching 50th birthday that prompted him rather than any feeling that he has arrived at a settled interpretation. ‘It can only be a snapshot’, he cautions; ‘this music always leaves room to search deeper and deeper’.

In any case, his performances do not sound like the kind that would ever have become set in stone; they are too personal and spontaneous-sounding for that. Take the Prelude of the Fourth Suite, a fantasia in Gerhardt’s hands in which each subtly changed iteration of the tumbling broken-chord figures seems freshly interpreted, framing freer sections that roam adventurously. Or the Sixth Suite’s teasingly lingering Gigue. Or the approach to repeats that makes each moment of return sound like an enthusiastic decision made right there and then. Movements, too, relate to each other convincingly: when the Fifth Suite’s beautiful Sarabande has drifted drowsily to an end, the ensuing Gavotte is a perfectly judged wake-up; and after the loving caresses of the First Suite’s Prelude, the Allemande is a carefree release.

Gerhardt can sound deliciously at ease in this music, whether moving with swift grace through a Sarabande or skipping with jaunty assurance through a Menuet or Gavotte. And his sound is glorious – a silvery tenor register (especially in the high-lying Sixth Suite) capping an overall tone that is rich without ever being overbearing. In the booklet he says that, while he ‘oriented’ himself with Baroque performance, he personally felt a need to marry deep tone to carefully used vibrato and ‘seemingly effortless articulation’. The use of vibrato is certainly well judged, but to my ears the articulation, though imaginatively varied, is often overdone, amounting at times to choppiness. It’s a way of keeping air in the music, of course, but it can also be disruptive and at its worst some may find it irritating. By comparison, Truls Mørk’s 2005 recording (Erato, 2/06) – another one of exquisite tonal beauty – sounds more naturally lyrical, while Steven Isserlis’s Gramophone Award-winner of 2005 06 (Hyperion, 7/07) is also an endless display of eloquently expressed ideas, but with a less interrupted flow. But is his own personal way Gerhardt is no less a master. (Lindsay Kemp / Gramophone)

Angèle Dubeau / La Pietà GAME MUSIC

I have never placed limits on my choice of repertoire, and for this project, I reached toward a unique world that was creative and vibrant in its originality. In my quest to discover the gems of modern music, I listened to many works written and revisited by composers of great talent.

When I began my research, video games quickly emerged as a logical avenue of exploration. I have always strived to interest young people in classical music because I feel it has the power to touch everyone. Seeing the passion of young people for video games, I wanted to understand the secrets of their success and to evaluate their musical value.

On my most recent recording, I approached movie music without consideration for the images and scenes that inspired it, and I took the same tack in reviewing the gold mine that is video game music. I have assembled here the works that spoke to me, giving no real thought to the adventures they accompany.

I immersed myself in the worlds that created these excerpts, and I conveyed my new conception to the musicians of La Pietà, going into great detail to bring forth all of their beauty and power. Above all, I wanted to avoid distorting them, and my intention has been to preserve the form that initially won over video game aficionados while at the same time breathing new life into them.

So it is with great pleasure that I invite you to dive into the fantastical world of video games with me. (Angèle Dubeau)

Valérie Milot ORBIS

The title of Valérie Milot’s seventh CD is both a nod to the circle of valued musical colleagues she has worked with over the years and a reference to the loop as a musical concept, a seemingly simple melodic or rhythmical motif that serves as both framework and source of inspiration. The disc features six complementary approaches, from John Cage’s ethereal In a Landscape to Frank Zappa’s turbulent G-Spot Tornado, not to mention the premiere of Antoine Bareil’s Castille 1382, written especially for Milot. The recording also marks her 30th birthday, which she celebrates here with some long-standing musical partners and dear friends.

Angèle Dubeau / La Pietà OVATION

“Music must not be the prerogative of the elite ; it belongs to everyone.” These words by Telemann have been my motto for a very long time. I like to think that music should be shared with as many people as possible, and it was in this spirit that I developed the concert program “One Last Time”, performed 33 times in Canada in the fall of 2017 and then on tour in Latin America in the winter of 2018. This album, recorded live at Quebec City’s Palais Montcalm in November 2017, features some of the most striking works that La Pietà has performed during its 21 years of existence. All of the selected works represent important moments I have experienced with my ensemble…

… when I first founded the orchestra, made up entirely of women, inspired by the young girls at the Ospedale de la Pietà, the Venice orphanage where music reigned supreme under the directorship of its famous maestro di coro Antonio Vivaldi…

… or playing George Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody N^o 1, a work burgeoning with passion that reminds me of my studies in Bucharest, where I discovered how to make my violin sing, dance, cry, and speak.

… or more recently, a dozen years ago, when I created a series of musical portraits of contemporary composers whose signature styles engaged me so powerfully – artists such as Ludovico Einaudi, Philip Glass, and Max Richter, whose works on this album are now part of the modern music canon.

… or all the occasions when it has been my great privilege to share the stage with exceptional musicians and premiere new works. My precious partnerships with masters such as Canadian composer Srul Irving Glick and Japanese pianist and composer Joe Hisaishi – giants who have coloured my musical world – also appear on this album.

Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I have expressed myself through music, I have travelled through music, and it sustains me to this day.

I gave my first concert at the age of five, and 51 years later, I would like to say “thank you,” because after all these years, what fills me with joy is knowing that my music is there with you, both in your everyday life and in the special moments.

Thank you for all of these experiences. Enjoy! (Angèle Dubeau)

Maxim Vengerov / Shanghai Symphony Orchestra / Long Yu GATEWAYS

Deutsche Grammophon released Gateways today, the first of a series of albums featuring works by major Chinese composers. The album, featuring Maestro Long Yu and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, includes two works by Qigang Chen, as well as Rachmaninov’s “Symphonic Dances” and Kreisler’s “Tambourin chinois”, with Maxim Vengerov as the soloist. 

Looking ahead, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra's 140th Anniversary Summer Worldwide Tour led by Maestro Long Yu debuts at the BBC Proms, Edinburgh International Festival, Wolf Trap and Ravinia Festival and returns to Lucerne Festival, Grafenegg, and Het Concertgebouw Amsterdam from August 14 to September 1 with soloists Eric Lu, Alisa Weilerstein, and Frank Peter Zimmermann.​

Vengerov’s sparkle is pleasing, especially after that career-threatening arm injury over a decade ago. But the biggest sonic impact here comes from Long Yu’s excellent Shanghai band, bathed in resplendent recorded sound...the musicians’ suavity is also showcased in a glossy trip through Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. (The Times)

Nicola Benedetti / The Philadelphia Orchestra / Cristian Măcelaru WYNTON MARSALIS Violin Concerto - Fiddle Dance Suite

Nicola Benedetti’s new album on Decca Classics features premiere recordings of two works written especially for her by jazz musician Wynton Marsalis: Violin Concerto in D and Fiddle Dance Suite for Solo Violin.
Benedetti performs Violin Concerto in D with The Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Cristian Măcelaru who has collaborated with the violinist to perform the work six times. The concerto was co- commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), Ravinia, LA Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. Benedetti performed the world premiere with the LSO under conductor James Gaffigan in London in November 2015.
Marsalis’ Violin Concerto in D is in four movements and draws on the entire sweep of Western violin pieces from the Baroque era to the 21st Century. It explores Benedetti’s and Marsalis’ common musical heritage in Celtic, Anglo and Afro-American folk music and dance. The work revels in the magic of virtuosity and takes inspiration from Nicola’s life as a travelling performer and educator. Each of the four movements reveals a different aspect of Nicola’s dream which becomes a reality through the long-form storytelling of the performance.

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet HAYDN Piano Sonatas, Vol. 8

After leaving the boys’ choir of St Stephens Cathedral in Vienna, one of the ways the young Haydn found to support himself was as a harpsichord teacher. The three early sonatas featured on this recording were almost certainly intended for his students: short, light pieces with few technical demands. The two larger sonatas, both in the key of E flat major, were written some twenty years later and are far more extensive. Both require significantly greater prowess from the performer, and represent Haydn’s ingenuity and skill to the full.

The two additional works included here, whilst single-movement compositions, are substantial pieces. The Adagio ma non troppo would become the slow movement of Piano Trio No. 36, whilst the Variations on ‘Gott erhalte’ is based on the second movement of the ‘Emperor’ Quartet (Op. 76 No. 3), which is itself a set of variations on an anthem composed by Haydn at the request of an Austrian politician for the 29th birthday of the Emperor, and intended as a patriotic hymn comparable to ‘God Save the King’ in England – and a response against the Marseillaise.

Denis Kozhukhin GRIEG Lyric Pieces MENDELSSOHN Lieder ohne Worte

On his new solo album, Russian star pianist Denis Kozhukhin presents a personal and colourful collection of character pieces taken from Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte and Edvard Grieg’s Lyric Pieces. Combing these miniature gems by two outstanding poets of music, Kozhukhin provides a shining example of how disarmingly touching and penetrating a simple song or a vision of nature captured in sound can be. The programme features classics such as Mendelssohn’s Venetian Gondola Song and Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, as well as less famous but equally enchanting pieces. Kozhukhin lifts out the noble simplicity of these works with his delicate playing.

Denis Kozhukhin has established himself as one of the greatest pianists of his generation. He now presents the fifth chapter to his exclusive collaboration with PENTATONE, after albums with the piano concertos of Grieg and Tchaikovsky (2016), Brahms Ballades and Fantasies (2017), Ravel and Gershwin piano concertos, as well as Richard Strauss’ Burleske (both 2018).

Roderick Williams / Iain Burnside SCHUBERT Die Schöne Müllerin

In this, the first of a series of three recordings of Schubert’s great song cycles for Chandos, Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside bring their formidable talents to bear on one of the pinnacles of classical lieder.

In November 2015, Williams decided to immerse himself in an intensive three-year period of studying and performing the three song cycles by Schubert, following an invitation from the Wigmore Hall to perform them – with Iain – in their 2017 / 18 season.

The process has involved not just performances in concert around the globe, but open rehearsals, master-classes, workshops, and radio broadcasts. Roderick Williams has documented all of these experiences in great detail in his fascinating Schubert Cycle Project blog.

He writes: ‘Somewhere along the way I came to a decision; that my eventual performances at the Wigmore would not be the ultimate goal of my study; rather, the study itself, the act of preparation would be my focus. It is possible that other singers might find the process interesting, even if only to share some of the grind that is most often done alone; it is also possible that others might be intrigued, especially audiences, perhaps even (fellow) students.’

Isata Kanneh-Mason ROMANCE

For the 200th anniversary of Clara Schumann’s birth, Isata Kanneh-Mason takes us on a journey through the composer’s extraordinary life with her stunning debut album, Romance, on Decca Classics. Isata will be joining forces with an all-female line-up to champion the significance of women musicians throughout the years, and their influence on the classical musical canon. The recording features Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, written at the age of fourteen, performed by the composer at Leipzig Gewandhaus two years later under the baton of Felix Mendelssohn.

On signing to the label, Isata said: “Creating my debut record has been such an exciting journey for me, and I have learned so much along the way! It has been fantastic to work with the team at Decca Classics and to share the music of Clara Schumann in such a significant year – the 200th anniversary of her birth.”

Dr. Alexander Buhr, Managing Director of Decca Classics, said: “Isata is an immensely talented pianist with remarkable musicality and a curious mind, always ready to explore new musical horizons. We are very happy to welcome her to the Decca Classics family with this project celebrating one of the greatest women in music history.”

Les Talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset ANTONIO SALIERI Tarare

After Les Danaïdes and Les Horaces, Les Talens Lyriques concludes the group’s cycle of Antonio Salieri’s French operas with the world premiere recording of Tarare.  Often unfairly overshadowed by his brilliant contemporary Mozart, Salieri here composed a genuine masterpiece on the only libretto ever written by Beaumarchais.

Salieri has a taste for exoticism and, like Mozart in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, he transports us into a fantasy Orient seen through the eyes of the pre-revolutionary philosophy of the Enlightenment.

The indefatigable Christophe Rousset, unswerving in his efforts to revive scores that are rarely performed or have mysteriously languished in the shadows, directs a five- star cast: the Captain of the Guard Tarare (Cyrille Dubois) enters the palace of the Sultan Atar (Jean-Sébastien Bou) in order to rescue his beloved, the slave Astasie (Karine Deshayes). Behind the love triangle, one senses Beaumarchais’s indictment of authority in his depiction (in 1787!) of the people’s revolt against the Sultan’s tyrannical power - so much so that it is astonishing that the plot escaped the royal censor’s net.

The music follows the story’s misunderstandings, plot twists and spectacular scenes to produce an opera that prefigures Romanticism, exhilaratingly performed by Les Talens Lyriques and Les Chantres of the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles. A release that should restore Salieri’s prestige once and for all.

Keith Jarrett DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH 24 Preludes and Fugues Opus 87

To many readers of Gramophone, Keith Jarrett will no doubt be pre-eminently a ''jazz pianist''. That label, combined with knowledge of his outspokenness and engaging lack of false modesty (see for instance the Gramophone interview, 9/91), might lead one to expect his Shostakovich to be wayward or controversial. In fact there's very little that's startling about this recording, apart perhaps from the meticulous clarity of the playing (the beautifully focused ECM recording helps of course). I can't remember another performance of the tumultuous D flat major Fugue in which the details have stood out so finely or the voices maintained their identity with such compelling consistency.
There are a few surprises though; not least the overall timing. Jarrett's cycle takes about half an hour less than the dedicatee Tatyana Nikolaieva's Gramophone Award-winning set on Hyperion. Roger Woodward's long deleted RCA set (12/75) took about the same time, but that sounded hurried; this doesn't. It's another good example of the huge difference that can exist between psychological and clock time. In fact in one case—the C major Fugue—Jarrett's basic pulse is almost exactly half that of Nikolaieva; and there's a good reason—he's the only professional pianist I've ever heard who takes the metronome marking given in the complete Shostakovich Edition (crotchet=92) at face value. Full marks for research; for me though the music crawls at this speed, and with long notes held for double their length it's harder to follow the part-writing. Jarrett's only other significant departure from current normal practice is his substitution of a grinding right-hand f—d flat'—f' for Shostakovich's d—b flat—d' in bar 23 (track 3: 0'42'') of the G major Prelude: surely a misreading.
As those timings suggest, Jarrett on the whole is inclined to take things faster than Nikolaieva. In one or two places I prefer his tempos: Nikolaieva's slow three-in-a-bar in the superb G sharp minor passacaglia-prelude sounds effortful (in the first big crescendo at least) after Jarrett; but comparing them in the later stages of this grandly symphonic piece it's Nikolaieva who seems to me to have got nearer to the dark heart of this music. That's certainly the case in the following Fugue, where Jarrett has the poise, the brilliance and the strong sense of shape one would expect, but in the Nikolaieva there's another, more obviously human dimension: pained intensity, fear, final resignation—inadequate terms, but perhaps giving some idea of what she, uniquely, provides. The Rosslyn Hill Chapel acoustic may be cloudier, the playing may not be utterly blemish-free, but the vision and expressive penetration are beyond comparison.
I don't want to give the impression that Nikolaieva wins unequivocally in every single prelude or fugue. Jarrett's liquid cantabile in the Chopinesque F sharp major Prelude persuades me more readily than the relatively pedestrian Nikolaieva, and his handling of the subsequent Fugue was a real revelation to me—serenity, in Shostakovich! I also enjoyed his darting G major Fugue very much, and still more the rippling, glittering elegance of his B flat major Prelude. Take any one of his performances at random there'll almost certainly be something to catch and challenge the ear. What I do miss though is not just Nikolaieva's wider and deeper expressive range, but the remarkable cumulative effect she brings to the cycle as a whole—the impression of a great musical journey with the final D minor Fugue as its crowning moment. The more one follows Jarrett through the score, the less involving his playing seems to become. An interesting set, certainly, but not, for me, a deeply rewarding one.'  (Stephen Johnson / Gramophone)

Yolanda Kondonassis / Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra / Ward Stare AMERICAN RAPTURE

"Yolanda Kondonassis’ enthusiasm for her instrument is infectious," says Jennifer Higdon when describing working with her to create a new harp concerto. This world premiere recording by Yolanda Kondonaiss with Ward Stare and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra is a showcase for the grandeur of the harp through this beautiful composition by Jennifer Higdon. The harp as well as the orchestra is challenged with virtuosic and beautiful moments. The recording continues with the triumphant First Symphony of Samuel Barber, and rounds out with "Rapture" by Patrick Harlin described as being similar to extreme emotional states, musical elements in this piece start subtly and are magnified to their extremes, echoing throughout as inspired by the incredible experience of ultra-caving.

On the world premiere recording of Jennifer Higdon's mercurial Harp Concerto, the crystalline precision of Yolanda Kondonassis's harp, the rhythmic buoyancy of Stare's conducting, and the cohesion of the orchestra achieve a kind of mystical alchemy. Barber's Symphony No. 1 receives a revelatory performance, uncovering a wild and unfettered side to the composer's lyrical neo-Romanticism. (Daniel J. Kushner) 

Fenella Humphreys / Covent Garden Sinfonia / Ben Palmer THE FOUR SEASONS RECOMPOSED

I would love to record the original Four Seasons one day. I think that of any work in the violin repertoire Vivaldi gives you so much scope for creativity and colour, particularly through his written descriptions and sonnets, that you could never come to the end of the possibilities contained within the music. I never learnt them as a kid and then avoided them for years, partly because I’d become so accustomed to hearing them in the background that I didn’t realise how brilliant they really are. When I was finally booked to perform them a few years ago, and forced to learn them, I was actually really pleased to be coming to them fresh and without preconceptions.

For this project we would have been quite pushed to fit both sets of Seasons (Vivaldi and Richter) on a single disc. Richter’s Seasons deserves to be heard on its own terms, rather than in a direct comparison like that, and it felt right for this disc to put his music in a different context. (Fenella Humphreys)