MAX RICHTER Exiles

 

EXILES

 

Baltic Sea Philharmonic / Kristjan Järvi SLEEPING BEAUTY

 

SLEEPING BEAUTY

David Nebel / Kristjan Järvi IGOR STRAVINSKY - PHILIP GLASS Violin Concertos

                                              IGOR STRAVINSKY - PHILIP GLASS

Anne Akiko Meyers MIRROR IN MIRROR

Superstar violinist Anne Akiko Meyers is one of today’s most in-demand classical performers. A Billboard Top Selling Classical Instrumentalist of the Year, she is beloved by audiences around the world, with a reputation for groundbreaking recital programmes and ground-breaking commissions. Mirror in Mirror marks her 37th studio album and is one of her most personal projects to date.

With the exception of Ravel, Anne collaborated with all of the composers and arrangers on this album. Several of the works were written for her. The music is reflective and spiritual, and weaves a beautiful story. Philip Glass’ Metamorphosis II is heard in an arrangement commissioned by Anne. The original work inspired Fratres by Arvo Pärt, whose Spiegel im Speigel (Mirror in Mirror) provides the album’s title. John Corigliano’s Lullaby for Natalie was written to commemorate the birth of Anne’s first daughter. Anne has commissioned numerous works by Jakob Ciupinski who combines acoustic instruments with electronics in Edo Lullaby – a modern setting of a traditional Japanese melody that Anne recalls from her childhood – and Wreck of the Umbria which conjures the composer’s dive and discovery of the ship off the coast of Sudan. Ciupinski contributes electronics to Ravel’s Tzigane, re-creating the sound of the original version’s lutheal. The album is capped by another Anne commission – the premiere recording of Morten Lauridsen’s own arrangement for violin and orchestra of his most famous choral composition, O Magnum Mysterium.

SVEN HELBIG Pocket Symphonies

While Sven Helbig's Pocket Symphonies is presented by Deutsche Grammophon as a collection of lavishly produced songs in symphonic guise, the style has more in common with adult contemporary or easy listening categories than with classical music. Despite the appearance of Kristjan Järvi, the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony, and the Fauré Quartet, who bring ample talent and commitment to the proceedings, the album actually consists of lush and occasionally lively instrumentals that no one would mistake for western symphonic music, except for the use of an orchestra. Helbig can't even be described accurately as a crossover artist, because he neither plays with traditional forms nor takes off from classical ideas, but is already firmly set in the sphere of modern studio music. His tracks are arranged to perfection and filled with plaintive melodies, gorgeous sonorities, and rich harmonies, but they offer nothing that suggests symphonic contrasts, modulations, or development. This is no discredit to Helbig, who composes his miniatures with professional skill and presents his themes in digestible pieces, from two to five minutes in length. The dominant mood of the album is introspective and melancholy, with some bursts of activity along the way, and Helbig's titles suggest an autumnal resignation and sentimentality that at times evoke the Romantic composers of short character pieces. This album is sure to appeal to casual listeners who like pretty instrumental music in the vein of Karl Jenkins or Ludovico Einaudi, though it is unlikely to draw in serious classical fans. (Blair Sanderson)

Anne Akiko Meyers FANTASIA

Last December I travelled to Finland to play Fantasia for Violin and Orchestra, written by the great composer, Einojuhani Rautavaara, which I will be premiering with Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony this upcoming season. Sadly with Rautavaara’s recent death, this will be a posthumous world premiere. 

Rautavaara was a legendary Finnish composer who wrote eight symphonies, 14 concertos, and numerous other works for chamber ensembles and choir. He was a protégé of Sibelius, active until age 87, and was best known for writing Symphony No 7, Angel of Light and the beautifully haunting work, Cantus Arcticus: concerto for birds and orchestra, a piece that took my breath away the first time I heard it.

In my early twenties, I regularly went to record and sheet-music stores, looking through items one at a time in the hope of discovering music that would make the hairs on my neck stand up. It was then I first discovered Rautavaara’s music, and for years, dreamed of commissioning him to compose more music for violin. In 2014, I inquired if Rautavaara, with the wonderful support of Boosey & Hawkes, would be interested in writing a fantasy for violin and orchestra. I was beyond elated when he responded that indeed he would and worked quickly. I received a handwritten draft of the score in the fall of last year, and breathlessly ran to my music studio to play through it. 

I think there are similar qualities to the Angel of Light and Cantus Arcticus and Rautavaara’s signature soulful sound permeates throughout the piece, with fluid harmonies and deep moods  -much like flowing large movements of water and majestic scenes from nature. 

In December, I flew to Helsinki to meet Rautavaara and perform the work for him. We met at the apartment he shared with his wife, and the apartment was flooded with a special light that only seems to exist at the edge of the earth, overlooking the sea. He stood with a walker and was incredibly  gentle and kind. Smiling and laughing, we spoke about how Sibelius liked the fact that Rautavaara owned an automobile, as well as his time in New York, studying at the Juilliard School where I also went to school. 

After I played Fantasia, he looked at me and repeatedly said, 'I wrote such beautiful music!' We all laughed and agreed. He apologized for what he felt were his lazy bow markings and was so happy that I took the liberty to change the bowings to punctuate the phrasing the way I thought would bring his poetry out best. I was amazed that he made no changes to any notes or dynamics. Everything was in place just the way he wrote it. 

Fantasia is transcendent and has the feeling of an elegy with a very personal reflective mood. Rautavaara’s music will live on forever and I thank him from the bottom of my heart for writing a masterpiece that makes me cry every time I listen to it. (Anne Akiko Meyers / Gramophone)

Kristjan Järvi / MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra / Absolute Ensemble PHILIP GLASS Aguas da Amazonia

Kristjan Järvi wanted to do something extra special to celebrate the 80th birthday of Philip Glass, the renowned American composer of minimalist music (or ‘music with repetitive structures’ to use Glass’s preferred terminology). Kristjan had fallen in love with Glass’s Aguas da Amazonia when he first heard it performed by the experimental Brazilian group UAKTI. Originally conceived in the 1990s as a dance score for a ballet company in Belo Horizonte, the music is inspired by the great Amazon river and its tributaries, and is influenced by folklore, jazz and New Age elements. When Kristjan was planning the Baltic Sea Philharmonic’s repertoire for 2017 and developing his idea of fusing music with lighting and projection art, he knew that Aguas da Amazonia would be perfect for the ‘Waterworks’ tour. He says: ‘I called Philip up and said, “This is an amazing piece. Can I please get it orchestrated?” And he said, “Yes, let’s do it!” So I asked Charles Coleman to arrange it, and he’s done a brilliant job.’

A recording of the new orchestration, with Kristjan conducting the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra and members of his New York-based Absolute Ensemble, was released earlier this year by Philip Glass’s label Orange Mountain Music. 

MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra / Kristjan Järvi STEVE REICH Duet

The music of Steve Reich has been heard in various venues, including electronic music dance clubs, but the full symphony orchestra treatment has been rare. That is changing, however, with the tenure of Kristjan Järvi as chief conductor of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the result in that musically conservative, German city is this major-label double album of Reich's music, in many respects a first. Järvi's enthusiasm for the project is palpable here, most obviously in the live performance of the early Reich standard Clapping Music, which he and the composer perform together to the approval of the crowd. But to put together two CDs worth of standard orchestral music by Reich takes a little bit of doing. The first CD of the set is perhaps the more successful, containing not only Clapping Music, but two of Reich's earlier forays into orchestral repertoire, the Duet for two solo violins and string orchestra (written for Yehudi Menuhin) and The Four Sections, a sort of minimalist counterpart to Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. The "four sections" are the strings (movement 1), the percussion (movement 2), and the winds and brass (movement 3), with everyone coming together for the finale. This little work deserves the wider exposure it gets here, for it offers a unique window onto Reich's thinking on timbre in a fun, accessible way. The second CD features two works originally written for voices and small ensemble, the Daniel Variations (in memory of the murdered Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl) and You Are (a group of four settings of Hasidic aphorisms), reworked for orchestra. These are both successful examples of Reich's later style, in which Jewish themes are common, but it's not clear what the orchestra adds; in You Are, especially, the balance with the voices seems thrown off. Nevertheless, this is a major breakthrough for the octogenarian Reich, in a musically hallowed city far from his American homeland, in a place where he must find it uniquely satisfying to score a triumph. (James Manheim)

MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra / Kristjan Järvi STEVE REICH Duet

A new double album, honouring the 80th Birthday of the minimal music pioneer. Includes 2 world premiere recordings. Steve Reich, one of the most influential composers of our time and key founder of the minimalist school of music, is celebrating his 80th birthday on 3 October 2016. The album is not only a celebration of his birthday but also a result of a 3-year-project that started with Reich's residency as "composer in residence" at the MDR Radio Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra-choirs versions of "Daniel" and "You Are Variations" are therefore world premiere recordings. "Duet" was dedicated to and written for Sir Yehudi Menuhin for his 80th birthday. "Clapping Music" is performed on this album by Steve Reich himself and Kristjan Järvi. CD 1 includes Live performances at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig / CD 2 includes studio recordings. (Presto Classical)

Simone Dinnerstein / Kristjan Järvi / MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra BROADWAY - LAFAYETTE

Sony Classical released pianist Simone Dinnerstein’s newest album, Broadway-Lafayette, in February 2015. The music on this album celebrates the time-honored transatlantic link between France and America through the music of George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue), Maurice Ravel (Piano Concerto in G Major), and Philip Lasser (The Circle and the Child: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, written for Dinnerstein). The album was recorded with conductor Kristjan Järvi and the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, by Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse.

Of Broadway-Lafayette, Simone says, “Over the centuries, France and America have influenced and supported each other in many ways, and this music explores the link between the two cultures. George Gerswhin is the quintessential American composer. He immortalized his own trip to France in American in Paris and his music broaches aesthetic boundaries in a way that few other composers have managed – he combines the tunefulness and syncopation of jazz and popular music with the rich harmonies and rhythmic creativity of high art. Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is particularly present in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major, written in 1929, the year after Ravel met Gershwin while on tour in the U.S. Philip Lasser, this album’s living composer, is the son of a French mother and an American father, and grew up in a bilingual household. His musical voice is an amalgam of both worlds, circling around Bach’s sun. His piano concerto, written for me in 2012, incorporates the Bach Chorale “Ihr Gestirn, ihr hohen Lüfte.” The work explores ideas of travel and discovery, and of memory and return.”

SVEN HELBIG Pocket Symphonies

Sven Helbig is a young German composer equally drawn to classical, pop and hip-hop modes, probably most famous for his orchestrations on Pet Shop Boys' Battleship Potemkin and The Most Incredible Thing. That populist spirit informs this debut release, with emotionally expansive pieces restricted to pop-song length.
The unnatural compression works in some cases like film music, bringing an evocative potency to the likes of “Gone” and “Eisenhüttenstadt. Elsewhere, ”Am Abend“ is a reflective piano piece akin to Einaudi, the weightless rising triplets of ”Autumn Song“ are like leaves borne on breeze, while the chugging strings and urgent double-time piano of ”Frost“ reflect the industrious rhythmic drive of minimalism.